Episode 9
Gadgets, Game Dev, and Generative Overload: A Post-Christmas AI Check-In
In this New Year catch-up, the AI Evolution crew dives into their post-Christmas tech hauls, from the quirky Rabbit R1 to a game-dev fueled Steam Deck.
They unpack the growing friction between playful AI experimentation and the creeping flood of low-quality generative content. Is the AI bubble about to burst in 2026? Are vibe coding and agents actually useful yet? And why does human-made content still matter more than ever?
Tune in for a relaxed but insightful conversation on where AI stands, and stumbles, at the start of 2026.
Transcript
You know, at this time in the world when anybody can create any sort of video using AI and everything. And I'm like. Because the connect. That human connection is becoming more and more important all the time.
And, you know, for businesses and people who, you know, it's why we get together and we do this show together.
Alan King:Well, hello and welcome back to AI Evolution. Dave and Ben are here. We've had a little break over the Christmas period, I'm pleased to say.
o we've been doing this since:I think we can be quite pleased about that. Guys, what do you think?
David Brown:It's amazing.
Ben Harvey:It's done quickly. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
David Brown:Yep. Happy New Year, everyone.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, Happy New Year.
Alan King:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Happy New Year to everyone, of course. So we're going to get for a few different subjects today.
t do we think might happen in:I. I keep being reminded of the RM song, you know, the line, it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. I'm just kind of hanging on.
Ben Harvey:Great songs.
Alan King:Yeah, it is a great song.
David Brown:Yeah.
Alan King: 's gonna be my theme song for:All right, so look, why don't I kick off with the gadget section and then we'll go around the room so you see what you guys got up to over the Christmas break as well. And then we'll get into the kind of the future of AI as we are AI Evolution, after all.
David Brown:Sounds good.
Alan King:So I'm going to introduce something which I think you probably are expecting me to introduce, and I've talked about a lot last year, but never purchased. I'm sort of waiting for Christmas to arrive.
David Brown:Hey, there it is.
Alan King:There it is.
Ben Harvey:Want to come and have a play with it?
Alan King:Those not watching, it's the bright orange rabbit, R1, arguably the most pointless gadget I've ever owned. Also one of the most fun gadgets I've ever owned. And I'm going to explain. But first thing that says, look how orange it is. It's unbelievable.
So this was designed by Teenage Engineering, who they do make lovely, lovely kit. Actually, if you look at their kind of synthesizer stuff and music stuff, it's really high end.
You know, you're going to pay like, you know, £2,000 for some kind of drum machine or whatever. So this, this is, this is incredibly well made.
Looks like you would expect it to be cheap, light, plasticky and feel like if you dropped it, it's going to shatter. Not a bit of that. Absolutely beautiful screen, actually is surprisingly good quality.
It's weird because the way they've done the OS on it is very minimalistic, yet when you do get it to run video and various things, you go, oh, that's, you know, this screen's actually really good. I mean, it's not iPhone quality, obviously, but, you know, it costs 120 pounds, so why would you buy one of these? Would I recommend it to anyone?
The short answer is no, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone because it's too quirky. So.
So the person that buys this needs to be the kind of person that in the 90s bought MP3 players and spent hours working out how to get video to play on them, right?
And likes fiddling about with technology, likes to experiment, doesn't mind when things don't work, doesn't mind when things are buggy, finds that whole journey enjoyable. Which is exactly why I bought one for my son as well.
So we both got one for Christmas and you know, he's loving it, he's playing with it because it's an opportunity to explore, try and fail, try again, do different things. What I've worked out is use cases really isn't what the company is trying to sell as they're trying to pitch this as the next thing right in AI.
And it clearly isn't going to be that and it clearly, you know, is a million miles away from that. It's also not a serious platform. Like, you know, if you look at it, think of it in terms of enterprise ridiculous.
And what is ridiculous is on their website they've got this functionality about building these large action models and almost enterprise style activity. Their pricing for using their models to build vibe coding activities is almost enterprise pricing as well.
Although at the moment they have got it on an unlimited usage, you know, within the standard subscription. So I've been making the most of that.
But the point being is that they seem to be targeting this at a much higher market when actually what it really needs to be is a consumer product aimed at probably teenagers and below and techie, nerdy, geeky people like me who just want to muck about and play with something and have some fun. Because actually what it's really good at is building very bespoke little apps.
So I've built all these little apps in it that for example, one would be like music player. So I go into it and it plays music videos, pulls them from YouTube, but it only pulls videos from bands that I like.
And I've specifically just told it, you know, here's a list of 100 bands I like. Randomly pull up 10 videos every time I open this app and allow me to choose, pick one and play it. It's great.
I use it all the time because it kind of takes away that, that mental processing. What should I listen to next? I'll just open this and there you go.
he options was I could play a:If you plug it into your AirPods, it's excellent. It's surprisingly good at a lot of speaking.
So that sounds like a bit of a sales pitch for you, but what I would say is there is lots of fun to be had. It's very usable, it's very flawed as well and so expect problems.
But you know, if you're up for, up for a bit of a laugh, then I couldn't recommend it enough, you know, so there you go.
Ben Harvey:One question around it. So you've got two of them, obviously. Can you, can they interact with each other in any way?
You know, like when you put two iPhones together, they kind of send information. Is there anything like that?
Alan King:Yeah, well, so out of the box, no. However, me and Albert have managed to build a walkie talkie app which allows us to turn into walkie talkies.
And you know, because it's using, because it's got 3G in it, right. You know, I could be 10 miles away, I could be in London and we can walkie talkie each other using the R1.
So in theory there's a lot of things it could do.
I'm, I'm going to try and look into building like a kind of texting app so I can text him and stuff like that, you know, so it's all possible as long as you can set up a third party server somewhere that you can both connect to and Then effectively it's running through that and interesting with the walkie talkie one. Having done that, I was expecting the lag to be quite significant, you know, because it's got to go come back. Not, not a bit of it.
There's hardly any latency at all. I mean there's a tiny bit but not much and certainly not enough to make it a problematic problem.
So, so yeah, lots of little fun things like that you can do and explore and build and also obviously there's a big community have built up around the Rabbit in Reddit and online and you know, on the Internet in general and you can find lots of apps that people have already built that you. All you've got to do is scan the QR code and boom, there it is, it's on the Rabbit, ready to go.
David Brown:So, so you've basically built a Star Trek communicator just in a big form.
Alan King:Factor, big orange form factor.
David Brown:Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what you've done.
Alan King:Yeah, that's great.
Ben Harvey:Does it need a SIM card like for the 3G?
Alan King:For the 3G, yeah, yeah.
So I just got hold of a sim card from EE, you know, pay as you go, one with you know, 100 gig on it, stuck it in and that'll probably last me a year at least, you know, because it's not using a lot of data because even when it pause video and stuff, you know, it's very low res versions in the sense because it's, it's not doing hd, you know, it's a small screen. So I, I expect that to last long and of course a lot of the time I'm on WI fi anyway right next to my WI fi, so.
But for 120 pounds, which is what they are at the moment, honestly an awful lot of fun for not a lot of money. And you know, like I say it's, it's no, it's not a solution to anyone's problem or AI workflow or anything serious.
But if you just want to laugh and a bit of fun with your kids over Christmas, you know, and you're quite a techie sort of person then, then why not, you know. But there we are. So that's my first gambit for today, the rabbit R1. Okay, we'll go around there.
I've got one more actually, but we'll go around the room, see what to see. Anything caught your eye or purchased over Christmas that was interesting for you guys?
David Brown:Do you want to go, Ben?
Ben Harvey:Well, yeah, I didn't get anything AI specific But we bought a Steam deck which is like a portable gaming platform for my son and why it doesn't have any AI in it. He's downloaded a game called Arc Raiders which is really big at the moment.
And he started looking at the AI physics of how they do the drones in it and the enemies.
And he's just saying that he's really, really got into using Unreal Engine and creating games with AI and he's always got chat GTP on the side saying how do I do this, how do I do this?
And it's amazing just that whole workflow of him creating worlds and starting to learn, you know, the physics engine and how things interact with AI and how the enemies move and all that sort of thing. And he's downloading templates and tweaking with that. But he's got two or three things going on at once.
There's no one tool he's using, he's starting to use two or three tools and ChatGPT is just on the side to as a tutor almost that you know, simply a tutor to help him learn game development or you know, Python.
And so that's been an interesting development and I get, I guess he's a bit older now so he is starting to take an interest in creation as opposed to just consuming really well.
Alan King:That's what I liked about the rabbit was the vibe coding aspect of it. You know, can sit there and create his own programs, they could be games would be built, chess, you know, all sorts of things.
And so with the Steam deck then it's is how, how is that connected then? How does that. What, how do you get the, the programs into this, into the, into the, the platform?
Ben Harvey:It's yeah, it's a bit like a mini Xbox really. You know, just a portable one and it just uses Steam.
You know, got any games on Steam automatically you can download them onto it and just take them with you. So interesting enough though, it's actually a wrapper on Linux. It's not even. Or Linux however you say it, it's not even, it's not even a PC.
So whereas everything else, you know, all the games are PC only but somehow they've managed to create this non laggy version of Linux that has a wrapper for, for Windows games.
So it just be cool but yeah, but the, it's less the AI on the device and more that's inspired him to do look into how the characters are using AI and how they're different for each game. And then he's starting to try to do A bit of game development around that.
So it's not a direct device or a fun toy that has AI baked into it, but it's inspired a sort of a journey into using AI to develop.
Alan King:And so I think there's an interesting opportunity there, isn't there, for Steam Deck and for other, you know, manufacturers of platform game gaming platforms is to build that kind of vibe coding in. One of, one of the good things about the Rabbit is you can say to it, you know, I want you to build this for the R1. And it builds it.
And because, because it's inside the R1, it knows its interface, it knows its screen size, it knows, you know, how the controls work, how the buttons work, everything's connected straight out of the gate. So if you had a steamboat and it was baked into it and you could just say to it and describe.
Ben Harvey:What you want, make it social and.
Alan King:And it was building exactly for that platform and the controls, that would be just great, wouldn't it?
Ben Harvey:And I think it's why Roblox was so popular because they have allowed 8 year olds and 9 year olds, I know they're meant to be 12 to be on there, but it's created this sandbox, AI driven game development that kids can just create games and they can do really well at these game creations. And it is that social aspect and then, you know, it's definitely not the best physics engine, it's not the best game development, but doesn't matter.
It gives people a step on the ladder to tasting it.
And I think that's kind of what you're hinting at, you know, and, you know, compare it to the Raspberry PI which we got a couple of years ago, hardly ever used because, you know, my son can't find the HDMI cable or, you know, a portable monitor or, you know, it has to be plugged in. So it just doesn't have that ease of portability and social aspect which, which is what you're, you're sort of aiming at really.
Alan King:Yeah. So I actually thought about getting the Raspberry PI for Albert as a Christmas present.
And it was exactly those reasons, this kind of friction that's involved in doing anything. I thought, you know, he's going to get probably a little bit frustrated quite quickly and then just switch off from it.
Which is why I went up with a rabbit because I thought, well, even though it's buggy and problematic at times, it is definitely less friction and it's sort of more immediate and should keep him engaged a bit, a bit longer. So it's interesting to hear he say that and I still might when he's a bit older, think about the raspberry PI.
But I, I sort of feel like he probably needs to be maybe sort of 14, 15 to. And really want to get under the hood, as it were, to get the most out of it.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:Yeah, for sure. Right. I'm playing contrarian role today. I feel I went decidedly analog and I got a new watch for Christmas.
It doesn't even have a date complication on it. It's literally just a plain, you know, diver sort of tool, everyday wear kind of diver watch. And it's amazing. I love it.
And I, I got to the point where I have a smartwatch. I've had a Samsung smartwatch since they came out because I really liked the form factor.
I liked that it was round and it had the kind of, you know, the clicky dial on the top to go through the menus. I've used it for all of my training.
You know, it, it tracks my steps and my heart rate throughout the day and I, I still wear it at night to track my sleep because it tracks for things like AFIB now and all sorts of heart conditions and things that might creep up and all that. And then my blood oxygen percentage, which is horrifically low. Sometimes it gets down to like.
I think it got down to 76% one night, which is really bad. They're like, if it's under 94, you should go to the doctor.
Alan King:76.
David Brown:Okay. But. But again, I, I wear it for that. But I, I started to get this feeling like I was just. It was like I felt like I was a slave to it almost.
And then it's like I had to wear it because it was gathering all this data and all this stuff that I, you know, wanted for training and everything. And I just, I kind of got to the point, I'm like, do you know what? I just want something simple and something plain and so. Yeah.
So analog watch for me this year. We didn't do anything particularly kind of techie at all this year. We got loads of actual physical paper books and things like that.
So, you know, not even stuff on Kindle, which was. Yeah, it was quite interesting, but, you know. Yeah, it was low tech for me.
Alan King:It could be a thing, couldn't it? The kind of low tech Christmas, you know, sort of. Yeah, why not? You know.
David Brown:Plus some.
I work with all the tech, you know, in the studio and stuff all the time and working with AI tools and, you know, video and editing and audio and all the other stuff and you know, stuff that we've talked about in the past, it's like I'm still working with AI all day, every day and it's almost like I've kind of got to the point where I don't want it in my personal life as much because I use it all the time and, and I find, you know, I think we're all starting to find what it's really good to be used for and what it's not, I think good to be used for, which is, is going to get into what I want to bring up in a minute. But, but yeah, it's, it's on a personal level. I'm, I'm sort of stepping back a little bit, but again, I'm fully into it for my work because it helps.
Ben Harvey:Agreed. I've. I've stopped wearing my watch as well. Partly it started because it, I broke it.
The face of it had a bit sharp, but I didn't like the constant messaging. I know you can turn that off.
David Brown:Yeah.
Ben Harvey:But I, I just felt a bit trapped by it. I just felt like I just, I just wanted, you know, I have enough of that with my phone. I have enough. But. So I'm the same with the watch.
But it, it wasn't, it wasn't a moral reason. It was because I broke it initially and then I felt I quite liked it after a few weeks and then.
David Brown:You'Re like, oh, this is amazing. It just tells me what time it is. That's all I need to know.
Ben Harvey:I just want to get myself a Swatch now.
Alan King:Yeah, I mean, look, it's interesting because I mean, I often have this sort of joke with, with, with Emily, my wife and so say, you know, when I retire, I'm just going to toss my MacBook off the pier, you know, and that's it, I'm done. Just switch off, delete all my accounts.
And there is a big part, I mean, quite like, you know, and actually one of the weird things with the little rabbit over Christmas is that it doesn't do email, you know, it doesn't do text, it doesn't do social media, it doesn't do any of that stuff that sucks you in. So when I do pick that device up, there's never a kind of work related aspect to it.
It's just, I'm thinking about this for fun, you know, It's a bit of fun. That's it. You know what I mean? I quite like that.
So, so the other device I got over Christmas is another pair of Glasses, bit like these, except they're actually low tech actually when you think about it, because all they do is have a screen right inside them. And so when you put them on, you plug your iPad or your phone or whatever via a cable.
Remember those straight in to the glasses, which means they don't need any batteries, there's no charging, there's none of that. Exactly. Very analog actually. Plug it straight. And all it does and does, nothing else is give you a cinema size screen to look at basically.
So whatever is on your device is mirroring on a cinema size screen. So you put your AirPods in, you put on a movie you like or a TV show, you sit on your bed, you know, and there you are, you're at the cinema.
It's very good. I mean they're made by Xreal, they're the Air 2s. I think Xreal just announced a new, a new pair at CES this week which are even better.
I think they're due out in February so I might take a look at them when they come out. But, but the reality of these things are that is they're a toaster. They just do one thing.
They're not trying to be, you know, VR glasses or do lots of other stuff. It's not AI, it's if you want to sit down and watch a movie.
And at night, in the evening when it's dark and you turn the lights off and you stick these babies on, honestly, it's like, wow, okay, that's pretty cool. Like your entire wall, that's cool. Looks like a screen and it's, it's very immersive.
I've been watching like foundation on it, you know, sci fi stuff and. Yeah, this is great. I love this.
And, and because they're only a glasses form factor, they're not particularly heavy, you haven't got this big thing on, you don't feel locked. Yeah, yeah, it's not. Yeah, yeah, really good. And you know, again, price point decent, you know, 180 quid. I think something like that.
We got them sort of Black Friday deal. I actually bought them a while ago and then put them away for Christmas as a Christmas present. But you know. Yeah, honestly, yeah, why not?
If you, if you're into, into your cinema, you're into movies, then you know, I, and you want that in your life, then I definitely recommend it. You know, it's a lot of fun. So.
Ben Harvey:You'Ve hit on another sort of point of friction really because the only thing I use less than the Raspberry PI is my Meta quest, you know, just have it. I just. Yeah, it's just, it's a nice thing like at parties when you want to show off a. But that's it, that's it.
Alan King:The beauty of these things is that they're a normal pair of glasses size. They get a normal glasses case. You can just chuck it in your work bag. You haven't got a charge yet, right?
So if you just find yourself in a hotel room one day and go, oh, do you know what, I might watch something. They're just there ready to go. You know, there's no, there's no prep required or thought needed. They can just live in your bag basically.
And then when you fancy or you sit on a train, you think, you know, I'm just gonna watch Nikolai's on the train where you go, you know.
David Brown:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds cool. And that's bleeding into kind of normal tech.
But on that same sort of thread they've started coming out with motorcycle helmets with heads up displays inside them now.
And because I, I ride a motorcycle like I don't even own a car, I just have a bike and I there, there was, there has been sort of one helmet that they were playing around but now showy some of the. And, and I think roof maybe be another one who have come out with them and they seem to be really starting to take off.
So it's literally inside the visor there's a little section and it shows you your speed and it can show you Google Maps. So it basically connects to your phone so you can see a miniature Google Maps, you can see your speed.
And then it can also do stuff like if someone calls, it can tell you who's calling and all that sort of stuff. And then it's, you've got all your helmet and your mic, sorry your speakers and your microphone wired into the helmet already.
So everything's pre installed. So once you put it on, it's got everything built in.
, I think they're still about:So they're quite expensive compared to an average, you know, not the cheapest helmet, but an average motorcycle helmet runs about 300 pounds.
Ben Harvey:Okay.
David Brown:So you're, you know, you're 4x the price of a normal helmet helmet still. So they're quite pricey. But I'm hoping that over a year maybe the price will come down a little bit and then I can kind of justify having one.
But I think that would be really cool to have a heads up display. Then you can sort of feel like a fighter pilot when you pulled over.
Alan King:On the side of the road. You could stream movies in it as well, wouldn't it?
David Brown:Yeah, yeah, well you could probably do that anyway.
Ben Harvey:But yeah, and also, yeah, I guess you can change your music and all that sort of thing through it as well.
David Brown:Yeah. So I mean and they have loads of kit now that you can do that.
And a lot of the bikes, like the BMW bikes in particular and I think some of the Kawasaki, the more touring type bikes, you can actually control all of that through your dash. Yeah. So it, it has basically your car link that connects to your phone just like it, you know, like the Apple car, whatever it's called.
And, and yeah, so it does all your maps and you know, your Google maps and your sat nav and all that stuff all goes through your display and you can control everything from the display or you can, you know, again, this is why I want to get to that point where I have an AI assistant and then I can just talk to it and it can just do stuff, particularly on my phone, which is probably why I'll stick with Google and I might go to a Pixel next time instead of a Samsung because it's much more tightly integrated and if I can just say to it, hey Google, can you change the song and play different playlist?
It can just go into my YouTube music and just change it and play it and you know, then when I'm on the move I can literally have it, just change it and you know, I can, I can hear it and hear different stuff where I can answer the phone or do whatever if I wasn't shot. And I'm gonna have a camera as well. So I'm getting a, a little like a GoPro. I'll probably get the DJI like Action 5 camera.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:I've got the mount for my helmet now, so I've already got that set up. So all I'll have to do is connect it to the front.
I'll do it on the mouthpiece and it will literally be like eyeline view of riding and that'll be connected into us into a microphone on the inside of the helmet. So I'll be able to vlog while I'm on the bike as well, which will be quite fun. I'm looking forward to that.
Ben Harvey:Are you going to have it? Sorry, you can have it pointing towards you or pointing onto the road.
David Brown:Well, I'm going to have it pointing onto the road and then I'll do that at first.
And then what I could do is if I really want to get into it, if I like it and I find that I'm doing it and I like it and I can get it where it sounds okay, I'll probably mount a rear facing GoPro on the top of my, on the top of my windscreen and then I can have a view looking back at me as well. So then I can cut the two angles in if I want or I can play around with, you know, doing fun angles like connecting it to the rear axle of the wheel.
So you kind of get the road view.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:From low and all that, but 360 camera or get one of the 360. Yeah, yeah.
Ben Harvey:So they automatically remove the pole on every. All the.
David Brown:Yeah, they do, yeah. So that would be quite fun. So yeah, look for that as well. But you know, that'll be a, that'll be.
Again, it's not strictly AI, but it is, it is new tech and that'll be fun to play with.
Alan King:I didn't know that about the polish. I always wondered about that when I used to see People's360. I thought they must be of a pain to edit afterwards.
David Brown:But yeah, it, it automatically recognizes it. Yeah, and takes it out.
Alan King:There we are. Well, okay, so shall we move into. I suppose that was the, the aperitif or whatever you call it. And we'll move into the, to the main course.
but why don't I kick off with:What do we think.
Ben Harvey:Was the one. One of the valuations again yesterday doubled for one of the.
I can't remember which company it was, but I just saw someone talking about how, you know, last few months they've just doubled the valuation.
And I know we've talked about that graphic before where, you know, Nvidia putting money into open AI who are put, you know, it goes around in a circle, everyone's putting money into each other and you sort of like, yeah, it's interesting but you do look at the figures of like the amount of subscribers, say open a heart. I has.
And it's been the quickest, you know, accelerated graph of almost any signups and you just think, okay, there is obviously the market there, but for what they're spending, it's, it's hard to see that sustained.
Alan King:They are losing market share quite quickly now. I saw the stat yesterday saying that I think Gemini is now about 25 of the, of the market.
And you think back to maybe even six months, a year ago, it was way lower than that. It was sort of, you know, 5 or 10% or something. So. Well, I suppose that's expected.
I mean it's like Tesla car sales, aren't they as a market percentage, you know, plummeting. But that's because other, other manufacturers are getting into the game of course. But I wonder whether the big boys really care if the bubble bursts.
I think it will almost do them a favor, you know, because overinflated evaluations are probably not good for anyone in the long run anyway. And also the company that's really going to get damaged by this will be OpenAI because they're a one trip pony.
You know the, the Microsoft's, you know, the Googles, they're so big, they've got so many other services and products that this is just one thing and they'll be, they'll be absolutely fine. OpenAI on the other hand, you know, that could be the thing that, that brings them down and also maybe anthropic.
Although as I understand it, they're very heavily backed by Amazon so perhaps they would be okay.
Ben Harvey:There's been a really big push socially at the moment for Claude as well. I've just seen, I don't, I don't know why but it's just been particularly in the vibe coding space. It's just been really, really pushed.
But I think the difficulty is beyond enterprise and the person at home. Nobody wants more than one subscription. Like no one.
You know, I think a lot of people that I know that aren't, you know, work for themselves or you know, smaller companies, they have one subscription and they've gone on to open AI because they found it so useful and then they've run out of credits and then that, that's how they've got onto it. They have but they're not enterprise or corporate users. So I think that market is still going to be there. But I think yeah, definitely.
Like, I mean Google has so, I mean this is so Google isn't, they have so many tools, you know, but they're, they're all in different places and not, you know, together. And so you know, I'll use LM or I think it's a fantastic tool but I don't really use some of the other Google tools.
Which are just as amazing because they're, you know, they're different places and I think which is classically Google really.
Alan King:It's a really interesting space, isn't it? Because Google kind of don't really resonate in the enterprise space. It's all Microsoft, you know, in the consumer space.
You know, you've got Apple dominating the phone market to some degree, particularly in America. You know, imagine if, you know, you're talking about the Pixel a minute ago, Dave, imagine if that was sold as well as the iPhone.
Did you know, this would be done, wouldn't it? In terms of consumers, you know, that's it, it's over. Okay. I wouldn't even exist really.
But because OpenAI have sort of made that land grab of being like the Hoover, haven't they? You know, that kind of. It's when people talk about AI, they talk about chat GPT. It's just got that name that now.
David Brown:People, well, they had, they had first mover advantage. They were the first one. And so they, that became, they became the. Almost the Google, right?
Like they're almost the, the descriptor for AI is people just say chat GPT even if they mean clutter and throw. Like that's just become the, the term, the collective noun for AI is, is kind of chat GPT.
But what I see, what's interesting because of that, what's interesting for me is like I've started to use Gemini more. I really like the, the nano banana and some of the video tools and the imagery that comes out of it is much better, I think, and higher quality.
So for a lot of the stuff that I do, I've started really using Gemini more.
The problem that I have is that I've trained chat GPT so much and then I have all of these separate GPTs for different projects that I work on that I've spent, you know, my, my studio when I've spent hundreds of hours training that and it's got, you know, hundreds of documents and loads of feedback and all that stuff that's, that's been trained. And now I go to Gemini and Gemini doesn't have any of that background or any of that training. And it's like I've got to start over.
And so I suspect that they're gonna, there is that problem of being able to move those models to somewhere else and you're gonna get lock in because some people just aren't going to be willing to start over.
And it's, you know, even I'm looking at it and just going, even though Gemini is tied into my business Google account, so it has access to all my company documents and all my emails and all that. Everything right. That it can use. It still doesn't have all the stuff that that is in the chat GPT.
Alan King:I think this is a bigger issue as well for the average Joe project. I mean we're obviously AI heavy users. We're in our own little bubble to some degree in the AI world.
I mean, stop someone in the street and say, well what which AI models do you prefer? They'd be like. And just what are you talking about?
You know, and so I think that the kind of frictionless, whichever models available to them will win.
I mean, do we think that, you know, Gemini is going to become the model that sits behind Apple's products, at least in the medium term, certainly going to be powering Siri for the next few years and other things, no doubt on that platform. So with that in mind, maybe that is the kind of land grab that kind of secures their position and then know what OpenAI have effectively is an app.
But if a user using an iPhone, the average Joe thinks, well actually I can already do this without opening that app just by asking the phone, then maybe they start to do that.
Or maybe people quite like opening apps and just having a particular place to go to do their AI thing, you know, and not not have Siri do it particularly.
Ben Harvey:So as, as yes, exactly the feel I have with, with open AI at the moment, I just like opening the app and it's all there and I can make images in it, whereas I know the Google stuff is better, but I have to go to three or four different websites and I'm never quite sure like how it's tied together.
And there's so many services that are brilliant besides lm, which I, I, you know, I use, which I just think is probably my favorite AI tool at the moment. I just think that having that app and it's all in one place, I just really like that it's.
Even though I know it's probably a bit of a generic, not the best.
Alan King:At specifics kind of tool, the OpenAI app is actually very good. I mean you can see that they're really working hard. I certainly know the iOS app anyway.
They're certainly working really hard to make that like the everything app. And by having an app store baked into the app with all these other services that you can connect it to does start to make it really quite powerful.
And when you compare it to something like Claude's app, which is woeful I mean, look, Claude in the enterprise space is, as we said a minute ago, really popular and I think they have the biggest market share in enterprise, actually anthropic. But when it comes to consumer level usage and certainly iOS, you know, their app is appalling and to talk to it is almost impossible.
You know, you have to kind of keep pressing the button and you can't just have a free flowing conversation. It has almost no other connectivity, doesn't do image generation. There's so many things it doesn't do that you would never really go to it.
And I think that's the one thing that probably OpenAI are now kind of banking on is that even if they haven't got the most advanced model in terms of just straight out performance, that they've got the best platform for them.
Ben Harvey:The best.
Alan King:So it's good, good is good enough for most people and the platform is the most frictionless and easiest place to come to do your AI stuff, whatever that might be. And it's as connected as it can be with all your other things that are going on within, within that ecosystem on your phone.
I think that's probably their play at the moment. So I think they've probably worked out they can outrun Google in the long term.
And look, Google probably can't outrun the Chinese in the long term, can they? You know, so.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, yeah, no, it was interesting about the Manus thing being, you know, moved to Hong Kong so it can be purchased as well.
That's, that's an interesting development that, you know, some of these Chinese AI companies are now being looked to be bought on the international stage. That's, that's an interesting development as well.
Whether, whether that will actually happen and the Chinese government will allow that will be interesting. But yeah, it's a story.
Alan King:Christmas that depressed me the most actually was Manners being bought by Meta. As soon as I saw that, my heart sank. I. Oh really? He did things. And I think it's got really good intelligence.
I think head to head when I've put it up against Gemini and Claude on a straight out, you know, deep research project, it's, it's, it's better in most instances. In fact, I'm not going to say it's as good as it outperformed it in most instances.
You know, there are some occasions when the others gave me a better output, but mostly I would say seven or eight times out of ten I'd look at the minus one and go, yeah, that's the one I'm going to use. You Know, it's, it was, it was really good. So, yeah, the thought that matter because what, what are Meta even doing in this space?
You know, and actually Manus as a product, I, I don't see what the fit is with what they're doing, you know, deep research system and then, you know, Instagram, it's kind of like, where's the Venn diagram here of these two products? You know what I mean?
Ben Harvey:And I just, yeah, it feels like a panic buy. Almost like, you know, I don't, we don't know what to do with it, but we need it.
It feels, you know, we're going to buy it before anyone else does type.
Alan King:My worry is that he'll just strip it.
It was just basically strip the assets, take the, you know, the, the people that work there, basically an aqua hire, you know, and say, hey, you know, you're working on that Deep research stuff. Guess what we've got lined up for you now. You know, Instagram come. Come and develop that with us, you know, and I just.
David Brown:But I mean, if you look at the data that they've got, they've got really like access to a massive training set that they could really use, you know.
Ben Harvey:True.
David Brown:And so, you know, if they're looking at a tool and they're saying, right, we need a tool that's, that's fully built, that we can then literally plug into all of our data and let it go and train itself against that. Then, you know, that then becomes maybe more interesting for them to have a tool that's sort of specialized for the type of content.
But then again, you just get total shit on Facebook and, and I mean, Instagram is, you know, now, I think Instagram reels, I would shudder to think how much of the, the reels are probably, you know, AI generated. I have some stats on YouTube, which we'll talk about in a minute and, and some thoughts about where I think it's going to go.
But, you know, we're getting more and more and more and more AI content being created and that's going to, that sort of poisons the well also. So, you know, it's going to be.
Ben Harvey:I think, yeah, we've circled around this topic for a while.
Alan King:I think if the approach from Meta is to allow the Manus team to crack on and here's a, here's a load of extra data you can train with and make, make your model better, then brilliant. My worry is that Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to do that.
He's going to try and repurpose it for his, his aim and his needs or, you know, Instagram's needs, you know. Yeah, WhatsApp or whatever. And, and, and unfortunately then we'll see the kind of brilliant deep research tool just kind of fade away over time.
I hope that doesn't happen. But why don't we talk about the video stuff then? Because that's a good segue, Dave.
David Brown:Brilliant. So the Guardian on the 27th came out with an article talking about, they did some research and they found that more than 20.
So just over 20% of videos on YouTube are AI.
Ben Harvey:What do they mean by that? Do they mean.
David Brown:Well, they're defining that as specifically as AI slope as well, which is the.
Ben Harvey:Video is generated by AI as opposed to just they've used AI to generate.
David Brown:The script, the videos. Yeah, the video is generated by AI and it's literally there to be a click form.
So it's, it's not particularly creating anything of any value, it's just there to generate views. And. They surveyed 15,000 of the world's most popular YouTube channels, the top 100 in every country, and found that 278 of them contain only AI.
That's a very small percentage. Out of 15, 200 is, is not, you know, nearly 300 isn't that much. But the, the bigger thing for me is how much money is involved in this.
So you know, those channels are getting like, you know, $178 million they YouTube paid last year to those channels. And I find it hugely.
And I know I've mentioned that on this, you know, on this show before, but you know, there's nothing I hate worse than like I'm looking up how to do something and then this video pops up and it's just AI telling you how to go through and how to do something in maybe DaVinci resolve or some bit of software or something.
And it's like instantly I close it, I'm like, I have no interest whatsoever in some fake voice that's obviously, you know, been generated fully with AI because the script isn't natural spoken English. It's, it's not even, you know, it's, it's not a well written script anyway and it's a fake voice and it's all B roll that's been created by AI.
And I'm just like, no, I'm just, I'm not participating in that.
And I think the knock on effect of this is now a lot of the platforms are, you know, YouTube is aggressively trying to find those videos and remove them. It is against their terms now. So you're not supposed to be posting these types of videos anymore.
And YouTube, you know, does reserve the right to take them down. And I think they're probably taking, you know, tens of thousands of them down every day, but people just keep putting them back up because they.
They work.
And even in the short term, if they can generate, you know, hundreds of thousands of views, then, you know, they're still getting money from it, and it's enough to cover the cost, because it basically doesn't cost them anything to make it. Yeah, but I think.
And there are some other tools that are coming out that are specifically designed to identify AI content and content that's been also modified using AI, even small bits of it, so that they can, you know, start to weed these out at the upload level. So part of the analysis process, for example, on YouTube could be that it actually determines whether your video is AI or not.
And it just won't even put it on the platform, which I think it probably wouldn't be a bad thing either. But it just. I think there's starting to be that little bit of pushback, which is good. And I'm starting to feel that, you know, people.
Yeah, there's tons of funny reels on.
On Instagram that you see, and, you know, you get bears jumping through bathroom windows, chasing deer, and, you know, kids petting bears on their front porch and all. Like, there's all kinds of crazy stuff. And some of the stuff with Trump that's come out recently about Venezuela and that sort of thing.
Absolutely comedy genius. And.
Alan King:But.
David Brown:But the subtext to that and, And I think some of that stuff is fun, but the subtext. The subtext to that is, is, you know, what separates that from somebody creating a video that's just slightly off.
And it's, you know, it's just a very slight modification of something someone said. So if Trump says, you know, I support Israel, and how difficult is it to say, I do not support Israel, right?
And slipping just a tiny little bit in that no one would ever notice. And it's those little things that I think over time, that's where we're really going to find a problem.
And I think as we go through:And again, when we talk about this next year, I suspect that, you know, part of this conversation may be, you know, some of the platforms have taken some big steps to really try and, and weed this out. You know, and maybe that starts with journalism and it starts with your news sites and it starts with those sorts of things.
But, you know, I do feel like there is a little bit of a growing. Finally, there's a growing worry about some of this content.
Alan King:Sorry, Bengal. I suppose the question would be, is, is this any worse than anything we've seen in the past?
So if you go right back to the printing press, you know, when that came out, you know, everything that was printed thereafter wasn't always truth, was it? You know, with people with their own agendas and lies.
You look at the, the newspapers in the UK currently, you know, they're blatantly writing, you know, just mysteries and lies the whole time. You know, we've seen it on television, we've seen it, you know, in, in film and cinema, you know, in all sort of forms of medium radio.
Everywhere, you will see lots of people misrepresenting and mispresenting information. And of course, we're going to see that in AI.
So I suppose my question then is, is, well, okay, how worried should we be about that and how persuasive is it, and is it inherently more dangerous than somebody reading a newspaper?
David Brown:And kind of.
Alan King:Because we've sort of got. I wonder, I suppose, I wonder if people, like with newspapers, who I pick up, you know, if I go and pick up a tablet newspaper, I'm looking.
Okay, well, that's probably nonsense. And do you think that people will just become conditioned with, with video AI just kind of looking. Do you know what? It's saying that.
But that's probably not true, actually. That's probably just somebody making it.
David Brown:I think the difference is, up until, what, probably two years ago, if you saw a video of someone standing up in front of a crowd, talking to the crowd, you could, with 99.9% certainty, think that that's exactly what happened. And seeing the video, you're like, okay, that's what that person said to that crowd at that time. That's no longer true.
And yes, okay, yes, technically, there was probably the technology to do it. You know, you could do.
Alan King:Well, I mean, something. There was no AI in that. They just edited smartly.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was.
David Brown:Yeah, yeah, and I, I get that. But even still, like, you know, there's an edit in there, right?
If you see it visually, you know, there's an edit in There, because it was a totally different part of the speech. So you're going to see a jump cut and you're going to see that. That's a different part. If you hear the audio, that's different. I totally appreciate.
And I appreciate what you're saying. I think the difference is, is we've been. If you're going to watch a film, you expect that to be fiction. So that's one thing. Yes, we've seen cgi.
We know, you know, there are no superheroes and people don't fly and all that sort of shit.
But watching something on the news, or you seeing a clip of something that happened that was purportedly real life, or, you know, you see someone in a fire, or you see an incident that happens where a car drove into a group of people or something like that, you're like, that was recorded and that was. You know, we were certain that that's what happened, but we're now in. We're now in an era where we don't know that that's what happened. And.
And 98% of it may be accurate, but that 2% of it that's been changed could completely change the entire meaning of what happened at that event. And we have no way of knowing whether that's true or not. And so that. It's that last piece of truth that. That I think that we could hold on to.
We can't.
Alan King:Changes. Isn't it, really, that you wouldn't necessarily spot. But do you think people just.
David Brown:Yeah, that's what I'm worried about.
Alan King:Not.
Not this year, not next year, but say, 10 years from now, people have just kind of learned to recognize that actually we shouldn't trust anything we see whatsoever on any level.
David Brown:I mean. Yeah, that's. And that's the bad part. Right. So we're now back to a point where.
Ben Harvey:Very postmodern.
David Brown:Unless. Unless you're at a political rally and you're standing there and you're listening to the candidate yourself, you're not going to.
You can't trust what any. What. What anyone says happened, because you could, in theory get three different videos of the same speech that say different things.
Alan King:If you go and ask 100 people at that event what that candidate said, they'd probably give you a different answer each as well, you know.
David Brown:So, yeah, you all get slightly different versions.
Alan King:You can't trust yourself, you know.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, but I think we. I mean, we talked. We touched on this in a previous episode where we were a bit defensive about people calling AI videos AI slop.
And you know that there's some good stuff in there. But I think you're right.
The now when you have AI auto generating the script, auto generating the voiceover, auto generating the clips, it's, it is becoming, it is like I've, I've changed my mind on it. That, that I don't want that, I don't want to see that. I don't want it, you know.
But interestingly, I, I saw someone on LinkedIn the other day saying they got a proposal rejected because the company said there was too much AI in the proposal. And he was like, well, of course there is. I'm a one man band. If I spend four days writing a proposal, I don't get paid for that.
And it's generated an interesting discussion around what is a good use of AI and what's a fair use of it.
And I think it's really difficult because like if you're going to create a YouTube video and you're not particularly gifted at writing, but you've got great ideas, then you can help. You know, you can get a script written quite well and then you can change it to be your voice.
And I think it's where we draw the lines on these things. And I think when you have almost like an automated process, someone says, create me a channel, churn me out 15 pieces of content.
And it's, it is almost just like a server farm of, of slop. Really is. I mean, I don't like that expression.
But, but it, it degrades all the other content, even content that's been AI has been thoughtfully used to make better and being a partner in the process as opposed to just go off and do this. And I think that's the difference to me.
David Brown:Yeah, and, and I just, I was just looking for the name of the company. So there's a company called inception point AI and they're the ones who've created 3,000 podcasts a week using AI.
So AI Auto generates it, they auto do the voice, it does everything. And they have 400 million subscribers.
Alan King:Let's get on that guy.
David Brown:No, sorry, no, sorry.
They've got, it's 400,000 subscribers so far, but, but again, it's former Amazon and Wondery executives who are setting this up and they're just crying, churning out content and people are listening to it. This is the, this is the thing.
So at what point do we want to, I mean, maybe some of it's useful, maybe they've got one or two that actually really generate some interesting stuff and it's really good and tons of it will be total rubbish and, you know, not worth listening to.
But this goes back again and it's something I've said before and I will continue to say, which is, you know, people ask me, why have I opened a studio? And you know, at this time in the world when anybody can create any sort of video using AI and everything? And I'm like, because the connect.
That human connection is becoming more and more important all the time. And you know, for businesses and people who, you know, it's why we get together and we do this show together. Do you know what I mean?
And we have a human conversation because I think that us being real people still and will continue to set us apart from a lot of the other content that's being created as well. And it's.
Alan King:It.
David Brown:Humans are going to become a niche and we're all going to become really expensive. And if people want real humans to do stuff for them, it's going to, you know, it's going to become really, really expensive.
But, you know, in theory, you'll get better content. It may not be more accurate or whatever, but it will.
Alan King:Maybe we need to make this.
Ben Harvey:I don't know.
Alan King:People know we're not editing. Although after the microphone incident earlier, maybe that's not.
David Brown:No, but that would have been totally fine. Again, that's. This is the thing. And you know, I, I totally agree. I. I think live.
I think live broadcasting and live podcasting and that sort of thing is, Is probably the way forward for that exact reason. And you can say, look, you know, people call in or you know, ask us a question while we're broadcasting and we can answer it real time.
And then, you know, but at some point somebody will create an AI that can do that as well. You know, like.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, you know, I think when you get to the point where it's AI is just doing everything and it's interacting with each other and it's like, there. Yeah, just. It's. It's a step too far.
David Brown:Yeah, I still want an AI assistant.
Alan King:Might be standing in the field of my own slightly about this when I might. I'm pretty relaxed about the whole thing. I just sort of feel that, you know, what humans have been.
And I still stumble at the idea that it's humans that create the slot, not AI. You know, the AIs aren't waking up and just doing themselves. The humans are prompting them. But, you know, the.
I suppose I just feel that humans for, for, you know, let's take music for the last 20 years have been musically producing slop, you know, videos they've been making. I mean, it just feels a continuation of a very long trajectory in art that we've already been on.
Here's just a new shiny tool to do it at scale that we couldn't do it before, almost, but which, you know, I'm hoping at some point, what happens is, you know, and back to your point that, you know, people value reality, authenticity and reality, that it finds its level, you know, that people stop watching these videos and stop clicking on them and actually start clicking on the human ones, and so they become prioritized by the algorithms, and it just kind of finds it somehow balances, you know, I mean, hopefully, you know. Yeah, maybe it won't.
So, speaking of something that's not AI slop, and I'm going to use this as a sort of weird segue, but either of you two fans of the program? Father Ted, Catholic Priests. Very funny. So I was watching an episode of that over Christmas, as I want to do sometimes.
It's a bit of a favorite of mine.
There's one episode in particular where it's about the European song contest, and the main character's Ted, who's the sort of the older priest, if you like, and then the younger priest, Dougal, are trying to make a song for this. And so they're trying to. They're sat in their bedroom and he's got the keyboard, and Dougal plays a note and Father T goes, oh, I like that.
And then you see the clock wind forward about 20 hours, right? And then the room's full of smoke and they're still there, and Ted's just looking at dou going, just play that effing note, you know, and it.
And as soon as I watched the episode, I went, that's what vibe coding feels like. You know, you first prompt and you go, that looks quite good.
And then two hours later, for God's sake, like, you know, it just won't change the little things that you need to do to make it actually work. And I thought, yeah, maybe I should post it up as a kind of, you know, as an analogy for vibe coding.
me something that's useful in:They're a good demo in principle, but the moment they hit the real ones, they just kind of go and disintegrate. What do we think Ben?
Ben Harvey:Well, I've created apps that have been useful for myself that haven't been out there. So for me, I love fiber coding, but even. And I have a bit of programming background.
Not huge, but I certainly know the principles and I can tweak other code that's been written and I, yeah, I love it, but it is frustrating and I think like all these things, generative video, generative imagery, it's initially, you think it's going to be a lot easier than it is and then you hit the walls, you hit the uncanny valley, you hit lip sync issues. It's the same, it's the same process. It's, it's not easy. None of it's easy.
You have to become proficient at curating and directing something and that's not an easy process and you have to change your mentality. But I have still created useful apps that I use. And my nephew created a really cool photo app.
It's taken him months to do and he's had the same problems, but he showed it off at Christmas. And my son then started immediately trying to do an iPad version with chat GTP and got quite far in a few hours sitting on the sofa with him.
And it's, I love it. I think it's absolutely brilliant.
If you are, you know, late teenager, young twenties, you've got a creative spirit and, you know, you want to tinker. I mean, you can just create so much and it is frustrating.
But that's part of the fun of it, I think if you change your mentality from like, I'm gonna sit here and say, create this act golf and do it and it's gonna be perfect as opposed to, this is gonna be a process of me learning how to interact with a large language model. This is, you know, a process, me learning a bit of programming so I can tweak it and I can look at the security of, you know, it.
It's more that it's not a, a one sort of prompt miracle, I don't think. I mean, maybe it will get like that, but I think then you're missing out some of the fun of it as well.
David Brown:I, I think having a little, again, a little bit of suffering knowledge myself as well, I find it quite funny because the irony behind it is, is that if you, if you want AI to create some code for you, you have to very specifically define what it is that you want that code to do and then it can write it for you, right? Yeah, but writing code is very specifically designed telling the computer what you want the computer to Do.
So it's, it's only one step removed from actually. Do you know what I mean? It's, that's what code is, the writing.
The code is very spec instructions telling the computer what you want it to do, just at a level of detail that most people aren't able to, to recognize. And then of course, there's the syntax around it. So it is like knowing French or German or.
So it's another language that you know, but it is defining at that very minute level exactly what you want that behavior to be and how you want it to work.
So I think, I suspect that, and again, I've said this many times, but I suspect we are going to come up with eventually a very specific tool that will be very good at doing that, but it will be very good at doing it for software engineers.
So your regular everyday people, I think, are still going to struggle because most people don't have the vocabulary and the understanding and the knowledge to describe in enough detail what it is. They need the thing to build to get what they want, and it's never going to work because they just.
There's so many things to consider that people just don't have any idea. And yeah, you're right. I think it's a bit of fun.
But I do think for actual software engineers working in big engineering firms and stuff like that, or that are building, you know, big tools, I think if they need a specific function and they want to, you know, they know exactly how to define exactly what that function is that they want it to do, then I think it could be really good for that. And I think it's also probably AI is very good at refactoring old code, so you could give it some old code and say, here's something I've got.
Can you make this faster and can you make it more secure and can you make it work better?
And it might be able to go in and rework code that it's already got because it has that detailed instruction to start with, but on a general scene, yeah, I think it's just a bit of fun for a normal everyday person.
I think I would struggle, even with a little bit of software knowledge, I would struggle to make something that actually worked and work the way I wanted it.
Alan King: ean, I think beyond that, for:But I think for the next five Years, you know, in terms of meaningful use of vibe coding in, on scale anyway in industry it's going to take actually skilled people to, to use those systems to get the most out and make them actually work. And same with agents really.
I think the agent thing as well is, is something that ultimately eventually AI systems will but it's sort of detail and drive themselves a lot more.
But at the moment, you know, if you want something that's going to be robust and, and work in the real world and stand up to you know, stress testing then, you know, and other threats and attacks, then you're going to have to have some very skilled people working to develop that. I think I don't. You can have a complete novice just chatting to a system and expect it to be deployed and everything's going to be fine.
Ben Harvey:Yeah but where I think, I think it really stands out for the younger generations is how old do I sound? But it's an accelerant to learning.
If you want to do programming and you want to do development, you want to do software, you can just accelerate that process so quickly and if that's your passion. I've just seen this, I mean you've probably seen this with your son.
I've seen it certainly seen it with my son and some of my nephews is they are making stuff and they have an interest in learning the languages and it is, accelerates their, their learning by, by tenfold I would say. And I think that's a really interesting. Yeah, it's like almost like you learn by doing and then you have to fix so you have to.
It forces you on a journey but I can't remember who someone really big in the AI scene said recently the next major programming language is going to be English.
Alan King:Well or the native language whichever country you happen to be in. Yeah, yeah yeah I think that's true. Yeah yeah yeah, yeah it's logical. Right.
David Brown:I'm, I'm conscious of time.
We're at an hour already and I have one non AI related topic in question and just to throw in very quickly just to get your thoughts on it if you don't mind.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:I don't know if you saw the article lately but.
And I'll find a link to it but basically a 23 year old woman has, is now in the process of being trained to be the first human to go to Mars and it's a one way trip. So I was just curious to know what we think about that.
Alan King:She, she a healthy person. I mean, okay.
David Brown:Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben Harvey:I mean Pioneer Is she?
Alan King:It would take a lot. As you say, it's a one way trip. So, you know, there's not much glory in it because once you go, you know, that's it.
You're kind of cut off from humanity anyway. So any glory that you might gain from going is.
David Brown:But someone's got it. I mean, someone's gonna have to do.
Alan King:Somebody who at some point, five year diagnosis or something, you know, and it's like, well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm also going to play as a glory or something. But yeah, or somebody is insane as Elon Musk. You know, maybe we're just going to.
David Brown:Go, yeah, or, or it's somebody, you know, I think, I mean, she's 23. How long is it going to take to finish that?
Let's say, let's say seven years of training and who knows before you know how long it's going to take to actually create the tech to, to get a human there alive. So that's a whole separate thing. So we, we could be still looking at 20 years down the road before she actually leaves.
But it's, you know, I've been asking everybody, you know, sort of taking an informal straw pole like, you know, would you do it? And you know, what, what do you kind of, what were your thoughts? And, and yeah, it's been, it's been quite interesting. So I saw you shake your head.
No, Ben. So I assume. Yeah, yeah. You're not, you're not down?
Ben Harvey:No, no, I'm a bit claustrophobic. So being in a rocket for however many months wouldn't suit me.
David Brown:Yeah.
Alan King:Or a spacesuit even cope with being in sort of weightlessness for that, that length of time. I mean, seven years.
David Brown:I mean, I think they, well, but again, you're not coming back to Earth, so you've got different considerations. But I assume that, yeah, you know, they've had people on the space stations and stuff for ages, so I think they're pretty good at understanding.
But again, that's low Earth orbit, that's not open space. Right. So there's, there are other considerations.
I also assume that probably what they're going to do is send a ship maybe six months ahead of her that's going to go and land or we'll drop some supplies and stuff down. So she'll have like a hab unit and stuff. And it could probably just build itself once it hits the ground.
It could probably build a, you know, some sort of place where she can stay and live and have shelter and that sort of Thing, but like Martian.
Ben Harvey:Have you seen the film?
David Brown:Exactly.
Alan King:And you get really bad toothache. What are you going to do?
David Brown:Yeah, exactly.
Well, yeah, I just, I, I find it, I think it's really cool for me as a person that hopefully I'll live long enough to be able to maybe see that at least to see her leave.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:You know, and, and we are, humanity as a whole is in the process of actually sending a human off to somewhere like that. It's, and look, I don't, I don't care. If I was young and I was single and I didn't have a family and everything else, would I do something like that?
I probably would.
Alan King: no human feet on Mars before: Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:Okay, you heard it here. Yeah, no, I agree.
I, I think, I think there's a lot of challenges just in the technology of the ship and actually being able to, to get someone there and to get feet, boots on the ground. I agree. I think there's, I think there are a lot of technical challenges to do that. But you know, who knows?
You know, people talk about, you know, get actually getting into open space and the radiation and all that.
And if, if, if the astronauts really did go to the moon then, you know, actually we have, we've proven that you can go and sort of be in a capsule and open space and that was basically a tin can. Yeah, like that's ridiculous. The, the, you know, the, the space, the ships that they went to the moon on.
So if you can go to the moon and you can do that, then you're fine and you, you should be able to go to Mars. It's just, can they do something that's big enough and has enough, you know, sort of propellant to, to get you that far and then.
Yeah, anyway, I just thought it was.
Alan King:Really interesting at the moment we might all be queuing up actually to get on that rocket in 10 years time.
David Brown:Well, this is the, yeah, exactly, exactly. This is what my wife said. My wife said everybody will be ready to escape by then.
Ben Harvey:So, but imagine in terms of not only the difficulty in going through open space and the, but the psychological impact of living on the planet on your own. That obviously that's the, a huge thing to consider as well. Great for introverts.
David Brown:Yeah, exactly.
And I, I, and again they've done so much Testing with like people in the deserts and all that sort of stuff with, you know, preparing for this for a long time. So I think they, they probably have a really good idea of the personality type that it takes and stuff like that.
But again, I think if, if, if you were in the, you know, if, if your point is, is that you're going and you're doing this for humanity and because there's explorers that do crazy stuff for decades and they've gone off alone and they've been alone in wilderness and they've been alone and you know, basically were one way trips that they knew they were probably not going to come back from.
Ben Harvey:Yeah.
David Brown:And people have done that forever. So it's not from that perspective. It's not that unusual I think for a human to do it. It's just, it was just interesting the timing in that.
It's, you know, that it's happening now and, and maybe, you know, we have maybe AI and some of the tech that we have now is enabling us to, to be able to do that in some sort of way that's possible.
Alan King:The shame for it is, you know, someone like Armstrong, you know, comes back from, from the, from the moon and then he can dine out on that for the rest of the, it's life. But with the moon you don't get to do that. It's not the moon. With Mars you don't get to do that.
I think there'll be plenty of people, you know, in a population billions who'll be up for it, you know.
Ben Harvey:Yeah, yeah.
David Brown:And they probably send a couple after that, you know what I mean, or something. And you send a couple of people and. Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Ben Harvey:And people love to be the first, don't they?
Alan King:Yeah, yeah.
David Brown:And that's.
Alan King:Sure, I'm sure at some point Elon said he would go. So we're all kind of, you know, keeping our fingers crossed.
David Brown:Maybe it's another one.
Alan King:Well, look, maybe, maybe we'll wrap up. I've got one last thing just to finish.
I'll probably keep it fairly short because it's too controversial, but you know, the world order, we have mentioned it a couple of times. It's hard to, to not think about that, isn't it? And you know, do we, do we think this affects business?
Because I was walking the dog this morning and I was just thinking, you know, if I'm a company right now, am I just looking at the state of the world and just thinking, do I want to invest heavily in anything at all given what, what's happening sort of globally or do I just kind of hold back for six months and wait and just see how some of this stuff plays out?
Do you think we'll see a bit of a kind of economic pause or do you think everyone's just going to plow on regardless and particularly around AI development as well? Do we think that that gets kind of held back in any way or people just crack on?
Ben Harvey:I think it's a strange set, set, you know, setup at the moment because you've got, the pace of change is just, you can't keep up with it.
You know, something new every day in technology, AI, you know, even the Atlas robot came out at C, you know, CS last week that the rate of change is, is logarithmic and at the same time business doesn't have confidence and it's a really weird mix. It's like obviously people are spending on, you know, Nvidia chips and cards and AI and technology.
But my feeling for certainly in the uk, business wise people don't want to spend money. They don't know. There's not confidence in what's going on.
You know, you've got massive things going on around Venezuela, Middle east and I think there is just a, you know, possibly a sit out and wait on a lot of other non tech businesses.
I don't know what you think David, with your, your businesses, but certainly there is a, there isn't a huge amount of cash flowing around business at the moment and people don't seem to want to spend. So I think you got two, two things going on there.
David Brown:Yeah, I, I broadly agree.
t people seem to have is that: ms to be like fully on it for:I wasn't as involved as I could have been. I'm going to change that. I'm really going to get stuck back in and I'm going to start doing stuff.
So I, I think at least in this first few weeks of the year people seem to be very bullish and, and quite active and really trying to get out there and do stuff now.
Yeah, of course, you know, and the UK has its own struggles and we've got all the taxes and everything else that are coming in and, you know, you've got. Your business rates are going up and it, it's going to be very challenging for, for small businesses and stuff.
But I think it feels to me like people are a little bit more optimistic maybe and, and at least, you know, a little bit more nose to the grindstone this year. So I'm hoping that we'll, you know, that that will have some impact and we'll all get stuck in and actually try and get some stuff done.
Alan King: t we're going to have a great:And look, let's, let's look forward to the next podcast, which I think we're going to cover. Quantum AI and fusion.
David Brown:Yeah, let's talk about quantum kind of.
Alan King:Perfect triangle, if you like, or virtuous circle of the. What would happen if we had all of those three things together? And what, what, what could that possibly create? So we'll, we'll clear into the future.
Future a bit with that, but other than that. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Ben.
Amazing to catch up and we look forward to, I should say to the listeners, actually, please do reach out and contact us if you have any questions. We'd love to obviously take those questions into the show and give you responses.
So I'd love to hear from people and yeah, till next time, thank you very much and goodbye.
David Brown:Bye Bye. Bye.
Alan King:Sam. Sa.
