Episode 2
An AI Christmas Carol: the Past, Present, and Future of Toys
Get ready for a festive tech adventure! In this Christmas special, we explore the evolution of toys and technology, blending nostalgia with innovation. From Tamagotchis and Transformers to cutting-edge gadgets like AI-powered glasses and drones, we discuss how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the holiday season—and imagine the exciting (and maybe a little wild) toys of the future. 🎁
Top 3 Takeaways
Christmas Past: Toys like Tamagotchis, Big Trak, and Transformers were ahead of their time—imagine their potential with AI!
Christmas Present: Gadgets like Meta Ray-Bans and DJI drones are wowing us with practical AI applications, while tools like smart home devices are still catching up to expectations.
Christmas Future: Picture AI-powered teddy bears, NPCs in games that you can chat with, and immersive VR holidays—all on the horizon!
Toys Mentioned
• Tamagotchi
• Transformers
• Big Trak
• Etch A Sketch
• Hot Wheels
• Action Man
• Furby
A Happy Holiday Message from the Hosts
🎅 Alan: Wishing you all a tech-filled holiday season—may your gadgets be smarter and your mulled wine warmer!
🎁 Ben: Merry Christmas, everyone! Here’s to finding the balance between offline magic and the wonders of technology.
🤖 Dave: Have a very merry (and futuristic!) Christmas—here’s to a holiday filled with joy, laughter, and maybe a talking teddy bear!
#AIChristmas #FutureOfToys #Podcast 🎄✨
Transcript
Can I.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can I just go back to the thing about the transformer?
Speaker A:Because I was really excited when you said that.
Speaker A:This idea that you could have a drone transformer that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is one minute it's a robot wandering about and then it.
Speaker A:I mean, yeah, if they've not built that, that needs to happen.
Speaker A:Because that's an idea right there, isn't it?
Speaker A:I want that in my life.
Speaker A:Hello, and welcome to AI Evolution.
Speaker A:It's only our second episode, but we are already on a Christmas special.
Speaker A:So I think doesn't get much better than that.
Speaker A:I think we're all happy.
Speaker A:We've got a Christmas clothes on, you can see, just for those who are watching on YouTube, actually, you can see we're sporting our Hawaiian shirts.
Speaker A:Ben's managed to find a Hawaiian shirt similar to mine.
Speaker A:Those that don't know me will not know that.
Speaker A:I'm a big Magnum PI Fan actually, as well.
Speaker A:So I've gone for the Tigers camp because, you know, obviously that was based in Hawaii as well.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker A:And I think Dave's come.
Speaker A:Is the Grinch, maybe.
Speaker A:I'm not sure.
Speaker A:What do you think, Dave?
Speaker C:It's about the only thing I could find.
Speaker C:I don't have a Hawaiian shirt, so I thought I'd come with Christmas colors instead.
Speaker B:You're rocking the red and green.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:So we're going to go in this episode, I think, for a slightly different format Christmas episode.
Speaker A:All of that we're going to do, if you like the sort of Charles Dickens of AI, we're going to do, you know, the Christmas past, the ghost of the Christmas present, and then the ghost of the Christmas future.
Speaker A:Because we are about evolution, after all.
Speaker A:So we're going to take a spin back to our childhood, think about some of the things we had years ago that may have been a bit cooler had they had AI.
Speaker A:Think about what's happening this year.
Speaker A:What.
Speaker A:What could be.
Speaker A:What gifts could be buying for our kids now this year, and what's good, what's bad, what's ugly?
Speaker A:And then.
Speaker A:Yeah, what.
Speaker A:What will we be buying our kids in, you know, 20, 50 or the end of the century?
Speaker A:Let's see.
Speaker A:Before we do that, though, let's have a quick water cooler moment.
Speaker A:I miss the water cooler moments.
Speaker A:I'm a remote worker most of the time, so, you know, it's nice to catch up with people, isn't it, and sort of have a quick chat.
Speaker A:What's been catching everyone's eye this week?
Speaker A:I mean, for me, I've been watching the 12 Days of Christmas with OpenAI quite intensively.
Speaker A:I suppose.
Speaker A:The big standout one for me so far, although it doesn't seem to be actually available to anyone properly yet, is Sora and Ben.
Speaker A:I wanted to ask you about that because, well, you know, you work in this sector, you work in video, you're a filmmaker.
Speaker A:What do you think about this?
Speaker A:What does this mean for you?
Speaker B:Yeah, no, I was really excited by the release of that yesterday or the day before, but not accessible in the UK yet, which is a real shame.
Speaker B:But I've tried a lot of the text to video prompting and yeah, it's been useful for me when I create a lot of my videos for my corporate clients who traditionally have asked us to use stock footage and there's not always a suitable clip.
Speaker B:So been playing around with that over the last three, four months.
Speaker B:So I was really eagerly anticipating Sora.
Speaker B:But yeah, I don't know about you David, and your creative stuff.
Speaker B:I mean probably the stock footage sites won't be around in two years.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think it's interesting.
Speaker C:It's, I think the biggest advantage to it potentially and the reason that a lot of creatives would use it is that as far as I know, the current state is still that if you create a video or an image or anything like that using AI, there's no copyright.
Speaker C:So there's no risk of any copyright strike from anywhere.
Speaker C:And you don't have to pay, you know, there's no one to pay, you don't have to license it from anyone and any of that.
Speaker C:And I think particularly for small businesses and small firms that's probably a huge advantage.
Speaker C:And you know, if you can kill your art list subscription or you know, any of the, are many other platforms available but you know, if you have one of those subscriptions that you use to just go and you know, and grab stock footage all the time, if you don't have to do that anymore, you can literally go and I, I need 30 seconds of this and you can tweak it a couple of times and then you just get a video with no, with no copyright or anything against it.
Speaker C:Then I, I, I just can't see why someone wouldn't do that unless it's a moral thing and they just say, or an eth, you know, they see it as an ethical thing and just like, no, I'm going to support artists who this amazing content but, but that's a small percentage and this is something that I get into a lot like, you know, a lot of professionals in whatever career Insert career X.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It could be filmmakers, it could be lawyers, it could be copywriters, it could be whatever.
Speaker C:And they come and they say, yeah, but AI isn't as good as I am.
Speaker C:And it's like, no, it's never as good as the 1% of people who are professionals in that field, but it is definitely better than 99% of the rest of the people in the world who aren't an expert in that field.
Speaker C:And it's those people that will use it and find it really effective.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think also, you know, there's quite a lot, you know, I, I, with my creative work, I have to deal with agents, Shutterstock, all sorts of, you know, you can get nasty letters if you get it wrong, you can.
Speaker B:And I think the last throws of some of that industry are really lashing out now.
Speaker B:You know, they, Shutterstock in particular, we get, you know, quite aggressive phone calls from them saying you're on the wrong subscription plan.
Speaker B:And we've always been very above board with everything we've bought all imagery or video throughout the years.
Speaker B:But I certainly know of people getting threatened for using the image in the wrong way when, you know, they've purchased it, all sorts of things like that.
Speaker B:And I think AI can step into that, that place as well, I think.
Speaker B:And also for smaller creatives that can't afford to spend, you know, £5,000 buying stock imagery.
Speaker A:So, so I mean, thinking about the sort of long term future of this, and I mean, so do you think at the moment it's potentially good enough for like B roll, you know, for little clips that cut in between the sort of main stuff that you're filming and then how much better does it need to get before it could actually become, you know, the main, the main stuff.
Speaker B:It's a really interesting question, I think, because at the moment I subscribe to quite a lot of stock footage sites and the ones that we use, you know, you pay a yearly subscription, you can download as many clips as you like.
Speaker B:So that model has really helped us, you know, the days when you had to buy 20 clips and try stretch out a creative thought because you couldn't afford to buy, you know, 100 clips.
Speaker B:And it's surprising how many clips you need for that kind of style of creative.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:And it's hard sometimes to find something really specific.
Speaker B:So that's where I have stepped into that, that hole really.
Speaker B:And I think it's really helped us fill in the gap and it's less for us about the budget at the moment, because I say we got the subscription, but it's certainly.
Speaker B:We have.
Speaker B:I have started using it to fill in.
Speaker B:Fill in the gaps of stuff that's not available.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Right, so let's.
Speaker A:Let's think about Christmas.
Speaker A:I'm sure you must all be getting excited by now.
Speaker A:I've got my fake mod wine as well.
Speaker A:It's not actually mod wine, obviously, but.
Speaker B:I've got my fake.
Speaker B:Sadly, my.
Speaker B:My Schler.
Speaker A:Lovely.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:Okay, well, let's.
Speaker A:Let's move on to It's Christmas, which is very exciting.
Speaker A:I get.
Speaker A:I'm still quite childish about Christmas.
Speaker A:I think it's an opportunity for me to buy lots of toys for Albert and the girls and, yeah, basically relive my childhood all over again once a year, which is fantastic.
Speaker A:So why don't we kick off with this?
Speaker A:Go from the past to the present to the future.
Speaker A:That would seem to.
Speaker A:To make a lot of sense, wouldn't it?
Speaker A:So we'll start off with the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Speaker A:So I know you guys have been thinking about this.
Speaker A:So Ben, do you want to tell us about some of your things that might have been better with AI when you were a kid?
Speaker B:Well, as a kid, the toys, the three things I remember mostly.
Speaker B:I remember having an amazing transformer and I was absolutely blown away by how this thing could turn from a robot into a helicopter.
Speaker B:Absolutely loved it.
Speaker B:I can imagine now if you could have an app where you could interact with it or, you know, in the future where it could change itself, even fly if DJI got involved.
Speaker B:We absolutely loved.
Speaker B: f you guys remember the Atari: Speaker B:Absolutely loved it.
Speaker B:When my brother would let me have a go on it.
Speaker B:But the cartridges and the games on that seemed so advanced at the time.
Speaker B:And could you imagine now with a bit of AI involved with that, building worlds or levels or platforms, just that kind of interactivity.
Speaker B:But that.
Speaker B:That blew me away.
Speaker B:And I have a really nostalgic memories over that.
Speaker B:I'd actually like to get one if.
Speaker B:If they.
Speaker B:They still make them.
Speaker B:And then I loved sort of board games as a family.
Speaker B:We used to play Trivial Pursuit, but the trouble with Trivial Pursuit was obviously questions were very much aimed at adults.
Speaker B:And I know they brought out other versions as it.
Speaker B:As it became quite popular.
Speaker B:But now with my kids, they get on, you know, online and they make quizzes with questions that are relevant to them.
Speaker B:So my daughter Kara, she will make a Taylor Swift quiz for us all, and we'll have to answer 50 questions.
Speaker B:On Taylor Swift and it will be auto generated.
Speaker B:So you think that kind of evolution from sitting around the table to playing games, often as a kid, you know, some of those questions weren't relevant to you.
Speaker B:You didn't know the answers.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:So yeah, there is that.
Speaker B:That evolution into kids being able to make their own quizzes and be.
Speaker B:Be part of that is really fun.
Speaker A:I mean, I hadn't thought about that, but that would be so easy to do now, wouldn't it?
Speaker A:You just go into GPT and just say, no, I need to put together a pub quiz.
Speaker A:These are the five categories.
Speaker A:I need six questions in each category, obviously.
Speaker A:Fact check your answers please, Mr.
Speaker A:GPT.
Speaker A:And I do remember years ago someone asking me to, to put together a quiz and I think I ducked it actually.
Speaker A:I was a student at the time and it was like a lot of work.
Speaker A:That seems like a lot of work trying to find these things and fact check it and you know, but actually, yeah, I mean that would be.
Speaker B:You're so right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've done quizzes at Christmas just, you know, why the family?
Speaker B:And it does take a lot of effort, a lot of time.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:But now my son will.
Speaker B:Will get on chat GP and create a quiz for us.
Speaker B:And then sometimes I can't remember what the app is or you use at school and in meetings where you have to, you know, each of you have a login and you QR code and you kind of, you can battle against each other.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But that's really fun.
Speaker A:Do you know, I think even as recently as Covid, I ducked this because during COVID my wife's got a big family there that know us.
Speaker A:Know that 13, she's one of 13.
Speaker A:And yeah, we used, we used to get online during COVID and have family, you know, quiz nights and of course everyone would take turns to do it.
Speaker A:And I think I did actually duck at one point doing the reefs because of course there was, there was no AI in it.
Speaker A:So it would have meant a lot of Googling, you know, hours of Googling.
Speaker B:Whereas, Alan, you've done two quizzes now.
Speaker B:We're gonna have to have a, a quiz on here sometime and you can't.
Speaker A:And I'm gonna have to do it.
Speaker A:But I might use GPT.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, but those are my three.
Speaker B:Nostalgia.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Can I just go back to the thing about the transformer?
Speaker A:Because I was really excited when you said that.
Speaker A:This idea that you could have a drone transformer that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Is one minute it's a robot wandering about and then it.
Speaker A:I Mean, yeah, someone needs to.
Speaker A:If they've not built that, that needs to happen.
Speaker A:Because that, that, that's an idea.
Speaker C:I'm sure DARPA's built one already.
Speaker A:You know, I want this in my.
Speaker C:Life, coming to the battlefield near you.
Speaker B:Yeah, true.
Speaker C:That's the problem with that stuff is, is that's where we will see the first implementation of something like that.
Speaker C:It.
Speaker C:It won't be in a toy, unfortunately.
Speaker C:I mean, it'll be a toy, but it won't be for us.
Speaker C:It'll be for the military to play with.
Speaker A:You know, that big toy.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:A lot of progress is driven by military and adult stuff, isn't it?
Speaker C:So, yeah, 100%.
Speaker C:I think, interestingly, just, just going back quickly, Alan, if you don't mind me jumping in, just going back on the quiz as well.
Speaker C:The other interesting thing about that is if you had the AI run the quiz, you could say to it, okay, the players are, here's who we have playing.
Speaker C:And you can say, we've got all the different people.
Speaker C:So, you know, in my family, it might be my wife Christine and my son Aiden, whatever.
Speaker C:And you go, okay, it's me, Christine and Aiden.
Speaker C:And the AI knows how old we all are.
Speaker C:And it knows where.
Speaker C:It knows I'm from America.
Speaker C:It knows aidan's, you know, 17, like, whatever.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And then you go run the quiz.
Speaker C:And it literally will just run the quiz and it.
Speaker C:Or if it's Trivial Pursuit, let's say it can ask appropriate questions.
Speaker C:So it would ask me like American based questions because it knows maybe that that's my background, where it wouldn't ask the other two.
Speaker C:And it, it could get very, very specific and you know, about your age range and area of knowledge and all that sort of stuff, which could be quite interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, that'd be really fun.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, Excellent.
Speaker C:Someone should build one.
Speaker A:They should.
Speaker C:Well, you know, we'll take 4% for the IP.
Speaker A:All these ideas today.
Speaker A:We're gonna.
Speaker A:You know, there's one on my list in particular that I think if the company hears it, they might go, hang on, we should do that.
Speaker A:We'll see.
Speaker A:Dave, what did you have for your.
Speaker A:Your Ghost of Christmas Past?
Speaker C:So I had a.
Speaker C:I had.
Speaker C:The first thing that instantly jumped to mind was, do you remember the Tamagotchi?
Speaker C:The little things on your keychain that you had to feed and take care of?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Tamagotchi would have been much more interesting and probably a lot more engaging if there had been a little bit of AI behind it.
Speaker C:So it could like, tell you it was hungry or have.
Speaker C:Have a little bit of a conversation.
Speaker C:If you just.
Speaker C:You know what, Alan, you and I both have interviewed PI before.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think if you had something like a PI style AI, because it's much more conversational.
Speaker C:And if you had something like that in a tiny little keychain that you could literally interact with and, you know, you had to kind of take care of it like a.
Speaker C:Like a.
Speaker C:Like a weird little person, I think that would have been.
Speaker C:That would have been quite interesting.
Speaker A:Very, very good.
Speaker C:So that was.
Speaker C:That was one of mine.
Speaker C:And I know Ben's a fan of these as well, but I've always loved Hot Wheels cars.
Speaker C:You know, all from when I was a kid.
Speaker C:I had the Orange Race.
Speaker A:I was more of a Matchbox person.
Speaker B:But anyway, I still have some of mine.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:40 years old.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Actually, this might be a US UK thing, actually, because I think maybe Hot Wheels wasn't a thing in the UK when.
Speaker A:When we were kids, I was brought up.
Speaker B:I was brought up in America, so I had Hot Wheels.
Speaker A:Yeah, there we are.
Speaker C:That'll be what it is then.
Speaker C:But, yeah, the orange tracks that you sort of stuck together and then, you know.
Speaker C:But if.
Speaker C:If you could have them where they were, their own little robots that can race each other, I mean, that would be amazing.
Speaker C:Or some way that you could control them or something.
Speaker C:I just think that would have been really cool.
Speaker C:And the last one, and this is one totally out of left field, is.
Speaker C:It's this old.
Speaker C:I don't even know how to describe it.
Speaker C:I'll put a picture up in the video so people can see what it is, but it's called Big Track.
Speaker C:And it was like this little tank thing, and you basically could program it, and with some, like, a number pad on the back of it.
Speaker C:And you could say, like, go forward three feet, turn right, Go forward.
Speaker C:You know, go forward six feet, turn left.
Speaker C:And you could have it navigate around rooms and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker C:And it had some accessories where you could put a trailer on the back of it and it could haul things.
Speaker C:And it was like the most.
Speaker C:Like, now you look at it and you just go.
Speaker C:It's totally ridiculous.
Speaker C:But back in the day, if.
Speaker C:If you'd been able to give it an instruction and say, I want you to go over there and dump this stuff out and then come back to me, that would have been amazing.
Speaker C:So, yeah, Big Track.
Speaker C:I think that would have been fun.
Speaker B:Do you vaguely remember Big Track?
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:If that was in the uk.
Speaker A:If it was, yeah.
Speaker C:I'm not sure it was a big UK toy.
Speaker C:You can.
Speaker C:You can buy them again, apparently, in toy stores now.
Speaker C:But for years, they just.
Speaker C:You just.
Speaker C:They were.
Speaker C:They weren't anywhere.
Speaker C:They were just some weird thing that happened in the 80s.
Speaker C:And if I tried to describe it to people, they just looked at me like I was stupid.
Speaker B:Up the speed to one mile an hour now.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So thanks to the Internet, you can buy stuff again.
Speaker B:So that's my.
Speaker C:That's my past.
Speaker A:Go get on ebay now.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:Let's get one.
Speaker A:Maybe we can retrofit it with some kind of AI.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:What about your.
Speaker B:Your.
Speaker B:Your Ghost of Christmas Past toys?
Speaker A:Okay, so I've got three on my list.
Speaker A:I'm gonna start with Etch A Sketch.
Speaker A:So imagine Etch A Sketch with AI.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So you've got your screen.
Speaker A:You're sketching out your little pixelated gray thing, you know, and there are little lines drawing.
Speaker A:And simultaneously there's another digital screen that's doing the AI version.
Speaker A:Beautiful.
Speaker A:So you draw in a picture of a fish, and on the AI screen is a beautiful golden fish appearing, you know, so you're actually creating, and then you can export those pictures, do what you want with them.
Speaker A:But, yeah, basically it becomes like a.
Speaker A:You're drawing, like, frame lines, and over here you're creating a beautiful picture with the AI power behind it.
Speaker A:I've seen this done with AI already, you know, on computer systems.
Speaker A:So it's just a case of getting it into an essay sketch.
Speaker A:But to me, that seems like, you know, a successful product.
Speaker C:Do you think that would encourage kids or do you think that would discourage kids?
Speaker A:Well, I'd like to think it encouraged them in a way, anyway.
Speaker A:I mean, hopefully they would give them.
Speaker A:I mean, I think the thing.
Speaker A:The reason I gave up with an essketch in the end was because you.
Speaker A:No matter how much you try, you still just end up with, you know, crappy little line drawings, don't you?
Speaker A:So lines.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker A:If.
Speaker A:If you were able to draw a stick man, and then there's a person appears and you draw a house and it looks like a real house.
Speaker A:And I don't know, maybe.
Speaker A:Maybe there's a lot of creativity and fun there for the kids to jump into.
Speaker A:Another one on my list would be the Action Man.
Speaker A:No, I was big into my action, and people fashion women these days, I guess, and all of that, but I would literally spend hours with these Things, strapping parachutes to them, throwing them at the top window of the house, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:And I quite like the idea that there was some kind of AI element to it, you know, that it was able to understand its situation, perhaps what that would mean.
Speaker A:But it could be, it could be quite a lot of fun.
Speaker A:But all these sort of things, it sort of ties in with my last one actually, which is the Furby.
Speaker A:All these things that were supposed to have real characters and the Furby definitely was sold to us on the basis that this was something that, you know, lives in your house, it's going to be your friend, it's going to talk to you, you know, and, and in, in reality, of course, it did almost nothing.
Speaker A:It just kind of made some noises occasionally randomly, I think.
Speaker A:I don't think there was any.
Speaker A:Anything at all going on there.
Speaker A:And, and overwhelmingly disappointing, actually, in the, you know, I just got.
Speaker A:Once the batteries run out the second time, you can't find.
Speaker A:Well, that's it.
Speaker A:I'm just, I'm never wasting, you know, my pocket money on batteries again for that thing.
Speaker A:And it was just shoved in a corner or in a box or went to the charity shop.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But imagine one that actually did talk to you, you know, and you put pie inside it.
Speaker A:You know, there's like a little BlackBerry pie going on inside it or something, you know, and there it is yapping away and talking to you, to me.
Speaker A:And, you know, that ties into one of my ghosts of the Christmas futures, which will come to later.
Speaker A:To me, that thing, that idea, you know, of the teddy bear, whatever it might be that talks you is.
Speaker A:Is a billion dollar idea.
Speaker A:And I, I'm kind of slightly surprised that it doesn't exist already because I think it feels like everything's available to do it.
Speaker A:And if parents could go into, you know, Toys R Us this Christmas and there was a genuine AI powered talking teddy bear there that they could bring home for their kids, I feel like that would be quite popular, you know, so I'm sort of surprised.
Speaker B:I think there is, there is a teddy out that does reading to the.
Speaker B:The kids.
Speaker B:That taps into some of the 11 labs voices, I think.
Speaker B:But the woman that I watched that had reviewed it said it was a little bit creepy.
Speaker B:Yeah, so.
Speaker B:So I think, I think you know, that.
Speaker B:But there is that.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think.
Speaker B:But you're right.
Speaker B:It seems like a natural product for a child to take to bed and to, to chill out with.
Speaker A:Well, I didn't.
Speaker A:Sorry, Dickel.
Speaker C:I was just gonna say though, that Stuff goes really dark for me though because I was as I think and I mentioned in our pre chat, you know, the, the obvious one for an old toy as well is something like a Barbie.
Speaker C:But again that's like, I, I feel like that goes dark really quickly.
Speaker C:And Ken as well, any, any of those dolls, right, Like Barbie's just the most famous one.
Speaker C:But any dolls, any bears, any.
Speaker C:Any pets, any.
Speaker C:Anything like that.
Speaker C:It just feels to me like, like that just.
Speaker C:Yeah, it just goes dark really fast and you have to be so careful.
Speaker C:Agree that the, you know, at how limited the AI would be in its functionality and what it was able to do, you know, because what, what you don't need it doing is telling scary stories to kids at night in the dark.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that was her point.
Speaker B:It had told things that she said they weren't bad but they were just things that they wouldn't read to their children or make stories up about.
Speaker A:To that I think it's possible because I've never managed and I've tried, trust me, I've tried to make PI say scary stories, you know, just for the giggles of it.
Speaker A:And it's actually really just to test it to see where the limits of its training is and see where they put the guardrails.
Speaker A:And I've never managed yet to get PI to say anything that I would think, oh, I'd be worried about my child hearing that.
Speaker A:So I reckon it is possible.
Speaker A:And I do think you're right though.
Speaker A:Keeping it away from kind of human like objects is probably good.
Speaker A:Maybe teddy bears and, you know, I don't know, snowmen and talking snowmen, things like that probably are okay.
Speaker A:As soon as you go into sort of anything else, then it might get a little bit difficult.
Speaker A:So a couple of other things when I was thinking about the Ghost of Christmas Past, that would have been much better as well actually was my very trusted Sinclair ZX Spectrum from back in the day, which I've still got, still works and it would definitely, definitely be better with AI.
Speaker A:I'm just thinking, you know, Manic Miner AI version or Jet Set Willie would have been fantastic.
Speaker A:Well, you know, yeah, it's never going to happen but maybe someone's going to, you know, create an updated version because they keep bringing out versions of the Spectrum now, new versions sort of with sort of different gubbins inside them.
Speaker A:So maybe, maybe we'll, we will get to see that.
Speaker A:And then I thought about the iPhone.
Speaker A:My, my first iPhone, which I still got.
Speaker A:It's not the original iPhone.
Speaker A:This I think it's the four.
Speaker A:If only that had AI.
Speaker A:And then I thought, if only that had AI.
Speaker A:The current one.
Speaker C:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker A:It's like how.
Speaker A:How far we've not come, you know?
Speaker A:Yeah, no AI.
Speaker A:No AI.
Speaker C:AI.
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker A:Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker A:Don't taunt me, Dave.
Speaker A:Don't taunt me, Dave.
Speaker A:Don't even start me on the whole Apple intelligence thing at the moment, because I know.
Speaker C:Actually that's a whole separate show, I think, on its own.
Speaker B:I think that's an hour.
Speaker B:On its own.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's an hour.
Speaker A:And on my Ghost of the Christmas Present, which we'll come to in a minute, it didn't make it onto my list, but oh, so nearly did.
Speaker A:Oh, so nearly did.
Speaker A:Okay, well, in fact, on that note, then, why don't we move on to that Ghost of Christmas Present?
Speaker A:Who'd like to go first on that one?
Speaker C:I'll go first, since Ben went first last time, and then you can go first on the next one.
Speaker A:Very Christmassy of you.
Speaker C:Christmas, Christmas Present.
Speaker C:So I went quite practical with these because I think what's interesting is how.
Speaker C:I think how the current stuff where AI is being integrated is.
Speaker C:Is in real life objects.
Speaker C:So the first one is this thing called the Nobi Smart lamp.
Speaker C:And you wouldn't really think much.
Speaker C:And at first when I saw it, I didn't.
Speaker C:I was like, AI in a lamp.
Speaker C:Like, okay, what you can tell it to turn on and off.
Speaker C:But no, what it does is it uses AI to.
Speaker C:To do things like fall detection.
Speaker C:So if you have an elderly relative or something, it basically can.
Speaker C:Not in a sinister way, not like watching them, but it can kind of keep an eye.
Speaker C:So if something happens in the house or something goes on, it has a way to.
Speaker C:To understand what it's hearing and, And I guess what it sensors can.
Speaker C:Can see to understand what's going on in the environment and then be able to give you a warning.
Speaker C:And this is, for me, this is particularly relevant, I think, and maybe I'm a little bit more sensitive to it than most, but, you know, my mom lives in Texas.
Speaker C:She's 5,000 miles away and she has Ms.
Speaker C:And she's in her 80s.
Speaker C:And so, you know, and she falls and it would be good for me to be able to know if there was something going on in the house, because if she couldn't, you know, she wasn't near her phone or whatever, and she couldn't, you know, she honestly, like the old commercial, if she'd fallen and couldn't get up, then she's got no one and she's got no one to help her.
Speaker C:So something like that that had, you know, some intelligence built into it to, to try and understand, you know, what it's seeing and what it's hearing at the same time and interpreting that correctly would be, I think that's really interesting.
Speaker C:So I think some of the smart home stuff like that and my number two is another smart home sort of thing which is Z Mirror, which I think we've seen these in films loads in sort of sci fi films and stuff where you know, you get up in the morning and you go into the, into the bathroom and then you, your mirror turns on and it gives you the weather and the news and every.
Speaker C:I want one.
Speaker C:I literally want one.
Speaker C:I think that would be so cool.
Speaker C:It's like I come in and it like tells me all the stuff I want to know.
Speaker C:Instead of me looking at my phone I can just go in maybe I can sh.
Speaker C:I don't shave very much but you know, I can, I can go in and, and do my stuff in the morning and I can get the news and I can see what the weather is and I can get all that stuff.
Speaker A:So the kind of look at you and kind of go, Dave, you look a bit tired this morning.
Speaker A:Perhaps you need to go and have a, you know, have another lie down.
Speaker C:Or have you been to the gym lately?
Speaker A:You look a bit tired.
Speaker A:I've just told the kettle to start boiling to make you coffee or you know, the whole house comes into creation.
Speaker A:The mirror.
Speaker A:There's a full assessment of you when you get up in the morning and then everything happens according to that.
Speaker C:That would be, it talks to the scale.
Speaker C:Yeah, again that could get quite dark as well.
Speaker C:But you know, I, I think with the current stuff and I know, I know what you guys are going to talk about as well.
Speaker C:So you know, and we're going to talk about a bunch of cool stuff that's out at the minute.
Speaker C:But I do think that a lot of the stuff, you know, for the home and a lot of the practical type things is, is kind of the level that we're at at the minute.
Speaker C:And then we've got some interesting stuff for the future obviously and then on my worst, just quickly because I'll, I'll just finish quite quickly but I'm sticking on the home theme.
Speaker C:But like Google home.
Speaker C:No, like, and, and, and all the, you know, kind of all of that stuff this and, and maybe I think some, some of you are going to talk about some of this as well.
Speaker C:But things like Siri and some of the, some of the assistant tools and stuff like that, just none of that stuff works at the minute as well as it should, considering how long they've been trying to do it and the tech that's available now.
Speaker C:Most of that type of stuff, as far as I know, is really, really disappointing.
Speaker A:It's interesting to hear that because, I mean, obviously I'm stuck in the Apple ecosystem as you know, and so I don't get to experience Google Home or Alexa particularly.
Speaker A:But, and there was a few years ago, I used to hear a lot of people saying, oh, you know, Siri sucks and Google Alexa are much better.
Speaker A:But just recently I've heard a lot of people saying, actually they all suck.
Speaker A:So it's kind of like, yeah, they do all suck.
Speaker C:Yeah, but it's, it's, it's not that.
Speaker C:Are you hearing an echo?
Speaker C:I really hear an echo and it, I don't know why it's doing that.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker C:Anyway, yeah, I think there's a difference in expectation versus reality.
Speaker C: e've seen Star Trek since the: Speaker C:Like, we still don't really have an AI that I can say, hey, can you just book an appointment?
Speaker C:Can you put something in my diary for me at 4 o'clock tomorrow to meet with so and so and can you send the invite and like, and it will just do it.
Speaker C:And I think that's, I think everybody sort of feels like we should be at that point already and are all as, as a, almost as a world and a society, we're almost all disappointed that no one's really been able to crack that yet.
Speaker B:I think you touched on, yeah, I think Al, you touched on that last week a little bit with the robot thing and Elon Musk.
Speaker B:I think there's.
Speaker B:Everyone's so keen to be first for everything that we're just over promised all the time.
Speaker B:So when you actually use so many things, even though they're brilliant, you're a bit like, ah, well, I was expecting more.
Speaker B:You know, even, you know, you're in the car and you try to get a song that you really want to listen to and you just get a random song that Siri wants to choose instead of the one you said, or it's not available.
Speaker B:And there's just little frustrations like that where you think this should be a lot less friction.
Speaker B:But yeah, I agree they are disappointing at times.
Speaker A:Well, well, well, I'm going to tell you about approach in a minute.
Speaker A:That does deliver a little bit of that, actually, and gets you closer.
Speaker A:I think what we're talking about here is like the movie her or something, isn't it, Dave?
Speaker A:Really?
Speaker A:Where you've got that assistant that you can just chat to and, you know, everything just kind of works well, yeah, Google.
Speaker C:But do you remember Google did the demo of their Google Assistant, what, three, four years ago, and you could, it could call up and make a dinner reservation for you.
Speaker C:Like, where's that gone?
Speaker C:Why can't we do that?
Speaker C:Like, they demoed it and I think.
Speaker C:And listen, there's a whole nother show we could talk, we could do about, you know, how is that going to work in practice moving forward?
Speaker C:Because I think there was a lot of pushback that people said, oh, well, it has to identify that it's an AI.
Speaker A:Why it might say more about Google's demos, though.
Speaker A:Maybe, Maybe not being rooted in reality.
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker C:But you know what I mean, though.
Speaker C:But there was also, I remember in the media at the time, there was a lot of pushback about like, oh, it's.
Speaker C:Well, if an AI calls you, it has to identify as an AI.
Speaker C:Why, Like, I don't see why it needs to do that.
Speaker C:If it's calling on my behalf, then I don't care.
Speaker C:Like, I don't think it should matter.
Speaker C:Someone's calling to make a reservation.
Speaker C:If they make a reservation for, fine, I'll put a card down and, you know, to hold the spot or whatever.
Speaker C:But yeah, anyway, yeah, yeah, it's not.
Speaker B:Like you're talking to a therapist or a, A doctor, which actually better in.
Speaker C:A lot of instances.
Speaker C:People are happier with AI in those circumstances as well.
Speaker C:But again, that's a whole.
Speaker C:Another discussion.
Speaker B:More empathy.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's, there's a, there's a whole, whole future episode, I think, around empathy, intelligence, consciousness and all that.
Speaker A:We're definitely going to go there.
Speaker A:All right, so then why don't I do my Ghost of the Christmas Present?
Speaker A:Because I think it leads on a little bit.
Speaker A:And my best.
Speaker A:I'm going to start with my best worst, if that's right.
Speaker A:I think that's a fun way of doing it.
Speaker A:So my best, if I've got them here and you kind of know what they are.
Speaker A:So here we go.
Speaker A:It is, of course, the meta Ray Bans.
Speaker A:Now, there we are, look, we've all got glasses now.
Speaker A:Isn't that great?
Speaker A:They are prescription, but for seeing far away so I'm actually going to take them off for the purposes of the conversation, but they've absolutely blown my mind, I have to say.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I sort of saw them advertised for a while and didn't get them and.
Speaker A:Because I just worked on the basis that.
Speaker A:Yeah, but they're probably a bit, you know, beta a bit early, not quite the real deal.
Speaker A:And eventually my wife said to me one day, you know, actually, do you call.
Speaker A:Would you like, you know, would you like a pair of these for your birthday?
Speaker A:And I thought, okay, actually, all right, yeah, why not, if.
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker A:And it's actually blowing my mind how good they actually are.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They are by far and away, I think, the best sort of, you know, implementation of an AI product out there at the moment.
Speaker A:They're well made.
Speaker A:I mean, they're Ray Bans, so that's a good start.
Speaker A:You know, just from how they look.
Speaker A:They don't look like some kind of really super geeky thing.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They look like Rayman Wayfarers, because that's what they are.
Speaker A:Granted, that's not everyone's cup of tea, but, you know, I quite like them.
Speaker A:But the tech in it, the speaker system in them is phenomenally good.
Speaker A:There's seven microphones in them.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:So their ability to record is fantastic.
Speaker A:It's spatial, you know, Dolby Atmos, whatever you want to call it, is unbelievable.
Speaker A:The video quality and the photography is, you know, all right, maybe technically not quite up there with, say, an iPhone or a Samsung, but it's not very far behind.
Speaker A:And it is more than good enough to be your main point of photography.
Speaker A:I did my whole holiday on it and I don't look at any of those pictures for my holiday and think, oh, I wish I'd use the iPhone a bit more ever, and I didn't use it once.
Speaker A:And actually having that kind of point of view all the time when the lack of friction to just quickly take a photo like that actually transforms how you do photography.
Speaker A:And then the AI stuff is really fun.
Speaker A:You know, you can talk to it, it chats to you.
Speaker A:Actually, when you do ask it to play a song, it gets it right every single time.
Speaker A:I can't think of a single occasion where I asked it to play a track and it didn't get the right track and instantly play it.
Speaker A:It just works.
Speaker A:And they've nailed it.
Speaker A:You know, straight out.
Speaker A:Straight out the gate, they've nailed it.
Speaker A:And Apple must be sitting there looking at that, thinking, what.
Speaker A:What do we do?
Speaker A:You know, we.
Speaker A:We put all this, you know, 100 billion into this headset nobody wants, right?
Speaker A:And then you know, Meta come along with a 300 pound pair of glass.
Speaker A:300 pounds as well.
Speaker A:That's the other thing that the price point.
Speaker A:Unbelievable.
Speaker A:Cheaper than a pair of AirPods, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I, I, I take my hat off.
Speaker A:I've never been a big MESSA fan through my life and I've almost actively avoided Facebook all my life.
Speaker A:And you know, I sort of use WhatsApp begrudgingly, but these glasses, wow, well done.
Speaker A:And you know, I, every time they get an update, I'm excited.
Speaker A:And by the way, everything that you can do in those glasses is all the stuff that Apple are promising for Apple intelligence and still haven't delivered.
Speaker A:And Meta have been doing it for a year in a 300 pound pair of glasses.
Speaker C:Yeah, Apple's been in a tough spot I think for a long time and again there's a whole, probably a whole episode to talk about this, but Microsoft went through this phase for a long time where they were just on a downward slide and going backwards and they needed some, they need a visionary leader.
Speaker C:And I'm sorry, but Tim Cook is not a visionary leader.
Speaker C:He's an operations guy.
Speaker C:So he's all about maximizing profits, driving down prices.
Speaker C:You know, you can tell when Apple's in trouble when they start releasing multiple colors of everything.
Speaker C:Like they, I mean, if you remember when they were sort of on their bad slide after Jobs left the first time and then they started this massive, you know, downward slide, it's because they put out all these computers and all these rainbow colors and all this stuff.
Speaker C:And he came in and went, no, everything is basically silver and that's it, there's, you don't have a choice.
Speaker C:It's white or it's silver and that's it.
Speaker C:And it was, it was bold and it was, you know, he had some vision around it.
Speaker C:And they need a new, they need a new leader at Apple who has some vision because they still make the best laptops in the world, hands down.
Speaker C:The MacBook and the MacBook Pros are the best laptops.
Speaker B:Unbelievable.
Speaker C:Just, just, they're unbelievable.
Speaker C:They're unbelievably expensive, but by and large they're pretty much worth it.
Speaker C:But I know what you mean.
Speaker C:And you know, there, there's a lot of other companies out there that, that are doing, they're testing, they're trying, they're, they're trying to do new things.
Speaker C:And you know, I think Meta was in that box for a while.
Speaker C:It's they're trying to fight their way out of the.
Speaker C:You know, Facebook is for old people.
Speaker C:You know, it's a.
Speaker C:It's a boomer platform.
Speaker A:And even their presentation this year, they really kind of showcase the product.
Speaker A:It's probably may not even become available for five, 10 years, you know, the Orion glasses.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But I think at least they're sort of saying, you know, this is what we're trying to get to.
Speaker A:Apple.
Speaker A:Everything's behind closed doors, isn't it?
Speaker A:And as for the colors, they're often.
Speaker A:Apple's idea of new colors is four different versions of the shade of gray, isn't it?
Speaker A:You know, so space gray, space gray, non space gray, silver, or approximately the same.
Speaker B:I think you nailed it, though.
Speaker B:Sorry, I was just say one.
Speaker B:One point on your frictionless comment is, you know, I used to take around a massive film camera and then it became a digital SLR and then a mirrorless and then an iPhone, and then now you wear it.
Speaker B:And I think, I think you're right.
Speaker B:The you.
Speaker B:I just don't take out my big cameras anymore unless it's for a professional job.
Speaker B:But that.
Speaker B:That point of making something easy to capture and easy to do is what you're describing there.
Speaker B:And I think they.
Speaker B:That sounds like they've nailed that.
Speaker A:It really came home to me on holiday, the ability to just, you know, I see a bird flying low across the beach or something and think, well, that looks stunning and just go click.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker A:You know, whereas by some, you get a phone or.
Speaker A:I'd say.
Speaker A:The other thing that I really noticed was as well, when you're on holiday and you say to the kids or to family, oh, just stand there and take a picture.
Speaker C:You.
Speaker A:You then stage a scene.
Speaker A:Whereas with the glasses you can just kind of capture it more fluidly and you capture the more the reality of what was happening rather than a staged version of it.
Speaker A:And yeah, and that was really noticeable.
Speaker A:When I look back at my pictures from the holiday, it was really noticeable that it felt much more natural and real.
Speaker A:I felt like I was much.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was back there much more than.
Speaker B:Here's less antisocial as well because, you know, not everyone's getting out their phones all the time.
Speaker B:If you just go like that, you're not pausing the moments all the time.
Speaker B:And everyone's then, you know, on the phone and you know, you get distracted and do other things on your phone as well.
Speaker B:You don't just look at, oh, I've got a message or I've bitcoin's gone down 400%.
Speaker B:You know, it's keeping you in the moment a little bit more.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Okay, so worst.
Speaker A:Worst for me, I had two to choose from here really, the rabbit R1 and the humane AI pin.
Speaker A:So I've gone for the humane AI pin as the winner of the worst.
Speaker A:It's a thing that you clip on like a brooch.
Speaker A:It has a little projector on it that projects onto your hand.
Speaker A:I think it cost like £800 out the gate.
Speaker A:You had to then pay like, you know, £30, £50amonth subscription or something.
Speaker A:I understand that they had to withdraw most of them because they were basically catching fire when they were on charge.
Speaker A:You know, there were a lot of problems.
Speaker A:And yeah, a product that essentially doesn't really work very well, overheats and might burn your house down, seems to be a good example of the worst implementation of the thing.
Speaker A:I will say, and this showed up in the rabbit R1 is.
Speaker A:It was quite fun to see companies trying though, right?
Speaker A:So I'm glad Humane tried and I'm glad Rabbit tried.
Speaker A:Even though the rabbit R1 turns out to be not much more than, you know, a, a system that's connected to an Android phone in the cloud that's sort of trying to point and click on other people's websites to do stuff.
Speaker A:And it's, it's very basic, but it did look beautiful.
Speaker A:It was designed by teenage engineering in this kind of bright plastic orange.
Speaker A:And I nearly bought one.
Speaker A:I have to say I was very tempted.
Speaker A:And there's still part of me that thinks, I wish I had one, just so in 10 years time I could look back at it and go, how do you remember when the AI stuff really started?
Speaker A:And do you remember the Rabbit?
Speaker A:Because I think it will be quite a cool retro thing at some point in the future.
Speaker A:We'll all wish we owned one.
Speaker A:But ultimately it doesn't do anything that can't really do on your phone.
Speaker A:And certainly it doesn't make anything that you do on your phone easier than doing it on your phone.
Speaker A:Which sort of then begs the question of, well, why would you even bother having it then?
Speaker A:And again, although it didn't come with a subscription, I believe it will.
Speaker A:They will apply a subscription to it in the future.
Speaker A:I think you get a year's free access to Perplexity through Rabbit and then after that you're gonna have to probably start paying, so.
Speaker A:So I haven't gone for one.
Speaker A:Never say never.
Speaker A:It might turn up in my collection of, you know, sort of retro gadgets.
Speaker A:One Day.
Speaker A:But yeah, at the moment I've.
Speaker A:I've parked it.
Speaker A:But look, what I will say about all of this stuff that did excite me this year is that it felt a little bit like things were years ago.
Speaker A:Do you remember before the iPhone when you had different gadgets?
Speaker A:You know, when you could go into Dixon's or Comet and you.
Speaker A:You could choose like, you know, sat navs and you could choose, you know, actual cameras.
Speaker A:You know, you could choose phones, you know, you could choose MP3 players.
Speaker A:There were all these different things that suddenly the iPhone or the Samsung just.
Speaker A:Well, there's all of that.
Speaker A:So you don't need any of those anymore.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And that made the world a little bit duller again.
Speaker A:So I quite like the idea of the Ray Bans, of the, you know, new.
Speaker A:New accessories, new gadgets again coming back.
Speaker A:I just don't think they've been done particularly well yet.
Speaker A:And as I say, for me, the Ray Bans are the only one that, you know, in terms of that accessory, AI accessory that really nailed it this year.
Speaker A:So hats off to them.
Speaker A:But I'll give.
Speaker A:I'll give Rabbit, you know, some students, because they did make it look very, very, very cute.
Speaker A:So there we are.
Speaker A:Ben, do you want to talk us through yours?
Speaker B:I've got a slight bridge between the Christmas past and the Christmas present, which you've just reminded me of.
Speaker B:But my first MP3 player was actually a little square Samsung thing that you could put a memory card into.
Speaker B:I remember, I think I was able to get 50 songs on it.
Speaker B:I was just absolutely blown away by this.
Speaker B:This was pre ipod, pre I iPhone.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But that was.
Speaker B:That was amazing with a.
Speaker B:With a little bit of AI on that.
Speaker B:That have been good or connectivity to the Internet, pre.
Speaker B:Pre streaming.
Speaker B:But for my ghost of Christmas present, I'm gonna go.
Speaker B:Actually the Apple Watch.
Speaker B:And although I don't wear mine very often, it slightly taps into what you said, David, about my.
Speaker B:So my dad has one.
Speaker B:It keeps an eye on his heart because he's got a pacemaker and he can see his.
Speaker B:His heart rate.
Speaker B:Also it.
Speaker B:When he tripped a couple of weeks ago, it sent a message out to 999, said, Are you okay?
Speaker B:So it had full detection on it.
Speaker B:And also for my son.
Speaker B:My son is 11 now.
Speaker B:Half his class have iPhones or Samsungs.
Speaker B:We weren't quite ready for him to have a phone yet.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:He loves technology.
Speaker B:He is a constant battle to keep that balance between and offline activities.
Speaker B:And amazing.
Speaker B:We got the Apple Watch for his birthday in October and it's got a SIM card.
Speaker B:He can make calls, he can text, but he can't really have unfettered access to the Internet.
Speaker B:So it's an amazing middle ground for us.
Speaker B:And he's able to arrange to do things with his friends, he's able to be connected but not have access to things that aren't helpful for him.
Speaker B:So I've been really blown away by that and you know, I'm, I'm personally I'm a bit iffy on the Apple watch.
Speaker B:I forget to wear it all the time, I forget to charge it.
Speaker B:But for my dad and my son it's been really, really good for, for different reasons.
Speaker B:One for safety and one for, you know, fall detection.
Speaker B:The second thing on my list is the DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone.
Speaker B:Absolutely love this thing.
Speaker B:A couple years old now.
Speaker B:I've got lots of DJI projects.
Speaker B:I mean they're like meta, they're one of those companies that are just knocking out the park.
Speaker B:You know, I've got camera stabilizers, I've got little microphones, they reimagine how to do things really well and they just work.
Speaker B:But the, the drone isn't.
Speaker B:Is immense and sort of just being able to add that to storytelling in a, in, in my production company has been amazing and I, I enjoy it for photography as well.
Speaker B:Just as on a personal level, the weather in Wales prevents me doing it most of the time but so the next step I hope they bring out is a more weatherproof version and I know those things are certainly coming down the pipeline.
Speaker B:And then for me the worst it's always been Alexa.
Speaker B:And I know lots of people say this but we had one a few years ago and it was that thing where you're having a conversation and I know this is probably old wives tale but you then go online and then you're presented with an advert on double glazing.
Speaker B:You just been sitting in the kitchen talking about double glazing.
Speaker B:And even if it's, you know, just positive reinforcement and not creepy, it just creeped me out too much.
Speaker B:So my wife and I decided we didn't want it.
Speaker B:Always listening.
Speaker B:I know we have it with Siri, but I slightly trust Apple more.
Speaker B:I don't know why, it's a really foolish thing but I just, I don't love the march towards a really switched on home.
Speaker B:Smart meters and smart lamps and I just, I, I feel a bit of a Luddite when it comes to that.
Speaker B:I love technology, I love the march with all other things but for me, the Alexa just creeped me out too much and having it, always listening and sometimes interjecting into conversations when you didn't want it to.
Speaker B:So that's my worst.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:Yeah, I've not, I've not experienced Alexa myself.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We have Siri, but on a couple of the speakers in the house.
Speaker A:But essentially, I think I might have deactivated it on the speakers, actually, because I, I found in the end I just wanted them to be speakers and it was generally kind of annoying, as you say, chirping in or, or you'd ask, you know, yes, word, something, and instead of, instead of your phone picking up on it, the speaker was picking up on it and it's kind of.
Speaker A:No, I wasn't asking you, I was asking you.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:Yeah, just because.
Speaker A:Massively annoying.
Speaker A:So I think I deactivated it.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So they, they are no longer smart speakers.
Speaker A:They are just.
Speaker A:They are just speakers.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I've got my son very good at.
Speaker A:By the way.
Speaker B:Yeah, I've got my son one for Christmas, the orange one, as you say about Apple, going all colorful.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:Yeah, but they're very good.
Speaker A:I mean, the HomePods, don't get me wrong, sound quality.
Speaker B:I've got the HomePod mini coming, so.
Speaker B:For Christmas.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, but that's.
Speaker B:I, I don't love, I don't love the listening again.
Speaker B:Do we trust these companies to look after our data and to not just use it to sell to us?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Is the answer to that.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:I think the other thing, something that came up, that's probably a bridge into the future as well, which I hadn't really thought about until this conversation, which is some of the, some of the tools that they have where they can like, bring photos, old photos to life and stuff, where they can add some movement to them and things like that.
Speaker C:And I think some of that stuff is really, really cool.
Speaker C:I think some people think it's creepy, but when it's done in just that, making sort of a gif out of it, you know, and just, just taking something that's fixed and then just adding a little bit of 3D motion to it, so it, it really brings those, those old photos to life.
Speaker C:I think that could be, you know, particularly for, you know, for relatives and people that we've not, you know, that, that we knew and, and that are gone now, I think some of that stuff's pretty cool again, I think there's a, There's a hugely dark, dystopian future that could come from that.
Speaker C:If we're not careful, but at the minute just making gifs out of photos is pretty cool as well.
Speaker A:Well, Ben and I were talking about this the other day and I think we've got a probably, we're probably going to do an episode on this in the future.
Speaker A:But it's sort of how technology can kind of bring things from the past back to life, you know, and you know, preserving perhaps people who've gone, you know, in that, you know, through AI, basically.
Speaker A:So I think there's a whole, whole world to explore there.
Speaker A:But perhaps we'll save that for, for another episode for Christmas.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:We'll bring your relatives back from the day.
Speaker A:It's probably not the title for the episode, Happy Christmas indeed.
Speaker A:But let's talk about the Ghost of Christmas Future then.
Speaker A:So I'll kick off then with this one.
Speaker A:So I kind of got three things on my list and each one I, I guess is set nearer and then further away as we go along.
Speaker A:So the, the nearer one will be Ted.
Speaker A:We've seen the movie Ted with the, the.
Speaker A:The sort of foul mouth teddy bear that goes around causing havoc.
Speaker A:So maybe remove the kind of foul mouth side of things.
Speaker A:But actually a really good AI teddy bear that genuinely works.
Speaker A:As we talked about earlier, the kind of pie style there, it seems to me surprising that somebody hasn't done this.
Speaker A:That to me just seems like such an easy money making marketing opportunity that it sort of bewilders me that it's not.
Speaker A:If you'd asked me two years ago when GPT arrived, it was almost my first thought was, oh, you can make a teddy bear with this.
Speaker A:And it's sort of surprising that two years later no one's done it.
Speaker A:So I still think it's going to happen in the next couple of years and it will be huge.
Speaker B:I still think the foul mouth version of it would be a winner as well.
Speaker B:With adults.
Speaker B:Imagine giving that to your friend on his 40th birthday or you know, on a stag weekend.
Speaker B:Here's your foul mouth.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, just to clarify, I don't want the Tony bear running around like it did in the movie because it was literally quite dangerous, wasn't it?
Speaker A:So I think, you know, essentially a static one that doesn't chase you around the house and attack you would be fine.
Speaker A:And then it could be far enough, I guess that would be all right, wouldn't it?
Speaker A:If it's just you hurling abuse from the corner, being sarcastic about your Christmas dinner and stuff.
Speaker A:You know, you call those Brussels sprouts.
Speaker B:I think that Would sell well, Yeah.
Speaker A:I think it would, it would.
Speaker A:So then a little bit further ahead, I said a little bit further ahead.
Speaker A:Maybe quite a bit further ahead.
Speaker A:Holodeck, you know, so again, the Star Trek vision, the idea of a room that you go into.
Speaker A:So originally, actually the idea for this came for me a while ago when I was thinking about what it would be like to be in an old people's home one day.
Speaker A:And I thought, well, by the time I get there, hopefully VR will be good enough that I can just put on a VR headset and I can be in Hawaii right on that beach.
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't have to pretend.
Speaker A:And then I thought, well, actually let's go one step further than that.
Speaker A:Rather than having to sit in the care home wearing a headset, what if you could just be in the holodeck, you know, and so you were, you, you were there and you could just wander about and you felt like you were somewhere else.
Speaker A:So, so I think, you know, again, maybe that's 50, 100 years away, I don't know to get to that.
Speaker A:I think the VR vision is very close actually.
Speaker A:That feels like that, you know, within 10 or 15 years, if you look at what Apple did with their headset that no one wants, but technically, you know, 4K per eye, it's capable, let's get that, let's say within the next few, you could get that to 8k per eye.
Speaker A:And then, you know, you could feed in very realistic, you know, environments and sounds.
Speaker A:I mean, it's going to feel very real.
Speaker A:So that, that feels possible.
Speaker A:And then maybe with sort of flexible screens and things like that, you could create an environment in which you were in a room where you could just talk to that room and effectively build those images.
Speaker A:There is software now where you can talk to it and it will build, you know, text or voice to image basically and create a 3,360 degree wrap around image that you can then look at on your phone and kind of move around.
Speaker A:But again, you could sit and have a conversation and just create these worlds around you.
Speaker A:Would be, would be kind of fun.
Speaker A:And then my third one was looking perhaps even further ahead.
Speaker A:Mind control.
Speaker A:So I did, I did read, I think it was last year, somebody had done some kind of brain scanning, MRI scanning where they were able to then hook it up to an AI system and essentially, you know, read, read the mind of what people were thinking or, you know, doing.
Speaker A:So I'm thinking that, you know, in the future we could have mind control.
Speaker A:Elon, you know, with his chips in the heads.
Speaker A:Neuralink all of that.
Speaker A:Perhaps we're going to be controlling our toys, our Christmas presents, our cars.
Speaker A:What was the truck you were talking about earlier?
Speaker A:The, the tank car thing?
Speaker A:You know, maybe we would be controlling that with big Trap.
Speaker A:We'll be talking controlling big track just by looking at it, thinking it across the room to attack, you know, the, your sibling.
Speaker C:What was the, what was the 80s film that they had the, the fighter jets that were controlled by thought.
Speaker C:Do you remember that film?
Speaker A:Oh yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, what was it called?
Speaker C:Oh, we'll figure it out.
Speaker C:We'll either put it in the nights or, or I'll Google it while someone else is talking.
Speaker C:But yeah, there was anyway, it was like a Russian fighter jet that they could control just by thought, which ironically we're going to skip that whole step.
Speaker C:And the planes are just going to fly without humans in them.
Speaker C:They already got planes that.
Speaker C:Fighter jets that can fly using AI and, and they're much more capable because they don't have the meat inside of it.
Speaker C:So actually they can push a lot harder.
Speaker C:They can do a lot more things that you couldn't do with a human inside the box.
Speaker C:So that's.
Speaker C:Yeah, we're going to skip that whole thought control and we're going to go straight to just straight AI.
Speaker A:There we are.
Speaker A:And to go full circle then I'm just, just thinking with the mind control maybe going Back to a 70s toy.
Speaker A:1970s toy scale electrics, Mind control scale electrics.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker C:Okay, I'm going to jump in just because I have obviously I have three things on my list.
Speaker C:Two of them are basically similar to, I think some of the stuff that you guys have which is all around that.
Speaker C:It's all around the Teds, the toys, the.
Speaker C:All that sort of stuff.
Speaker C:Because I had like Baymax and.
Speaker C:And some of that stuff like, you know, which is all kind of the same thing.
Speaker C:But one thing I am going to throw into the mix actually on second thought, and I'm just going to throw one because it's massive, which is video games.
Speaker C:I can't wait until a video game comes out and it's probably not too far away.
Speaker C:Probably one of the next gen big games will have a certain amount of this in it.
Speaker C:But all of the NPCs will be AI enabled.
Speaker C:So whenever you're in a world and you're Talking to the NPCs you'll just be able to talk to them and you can actually just have a conversation.
Speaker C:So you'll have a microphone in your controller.
Speaker C:And literally you can just talk to it.
Speaker C:So you can rock up to somebody, you can have a conversation and then you can just go about your merry way or you can do whatever.
Speaker C:And I think that is going to completely change the, just the whole complexion of gaming and, and how gaming works and the sort of immersiveness of it because then you could literally play the same game forever because you will never have the same conversation with anyone twice.
Speaker C:And I, me for one, when I'm in a nursing home, I hope I'm just sitting there having random conversations in a Skyrim type world and I'm talking to dragons and stuff like that, just having real conversations and I'll probably have dementia and won't know any different anyway.
Speaker C:So I'll just be having a great time.
Speaker B:Be even more realistic.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And infinite landscapes presumably as well.
Speaker A:You know, universes that can just go on and on forever.
Speaker B:So that's interesting.
Speaker B:I have that as my main, main point.
Speaker B:It kind of ties in a bit of that.
Speaker B:But also tapping into the, the concept of spatial video and recreating moments where you filmed or have taken photos and being able to recreate worlds.
Speaker B:I can't remember the name of the technology but you know, you can take a photo and it creates a sort of virtual world from it.
Speaker B:That's really interesting.
Speaker B:And I know they're looking at.
Speaker B:For gaming as well and being able to change the style of a game, all that you know, within the game and creating worlds as you, as you play them.
Speaker B:I thought that really interests me as well.
Speaker B:That's what one of my first points the.
Speaker B:I'm really interested where drone technology will go with delivery and rescue and new new opportunities there.
Speaker B:I'm quite excited by that just because I love the technology and I, I use it and then I'm really excited about medical breakthrough and using the power of AI to help us.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Overcome some of the diseases that we, we are, we're battling against.
Speaker B:You know, I was interested to meet the guys from Isomorphic Labs a few months ago when we were filming for them and they were, they're doing some really interesting stuff where creating models of proteins and all sorts of things like that.
Speaker B:I think they're, they've got Google input.
Speaker B:You know my brother in law runs a medical startup to be able to detect cancer and just this all sorts of things that will come out with the power of AI and being able to help us combat things better.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Bit worthy.
Speaker B:I should have chose something a bit.
Speaker A:More Christmassy but maybe, maybe that's where we should, we should end it on something actually, you know, useful rather than, you know, a teddy bear going crazy.
Speaker B:I'm going back to this track.
Speaker B:My first MP3 player.
Speaker A:Maybe, maybe that's a good place to.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:No, I think that's, that's really true, actually.
Speaker A:And I think the, the opportunities for AI to, to transform the landscape of medical in the future, it should be something that's hugely important to everyone.
Speaker A:So, you know, let's, let's hope so.
Speaker B:And I think also we're fearful sometimes of the worst case scenarios with AI, but there's also.
Speaker B:If we can use some of that processing power to help us look at climate change or drug breakthroughs, then that's exciting as well.
Speaker A:There we are then.
Speaker A:Okay, well, I think that's probably a wrap, guys.
Speaker A:I just want to say Merry Christmas, but I've actually finished my glass of, you know, fake mulled wine.
Speaker B:Merry Christmas.
Speaker C:We're almost done.
Speaker C:All of us are almost done.
Speaker A:But we'll, you know, we'll be back in the new year with a new episode.
Speaker A:We're going to take a break over Christmas now and then.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll.
Speaker A:Well, we'll see you all soon.
Speaker B:We'll return with the cheerful one on death.
Speaker A:Sounds good.
Speaker B:Happy Christmas, everyone.
Speaker C:It'll be dry January.
Speaker C:We'll be feeling like death anyway.
Speaker C:It'll be a good one.
Speaker C:Well, thanks, guys.
Speaker C:Have a merry Christmas.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Merry Christmas to you all.
Speaker A:Yeah, Merry Christmas.
Speaker A:Take care.
