SIliconsciousness: Why Do People Hate So Many of AI’s Moguls?

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I've got to tell you, like, I'm hearing about them having these, I think someone told me it was 13 degrees today, and yesterday I went to the beach. Oh, okay, that was entirely unnecessary. Sorry. My wife teaches at the other university in Cambridge, and she was there the past couple days and has to go back to the next couple, and she is not happy about it. Because she said the snow was also up to your shoulders, the snow banks inside it's true. Well, you are in California, that's a sign of wisdom in many respects. But before your good luck with weather was traveling with you, because you went to Davos last month. And one of your reports said that it was comparatively warm. It was about a month. It was, it was, it was maybe a little bit troubling even the, you know, because the entire Western United States has been having a big snow drought this year, and apparently the same thing has been happening in parts of Europe. I mean, as we're seeing at the winter Olympics too, but there's there, when I was there, they hadn't had any snow in quite some time. It was due to a, you know, some sort of warm, unseasonably warm, front warm wind blowing through called a phone. I believe it's pronounced. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. There, thank you. And it's usually response, it's famously responsible for putting everybody in a bad mood. And apparently it, it blows down into Munich. They, they complain about it. But did you find that the folks in Davos were in a bad mood when they were discussing AI as compared to Trump? Because the stories I've all seen, and the folks I've spoken to suggested a Trump with people in a bad, there was, I mean, there was an enormous amount of, there was enormous amount of stuff about Trump going on sort of back channel. It was the, it was the second thing everybody talked about, you know, the first thing being like, sort of a, a, a, a taking stock of how important the person I'm talking to is. And then the second thing was, was, was, was, would, would be, would be usually often in the Trump. Well, I noticed that actually. You, you talked about the color of your badge. And there's a Davos, I went to Davos for many years, and I hosted a lunch there every year, sort of with yours. But you know, if you walk around, you have a bad hanging up, you know, and it's the first thing people look at before they determine whether or not to speak to you. And I felt that I felt that I said, I now I know how Dolly part in me. So it's the first thing they would do is look at my chest. And then they would just, but it was, it was, it was, it was really interesting. I mean, there was, it was, I felt like there were, there were moments when things were very nakedly about sorting, status sorting, you know, in ways that, that I'm just not, not, I can actually, but then to you, I don't know. I mean, I know that you're normally humble guy, but one of your columns, there was this great little reference to you sitting next to a woman from California. Do you want to recount that? Because I thought it was, for sure. Talk about status sorting. That was pretty good. I was chatting with this woman. And I mean, just sort of casually, we didn't know each other. And we were both putting snow boots on and getting ready to go outside. And she, you know, we just, you know, struck my conversation and, you know, where are you from? Oh, you know, I'm from San Francisco. She's like, she says something along the lines of like, oh, I live in the Bay Area part time. I have a house there and in New York and in London. And then says, but I'm getting ready to sell my place in the Bay Area because of the new tax laws and the tax law, which may or may not, you know, go into effect, would only affect you if you're a billionaire. You know, so this was a subtle way or an overt way of making sure that I understood that she was a billionaire. Well, the three homes were a pretty good giveaway. But I look at the program, even before I looked at some of your reports. And A, I seem to be like a major theme there. And you did three panels, at least three panels, I think, in a year or a day. Three panels on AI that were actual world economic forum panels and then a fourth one at the AI House, which was a sort of an industry, you know, trade group set up place to talk about AI and what's coming. And, you know, I assume there's some selection bias, but it was also the thing that everybody wanted to talk to me about. And so, you know, first give the top line vibe report. I would definitely characterize it as a optimistic vibe. I mean, the, you know, more so than you hear. This is a very, you know, obviously this is a very business friendly crowd. And there was a lot of talk about optimization, a lot of talk about the ways that it's actually being integrated into the workforce, into the workplace, I should say. And there were a whole lot of, you know, a whole lot of actual on the ground examples of the way people are using it in their enterprises, which was interesting to me. And there were a few, you know, a few things that I took away from it that I found really, like, like, like really profound. Like there was a, the CEO of a company called HIPAA Cratic AI is one example, was talking to me and a panel about the way that they used his software, the city of Houston, was in Houston, to make thousands of calls, you know, simultaneously, to do a wellness check during a big heat wave. The type of thing that you would have had to bring in an army of people to be able to do, you probably couldn't realistically do it, you know, you know, on a, on a, on a fast timeline. But, you know, it was like one of many things. And then there were quite a lot going on about, you know, a genetic commerce that was, I know, which is, which is on our, you know, our list of predictions this year as well. But there was just, there was just a whole lot about, you know, the way that we're all about to shop online is going to change. It's something that I've been hearing quite a lot here. And people were excited about it, you know, there were, there were concerns about what it's going to mean for, for, you know, for brands and retailers. But, for the most part, there's excitement. What I didn't hear very much about it all, this was surprising to me, given the setting, was anything on AI safety or anything on, you know, on these, the environmental consequences of AI. In fact, at one point, a panel I was on, some of the audience said, you know, why is there nothing, you know, this was the climate change conference a few years ago, we don't have anything on the environmental footprint of AI, this whole, the whole forum. Why is that? It's a similar, like a fair question. Well, there was also an answer, which was, the forum was bending over backwards to Trump, to find themselves. I think there was, so that there was, you know, they, famously, God, rid of a lot of their environmental stuff and kind of, well, gush stuff, but, you know, for, because the, and the forum started in 71. So, for the past X number of years, it's had this strong sort of Euro lean towards community concerns and so forth. And then I think there was a swing away from that. But it was interesting to me as a kind of a subtext. And from what I've read, and I'd be interested if that's your view, you know, when you talk about AI a lot in Washington, where I have the misfortune of living, you know, the people are like, they're talking about AGI, they're talking about, you know, this kind of holy grail of, of, you know, the AI that takes over the world or this villain of the AI that takes over the world. When you talk to people about AI in Beijing or Shanghai or in Xinjiang, they're talking about applied AI. And it sounded to me like the, the subtext of Davos was a Chinese view of AI. It's like, are we using it? What is the application and what less on the other side? That's, you know, I would say that's fair. At least from what I experienced, you know, I, I won't purport to speak for the entire conference because there was way more happening than I can keep up with. There were, I mean, there were 40-something panels where AI was discussed. I could have gone to nothing but AI panels and still not seen all. But from my standpoint, I think that was what I encountered. Including among, you know, European CEOs, it was more practical nuts and bolts, how are we putting this, how are we putting this to work? And it was, and I say, and I, by the way, I call it European CEOs because I think it's a more, you know, measured place in terms of, in terms of embracing AI. I also, you know, tend to view some of that American obsession with AI and superintelligence as a, you know, as a sales strategy. I had someone, I had, I had an executive in AI company of, say something to me, probably four or five months ago now that I have not been able to get out of my head, which he was, he was talking about, he was talking about AGI and he didn't, he didn't think it was, we were, he didn't think it was a meaningful word that, that, you know, that actually, you know, get someone to define it, get someone else to define it, you'll get two different definitions. But his point was, he said, you know, for the big, especially for the places that are doing frontier models, AGI always has to be six months to a year out because if it's, you know, any farther out than that, you're not going to be able to recruit people from Jane Street to come build it. And if it's any closer than that, like, what's the point? You know, if it's already here, what's the point? I was like, yeah, I mean, and I do think that there's a, you know, a, you know, we're always on the cusp of AGI and we're never going to hit it. But if we can have, you know, just another few data centers and, you know, some more capital, we might be able to get a little bit closer to it. Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, I mean, you do this all the time, my people go to the technology review page, they'll see that a high percentage of the articles are AGI. But I, you know, based on my experience in reading what you guys are doing and reading what you read, it does seem like there's certain guidelines for a panelist who's on a panel on AGI and one of the panel guidelines, which seems to work in almost every case is to reject the terminology of it. So you said, well, I don't like calling it artificial intelligence or I don't like the use of the word intelligence or I don't like the use of the word agent tech or I don't like the use of the term AGI or you know, and, and you start from there by sort of denigrating everybody else's point of view and then go on and say, however, my point of view, my, my lightened point of view, is something else. Call my wife. Calling UK wild life. Voice assistance not working for you. Black Rock investment trust has a lot working for you. Get to know them at blackrock.com, capital at risk, marketing material, black rock investment management UK limited, authorized and regulated by the financial conduct authority. This podcast is underwritten in part by the US Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. Its editorial content is completely independent and the views expressed are exclusively those of participating experts. It is presented live without editing. For further information about the UAE's efforts in the areas of artificial intelligence and technology, go to the website of the embassy at www.uaedashembusy.org and search for UAE-US tech cooperation. We thank them for their support. We thank everybody who's supporting this podcast for their support and we look forward to it developing and growing over time because the issue is so important. There was actually quite a lot of that at the forum. There was a panel I was on called the Intelligent Co-worker, which had of course been programmed by the forum itself when they've been in together. Literally every single panelist started off by saying, you know, I really don't like the word co-worker. Then some even took issue with the term agent on another panel I was on. People were talking about the problem with using the word, you know, ethical AI or the term ethical AI. I think we're still in a, I mean, so I hope it's not just us that technology review, but I think we're still in a state where there's a lot of disagreement about what it even is that we're talking about. When most people when they talk about AI, they're only even talking about a very small subsection of it or I shouldn't say small, but a, you know, a subsection of it, they're talking about generative AI, they're talking about language models, you know, they're talking about chat GPT and they're not focused on, you know, the stuff that we refer to as machine learning forever that, you know, maybe is in some ways more applicable to more people's lives and that it's helping figure out and has been for a while how much you pay and you're monthly insurance bill or, you know, all kinds of, you know, whether or not you're going to get alone all kinds of things. Well, to the last point, what is the correlation, and by the way, you guys probably could do a good chart on this, but what is the correlation between certain terms and what people can raise money for from Wall Street? Hmm, that's a great question. I mean, I do think that having, you know, generative somewhere in your name right now is a bit, is it helps. To your point, a reporter who I used to work with, who's now out on his own named Alex Cantrowitz a number of years ago, he did this really smart thing that I thought was great. He went and he looked at the prevalence of AI in annual reports, you know, and this was this was before chat GPT launched. And there was, you know, there was a hockey stick moment with it. And it wasn't because so many more people had adopted AI all of the sudden, it was because it was, you know, you wanted, you kind of wanted to have an AI strategy and AI something answer to your shareholders. You know, and this was, this was starting probably 2015, 16 somewhere in there, you know, 10 years ago now. And, you know, these terms, it's true, these terms, they come, they go, you know, I mean, to take machine learning, everybody was talking about machine learning a few years ago, you never hear anybody talk about machine learning anymore, the machine learning companies are all now AI companies. Well, and I think that's right, I think a lot of people who followed casually and maybe people who are listening to this podcast or follow your great publication, you know, they're more sophisticated, but many people might think that vocabulary follows the science, but actually the vocabulary follows the money. And that, by the way, it's true in Washington, you know, if you were going to do anything in Washington, between 2001 and 2011, you had to use the words War on Terror. You know, if you put War on Terror into it, you could get billions of dollars for your budget. Well, now of course, if you did that, that wouldn't get you anywhere. Now you have to use the term AI. And, you know, you saw every panel is, you know, I mean, you've done panels with us here in Washington, every panels on AI here in Washington. But having said that, there's also a lot, you know, there's this kind of palpable anxiety. Well, the bubbles gonna burst. And I say this, by the way, on a Monday where there was a big boost today. And I saw that the CEO of NVIDIA passed the CEO of LVMH's. It's the world's seventh richest man because AI had a big bump today. But there is this kind of nervousness. Was that a subtext at Davos like when's the bubble gonna burst? I honestly did not encounter that. And again, it may just been the conversations that I was having or who else having the conversations with. It was surprising. It was a very optimistic set of conversations I had. And again, you know, I don't want to represent the conversations I had as being comprehensive. They're just the ones that I did. But I spoke to just a large number of people about it. You know, I did hear a little bit of employment concerns. And what are we gonna do about that? And what are we gonna do about intellectual property concerns? There's good bit of both of those conversations, which were a little bit more of a rational or at least. You mean labor market dislocations related to AI? Absolutely. Yes. And also things about how are we going to protect our intellectual property from these large companies that are you know, you did do a panel that was kind of creative. Panel, if I recall, they wanted the AI house, right? And when I talk to people in the creative sphere, you know, they immediately get a clove of garlic and a cross and a wooden stake. And they're like, AI is coming to get us. It's an, do we, we're getting a little bit more of an open view that this was going to be helpful, creative. The panel I did was with Duncan Crabtree Ireland, who's the SAG after a negotiator. And so he was, I mean, who I've spoken with before, he's really smart guy who, who I think understands the way things are changing now quickly, they're changing and is doing what he can and what they can in order to sort of make sure that they are best positioned for what's to come. So, you know, it certainly wasn't a thing where he's like putting his fingers in his ears and, you know, shatting la la la. It's a, it was a measure discussion, as one of our clients say. I think a realistic discussion. If I may, though, something I was thinking about with that discussion was yesterday watching the Super Bowl, you know, there was one beach, you had a TV at the beach. No, no, no, that was before. That came later. I said, the beach is just, you know, quarter mile from my house. It's where we walk the dog. But, yeah, the, you know, there was, there was a, there was a, at least one entirely AI generated ad. The ad for the, the, the, the, the spirit, the vodka or gender, whatever, the name, the name is, the name of the name. And there was another that I didn't see because I believe they only bought time in some local markets. But that was entirely AI generated in a panty in five days and for something like $60,000. And to me, like, if I was working in, you know, any number of creative fields, like that, that, that was, that would be troubling. I mean, the, um, the idea that you can produce a 30 second ad for, I've gotten it's $40,000 or $60,000, which ever, I mean, that's just ridiculously cheap compared to what people normally pay. And it's, it's going to be, that's going to be a problem for people working in visual effects. It's going to be a problem for people who are, you know, who, I mean, you think about the however many hundreds, I think there's 200,000 or so people in SAG after. I mean, I would guess a large number of them are commercial actors. Um, it's going to be, it's, it's, I, I had a feeling yesterday sort of like, this, this, this is happening sooner than we are prepared for. Um, and I do think the labor market disruptions are something that we are not sufficiently ready for. Well, I also got from reading what you were saying, uh, it, it, a sense, uh, uh, you know, all the panels that I was on and, and for many years or cherished, I was, you know, you'd get CEOs talking about a smart thing because they thought this would, you know, help them with deals or raising money or whatever. And almost always they were saying, uh, well, I believe in what's good for the world, but we're going to cut our workforce to 20%. You know, it's like, you know, this, this can help us save money. And, and presumably, or at least I picked up from what you were writing, that that was a subtext, too, that CEOs view it as a path towards improving productivity saving money. So that's my, that's my, that's definitely my take and not just from Davos. Um, you know, that's, that's, you hear about boosting company productivity, uh, boosting efficiency. And there's a, there's a real strong subtext to that, which is that we don't need as many people doing the things that we have doing them today. You'll also hear CEOs say, publicly, oh, well, we're talking about boosting productivity for everyone, you know, like everyone is going to become much more productive, and the company is going to be, you know, doing, you know, 10,000 different things. But even take one of those ads yesterday was the, um, uh, I'm blanking in his name. He was in the office, uh, and he was, there was an ad where he made, you know, like a hundred clones of himself. Well, you know, I, I just, I, I have a hard time believing that if you can get one person to do five people's jobs, that the other four people's jobs are still going to be safe. Yeah, no, I, I think that that's true. Was there any of the kind of AI evangelism that we hear where people, you know, get on stage and famously go, well, yes, it's going to have dislocations. But there'll be new jobs. We don't know what they are, but don't worry about a thing. Yeah, there was a, there was a, a small hint of that, in, in the first panel I was on. Um, I, I, I was listening to, uh, you know, the CEOs of, of Phillips and Aramco and Visa and Accenture talk about how they had, you know, how they were bringing AI into their workplaces and becoming more productive and able to do more things and able to cut down in time. And I, I wish I, I wish I'd, I wish I'd had an extra half hour on that panel, honestly, I wish I sort of wish I could have dug in a little more, but there was, I, it was my impression that some of the things that they were talking about, um, could also have the, especially when Visa is talking about it into commerce could also have the effect of, of having disruptions on, on workforce. Now also Accenture. I mean, the core business of big consulting firms is to do a deep study and then find a way to adapt it to 200 clients. Right. Which is what AI is really good at. So presumably, a lot of those bright young minds that are out there persuading corporations to make the switch may find it's a double-edged sword. Right. Yeah. I believe I even, I'm trying to remember, I think I read something about one of the consulting companies having, having sort of having that realization, um, recently. Yeah. No, I, I've, I've talked to some people where that's been the case. You know, when I was looking at the predictions that you guys did, which is a good thing and I encouraged people to go look at it. Um, one of the ones, you know, centered on the issue of regulation. And I thought about Davas because, you know, there is a European view. The European view is, we're skeptical. You've got to protect the consumer. Consumers got to opt in. We're going to actually regulate. And there is a, kind of a Trump administration view, which is theoretically a light touch, but it's actually not. It's actually sort of picking winners and, um, and, and so forth. But it's, it's a different approach. And then there's a Chinese approach, which is everything is for the state. Did you get a sense that this kind of regulatory tug of war over the next couple of years was going to intensify or be a potential issue? Did, uh, and going, and some of that was in the intellectual property discussion. I was talking about some of which I, I can't really get into, but there was, uh, you know, there are quite a lot of very powerful large companies who are concerned about having their lunch eaten by, you know, the likes of, of, uh, open AI or Google, um, who I think are going to do what's in their interest, which is, which includes regulation, pushing for regulation, to try and protect that. So I think there's going to be some of that. Um, I also think that based on just the, the labor disruption conversations that there is going to be a realization at some point that we've got it, that there has to be something regulatory about this, uh, because society, if we do start seeing serious, you know, changes to employment, um, is, is going to have to react. But I also, you know, my, this is just stepping back, my personal view, and this is as someone who's lived in California for however many years now, I'm covered the tech industry, is that the tech industry is incredibly hard to regulate in the United States and incredibly persuasive of it saying that, um, regulation is going to hurt us in terms of our ability to make these kinds of profits, uh, and, and keep this economic engine alive that drives the American economy. You know, if, if you start, you know, when you think about all the, the, the, you know, the spending on data centers, well, if we start regulating where those can be built, isn't that going to affect the entire American economy? If we're saying the building data centers is what's keeping the economy afloat right now, you know, I don't know. I'm, I'm skeptical of, um, I'm skeptical of the will in the United States to, to, to, to regulate it. Well, and I, you know, there you have a good article in data centers just now, and, and, and you may want to talk about that. I find the discussions kind of interesting because on the one hand, they're the environmental consequences. On the other hand, a lot of politicians are saying, no, build it over here. But then when you look at it, the data centers aren't actually creating a lot of jobs. Uh, and in fact, they're going into a lot of places that are kind of low skilled where they'll tolerate anything. Uh, uh, as it happens, my son-in-law is a movie producer and he produced a movie at Sundance. Just came out this year. Very nicely reviewed movie called Union County about a Southern County in Ohio, where there was a big oxy problem and an opioid problem. And the movie is about the opioid problem. But as a consequence of this, every time I see Union County in the news, I, I look for it. And the past couple of stories I've seen about Union County, which are sort of Southwest, Ohio, it's people are building data centers here. You know, it's, it's, it's sort of going to the rustiest part of the rust belt. Um, I, I, I, I mean, you're writing about it. What's, what's your sense of where this is all taking? Uh, I think you're correct. I mean, the, the, and, you know, there's even, they're much more likely to be built in, uh, communities that are economically disadvantaged, that, that are, you know, black communities versus white communities. I mean, just, they're, they're all sorts of structural things that are happening to make it easier to build those places or easier for the companies to get them built in those places. Um, we put, we put the hyper scale data center on our list of 10 breakthrough technologies this year because it's, it's, it's truly a unique and, and interesting thing. It's, you know, you get these thousands of chips working in concert and, you know, they've got there, they're, you got to have specialized cooling systems. You've got, you know, we're talking about moving power systems behind the meter so that we, you know, because they use so much energy. They're remarkable and people hate them. You know, people hate them. I mean, like anything where you've got Bernie, Santa, you got, Sanders and DeSantis both are, are like, sort of anti-data center and they're, they're not, you know, I focused in on the story that I wrote on Georgia because it is, you know, a lot of the places where they're pushing back so hard on it are, um, are, you know, our, Trump counties, it's a purple state. Um, and you've got a pretty unified opposition to it. You've got the, you know, the environmentalists who don't want it to go in because they're, they're concerned about, you know, uh, where the power is going to come from and the water, the water stuff maybe is probably overblown, but, uh, and then you've got people who are just like, I don't want to see my rates go up and they, and they know their rates are going to go up. I don't want to hear it. And they know they're going to hear it. I think you're on to something big here and I'm looking forward to the special issue of the MIT technology review on this because we're, wherever I'm going these days and I'm like, you know, I'd like to think I'm a fairly balanced person with views on AI. All I'm getting is some arrange of views between skepticism and hatred and how dare you bring that up and it's from the left, it's from the right, it's from young people, it's from old people, it's from corporate people, from creative people. And part of it has to do with the fact and, and I, you know, as much money as the AI community has spent in Washington and it's now starting to spend in states and cities across the country as we've been working on. The, the, the, the reality is, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the face of the AI industry is also the face, you'll forgive me but pick up on Senator Ossoff's term from the weekend is also the face of the Epstein class. You know, this is Peter Teal and it's Elon Musk and it's Mark and Driesen and it's Mark Zuckerberg and it's, you know, and they're like, well, I guess when they're not like raping little girls, they're inventing AI, you know, this is Daribor and and I'm just, it's, it's, it seems to have metastasized to me and I'm just wondering, do you think I'm overreacting? No, I mean, well, first of all, let me just put some distance between myself and your remarks about raping little girls in a sinister included Peter Teal. But, uh, okay. Well, Peter Teal, Peter Teal is not involved in doing that. Peter Teal is, as, as out they're saying, make one wrong move and the anti-Christ will get you. So, well, the, the, I, but I know, I think you're, I think you're right. I mean, like, who likes these guys? Nobody likes these guys. Like, like, like, there's no Steve Jobs of the, of the tech industry today. There's nobody who's like a dynamic person who people gravitate toward. I mean, the closest that we have is maybe Sam Altman, right? And, and, and, yeah, well, I think, like, Jensen, Jensen, Juan is not quite as bad as the rest, right? I agree with that. I, and I agree he's a little bit popular, but I would also guess that most people don't know who he is. And most people, when they picture like a tech billionaire, they picture Mark Zuckerberg who's sort of a fundamentally unlikable person. And he's, you know, now he wants to build a data center the size of Manhattan in, in, in my backyard, no way, you know? And, uh, I think that's a problem they've got. You know, I think they've got a problem that people are also increasingly aware that while it may benefit those handful of, of, uh, billionaires, you know, after construction is over, they're going to be going to be a dozen jobs in this place. And that's, you know, and why do I, why do I want to support that? If I, if I'm, I'm going to go back to something I wrote again, this, this, this piece about the, the, the folks on data centers in Georgia, um, you know, one of the things that it reminds me of is the Google bus boycotts that they used to be here. Like, and I think the data centers is physical manifestation of a technology, the people are uncertain about, you know, they don't, they don't, they don't really understand how it's going to benefit them. Maybe it's cool to help me, you know, look up some stuff and get my homework done and, you know, and even planification or whatever, but like, you know, overall, like, I'm, I'm not sure that that's really worth my job going away. Um, and there's this real anxiety about it. And you can't, you know, you can't stop Google, you can't stop OpenAI, but you can stop their data center. And that's, you know, and that's, that's something that I think people are watching on to. To AI, NIMBY is, it's AI NIMBY is for sure. Yeah. That's, that's an interesting thing. Okay, we could go on and on. I love talking to you, but we could go on and on, but let me go back to one more thing because you mentioned it earlier and it, it also ends up in your list of predictions, uh, and it's slightly more upbeat. Um, and so we get in done and up, but it has to do, I mean, the headline and the predictions is chatbots will change the way we shop. And you are talking about that also in the context of what you, you saw and heard at Davos. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that. Sure. And it was also something that we just, we spent a fair amount of time on in our last conference. You know, it's, it's pretty interesting the way that I think that online commerce is about to change. Um, there are, there are all kinds of variations in house network, but let me, let me start if I sort of define what we're talking about. You know, like today you, you might use a chatbot to go shopping and what the experience is you'll, you'll log into chat GPT or, you know, or Gemini or what have you and do some research and it will pull up a list of products and links and you, and you, and you, and it's the same or similar way that you did, um, with a search engine, classically, you follow that link and you go make the purchase. In the last year though, we started seeing agents could actually buy things for you, you know, and this is pretty different. Like you can, you can sort of set up what you want it to purchase, you can give it the power to do so, and it will. And like the, some of the earlier ones of this, they've not worked very well, frankly, like the, um, my early experiences using, uh, using chat GPT to do this, for example, and some other reporters, or so I had similar experiences, it was, it was quite bad at it, but they're getting better. And we're also, so that's sort of on one end of spectrum. Like you can, you can, you can give it, you know, a budget end up end up a list of parameters and it will, it will complete the transaction for you. And the other is the sort of the classic, like it monitors my, my, um, refrigerator for how much orange juice is in there and knows how much orange juice I can, I consume and it's just making sure my fridge is constantly stocked with orange juice and not too much of it. And I think that both of those things are, are really on the cusp of happening. I, I spoke with, uh, I spoke of the CEO of VESO on stage, and I ran Macon or Nene, and I spoke with a, a high ranking mastercard executive separately, both of whom were extremely, um, you know, gung ho about this coming in, in 26, that they are, preparing for it, uh, that it's going to, that it's going to happen. There are all kinds of safeguards that need to put on it. They're, you know, like, how do you, you know, how do you make sure that the merchant, uh, has, uh, you know, has faith that this is actually a customer, they're talking to and not a fraudster. How do you make sure that if the AI, you know, the agent, the agent isn't just buying stuff people don't want, there are kinds of questions to answer, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it is something I think around the cusp of here. I also, uh, was, was, was, uh, in some of those conversations, you know, I was struck by the fact that people are, you know, really not sure what's going to happen to some of these big brands that have been classical, you know, middlemen, you know, like the, if the example, uh, that, that, that came up a couple of times, multiple times, actually, was, was of brands that are like beauty brands, like, like Sephora, where they are getting a product, putting a, you know, big markup on it and then presenting it to consumers, you know, here's our all in one place where you can find all of these things that you need. Well, if, if, you know, through agentic commerce, if I can just begin buying, uh, you know, lipstick directly from Chanel or whatever, uh, that's, that's, uh, right, or the perfect knockoff, right? But I mean, you can already see it on Instagram where they'll come on and they'll say, this is the Rolex, whatever, and it is perfect and it is good in every respect. Then, by the way, it's not a Rolex, but if you'd like to buy it, you know, you can have it. But you could also go in and say, you know, they're like brands, cosmetic brands, like La Mayor, which charged hundreds of dollars for two ounces of something. And theoretically, you could go in with, you know, your AI purchasing agent and say, I want something with exactly the same chemical composition, but not the brand name. I don't want to spend more than $10. Let me know when you found it. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely coming to, I mean, it's, it's, I think it will be really good for some brands. I think some brands, you know, they'll trouble letting people find out about the product, people are going to be able to find it exactly. I mean, it's, it's going to be an uncertain year with all that stuff. But I, um, I do think that when we talk again this time next year, both you and I will have made an agentic purchase. That's my guess. Well, I, I think so. I hope I have to, you know, an army of agents working for me, but I, you know, my, but I just as a, and inside my wife, who's, you know, a professor who teaches cultural diplomacy, but in her spare time, she loves thrifting. And there's this whole thing that happened with thrifting where you could find things for a buck or two and very easily sell them on D-pop or the real real or something like that. And, and open a little storefront and it would print out a label and all this other kind of stuff. And there was an arbitrage because you could then resell that to people who didn't want to go through the work. Well, I mean, you know, if you take the idea behind Google lens, which will look at any of these things, tell you what it is and tell you what it's worth. And then you've looked at, you know, what's out there and what the chart price is and say price me 10% below it. You know, it's going to disintermediate all those people who think they've, they've got this going right. Absolutely. That's a great point. Yeah. Well, I finally would or a point maybe a second. Well, okay, look, I'll take great point. Now, don't, don't, don't, don't cheat me out of this. I didn't go to the beach yesterday. It's freezing cold. I got up this morning and I looked at the little screen that tells me what the temperature is outside. And it said 20 degrees. And then I said, Oh, that's great. And I said, today's low will be seven. And I was like, Oh, this is the bomb. I pointed today. So yeah, yeah, hopefully you get some relief. Hopefully, hopefully, I'll get a little warmer weather there soon. Hopefully, well, hopefully we'll see you soon and talk to you soon. We I love what you're doing. Really admire what you're doing. Love it when we work together. And, and I love talking to your team at MIT Technology. Thank you so much, David. The feelings mutual. And we love working with you guys too. I like to appreciate. All right, well, we'll see you soon, Matt. And we'll see all of you out there sometime soon. I hear it's still consciousness and that our AI energy and climate podcast and that all over the part. So join us there. Join us on YouTube. Bye. Bye. This was Siliconiousness, a production of the DSR network.