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Um, you might've seen some, um, uh, news floating around earlier, uh, concerning next, um, uh, or
this summer's hope conference, uh, and frustration that, uh, the organizers have been having
dealing with, uh, with, uh, AI companies, you know, this is a frustration. I think, um, we're
all feeling to some degree, but in particular, when, um, you're trying to have a dialogue,
you're trying to have, um, um, like a forum, a back and forth, uh, it's interesting to
see their habits. And, uh, this was a study that was, that was published earlier today.
I think it's a study. Uh, it's basically, um, um, this behavior that, um, has been noticed
whenever an AI company is being communicated with. Uh, I'm going to read you, um, a quote
from this, uh, this release, um, in every case when representatives of AI companies learned
that, um, a talk that they were possibly going to give at a conference, at any conference
pretty much, uh, would not be allowed to be a mere unchallenged sales pitch. They became
significantly less interested. And when they learned that they would not, um, uh, that audience
members would be, um, not only allowed, but encouraged to ask questions, the representatives
stopped responding altogether. This happened with each and every company contacted. I just
want to list some of the companies, open AI or chat GPT, Anthropic or Claude, uh, meta,
meta AI, uh, Google, Gemini, uh, Microsoft or Copilot, uh, X slash Twitter, Grok and NVIDIA
with, uh, with, uh, with, uh, NemoTron. All of these are artificial intelligence companies
and, um, um, uh, programs that many of us use on a day-to-day basis. It definitely is
something that is of interest to people. And I think, um, we all want to ask questions.
We all want to make our positions known. Um, God knows they come in and they, they, they
copy all kinds of, um, data that we produce, uh, content that we create. They take it,
they use it to train their, um, artificial intelligence models, uh, to get better at
what they do. Uh, they don't ask permission. They just do this. Um, but they draw the line
at actually having a dialogue and listening to possible critique. Hey, who knows? Maybe
all the questions would have been nice questions. Uh, but I think they have a sense that no,
most people aren't going to be very happy to talk to them. I don't know. What do you guys
think about this? Uh, is it, is it naive to expect, uh, companies that are making a ton
of money and, um, uh, uh, changing the direction of every aspect of our lives. Um, you think it's
naive to expect them to want to participate in an open dialogue, Rob?
I, I find it fascinating that, uh, companies like an entire sector of the industrial, uh,
world that is trying so hard to keep itself in the news, to keep itself on, you know, at the
forefront of everyone's minds, to force their products in front of everyone, you know, aggressively
to, you know, implement their, their work in all sorts of ways that do intertwine with our daily
lives and, you know, our physical and media environments. Um, a natural response to something
that's everywhere to something that's in the news is to ask questions about it. It's, it's to be
curious about it is to want to learn more, not just the sales pitches, but, um, what's actually going
on and what people who know more about it have to say for themselves. And, uh, so, you know, I,
I think the fact that they are aggressively not doing that seems to say a lot about where they're
coming from to me, but also, I mean, Eve, to answer your question. Yeah. I think it is a little
naive and I'll tell you why they know they're not doing the right thing and they don't want to put
themselves in a position where people are going to tell them that. I mean, look at what happened at
all of the college graduations this spring, right? Anytime anybody says anything that's not,
oh yes, thank you, sir. May I have another, they get mad. And I assume that they know
that we know a lot and we know better and we're not going to hear them. Yes, sir. May I have another?
And of course they're not coming. Come on, man. Oh, but they were, they were until they learned
that questions might be asked or questions might be encouraged or criticism might be allowed.
And just to answer your point though, about college graduations. Yes. I was very entertained
by seeing, seeing people being a roundly booed whenever they, they extolled the virtues of artificial
intelligence in our future. Uh, but that tells me they honestly didn't know. They didn't know that
what they were doing or what they were, um, uh, basically promoting, uh, was considered bad to
many people, you know? And I, I think it's, it's kind of like this moment that, you know, uh, people
who are, uh, closed off to the public, uh, often just get like, you know, dictators when they realize,
hey, my people don't like me anymore. You know, I'm being, I'm being booed. People are throwing
things at me. Uh, it's, it's that kind of revelation that is, um, uh, something dialogue
can bring out. And it's, it's all the more painful to hear when you don't have the dialogue
because you exist in this fantasy world. You think that what you're doing is virtuous and
it's not, and everybody knows it except you're protected from the criticism. So it's not doing
anyone any good to not talk about these things, to not have an open dialogue, to not have conflict
and arguments. It's super important to do that. Yes. Good. Well, yeah, go ahead. That's the thing.
Yeah. Well, look on the subject, I, I do think it makes a lot of sense for AI companies who
have been the subject of a tremendous amount of mistrust to, to go where the skeptical humans are.
You want to ask curious questions and understand the technology, right? And then,
and then shout it to the world. Right. But I, I do think Gila's point is, is well taken here
and, um, and, and really cogent because, you know, these companies, they, they, they start
talking to you, Emmanuel, and then they dropped off the radar. Is that right? When, when they heard
about the Q and a policy and the recording policy, is that right? Uh, this wasn't something I was
involved in, but that's, that's a story. I understand to have, uh, taken place that a bunch of them
were reached out to, and, uh, they were enthusiastic. Then they found out there were
questions that were going to be asked. And, uh, it's, it's like a formula. It's like, it's like a
program that runs, uh, if this happens, do this. And in this particular case, it was do not answer
anymore. Yeah. Well, I can understand that too. I mean, if we, we think about these, these are
massive companies, they get invitations, probably hundreds of invitations to go and speak at various
conferences, uh, all around the world, probably every month. Right. I mean, ours is, is quite unique.
The fact, um, that there was some back and forth and, uh, and then it dropped off the radar. I think
that's quite curious. Um, I also think that, you know, this can be explained perhaps in, at least
in some measure that, you know, it didn't get past the assistant vice president filter at whatever
company this was. There's some, there's always a ton of bureaucracy at all of these companies,
but I think more importantly, anybody who's going to authorize somebody to go and speak at a
hacker conference, well, they're putting their job on the line there, right? They, they don't know
what hackers on planet earth is, right? Their compliance team or their vice president hears this
and they start to think, Oh, there's brand risk here. There's going to be potential breaches of NDAs.
If there is, if there are, um, unvetted questions and answer sessions, there's these recording policies
that we're not going to like, like, how does this benefit me? How does this benefit my career?
How does this benefit my brand to go and show up at a hacker conference, right? And we all know that
the dangerous baggage that the term hacker has come, uh, comes with it, right? Uh, there's something
we've been fighting against for decades, the misuse of the term hacker and people still have this
negative connotation of the term hacker and, uh, hackers on planet earth as a conference, I think
scares the hell out of a lot of these brand protection, advertising, marketing, PR types,
in these big bureaucracies. You know, I just asked Gemini, uh, to weigh in on this, uh, would it be
advantageous, uh, to an artificial intelligence company to hold a Q and a session at a hacker
conference? And very quickly Gemini answered, uh, yes, hosting or participating in a Q and a session
at a hacker conference like DEF CON black hat or CCC offers distinct strategic advantages for an AI
company. The benefits span security, product development, uh, talent acquisition, and market
positioning. It goes on and I'm not going to read any more airtime, but, um, the, the advantages are
there. Uh, you know, you let fear, uh, dictate your decisions. And, um, I think you're going to wind up,
um, definitely on the wrong side of a lot of things. Gila. Yes. But Emmanuel, if you asked it,
would it not be a good idea for a generative AI company to come talk to a hacker conference? It would
say, no, actually it's a terrible idea because don't forget, these are the people who built the
sycophantic response thing into this tool. It is, it is merely a positive feedback loop. And for them
to realize that that's not what they would be walking into, you know, kudos to them for having
the tiniest little bit of intelligence to understand that this would not be a terribly
receptive audience. Yes, Alex and Rob. Yeah, I, I think, you know, there, there's something to this
in the, in the sense of, I bet you there are lots and lots of people within Anthropic, within open AI,
et cetera, that would love to come to the hope conference that would love to, to speak at it and
to showcase the technology and talk about it and answer questions about it. But very often the
people that want to speak at these conferences are not the people that are authorizing the speaking
at these conferences. They have to go two, three, four layers ahead. And I think it's, it's mostly a
function of bureaucratic inertia and, and I think fear and people don't want to be the one who authorized
the speaking engagement where, uh, the headline then becomes, you know, so-and-so from Anthropic
got booed at a hacker conference, right? I think everyone is terrified of being booed at these
conferences now. Alex, with that logic, no company would send anybody and plenty of companies send
plenty of people. So what's different about this particular type of company? Well, there's a big
difference, right? Because these companies, we know, they know that this is a very skeptical audience.
This is an audience of people who ask questions for a living. It's part of our identity to question
the answers, to understand and figure out how things work, right? So hackers, people, people know,
you know, our, our mentality, our philosophy, they can figure it out. And that's why I think that's
very scary to them. I think difficult questions are very scary to these people. And hang on, hang on,
I'm sorry. That's just too good to let pass by. You're saying difficult questions are scary for
people who design artificial intelligence. Absolutely. Absolutely. I wanted to make sure
I got that straight. Okay. You did get that straight because you're not going to be able
to use your, your large language model on stage to help you answer the questions, will you?
Right? Probably not. I would guess not. They'll certainly use them to prepare, but you know,
hope is famous for going off piste, right? For going in weird directions and, um, and having
interesting topics and, and really fascinating questions coming in from the audience. That's exactly the type of
thing I think that they would want to avoid, but I think rightly so from the brand protection people,
everyone is terrified. And what makes this different, what makes AI companies different
from any other company, from a tech company, from an ISP, et cetera, from Cisco is that these are the
guys under fire constantly. And the ones that we are all afraid about, um, ruining human civilization
and destroying the world. Like we're not afraid of Cisco routers taking out the entire planet and
replacing the human race, but we are a little bit afraid of that when it comes to anthropic,
when it comes to open AI, when it comes to meta, they're not the ones replacing humans,
uh, taking away jobs, causing the mass firings of, of, of tens of thousands of workers in the United
States and around the world. So yeah, they've got a lot to answer for. Maybe they don't want those
questions posed by a room full of very curious, interesting, intelligent hackers.
Well, then I think that's the story right there that, uh, they, they do not want to, um, to have
that dialogue and that should tell you something about their character and their plans and, uh,
they should be held up to scrutiny and maybe people, uh, in elected positions can do something
about that. Rob, go ahead.
Yeah. I mean, coming from the perspective of like, I've been going to hacker conferences
of all kinds since, you know, the previous millennium, I've, uh, worked professionally
at, uh, tech companies from everywhere from startup to massive. And, uh, you know, I have seen so many,
uh, companies and individuals bring things that they've made to events like these, um, you know,
hardware, software, toys, whatever. And the ones that have a product are generally really enthusiastic
to get it out in front of people and to get questions asked by, um, tech heads and, uh,
such people because they can bring a box out on stage and, and say, you know, yes, it's got the
latest retro encabulator and a compass in the stock and this thing that tells the time. And they want
an audience member to come up and say, but can I use it to core an apple? And they're like, yes,
let me show you how they, they are ready and willing to demonstrate a thing they have. If they
honestly know that they have a cool thing. Um, and the ones who, uh, are shy away, I think from that
sort of thing are the ones who basically don't have a product to show off. They have hype and,
you know, at events like this, we don't really do hype. That's when people get skeptical.
Alex, go ahead.
You know what? One thing I do want to mention is that, um, maybe, maybe there is a way forward here
because, you know, we, we have some friends at some of these companies right now, by the way. And,
um, and one friend in particular who was a guest several times, I would say at least two or three
times on this very radio show. And I'm, I'm talking about Dr. Welton Chang, who was the CEO
and founder of the company Pura. And Pura was sold last year and, and Welton went to work for
Anthropic. And so Welton is one of the strategic foresight leads at Anthropic. And, um, you know,
another person there, Michael Breen, who used to be the executive director of Human Rights First.
I'm on the, uh, tech advisory board of Human Rights First, along with Welton. Uh, that's,
Welton got me on onto that board. Welton was on it for a while, but look, we, we know some people
over there. Maybe we should make some calls. Uh, and Welton, by the way, has spoken at Hope.
I think, uh, it was two years ago. He gave a, uh, a great presentation there. Um, so as somebody
who worked for Anthropic? No, no, no. He was, he was still with Pura at the time. Okay. Well,
I'm sure he'll be thrilled to have you volunteer him, but, but by all means, um, pursue that if you
wish. Well, look, we can reach out. We, we've got, what, my point is that, you know, we have inroads
that we can try here, right? Maybe there's a way to avoid the, the assistant vice president filter
and the bureaucratic compliance kind of, um, well, you know, risk averse culture here.
My understanding is that a lot of things have been tried over the last few months. Uh, and, um,
you know, time is kind of running out, so, um, it's, it's going to have to be fast, but anyway,
also time is running out for us here on the, off the hook. So, uh, let's move on to some other
stories, uh, continuing with the focus on AI and the tremendous amount of, of, uh, uh, power that
is used, uh, by their facilities, uh, house energy and commerce ranking member, Frank Pallone of New
Jersey today called for Congress to impose a nationwide data center moratorium, a data center
moratorium. I like the sound of that. Uh, Pallone is now the most powerful congressional
Democrat with jurisdiction over energy and environmental issues, uh, to support such a
policy in the face of public backlash. And yes, public backlash is occurring. Uh, his statement
came at the beginning of an energy subcommittee session to vote on more modest legislation
that seeks to make sure rate payers don't foot the bill for data center, a data center, uh,
expansion. Americans across the country, uh, have, uh, says County here, but I don't think
that's right. Have expressed concern and opposition to the rampant construction of AI data centers
and, uh, Congress should take this political groundswell seriously with a data center moratorium.
Um, yeah. So, uh, I don't know. Groundwork is being laid for, uh, all kinds of reactions to this.
The thing that gets me though is, um, you know, if they really wanted to do this, why make taxpayers
foot the bill? If, if somehow you save taxpayers money by building all your damn data centers all
over the country, they might actually support it because, you know, people can be fooled pretty
easily. I can't believe I'm giving tips to AI companies, but you know, when you, when you make
it something that costs them money and in addition is a blight on their environment, well, you've given
them two reasons now. It just seems like a really, um, uh, um, I don't know, uh, a stupid move.
Yeah. And the, the actual re, um, repercussions of having a data center around are still being
discovered. Um, there are, there was an article in the times, uh, about a week ago about, um, small
cities all over the country, um, suing over data centers that were put up and causing all kinds of
noise pollution. Infra sound is a big one, uh, sound at the low end of the spectrum, uh, maybe
too low to hear, but, uh, that you feel like a vibration when you happen to live near one of these
things, their entire families that are, you know, suffering from sleep deprivation and things like
that a little, you know, not to mention the drain on the local infrastructure, um, you know, air
pollution, things like that. And, uh, this is something that, you know, there were there, I think
were more, uh, protections in place at a certain point. Um, the Reagan era EPA is what was kind of
gutted in what it could do about any of this. And of course the modern EPA is kind of a bad joke.
And, uh, so like we're, we're suffering actual consequences from this sort of thing going
unchecked. And, uh, now's when checks are starting to appear as a possibility. And that's, that raises a
little hope, I think. You know, something that I think really would be helpful, um, is, uh, we find the
home addresses of people like Sam Altman, uh, Jeff Bezos, uh, Elon Musk. Uh, and we file the paperwork
to build data centers next to them, you know? Yeah. At least go through the paperwork and, uh,
you know, make them show up at hearings because if they're putting, uh, people like us through this
kind of hell of having, uh, a data center, making all kinds of, uh, uh, crazy noises, costing a lot of
money, uh, destroying the environment, um, why should they be exempt from that? Obviously they're
billionaires. In fact, Elon Musk was a trillionaire for a little while. Um, it's not right. That alone
is not right. And they just seem to get away with anything they want to do. And it's, you know,
it's time people react to that. And yeah, this is obviously related to why they don't want to talk
or see the public, you know, uh, same thing with, uh, elected officials who don't have town hearings
or, uh, um, a Q and a with the people they represent. Uh, it's basically not being accountable
for your actions or your policies, Alex. This reminds me very much of the saying. I don't remember
from who, but it was that foreign policy is always dictated by domestic politics.
And I think here we have an interesting loggerhead situation here where you have on the one hand,
on the federal level, everybody clamoring, we have to beat China. We got to beat China. China's
in a mad race with American companies to develop AI. They've stolen our technology through deep seek,
uh, and we have to beat them. And in order to beat them, we have to, we have to have more data
centers. We need more power. We have to install data centers in every local community around this
country so that these companies can get the, the, the, the cooling that they need, the energy that
they need. Yet on the other hand, the domestic political situation is everybody's yelling, well,
hang on here. Don't put a goddamn giant AI heat box on my, uh, electric's, uh, electricity
substation, uh, and, and don't start sucking up my water supply for these types of things. And
now you have these two principles, the local and the federal, and actually maybe a third principle,
the international, this competitive international principle, all crashing into each other at once
in public causing, I think, massive political strife between the federal and state politicians.
And I think that tension is, is really kind of interesting to watch play out. It's, it's a
fascinating clash of interests of cultures and of money and power. And I, and we're seeing it play
out in our lifetimes right here. And I think it's extremely important. You know, uh, everybody knows
I live in Manhattan, but I've got a little place out in Pennsylvania and there was a proposal to put a
data center near one of the, one of the rivers over there. And the community was really up in arms
about it. It's still, it's still up for, for proposal and debate, but, um, nobody sees any real
benefit coming from these data centers. If they reduced the electrical, um, uh, bills or, you know,
the electric bills that everybody received, if you were charging these companies more so that other
people could pay less, maybe there'd be some kind of benefit to that. And I think there are some
plans to do that in the works in various places. But for the most part, the burdens certainly do
seem to outweigh the benefits. Well, you know, it's interesting because before AI, uh, started to
become known in the mainstream, weren't we already facing all kinds of environmental crises? So who,
on, on, on, on what particular drug would think that this is a good idea that would be accepted
by the, the, the, uh, the populace, by, uh, um, people throughout the world, governments,
it just seems like a really, uh, bad idea. That's an obvious bad idea. And maybe they, you know,
bells and whistles can, uh, you know, get us to, uh, to, to play with the toys a little bit,
but it's, um, it's, it's so obviously something that is, uh, bad for us. And, um, I just can't
imagine people falling for it. I really can't.
I'd like to imagine people are smarter than that, but, uh, just, uh, just moments ago, someone, uh,
posted, uh, to Lemmy, which is, uh, uh, part of the Fediverse that, uh, they were sitting beside,
sitting behind someone on a plane who was using jet, uh, chat GPT to write something on their
laptop. And upon closer inspection, what they were writing was the materials and remarks for a
sustainability and climate conference. So upon closer inspection, was this person leaning over
their shoulder? You know, you know, when you're sitting on a plane and you can, you can pretty
much see what's going on on the screens around you. Um, I, uh, I, I, I, what's on what's saddest
about this story is the fact that I totally believe this happened. Actually, no, it does
happen. In fact, um, last time I was on a plane, I was looking over the shoulder of the person in
front of me because they had an action movie that was, uh, that was taking place. There
were these two guys firing guns at each other, one on the left side of the screen, one on the
right side of the screen, but in the middle, uh, was actually they were firing guns at whatever
was in the middle. It was this, this weird, um, uh, kind of semi-transparent, uh, creature
with this, this expression of amused detachment on their face. It was the scariest thing because
it was some kind of science fiction thing. And these two guys were firing guns at, at
this alleged alien in the middle. And after watching this for a couple of minutes, I realized,
oh my God, that's, that's not an alien. That's the face of the person watching the TV screen.
And in front of me, he's, he's watching, watching the film with detached amusement.
But that, that, that image was, it haunted me. It really did because, you know, he was
not at all scared of the two people firing guns. And of course they were firing guns
at each other, not at him. Um, but yeah, I, I, that's, that's, uh, if you're going to
look at people's screens, look at the films they're watching, I wouldn't look at what
they're writing. Yes, Alex.
That brings up a very interesting point actually. And, and, uh, I haven't thought of it until
you, you, uh, amused us with that, that interesting anecdote there, Emmanuel, because one of the
things that jumped out in the recent Iran United States conflict, I don't know if we, are we
calling it a war yet? I guess it's a war, right? We were, we were at war with Iran. So this,
this war that, that happened, right? This was really the first time where it became a legitimate
target of a military strike to hit a data center, uh, because data centers, all these
data centers are powering kind of military, uh, industrial complex technology that's used
for targeting, that's used for information, that's used for intelligence. And so data centers
in the Middle East, especially over in Dubai. And, um, and I, I think in Abu Dhabi as well,
these data centers were targets of military strikes. If we allow these data centers to continue
to be, uh, built within our local communities, are they too going to become legitimate targets
of military strikes? I mean, this is, this is something I think we have to think about
at this point. Do we want to have a gigantic bomb target, uh, sitting in our backyard or, or
on a river?
Yeah, good question. Something that, uh, I don't think people have really thought through.
Yeah. And pertaining to the question of whether we're calling it a war, um, I like to defer to
the wisdom of the crowd on things like this. And on Wikipedia, you can see the article title for
this is the 2026 Iran war. Um, and, uh, of course the result is listed on the pages, Iranian victory.
Um, and so, you know, in, in case you're wondering, uh, whether or not to call it a war,
I think it's been decided.
I know wars usually have fighting on both sides. Uh, that's my understanding of what a war is,
not just dropping bombs on, on one side, but, uh, yeah, they, they said some nasty things. So
maybe that's, that's the other side of the war. I don't know. Um, anyway, continuing with, uh,
artificial intelligence. Um, it's always fun to watch the billionaires fight amongst themselves.
Uh, there is this movie that's, uh, supposedly coming out called artificial, all about the
controversial tech executive, Sam Altman. Um, and, um, it's supposed to be, um, distributed by
Amazon, but, um, apparently, uh, some feathers were ruffled, uh, when, um, uh, a partnership was
struck between Amazon and open AI, uh, of actually, I'm very confused, Rob, you, you, you posted this
story. Uh, um, so a partnership was, was formed between Amazon and open AI. Altman is CEO of open AI.
Uh, and that made Amazon, um, whose owner is Jeff Bezos, um, basically say that they're not going to
distribute it anymore. Do I have that right? Well, I mean, the, the actual course of events is a little
fuzzy. Um, uh, Amazon basically, when this deal happened between Amazon and open AI, they, Amazon
immediately invested $15 billion in open AI, um, and following, followed by another 35 billion in
the coming months when certain conditions are met, um, including according to open AI's website.
And, uh, this follows a, a, a cloud computing deal, uh, worth $38 billion signed by the two
companies last year. And so I don't think it's, I don't think it's completely out of the realm of
possibility that, um, now that, uh, Amazon and open AI are such good pals that maybe Amazon decided
at that point to rethink whether they wanted to release an unflattering movie about, uh, about
Altman. Oh, it's an unflattering movie. I didn't see that part of it. It just, it's a bioopic about
the controversial tech executive. I did not see that it was going to be something he wouldn't be
pleased with. Yeah. I mean, it's, and it's got a, it's got a cast of a listers and, uh, you know,
had some buzz going around about it. And I think this is only helping the buzz, although it won't
be released on Amazon now, I'm sure it'll find other distribution. And, um, it now has a little
badge to stick to it of like, here's something that they didn't want you to see, which, you know,
makes it more interesting. This, this is so similar to what's going on in the world of mass media,
uh, where, uh, companies are taking over other companies and, uh, basically canceling programs
that are, uh, objectionable to the ruling class. And it's just, it's sickening. It's sickening to
see how, um, how it's all taken over, how, what we, um, uh, see, what we read, what we are able to
view, uh, is all controlled by a handful of people. I, I will, uh, mention at this point that, uh, you
know, our listeners know, but, uh, it's worth mentioning again, that WBAI is not in any
sweetheart deals with massive corporations of, uh, any sort or way, shape or form. And the only
thing that keeps WBAI on these airwaves is you, the listeners and other listeners like you. And
if you'd like to go to buddy.wbai.org and throw in what you can to keep us going at a time when it's
all the more critical and, uh, you know, it's very plain and obvious that, uh, media outlets are under
attack. Um, you can, uh, help keep this going in an independent manner in a manner, which is not
subject to the whims of zillionaires. And as a member of WBAI, you can participate in elections
and help ensure that we stay on the right path. Uh, so, um, I think one is coming up actually over
the summer. So, uh, pay attention. It's important. It really is. And no other, uh, outlet I believe
gives you that kind of, uh, say that, that kind of voice. Uh, okay. And Rob, you also posted this
story about Elon Musk's Grok AI firing 2000 missiles at Iran. Is that true? Grok is firing
missiles? It appears to be according to a sworn statement. Um, and, uh, you know, that was given
in a lawsuit, um, to alleging that, uh, XAI's data centers are illegally polluting black communities.
Um, part of the, uh, part of the evidence given, and this was a sworn statement, uh, saying that
the administration used Grok to launch thousands of missiles. Um, this is a top defense official
apparently. And, uh, it, the, the filing does appear to be the first, um, admission from an
administration that explicitly says that the government is using, um, not only AI, but Elon Musk's
AI to bomb, uh, other countries. Um, so yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tool of the military
now. Wow. Go ahead. Doesn't this just, uh, just go right to my point that I was making
this story basically, uh, supports the very point that data centers, therefore are war
zone infrastructure that are becoming legitimate targets of military strikes in the event of
an international conflict. And I do think that people need to have that on their radar
as part of the threat model of these data centers. It's not just environmental impact.
It's not just that, that low level harm. It's the fact that these data centers could be bombed
in the event that there is a conflict between the United States and somebody else who has
missiles and bombs capable of reaching U S soil. Yeah. But isn't this a case of a data
center sending the missiles? Uh, if a data center is, if they're, if a data center is sending
them, then a data center can be targeted for sending them. But we're not, we're not quite
at the, uh, that's, that's, yeah, that's, that's legitimate. Yeah. Yeah. We're not, we're not quite
at the, uh, war games, uh, whopper level of letting the computer pick, you know, send the actual,
uh, missiles, but, uh, the AI products are apparently being used to identify potential
points of interest. So it's picking targets and people are still pushing the buttons at this point.
We'll see what happens. Oh boy. Okay. Uh, looking at this story from 404 media, uh, our good
friends over at Madison square garden have compiled a list of activists who have publicly criticized
the venues use of facial recognition technology. Oh my God. So if you just criticize them, now you
get put in a database. This is unbelievable. Yeah. Their, their tweets and comments have been put into
a document, uh, that is accessible to people inside the company. Um, the news shows that MSG operated by
James Dolan, who we've discussed over the past few weeks, um, has garnered a reputation for,
for being very vindictive against his enemies or his perceived enemies. That is, uh, is not only
deploying controversial facial recognition technology, but keeping a, uh, a list of people
that he doesn't like and people will take issue with, uh, what he's doing. I wonder if we're on there.
You know, we've been criticizing this for, for quite a while. Uh, the document was
included in a 45 gig cache of data that hackers stole from MSG and posted online this month.
Hey, so we can check if we can get that, uh, that file. I want to see if we're in there. We should
be, um, well, 404 media apparently, uh, downloaded it and reviewed it. So we can ask them, uh, the wake
of a data breach would be a good time for Madison square garden to stop subjecting its patrons to
biometric surveillance. That's according to Adam Schwartz, who's digging himself in even deeper. He's a
privacy litigation director at the electronic frontier foundation, and he's already in the
document. So I guess he can't be at it again. Um, the document, uh, titled facial recognition,
activist dot doc X, at least try to hide it a little bit, call it like X, Y, Z or something. I
facial recognition, activist dot doc X. Okay. Um, it's included in a folder named anyone want to
guess. No activists. Yeah. Um, list three people who have criticized MSG's use of facial
recognition. Evan Greer, director of digital rights group fight for the future, Albert Fox
Kahn, founder and executive director of the surveillance technology oversight project,
which spells stop by the way, and the EFFs Schwartz. All three of the activists have been
quoted in major media articles discussing MSG's facial recognition technology, including in NPR and
the New York times. Well, I mean, WBI is a major radio station in New York city broadcasting mere
blocks away from Madison square garden. I can't imagine why we all aren't listed as well. We should
be. And there's yet another failing of MSG and James Dolan, who apparently don't know how to turn on a
radio while they're cataloging people to ban from their decrepit. I'm trying here. I'm trying to
decrepit outlets that, well, they just had a championship basketball team. Uh, well, hopefully
they'll be drawn to another place to play instead of MSG. Feel free to jump in guys and criticize them
so we can get. Okay. But also don't forget that the MSG ownership doesn't just own MSG. So I am
assuming that the people on this list also can't go to the Beacon Theater, also can't go to the
Sphere, also can't go to the, what do they own a Chicago, Chicago Theater, whatever it is. Radio City
Music Hall. Radio City Music Hall. Yeah. And, uh, the document that in question, uh, described in this
article is from 2022. Um, so I'm, I'm wondering and assuming that, uh, there might be a more updated
version somewhere on their servers. We didn't criticize them until after that. So maybe that's
why we're not in it. So maybe there's, we gotta, yeah, we gotta work to get into the next, uh, the
next iteration of this. We criticized that. I remember personally criticizing them either that
day or like the day after literally the document is dated December 23rd, 2022. And I remember being on
air and complaining about James Dolan by name and asking if people on people who were getting
facially recognized, we're not going to be able to go see Knicks games on the road. If that was going
to be a, um, a condition of not touring, but road games. And yeah, we should be on that list, man.
Yeah. Well, maybe the next people will hack MSG can look for a file called facial recognition
activist two dot doc X, uh, and download that. And let us know if we're on that. Uh, yes, Alex,
go ahead. Yeah. This just seems to be a tactic for MSG, right? We're now they're, they're just, uh,
they're settling scores with biometrics, right? That's what this private company is doing. Right.
And, and, and they can get away with it because they're a private company, but you know, this
would be different. Can they get away with it? Can they get away with invading people's privacy
and, and, uh, banning them from just, just because they don't like what they say?
Certainly. There's no, there's nothing that prevents them from doing that. If they are
discriminating on the basis of some kind of, some kind of immutable characteristic like race,
national origin, skin color, et cetera, then you have civil rights laws that can come into play.
But if they just don't want to let you in Emmanuel, because you were criticizing them on the radio,
they have the right not to let you into their venue. What if I'm of a political, uh, particular
political party? Doesn't matter. They, they, they can, they can certainly, uh, deny you entry on the
basis of you being, you know, a pinko lefty. So they can ban all Democrats if they choose to.
Sure. They can do that if they really wanted to. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't understand why they
wouldn't be able to do something like that. I certainly think, I mean, at their private company,
they can open their doors and close their doors to whomever they would like. But the point I'm
making though, is that we're talking about Madison Square Garden, right? It is a private company.
They can get away with these score settling mechanisms using biometrics and going after
lawyers who had been part of their law firms that ever sued them and banning everybody from every
firm that's ever been associated with any kind of adverse position in Madison Square Garden, like
they've been doing for years. But we, you know, we forget here though, right? Madison Square Garden,
it's a private company, but it sits on top of public transit and public streets and public
subsidies to, to develop this type of infrastructure. So I would argue that there is
some kind of hybrid notion of what Madison Square Garden is. It was so central to New York,
so central to the Knicks that we talked about a couple of weeks ago that, you know, maybe there
is something to the fact that they shouldn't be allowed to do this because it is part of the
public infrastructure of the city as well. Well, I mean, to me, this kind of, um, this kind of action
just flies in the face of a free society, uh, where you can, because somebody has a particular opinion,
they're not allowed to go to public events. You know, even if they pay, you know, uh, you know,
primary rates for, for, for tickets and things like that, that just seems like an abuse of a privilege
that you have. And I, I just can't believe we're accepting this as, as normal.
Well, it's, it's not a matter of accepting it as, as normal. It certainly is abnormal for a company
to, to act that way and to behave in this manner, right? That's the, that's the good thing about this
is it is a corporate aberration of bad behavior. If all corporations are doing this, then I think it
might become normalized, but I think we're talking about it because it, it is a really crazy situation.
Um, but it can happen precisely because the bill of rights just does not apply.
Right. You know, that only affects the federal government, right? And I think about it originally,
the federal, the key part of you was kind of the bill of rights does not apply. I know you didn't
want to end the sentence like that. Oh, the bill. Yes, I did. The bill of rights does not apply
to private companies. It only applies to the government itself. Right. And in fact, for a long time,
the bill of rights didn't even apply to state governments, it was only through the doctrine
of incorporation through the passage of the 14th amendment that the first 10 amendments of the
U S constitution began to apply to the States because it originally has conceived the bill of
rights only applied to the federal government. That was the one that, that was the biggest threat.
That's what the, that was the threat model for the founders was the federal government. It was King
George, right? They weren't thinking about the States. Then through the doctrine of incorporation,
it applied to the States, but it never has applied to private individuals or private companies,
private corporations. That's why they can get away with this.
Wow. Okay. Well, it continues to be disturbing. So yeah, that's, that's what's going on in the city.
Well, but let me tell you this too. I mean, I think if a company did do something like that,
if they tried to ban all Democrats from coming into, uh, let's, let's say for instance, if MSG tried
to ban all Democrats from attending the rodeo that happens there every year or something, right?
There's probably very few Democrats that go to the rodeo anyway. I wouldn't make that assumption at
all. I know I've gone actually. It's, it's actually pretty interesting. Um, but you know,
let's say there was a no Democrats allowed time here though. I mean, it would be a litigation magnet.
They, they, this come, you know, MSG would be walking into a buzzsaw. People are making civil
rights issues, you know, viewpoint complaints. I think it would be litigation of historic
proportions. Regulators would be looking into this, the attorney general too. So I think there
are ways and there's certainly state constitutional issues that could be implicated, um, and state-based
laws. So we don't, we're not just talking about the bill of rights as regulating this type of
behavior, but there's lots of state laws and state constitution provisions that can apply as well.
Okay. Uh, while that airplane lands, uh, let me just, uh, ask you this, um, is not the gathering
of all of this private information on us, something that's open to some kind of regulation,
even if you're a private company, I mean, they're gathering all kinds of data on people
and, uh, and, and, and sharing it and using it to find them. It just feels like that's a violation.
Well, you, you would think, right. But, but in this country in particular, we do not have any
overarching federal privacy legislation that regulates the use of this type of information
as personal information. If they were collecting personal health data, maybe HIPAA would be implicated.
You know, maybe there's some implications for state-based privacy laws about this. Um, but generally
those privacy laws only relate to what happens to companies and their obligations when there is some
kind of data breach with respect to the private information that they've been holding. And in many
of those instances, nothing happens to these companies once they report to the attorneys general
and provide data breach notification letters to all those affected parties. You know, maybe there's
some kind of credit monitoring or something like that, that happens. Um, you know, if you're collecting
the information from somebody, you may have to get their consent to, to process that information,
but we don't have something like GDPR that is an overarching law that governs the collection
and use of information about people in this particular matter.
So are you saying in those places, uh, that, that do have this kind of legislation and in effect,
this couldn't happen?
Yeah, that's, that's, that's quite true. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, and there are a lot
of states actually now that have, uh, laws about the collection of biometric data and using biometric
data in certain respects. Um, and there's been a lot of lawsuits in places like Illinois over the
last couple of years where, where those laws have been passed. So that would possibly regulate some
of this. Um, I don't know what the current state of biometric laws in New York are at the moment off
the top of my head, something I'd have to take a look into, but that's certainly another way that
these companies could be curtailed from acting in this matter. Well, it's a fascinating conversation
and one that I think we all need to be having. I would like to know, are there other companies out
there acting like MSG and, uh, tracking people and banning people based on their opinions and,
uh, their jobs, the companies are associated with, maybe even if you're friends with somebody,
you get banned and you can't see the Knicks because they don't like your, your positions on certain
things. Uh, but what other companies are doing is can't just be MSG. There must be, um, uh, if this
kind of thing is allowed, there must be all kinds of companies throughout the United States that are
abusing our privacy like this. Uh, we deserve to know, and we deserve to have some kind of legislation
that protects us from this kind of activity. We have one minute left. I'm going to leave it open
to you guys. I just, uh, I just wonder about in the case of Madison square garden, like they have
such sweetheart deals with the city and the state, like huge tax breaks, all kinds of public money,
um, effectively funding what they do. Um, is there any legal argument for granting them some
accountability to the public rather than just being able to do what they like with them?
Yeah, I think that's exactly what I was driving at before too. Right. I mean, they're,
they're sitting on top of all these subsidies that they're likely getting from the government.
Maybe they should be treated a little bit more like a hybrid type of entity since they very much
are infrastructure. But I think what's really tricky about this though. And I think this discussion
really hits it on the head is that we're not talking about the collection of private information
through a website or something like that. We're talking about a company creating dossiers on critics
and using information to, for that particular effect. It's some kind of defensive mechanism. And then
they settle the scores with the use of biometrics against these particular people as well. But
that's really a gray zone. There's no laws about collecting information about your critics that
would regulate that type of activity. Not yet. All right. Well, I think the number one thing people
can do now is ban Charles Dolan from any space that you control. I'm sorry, James Dolan. I keep
saying Charles. I don't know who Charles is. James Dolan. Ban him. Yes. Okay. We are out of time.
You can write to us OTH at 2600.com. We're off the hook. We're on every Wednesday from seven to eight
here on WBAI. And we are continuing the conversation over on YouTube at eight o'clock.
Go to channel 2600 and join us there. Just go to the link on 2600.com. Next week, we'll be doing a
call-in show here on WBAI. And we will see you at eight. We will see you next week. Please keep
listening to WBAI and stay alert and awake. Good night.
The virus took on many shapes. The bear, the elk, the antelope, the elephant, the deer,
the mineral, the iron, the copper, the colt and the rubber, the coffee, the cotton, the sugar,
the people, the people, the people, the germ travel faster than the bullet. They harvest
the mountainside, protect the crops, herd the cattle, the people, the people, the people,
the people, the people, the women and children are separated from the men. They're divided as
according to the regional filters of their minds. The violence of arrogance crawls into
the air nestled into the geospatial cortex. We are not a concrete people.
the ground beats by reaching. I was awakened by my elder brother. The compound was on fire.
Awaken by my elder brother
The compound was on fire
The missionaries never hid their perspective
Perspectives of land would rather see us disappear
Recyclable prayers
The people
This is my body which is given for you
The people
This is my blood
We are not a conquered people
I was awakened by my elder brother
The compound was on fire
Awaken by my elder brother
The compound was on fire


And welcome everybody to Off the Hook Overtime here on YouTube.
Emmanuel over here. Kyle, make it okay?
Hi.
How you doing?
We have Rob, Gila, and Alex all in Signal Land.
We do. Hello.
Yeah.
Over here.
There you go.
I had a channel down. I'm sorry.
Well, it's pretty...
And the van just moved.
Yes.
That van that's been parked outside just moved because we noticed it.
But now there's another van replacing it.
Yeah, it's hot and muggy.
I don't know if you can tell.
I'm just kind of trying to stay conscious here.
Alex, it looks like you're in a pleasant place.
Where the hell are you?
I'm at an undisclosed location in Manhattan.
Okay.
Well, thank you for not disclosing a location because that turns into most of the show half the time.
Yeah, I'm at my new place.
Okay.
Wow.
In a sense, you know?
Yeah.
That's pretty awesome.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, it's not so bad, right?
Uh-huh.
I'm just getting...
I'm outside, so I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitoes despite having this citronella candle going.
I think I have to go get the other one.
You're in a place in New York City that requires mosquito repellent.
Yeah.
All right.
I am.
Yeah, there's a lot of green here.
Uh-huh.
So, yeah.
Crazy, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
In any event, yeah.
So, but I am in a new place.
Hopefully, it wasn't too loud.
Was it too loud on the radio?
There was...
Well, there was an airplane landing, but other than that, I think it was okay.
It made me some silence.
Yeah, it was okay.
And how are my levels?
Are they any better?
Because I'm using different equipment over the last two weeks.
Did you hear me complain?
I didn't, for once.
Oh, that should tell you something.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So, this is better.
All right.
Excellent.
I got some AirPods, and that's what I've been using.
Very cool.
Yes, Gail.
I just wanted to take a moment for a completely unsolicited advertisement and say that, yes,
it is warm, it is muggy, and we got these little neck gel tubes that you put in the freezer
and put around your neck.
What the?
Okay.
They look like headphones without the phone part.
Right, but watch.
Yeah.
Put it around your neck, and it keeps you cool.
Keeps your neck cool?
It cools down your whole body by cooling your neck, and it's pretty warm in here, but we're
doing okay.
This is how we can make radio with the air conditioning off and not subjecting our audience
to the noise of our fans and such.
I just assumed you were attached to some kind of a device or something with those contraptions
around your necks.
No, that's what these are for.
The headphones, yes.
The headphones were connected, but these are just, these are little chill thingies, and
you know, they, they are completely silent, and they keep you cool for, they keep cool
for about three hours.
All right.
So.
What's the catch?
I'm sorry, we're doing a late night TV thing here.
So tell me what the catch is, Gila.
It can't be that good.
And if you act now.
No, I got nothing.
I am acting now, believe me.
I am.
So yes, this has kept me incredibly comfortable since we started the show.
So I just wanted to take a moment and say that you may want to consider investing in
some of these.
Well, this could be great for our listeners, because I know many of them are uncomfortable
for the hour that we're on.
And something like this could help them get through that.
But how long, how long does it last for?
About three hours.
Three hours.
Yeah.
So that'll get you through overtime and the post-show, you know.
Oh, yeah.
But we, as soon as overtime is over, we turn the AC back on, which is fine.
But, you know, I'm just saying, these are great.
In the event of a blackout, though, you know, maybe it's a good idea to get a freezer full
of these things.
That way, you can just go from one to the next.
Mm-hmm.
Well, we got a three-pack.
So, you know, we each have one on right now, and then there's an extra just in case.
It's just not like having an ice pack on your neck.
That's exactly what it is.
It is, but it's not melty.
It's an ice pack that's shaped like the letter U, so you can cradle it around your neck.
And I suppose if you really wanted to, you could use it as a headband.
I recognize that's more of an issue for me than it is for you.
I mean, we could do some Geordie LaForge cosplay with it over our eyes.
What about those, you know, ice pops?
They were called cool pops when I was a kid.
But you can eat them afterwards, you know?
Well, actually, they've been kind of soft by then, but still.
Freezy, juicy, tubey things?
Yes.
Those things you get, like, 100 of them for a dollar.
I don't like those.
Wow.
Okay, well, that's good to know that you found comfort in these weird things.
Also, greetings to the 35 people who are with us right now.
That number, amazingly enough, did go up while we were having that little discussion about the neck tubes.
So, hooray.
Oh, and someone just left.
That's fine.
That's what happens when you talk about them.
All right, so we could just open up the phone lines right away and not have so much banter amongst ourselves.
I know some people like that.
We could certainly do that.
Should we give out the phone number?
Is it time to do that?
You can.
I'm not going to, but you're welcome to.
Wait, you're not going to because you don't want people to call?
I have my reasons for not giving out the phone number, and I'm just not going to give out the phone number.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay, well, I will take the liberty and give out the phone number, which is United States phone number 802-321-4225.
That's 802-321-HACK.
And you can also catch us toll-free within the U.S. at 833-755-2600.
I believe that still works.
That was set up by a friend of the show.
Or you could type us things in the live YouTube chat and tell us what's on your mind there.
And I can verify that is, in fact, the phone number.
I will not say the phone number, but I can verify that that is correct.
And we have a phone call.
Of course we do.
And I think it's from the familiar face.
Hold on.
I've got to get to my computer.
Who could that be, I wonder?
Well, I've got things to talk about today, but I've got to get to my computer.
Hold on.
I've got to get inside.
Is he imitating himself or is someone else doing it?
No, no.
I've got to get inside.
I've got to get to my computer.
Hold on.
Why were you outside?
You shouldn't be outside.
I was riding my bicycle.
There was a petition.
I was riding my bicycle.
Well, then call when you're at your computer, not while you're riding your bicycle to it.
All right.
Hold on.
Well, if I reach it, it's 15 more minutes.
Okay.
You're going to go?
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Let me get to my computer.
My phone.
Where is your computer?
For God's sake.
It's so far away.
Inside the house.
Hold on.
You have no idea what he's up against, Emmanuel.
You're somebody without a computer, too.
You know, you should focus on being that person.
Well, no.
I have my...
Just a second.
I have...
Oh, you know what?
Let me mention while I'm here that...
There's an issue...
The thing in the UK, for those who are listening in the UK, on a pay phone in the UK, you can
call the United States or any other country, probably, a cell phone, collect.
Collect.
Okay.
Well, I don't know why you can't do that to start with, but yeah.
Call and collect used to be something people did a lot.
No, no.
You should...
In the United States...
I've done this.
When I was in London, I called my cell phone, collect.
You got to dial the international operator and just dial your home phone number, collect, and it will work.
But you won't get a bill.
You won't get charged.
That's probably because the calls don't cost anything anymore.
Why then do they allow...
Why do they still have collect calls?
Why is there an international operator?
That must be the loneliest job in the world.
It probably is.
I mean...
Talk to them.
Ask them if they're okay, if they're locked in a room somewhere.
I mean, I used to call the international operator all the time, and it was a lot of fun.
I have many of those recordings.
And they had power.
They could route calls places.
They could keep trying things for you.
And it didn't cost anything.
It was amazing.
But those days are gone.
I just imagine it's like the beginning of War Games with the two guys in the room at computers, and, you know, one had to pull a gun on the other one and go, turn your key, sir.
I think that's what international operators are doing now.
I always wondered in that film, didn't the other guy also have a gun?
You know?
I mean, you pull a gun on me, what do you expect me to do?
You know?
I just think they're...
Yeah, they were aiming at each other from opposite sides of the room.
Uh-huh.
At the guy in the middle.
Uh-huh.
There we go again.
See, it all comes back to that.
Nice callback.
Rebel, I hope you've gotten to your computer and that you have a point that you're going to get to as well.
I'm logging on to Google Voice to demonstrate something now.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Now, what I'd like to demonstrate is the fact that I'm going to demonstrate a number that doesn't tell you...
Well, let me call the dermatologist and...
Why?
I don't see a...
Why are you calling a dermatologist?
It's after hours.
Because, no, because making an appointment or if you want to call them, they have, like, many numbers.
Look what happens when you call.
They don't tell you who called.
They don't tell you who called?
Why would they tell you?
You're calling.
Wait a minute.
Because, I mean, like, if you make an appointment, I was at this office, this doctor's office.
There were people sitting there, like, on their phone.
I just, you know, got their phone number and called it.
But it doesn't go to them.
You know, it goes to an AI thing.
Let me call it.
This is what happens.
I wonder if...
Oh, no.
I wonder if the international operator is AI.
No, that's the other thing.
That's our favorite sound.
Well, we're off to the races tonight in quick order.
Let me just...
All right.
Let me just...
Why don't you record these things and just play them back to us when they work?
This call may be recorded for training purposes.
If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911.
You will be speaking to an automated assistant.
Isn't that annoying?
Yeah, it's all annoying.
Believe me, you have no idea.
But, you know, has anybody, anybody ever been in a training course where they play back
phone calls that customers were part of?
Has anyone ever heard the other side of that?
I assume the silence from you people means nothing.
That's a good...
I always wonder about that.
I always wonder about that.
I know.
I totally get it.
All right.
Yeah, I've never heard of it, but it's a great question.
It's always been on my mind.
Let's call this one.
Thank you for calling.
Your message is important to us.
If this is a medical emergency, please hang up immediately and call 911 for help.
Otherwise, please leave your full name, phone number with area code, date of birth.
That's what happens when you call to, like, change an appointment or make an appointment.
I mean, like, they're sitting there on their phone.
They could be answering calls and, you know, changing appointments and things like that.
I'm not sure what the point is.
Can you leave a message or not?
No, you can leave a message.
But the thing is, is that you can leave a message, but you have to talk to an AI.
And I asked them, can you change a message?
I asked them.
Sorry.
Gail, are you okay?
I'm fine.
I thought we were muted.
I'm sorry.
I asked the lady at the desk.
I said, oh, if I want to change an appointment, can you do it?
No, it's the call center.
I mean.
Well, call centers are nothing new.
AI is a different flavor.
I know that.
But.
One of the agents will be with you shortly.
The point is, can you leave information and will it be applied to who you are by the people
you want to talk to?
For customer service.
This is what happens when you call, let's see, 949-210.
Don't give out the phone number.
For God's sake.
Why?
Why do that?
Yeah, but it doesn't tell you who called.
What do you call?
What do you mean it doesn't tell you who called?
Why would it tell you who called?
No, no.
It doesn't tell you what you called.
No, they don't give their name, right?
It's a generic recording.
Is that your point?
It's a generic recording?
Yes, no, but it should say, thank you for calling.
The name of the place.
Yeah, I know, but not everybody puts that much attention in.
Maybe you want a dermatologist that says the name of the dermatology center.
Oh, or whatever.
Or whatever.
I mean, back in the 90s, they used to, you know, do that.
Back in the 90s, people were different.
It wasn't like today.
We can't go back.
People seemed to laugh more then.
Yeah, they did.
They really did.
Things were funnier back then.
Yeah.
Rebel, is this all you got?
Because it's kind of lame this week, I think.
Alex.
Alex.
Uh-oh.
Yeah, Alex.
Yeah, I'm here.
Uh-oh.
I'm being summoned?
Yeah.
The next time you go to London, look at it.
Go to a pay phone and dial 155 to the international operator.
And just call your cell phone, collect.
Wait, you can go to a pay phone and dial 155 and you get the international operator?
But we've never had anything like that.
Yeah, and then in London, in the UK, you can.
Wow.
That's kind of cool.
And that still works.
I'll be going to Switzerland and Italy at the end of July.
So, you know, I'll be, you know, I wonder if they would be, you know, they used to place
phones and technology to play with.
Will you be back in time for hope?
Of course I will.
In fact, my flight, leaving Italy, I made it the day before hope is when I'm coming back.
Okay.
So hopefully it won't be too jet lagged.
Well, I doubt we'd notice.
Well, Rebel, it's been fun as always, but we're going to move on, take some more phone
calls.
Okay.
So I want to thank you for calling and keep dialing all those numbers and seeing what's
out there.
Yeah.
All right.
Take care.
Wow.
It's like he's got his own starship and just exploring the cosmos.
Are you smoking a cigar, Alex?
Alex, why?
This is, this is what you, Rob and Gila are, somehow the smoke is getting into their, their
videos.
But you would think, right?
I mean, this is what I have to do.
Try to keep the, keep, keep the mosquitoes at bay here.
I've got two citronella candles.
I'm getting eaten alive here and we have a phone call.
We do.
We do.
It's want to make sure nothing goes alight where you are.
Boy, that's a, that's huge.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook over time.
Go ahead.
Hello.
One of my articles was published in 2600.
When will I receive my gift?
You will be notified.
And basically you get notified shortly after the issue comes out.
Sometimes it's a few weeks after, sometimes it's even a month or two after, but it's almost
always before the next issue comes out.
And then you have a choice of things that you can get.
Oh, really?
Okay.
I guess you just want to ask your damn question and be done with it.
Fine.
Very, very efficient phone call there.
If only everybody was like that.
Yeah.
The opposite.
Tell me what you, what you want and then just get the hell out.
Yeah.
That's that's.
He wasn't even on a bicycle when he called in.
Well, you don't know that.
I was going to, I was going to ask which article was there so I could check it out, but now
I, now I'll never know.
Yes.
Well, um, phone lines are open.
And Alex, just be really careful because if you just got that place, you don't want to
burn it down already.
No.
Give it some time.
No, that's, that's, that's why I'm outside.
Somebody knew the phone number.
Um, let's, uh, take this particular call as well.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook overtime.
Go ahead.
Hi guys.
How are you?
How you doing?
Pretty good.
Guess we're almost up to his own tricks again.
Hey Alex, I would, I want to tell you, I really think you're a great guy.
A guy that got, you really, you're really a smart guy.
I just want to tell you that I really think a lot of you.
How come I never get calls like this?
That's it.
That's a very good, that's, that's very, very good.
I appreciate that.
And, uh, it's nice to see that and rather hear that people are listening.
So thank you.
He didn't say he was listening.
He said you're a great guy.
Maybe he's not listening to you.
Maybe it means you're not listening carefully.
I don't know if you agree with you, Alex, but I think you're super, more intelligent than
I'll ever be.
But I have a question for you.
It's a hypothetical question.
It's a legal question.
And I would like you to talk about it.
You guys might think I'm a little off the wall, but the U.S. Constitution says Persis.
It doesn't say human beings, correct?
That's correct, actually.
Yeah.
I was just talking about this with my son earlier today and in the, uh, yeah, that's exactly
right.
Is this your son calling?
No, no.
His voice isn't that deep yet.
I don't know.
That's kind of weird.
Okay, here's the question.
Let's say a supernatural being, either vampires or some other creatures, were found out in
the United States.
Would they have constitutional rights or would the government be able to do anything they
wanted to them?
I am so happy Alex has to answer this question.
It's a great question, actually, right?
Wow.
I hadn't thought of that.
Remember, you're under us.
That's right.
Excellent question.
And it does, it really would hinge, I think, on this definition of what a person is, right?
And let's see, and this is a particularly important distinction when it comes to what's
going on with ICE in the country, right?
Because the Constitution talks about equal protection under the law for every person,
right?
It doesn't say for every citizen.
It's for every person.
It doesn't matter if you're an immigrant.
It doesn't matter if you're here legally or illegally.
The Constitution applies to persons, right?
So that is what our caller is driving at here.
And if another life form visited our country, our planet, rather, I guess they'd have to
visit our country, too, for this particular provision to apply and for the Constitution
to apply.
We'd have to presume that an alien life form visited the United States.
I don't think that they would have the same rights under the Constitution, unless it was
very clear that this alien life form was also so close to us such that they should also be
considered a person or to have personhood.
Well, let's say, Alex, let's say they talk like us, they feel like us, they're a sanctioned
being, okay?
They are basically having human form, but they have extra abilities.
And let's say we can't define it.
Would they be considered a human?
Would they be considered an alien life force?
I mean, let's just say, for example, a vampire or some other natural, you know, supernatural
being.
The reason why, because they're having a discussion and someone said, look what happened in 1692
when they burned a lot of witches at the stake.
Could that ever happen again in the United States?
Yeah, I think it could.
I think it absolutely could.
And look, this is a great, interesting thought experiment here, right?
And I think, you know, in these spacefaring times, it's particularly important to really
understand, you know, the limits of the reach of our national laws and our constitutions
and our norms and things.
And so I do think that it would be a particularly hard case to make unless, like you say, they
look like us, they act like us, they talk like us, they think like us, they reason like
us, that we'd have to make a case for them being persons and having rights.
But I think initially there would be a lot of fear and there would probably be a lot of
discriminatory practices and exploitation of whatever those beings were because we'd be
so curious about their biology, about their processes, and then particularly, you know,
their innards, right?
Their internal biological functions and how they work and how they, you know, they come
from another planet or they are some kind of supernatural being or they exist on, you
know, feeding on other people's blood if we're talking about vampires or something like
that.
So a vampire is an interesting case, though.
Would a vampire actually have rights?
I mean, because a vampire is really just an undead human, though, right?
Would a vampire still be a person?
We probably do need some some D&D players to call up and talk about the nature of the
undead and whether the U.S.
Constitution would would apply to them.
I want the Supreme Court to have to weigh in on this.
I would love to see that.
Yeah.
So I would love to see a dissent from Sotomayor protecting the rights of the undead.
Well, I know how Thomas Thomas is going to rule in their favor because he's pretty close
to the undead himself right now.
Yeah, he might be.
I mean, he kind of he he's known to to be like the least active judge on the bench, right?
Like he went so many years without ever asking a question from the bench, which is crazy.
Such a such a neglect of that that particular power.
Hey, Alex, here's the question.
What is a sanctioned being?
Does a sanctioned being mean that it could think, it could feel, it could love?
Wouldn't that be a definition of a person, a sanctioned being?
Well, I think a dog can also think and feel and love and a camel can probably love.
How dare you compare a dog to a vampire?
Vampires can speak.
Vampires can have conversations, you know, this this is like a conversation James Kirk
had on the Enterprise.
Well, I don't know.
I think, you know, vampires are are if they were if they did exist.
What's quite scary about them is that they prey on humans.
Right.
So they would be considered.
Not Alex, not necessarily if they were so far in advance and they were using synthetic blood.
But that's true.
Look at Star Trek.
Say Star Trek came to visit us, someone like Spock or some other alien.
Would he be he have rights?
Yeah, I really don't know the answer to that question.
I think I think the I think the answer would probably hinge on the the the biological and
physical similarities of that being to us.
I think somebody like Spock probably would like we'd presume that Spock should have rights
because he looks so humanoid.
Excuse me.
Lieutenant Commander Data had a trial on the next generation.
He was given rights and he's not biological.
Yeah, that's true.
But I I I I think you have stumped me.
I mean, you you set me up here so nicely with the smart guy fluff talk over there.
And now you've totally stumped me here because I I don't know the answer to this question.
I think it's a great thought experiment.
And I just don't know.
I think Rob wants to weigh in.
Yeah, I think that's my cue to jump in.
The smart guy can't handle this one.
So, you know, I'm going to step up.
But now if you were talking Star Trek, but I think if you want a really good sci fi look
at this sort of thing, there was a really good TV series in the 90s called Alien Nation.
You guys remember this?
And it was based on a film.
The film was OK, but the series was great because the idea is that there's this race
of refugee aliens who are very humanoid, just, you know, a little different, little weird.
And they all land on Earth as refugees and have nowhere else to go.
And so they have to be integrated into society.
And so much of the drama in this show was about the bureaucracy and the practicality
of integrating them into Earth's society and, you know, the prejudices and everything
else and their struggles.
But life was not easy for them.
But going back to the question, I think a very I hate to say something this cynical because
it's not usually my thing.
But I think our government in reality in the present day has not yet figured out how to
treat every human being like a person, let alone, you know, supernatural beings.
So, like, we have to get a handle on the fact that we are all people before we have, I think,
are even able to start considering the fact that other species might be people as well.
Well, you know, that brings up.
I actually agree with you there.
But I would say one thing, what would be scary is I think you would have the church screaming.
And you might do things like we did in the 1940s when we put Japanese in concentration in camps.
So it would be a scary thing.
And it would just be interesting to see how someone like you, Alex, or other lawyers could actually argue on their behalf.
Yeah, well, I think a lot of it would go down to, you know, this notion of personhood, right?
You know, if these other supernatural beings or persons, you know, had the if they were sentient,
if they were reasoning, if they were physically like us.
And even I think if they weren't physically like us so much, I think that we should probably afford them some kind of at least bodily integrity.
Or I think it's likely they would be considered to be persons.
But think about it from this capacity as well, or this perspective.
If we treat corporations as persons, why wouldn't we treat another sentient reasoning life form that came and landed on our planet
and obviously had the scientific know-how to get here?
Why wouldn't we treat that thing or that life form also as a person subject to the same types of rights that we give to corporations?
Alex, have you met the human race?
Do you really think we're going to do that?
We're just going to, like, shoot at them and start a war.
Yeah.
And then we'll treat them like people from New Jersey.
I know.
Yeah.
Well, seriously, Alex, I'm just going to say this much.
If they're biological, then would it be considered alive?
And would it the definition be able to reason, love, or whatever it is considered a sight should be?
That's the last question.
Then I want to just make a comment on Brock AI because I've been having problems with them.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Okay.
And by the way, it was very nice.
I hope you got to think I went off the wall.
But I figured you might be a part of an interesting conversation to talk about.
It's a great question.
Do they have rights?
But getting back to Brock AI, they're having a lot of issues.
I didn't know they launched missiles, but I will tell you this much.
They have so many technical issues right now.
They're charging people, and they're not even living up to what they promise you, especially with conversations and different things.
And they do a lot of hallucinations.
I found so many times asking a question, it goes on a tangent.
I don't really use Grok at all, but I use Claude a lot.
I use mostly Claude code.
I like the command line version.
I think it gives you a particularly special, almost like superpower when you give it access to local files in a controlled way that you can get it to do some interesting things and generate some interesting insights.
And if I need something really quickly done that I can trust, I like to use perplexity.
But I, for the most part, just don't use Grok as a matter of principle because it's associated with Elon Musk.
Okay.
Yeah, well, my problem with Grok, I like Grok for one reason.
It's great if you're blind.
You can talk to it in a conversation.
And if you want to type, then you have to use a screen reader.
That's why I like Grok.
You can ask it questions.
But it has a lot of problems with voice, and there's a lot of comments online that they're not responding to people's issues, and they are charging.
And actually, in the beginning when they were totally free, they were much better, and now even their paid service is pretty lousy.
Wow.
But I'm going to let you guys go.
I think I've given you guys enough sci-fi, but I actually wanted to hear what you had to say, Alex.
And it's a kind of interesting subject.
I guess it would be something for some professors, for students to have a discussion about.
Oh, it definitely is.
And I've been researching it as we've been talking, and people have actually written scholarly articles about this particular topic.
So you're not the only person asking this question, and some people have probably given it deeper thought than me, or at least than I did here on the air.
But I'm going to look into this, and I would like to continue this conversation, I guess not next week because we don't have overtime next week, but maybe in two weeks' time, come back and carry on this interesting thought experiment.
Because by the way, there's a couple of books, and it was written by this lady, I don't remember her name, but she wrote a whole bunch of books about witchers and different people.
And it was written around Oxford and a couple of other schools in England, and professors discussing this, and also about supernatural communities.
Fascinating, yeah, I'll tell you, Oxford is a great place.
It's a fun, interesting city.
And if you ever have the opportunity to get over there, I would definitely recommend it.
I could, yeah, I could recommend you some places and things.
It's just, it's an extraordinary place where there is so much intellectual horsepower concentrated into this one little city in the UK that it's an extraordinary place to be for a few years.
By the way, they have some great libraries.
I think they have some, I don't know if it's Oxford or one of the other schools, it's supposed to have a library that goes back several hundred years.
Oh, oh, there's so many interesting libraries in Oxford.
You also have the Bodleian Library, which is the major library of the university, and it's so massive.
I mean, it's in several different buildings.
You have the Bodleian Building, and then you have the Radcliffe Camera, which is the kind of iconic Oxford structure, that cylindrical type thing that's in all the postcards and whatnot.
That's actually a science library that's part of the Bodleian.
But underneath the city are all these tunnels that you can't see.
And there are literally people whose job is to run around these tunnels in the city and get books out for the students.
And so there's this massive network of tunnels from the Bodleian Library that have existed for some, I don't know for how long, but I think for quite a long period of time.
So it's a fascinating place.
I've never been in the tunnels.
I think it would be kind of cool to check it out.
Well, I read this book, a couple of books, by Deborah Harkness.
She wrote a couple of books.
She's a history professor, and she actually did talk about the tunnels.
She talked about how it was a whole supernatural thing.
But she was very accurate on all of the various places, all the various things in that community.
She talked about how it was a whole supernatural thing.
She talked about how it was a whole supernatural thing.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There's amazing things.
I mean, when I was there, I was at New College, which was the new College of St. Mary.
There was another college that had existed before.
The college was St. Mary.
So this was the new College of St. Mary.
But the college is actually from the 14th century.
So I would walk around and basically look at structures from the 1300s and just marvel at them.
And I lived in college right on the other side of the garden.
There's a beautiful garden.
And New College and Maudlin were some of the only two to preserve the old city wall.
And the old city wall dated back to the 12th century, so the 1100s.
And, you know, I used to smoke back then.
Now, apparently, I just smoke cigars and various other things.
But I used to go and have a cigarette in the garden and lean against this wall and think, my God, you know, this wall is just about four times older than my entire country.
And, you know, and it would blow my mind.
You know, these stones have been sitting here for, you know, it was 900-something years.
I'm just, you know, still leaning up against them having a cigarette.
Wow.
Pretty cool place.
All right.
Listen, we're going to move on.
But thank you for all the thoughts and random noises.
He just hung up, too.
Wow.
No one says goodbye anymore.
What's up with that?
Well, it started a trend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, Oxford, yeah, you know, I'm fascinated by it.
I'd love to see it someday.
You seem to be quite familiar with Oxford as well, having spent some time there.
I have a question.
Do they have a football team?
I think they do, right?
I think they do.
I think they have.
Do they have Oxford United?
I'm asking you.
You know, I really honestly don't know.
I'm not a big football fan.
Yes, but being in a particular town for years, you couldn't help but hear about them, I'm sure.
Unless.
Yeah.
Unless they're so bad that people don't want to talk about them.
Yeah.
I think there is an Oxford United.
Is that?
Gila seems to have been.
Gila seems to have the information because she always has the information.
Go ahead, Gila.
Yep.
Oxford United, Professional Football Club.
Y'all, they're in League One.
They got relegated down last year.
League One is actually the third division.
Correct.
There's Premier League.
There's the championship.
And then there's League One.
I preferred it when they called it 1, 2, 3, and 4.
And there's more beyond that, too.
But nobody talks about them.
They're in League One.
They've been called Oxford United since 1960.
They were the Headington Football Club, and they were founded in 1893.
Headington, that makes sense, yeah.
And they have been at Kassam Stadium since 2001.
Okay.
Well, that satisfies my curiosity.
Now, I have an idea that I had while listening to all the vampire stuff.
On the half hour, we look at how many people are...
How many people are...
Why am I echoing?
Why?
Nobody wants to admit doing that?
Is it echoing now?
No, not anymore.
It was you.
Okay, yeah.
I think it was because I switched over because I have to take my earpiece out.
I have somebody at the door that I have to let in, so I'll be back in a second.
Well, you're not going to hear my idea.
It's important.
30 minutes past the hour.
It only takes me a second.
30 minutes past the hour, we look at how many listeners we have, and that's how many minutes we go.
So we had 43 listeners at 30 past.
That means we end at 43 minutes past the hour.
There, that's it.
Interesting.
So if we have 1,000 listeners, we'll be on for a good long time.
So, you know, it gives the listeners control.
Huh.
It's an interesting theory.
Yeah.
It's a known exciting algorithm.
Because we have more now.
Yeah.
But we have a phone call, but Kyle's not in the room, so...
Oh, here he is.
But this will probably be the last phone call because we're going off the air at 43 minutes past.
I think it's a good idea.
I think given the rising temperature in this apartment, it's a very good idea.
Yeah, I think I'm motivated by the rising temperature here in the studio.
Good evening.
You're on off the hook over time.
Go ahead.
Hey, what's going on, guys?
How you doing?
I'm just going to...
I'm doing all right.
I heard you guys talking about the phone recording stuff a little bit ago and talking about, like,
does anybody ever actually listen to those calls when people are saying it's going to be recorded?
And I actually had a little bit of experience with that kind of stuff.
Really?
Yeah.
I used to work at a regional cell phone provider back about 20-some-odd years ago.
And so I was one of the guys on the phone picking up, trying to fix people's phones whenever they were dropping calls and all that fun stuff.
But when I was doing it, there was basically two reasons why one of my calls would get listened to.
One, if somebody complained, which fortunately wasn't that often.
But the other one was all the supervisors had to listen to a certain amount of calls per week, just picking at random.
I forget how many they had to do, like 10 or 20 a week or whatever.
So they would just kind of click on random people's calls and listen to them and just kind of try and figure out, you know, make a little chart about who's doing good, who's doing bad.
So I imagine it's probably similar these days with that kind of stuff.
You know, there is a chance it'll get listened to, maybe more if it's more interesting.
But, yeah, it's maybe not as exciting as it sounds like.
It's just a bunch of people sitting around just flagging, you know, did they follow the script type of thing.
Yeah, okay, I could see that.
Yeah, that's fascinating that you actually were somebody who was part of that.
Yeah, yeah, it was an interesting time back then.
It was a lot more hands-on than the kind of stuff that goes on now.
You know, now it's pretty much all just over IP and not a whole lot of switches to mess with.
But, you know, it is what it is.
Technology moves on.
It does.
Sometimes it moves backwards.
But those were some magical days back then, I think.
Yeah, for sure.
All right.
Well, thanks for sharing that with us.
All right.
Y'all have a good one.
All right.
Take care.
Wow.
So, yeah, okay.
People do listen.
I don't know if people listen today, but they did listen in the past.
I remember, you know, one of the first jobs I ever had, one I've always tried to forget, is being a telemarketer.
If you can believe that, I think I lasted two days, maybe.
But I remember the training session there.
You would go into this big room, and there must have been about 20 people all making phone calls at once.
And selling ridiculous things like, you know, monogrammed pens and just nonsense.
And the guy who was training was very full of himself and thought he could do everything right.
And he was actually making a demo call to show us how it was done, how it was done properly.
And he was just giving the spiel, you know, the sales pitch, all that.
And in the background, you could hear the person that he was calling.
And I don't think he meant for us to hear that person, but there was a person there.
And they were just saying, can you please stop calling me and get off my phone line?
You could just hear them getting more and more angry, but very, very far away, because it was literally the receiver in his ear.
And that was his demonstration of how to make a proper phone call.
But it also was a kind of foreshadowing of how welcome we would be when we called people in their homes at dinnertime to try and sell them pens.
About the most fun I had at that job was figuring out how to make local calls with the MCI dial tone that they had.
They had an MCI dial tone, and it was programmed to only be able to call long distance, which was weird.
But I figured out a way to route it so that it would ring the phone that was on the supervisor's desk.
And what I would do is I'd call that number when he was on the other side of the room so that he would have to walk all the way back to get to the phone.
And I'd be on the phone as if I was making a sales call, which I was not.
And then as soon as he got to the phone, I'd hang up and there'd be nobody there.
And then he'd go all the way back to where he was, and the same thing would happen again.
And that's how I got through two days of being a telemarketer.
Okay. Well, it's one minute before my deadline.
And we can go beyond the deadline, by the way, because I said 43.
If we're having a good conversation, we can keep going.
But 43 is pretty much to cut off.
Good evening. You're on Off the Hook Overtime. Go ahead.
Yes, good evening.
Long time less than the first time, Cola.
I just want to say, Emanuel, I think very highly of you, and I think you're a fascinating guy, and you have great ideas, and I enjoy listening to you.
You know, Alex, he left. He's not there to hear this.
There you are. Alex, did you hear that? Did you hear that, listener?
I didn't hear that. What was it? I just missed it. I was being distracted.
Could you repeat that again and try to be as sincere as you were the first time?
I really enjoyed listening to Emanuel. He has fascinating ideas. I love his thoughts.
I love to listen to his ideas, and I think very highly of him.
Thank you so much for saying that. Just unprovoked. Completely spontaneous.
I would say to you, caller, just listen more carefully next time. You might change your opinion.
You know, Alex, I'm going to find you at some point.
Well, you know, this is something that maybe we should address, right? Because we got some listener mail about this, right?
Where people talk about you and I bickering on the show, where we argue about various things.
Some people like it when there's conflict on the show, and other people don't like it when there's conflict on the show.
Can I just ask our caller, is there anything else you wanted to say?
Oh, sorry. I'm preempting him, yes.
I was just going to piggyback off of the conversation about James Dolan and how people use their entities as a personal grudge or vendetta.
I was thinking about when he actually threw Charles Oakley out of the garden.
Yes.
Charles Oakley, I don't know if he got to follow basketball.
I remember that.
He's arguably one of the greatest power forwards in the New York Knicks history.
And the guy paid for a ticket, and I don't know what transpired between him and Dolan, but they literally violently threw the guy out, which was insane to me.
But I just wanted to add that to the conversation. That's all.
Okay. Well, thanks for bringing that up as well. I think that got resolved, though, did it not?
I believe it did. I believe it did.
And I think Charles Oakley had to pay something because there was some evidence of him sending e-mails.
I don't know what those e-mails contained, and he deleted them.
So it was - I don't know the full story, but it was resolved.
But nevertheless, I mean, if you have a disagreement with someone and you buy a ticket, and considering his history with the team, I mean, to be violently tossed out was just -
Yeah, that's - I should look into that story again. I'd like to recollect what happened then.
But I enjoyed the conversation, like I said. I've been listening to - I probably shouldn't bring his name up, but Bernie S., the Benedict Arnold.
We won't go there, but I know the story.
Okay.
And I'm going to continue to listen, and I love you guys, and take care.
All right. Thanks for your call. Take care.
All right. Okay, bye.
What a great call to end on.
Now, Alex, continue with what you were saying.
Oh, what I was saying is, yeah, some people get a little worked up when you and I argue about various things, Emmanuel.
No, they don't. You're wrong.
But what I should say is that, you know, in as much as we may bicker, like a husband and wife couple or something like that, I don't know what the particular analogy is.
A different analogy, please.
Yeah, well, whatever, right?
But we've known each other a very, very long time.
And we can disagree on things.
And I think it's a good example of how people can reasonably disagree on things and still be friends.
And we've known each other for, my God, almost 33 years now, which is like a crazy, crazy thing to me.
But I feel like, you know, you really literally are one of my oldest friends.
Wow.
And I don't mean in kind of, you know, dog years.
I mean, but 33 years is a long time to have a friendship.
So we weathered a lot of storms and we'll continue to fight and bicker in whatever analogy you want to choose to have it like brothers, like husband and wife.
I don't know, whatever.
But I look forward to many, many more arguments with you over the years to come.
How about other people?
Do you want to argue with other people, too?
Absolutely.
I'll take Gila and Rob on any time.
No doubt.
I mean, we don't argue much.
So we do, too.
I recommend it.
I recommend it.
It's, you know, people shy away from arguing.
And I don't think that's healthy because you shut yourself off to different opinions.
Don't interrupt me, Alex.
You shut yourself off to other opinions.
And that's an opportunity for you to examine why you believe what you say and also to maybe consider that you might be wrong.
Yeah.
And Alex, I'm happy to see that you're doing it.
We just have very calm discussions about our points of disagreement.
In fact, Gila, I do want to say that I enjoy listening to you on this program.
And I think you have a lot of good ideas and you're really sharp.
And, you know, I think you're at a lot.
Thank you.
And I want to say that I think you're very, very clever.
I enjoy listening to what you have to say.
And, you know, you're my favorite part of the show.
Both of you sounded like there was a butt that was going to follow that statement.
Well, I've never met anybody faster on his feet than Rob.
I mean, you ask him for a pun and, you know, he just whips one right out.
Oh, I don't believe it.
Yeah, it is unbelievable.
This man has such facility with puns.
Any pun or just in a particular subject?
I think it's just, you know, we should try this next week.
I mean, why don't we try it right now?
All right, go for it, Rob.
You got to give us a pun.
But no, you got to give him like material to cheat off of.
You got to give him some.
Well, what material?
Should we go off the MSG facial recognition settling scores with biometrics type of pun?
I don't know.
How the hell do you make a pun from that?
Well, no, I mean, MSG facial recognition is my favorite kind because it's got that umami to it.
There you go.
There you go.
Keep me to it.
Wow.
Awesome.
I think we discovered what the source is.
I think so, too.
Osmosis.
Yep.
All right.
Well.
Well, with that.
Sorry.
I know that was for you, but I couldn't help it.
No, that was awesome.
I think it's time for us to turn our air conditioning on and put whatever prices we have and start to recover from this episode.
Listeners as well.
We will be back next week with a one hour show on WBAI.
If you're a caller to Off the Hook Overtime, please don't call that one because that's for the people who listen on the radio.
Even if you're one of those people, too.
Let's give other people a chance as well.
We will see you again on Overtime in two weeks.
Stay cool.
And I don't have anything else to say.
Temperature's rising.
It's getting hot.
All right.
Yeah.
Maybe it's best.
Good night.