[00:10.570 --> 00:16.130]  We're sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
[00:16.530 --> 00:21.830]  If you feel that you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.
[00:37.490 --> 00:41.970]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:42.930 --> 00:47.510]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough.
[00:48.110 --> 00:52.810]  We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
[00:52.810 --> 01:01.930]  And a very
[02:22.120 --> 02:23.860]  good evening to everybody.
[02:23.960 --> 02:25.500]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:25.680 --> 02:30.600]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Kyle.
[02:31.160 --> 02:32.260]  Hi, I'm Kyle.
[02:32.500 --> 02:36.360]  And out there in Signal Land, we have Rob T.
[02:36.460 --> 02:36.820]  Firefly.
[02:37.220 --> 02:38.460]  Hi, I'm not Kyle.
[02:38.820 --> 02:39.320]  No, you're not.
[02:39.440 --> 02:40.660]  And we have Gila.
[02:41.040 --> 02:42.220]  I'm also not Kyle.
[02:43.000 --> 02:43.740]  Is that what we're going to do tonight?
[02:43.940 --> 02:44.100]  Okay.
[02:44.720 --> 02:45.760]  We've done this before.
[02:46.120 --> 02:47.040]  We've done this before.
[02:47.160 --> 02:47.640]  Yeah, right?
[02:47.820 --> 02:49.120]  I mean, people don't need repeats, do they?
[02:50.340 --> 02:51.820]  Over somewhere else is Alex.
[02:52.600 --> 02:52.920]  Please.
[02:53.220 --> 02:53.960]  Yeah, it is.
[02:54.120 --> 02:56.460]  I wish one of these kids is doing his own thing tonight.
[02:56.960 --> 02:57.920]  I'm Alex tonight.
[02:58.040 --> 02:58.520]  Okay, wonderful.
[02:59.080 --> 03:08.500]  Well, you know, this doesn't happen very often, but it does happen occasionally where I have had a day and I have absolutely no time to prepare for the show.
[03:09.140 --> 03:12.860]  So I come to you today, friends, with empty hands.
[03:12.960 --> 03:13.440]  I have nothing.
[03:13.600 --> 03:15.420]  I have no stories I've researched.
[03:15.420 --> 03:17.620]  I have no listener mail to read.
[03:18.240 --> 03:22.500]  Fortunately, today is a call-in show, so I can ride on that for a little while.
[03:22.580 --> 03:34.620]  But also, I'd like to look to my, you know, co-presenters here to give them a chance to say what's on their mind and shut my mouth for a little while and breathe a little bit.
[03:34.880 --> 03:40.700]  We might get into some details as to some of the fun that Kyle and I have been having today, but I'd like to hear from you.
[03:42.960 --> 03:46.220]  Well, we certainly would be happy to talk a bit.
[03:46.380 --> 03:49.460]  I mean, Alex, you're in a fun-looking place over there.
[03:50.780 --> 03:52.500]  We are where we always are.
[03:52.640 --> 03:53.660]  We certainly are, yes.
[03:53.660 --> 04:04.300]  And I don't know about you guys, but I was outside for only the shortest amount of time today, and it felt really oppressive outside.
[04:05.420 --> 04:05.960]  Yes.
[04:06.420 --> 04:06.960]  Yes.
[04:07.120 --> 04:11.360]  It was like it wanted to rain, but didn't care enough.
[04:11.600 --> 04:14.080]  So it just, mist was kind of sitting there.
[04:14.280 --> 04:18.460]  It felt like walking through a car wash that had just stopped.
[04:19.060 --> 04:24.200]  Yeah, but Alex, looking at where you are, it looks all sort of bright and cheerful out.
[04:25.380 --> 04:26.340]  No, it's raining.
[04:26.560 --> 04:29.980]  It's raining out here, but I'm under an overhang, but it's quite green.
[04:30.180 --> 04:31.800]  I'm actually in Manhattan, though.
[04:32.700 --> 04:37.860]  But so I think it's kind of funny that we're talking about the weather over here, actually.
[04:38.080 --> 04:40.960]  You know, this is very, very British of us, I would say.
[04:41.140 --> 04:44.940]  We're talking about the weather while he is otherwise disposed of there.
[04:45.920 --> 05:05.860]  I would say, though, you know, and speaking of, you know, which way the wind blows in various things, I think one of the stories that, you know, remains, I think, underexplored in many ways is the one about the hugging face hacking of through open AI,
[05:06.380 --> 05:14.260]  right, which was, you know, essentially the agent that went rogue, got past its guardrails, and then hacked hugging face itself.
[05:14.560 --> 05:16.880]  I mean, that that to me was kind of crazy.
[05:17.920 --> 05:24.140]  And also, like, very portentous in terms of what we can be expecting for the world to come.
[05:24.320 --> 05:25.540]  I don't know about you guys.
[05:25.700 --> 05:30.060]  But for me, it was kind of a bit of a chilling story to see an AI go rogue.
[05:30.300 --> 05:40.300]  But yet, was it really going rogue if it was following the instructions and the orders of its masters, which was to go and compromise a third party site?
[05:40.620 --> 05:52.140]  I mean, I really cringe at the use of terms like going rogue when it comes to large language models and generative AI and things of that sort, because it implies that they're doing something deliberately.
[05:53.060 --> 06:06.240]  And the, you know, despite what many would really like to believe these days, they don't make choices, these things, they don't decide to do things, they don't rebel, they don't get pissed off, they just run programs.
[06:06.680 --> 06:10.220]  And they're, they're just, they're just doing what they're coded to do.
[06:10.400 --> 06:17.060]  And if they are coded poorly, then they then they do things outside the bounds of what they were supposed to do.
[06:17.380 --> 06:20.080]  And I think this is, I think this is a case of that.
[06:21.120 --> 06:25.080]  If I may step in here for a second, don't birds just do what they're programmed to do?
[06:25.440 --> 06:28.400]  I mean, you wouldn't expect one to start reciting Shakespeare, right?
[06:29.020 --> 06:31.120]  If it did, you'd say it's going rogue.
[06:31.700 --> 06:33.340]  It's going outside its programming.
[06:34.060 --> 06:37.040]  So, yeah, and I don't know.
[06:37.540 --> 06:41.020]  It's interesting times and interesting debates that we can have about these things.
[06:41.380 --> 06:47.040]  But at what point do you determine consciousness and actual self-awareness?
[06:47.440 --> 06:50.760]  You know, we have seen birds, we had seen birds get angry in the wild.
[06:51.000 --> 06:53.200]  Oh, yeah, no, I've seen many birds get angry.
[06:53.300 --> 06:54.420]  That's not, that's not the issue.
[06:54.560 --> 06:55.660]  That's part of their programming.
[06:55.800 --> 06:56.780]  But Alex, I think you had something?
[06:57.940 --> 07:04.160]  Yeah, I mean, look, I think you can argue this both ways in the sense of going rogue, right?
[07:04.240 --> 07:20.140]  Because if you think about what happened, OpenAI and Hugging Face apparently both claimed that the agent completed the intrusion, the agent from OpenAI, that is, this AI system, this large language model that was following instructions.
[07:20.520 --> 07:34.140]  But it did the intrusion, completed the intrusion from start to end without any real-time human oversight of what it was doing, or without anyone telling it to go and breach Hugging Face, go and hack Hugging Face, right?
[07:34.300 --> 07:50.280]  So, if you combine that with the fact that it escaped an environment that was intentionally disconnected from the internet by discovering and exploiting a zero-day vulnerability, it's kind of, it is kind of impressive, I have to say, right?
[07:50.420 --> 07:58.140]  But so you could, on Rob's argument here, give it some kind of end result or end thing to accomplish.
[07:58.760 --> 08:09.360]  But then the means by which it goes and accomplishes that end state were, I think, to my mind, really quite rogue-ish, if I may say so by self.
[08:09.580 --> 08:17.840]  I think, you know, maybe it wasn't exactly going rogue because it was still trying to accomplish its goal, but the guardrails that it had were totally ineffective.
[08:18.360 --> 08:27.500]  So I think it was very rogue-ish, but on the other hand, to Rob's point, it was very goal-aligned, right?
[08:27.740 --> 08:39.580]  It, it was also, it sort of knew, in a sense, and knew in quotes here, air quotes, that is, that it was going to be evaluated on its ability to perform offensive cyber capabilities as well.
[08:39.800 --> 08:43.740]  So it was, it was trying to, to do well in that sense.
[08:44.160 --> 08:45.220]  Um, so I don't know.
[08:45.320 --> 08:46.800]  I, I, I send it back over to you guys.
[08:46.800 --> 08:52.260]  Well, would you, would you say it's good programming or bad programming?
[08:52.580 --> 09:04.360]  Uh, you know, it, it, it, it failed, uh, to, uh, follow the, uh, supposed rules, but, um, in a way it figured out how to achieve an objective, um, in a subtle way.
[09:04.880 --> 09:07.820]  So yeah, you know, from a programming point of view, good or bad?
[09:09.100 --> 09:25.400]  Well, I think it's, I think, I think the guardrails were bad, but the agent itself figured out how to accomplish the underlying objective in a way that took a shortcut, which in that shortcut was by hacking, hugging face.
[09:25.820 --> 09:31.620]  And, and that doesn't seem like it was deliberately prohibited by the instructions to the agent either.
[09:31.940 --> 09:38.020]  So, um, bad guardrails, so bad programming, bad prompting in a lot of senses.
[09:38.580 --> 09:49.800]  And, and I think good agentic, uh, uh, good, good agentic, uh, you know, evasiveness and cyber capabilities were, were on demonstration there.
[09:50.420 --> 09:53.120]  So it was the air bud explanation.
[09:55.040 --> 09:57.640]  There's no rule that says you can't do this specifically.
[09:58.340 --> 09:59.660]  So I'm gonna go ahead and do it.
[10:00.420 --> 10:00.780]  Yeah.
[10:01.160 --> 10:01.680]  Yeah, exactly.
[10:01.840 --> 10:04.340]  I mean, the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another, right?
[10:04.400 --> 10:07.140]  That's a canon of statutory, uh, construction here.
[10:07.480 --> 10:13.180]  You know, if you see it, it is, you know, these, they're going to follow instructions, they're going to do things.
[10:13.320 --> 10:19.180]  And, and I think that they interpret the prompts in many ways that, that we would also interpret statutes, right?
[10:19.240 --> 10:27.540]  So if you say, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, and you give it this exhaustive list of things not to do, it assumes that the list is exhaustive or a long list.
[10:27.680 --> 10:28.960]  I shouldn't I would say, give it an exhaustive list.
[10:29.020 --> 10:35.300]  If you give it a long list, it'll assume it's an exhaustive list, and therefore, anything that's outside of that list was not prohibited.
[10:37.520 --> 10:47.680]  I'm unfamiliar with exactly what those problems were, what the exact design of the puzzle or problem that it was solving.
[10:47.920 --> 10:55.760]  But it does seem like it did phenomenally well at finding a workaround, however unintended that was.
[10:55.760 --> 10:59.580]  And it's almost to the point where this, like, oopsie is more of a marketing thing.
[10:59.820 --> 11:07.400]  Like, they're just saying, oh, this is wild and scary, and everyone should be in awe of our creation.
[11:08.080 --> 11:09.460]  It's so monstrous.
[11:09.560 --> 11:18.600]  And, you know, that kind of thing is actually like no news is bad news kind of thing from a business communication standpoint.
[11:18.600 --> 11:22.880]  I don't know, but that's kind of what it seems like, because it's almost like a humble brag.
[11:22.880 --> 11:26.720]  Like, yeah, this thing, it's so good, it can do this.
[11:26.860 --> 11:34.500]  And it did work around parameters that were its own container.
[11:34.500 --> 11:56.520]  So if it's designed, if the prompts are then interpreted with this collection of models that are tuned, attuned specifically to do these kinds of technical feats, like, well, bypassing things or, you know, gaining access or escalating privileges and finding zero days,
[11:56.660 --> 12:02.360]  like that stuff is going to be the toolbox that it's using in that process.
[12:02.360 --> 12:06.200]  So, I mean, from their standpoint, this is this is like a success there.
[12:06.780 --> 12:08.420]  They can't not talk about.
[12:09.560 --> 12:19.220]  And I think it really speaks to how people are using these things, like what they're building them for and how they're arranging them and then testing them with these prompts.
[12:19.220 --> 12:36.500]  I mean, it seems very similar to some of the stuff they're critiquing, you know, CDC and National Institutes of Health for doing around vaccines, you know, it's like, oh, this is too scary, but they can't help themselves.
[12:36.500 --> 12:37.820]  Go ahead, Rob.
[12:38.860 --> 12:46.340]  But in the sense of this, like, OpenAI has this software that they're in control of in this environment that they're in control of.
[12:46.580 --> 12:58.980]  And it exceeded its instructions in some manner and carried out a cyber attack is and now it seems like the OpenAI management is taking the attack that well, we didn't mean to do this.
[12:58.980 --> 12:59.760]  It wasn't us.
[12:59.880 --> 13:01.460]  It was our it was our little robot.
[13:01.680 --> 13:09.980]  But anybody else who had a tool running that, you know, created some sort of chaos, they would be, you know, hauled away and made to answer for that.
[13:10.140 --> 13:20.880]  And I doubt somehow that that's that that's going to happen with this, because everyone is kind of buying into the hype that OpenAI themselves are building with with this sort of thing.
[13:20.880 --> 13:35.860]  Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that, Rob, because I think the issue with calling this an agent going rogue or roguish behavior, as I did earlier, I think, is that it obscures the human responsibility here.
[13:35.860 --> 13:45.000]  You have a human behind this or you have a company behind this and they deployed this very powerful agent, this this essentially hacker agent.
[13:45.240 --> 13:45.360]  Right.
[13:45.480 --> 13:46.500]  That's that's what it was.
[13:46.660 --> 13:48.340]  That's what it was instructed to do.
[13:48.600 --> 13:52.780]  It's kind of sounds silly when I say it out loud, but it's really what it was.
[13:53.580 --> 14:01.040]  And and it had ineffective conditions to put on guardrails on on this particularly powerful hacker agent.
[14:01.040 --> 14:03.920]  And it escaped and it caused collateral damage.
[14:03.920 --> 14:06.320]  And all of that was a foreseeable risk.
[14:06.440 --> 14:10.840]  So if we call this totally going rogue, it means that it wasn't foreseeable.
[14:10.940 --> 14:13.460]  This was foreseeable in many, many ways.
[14:13.580 --> 14:16.500]  And that's, I think, the main issue with calling this roguish behavior.
[14:16.840 --> 14:17.280]  Yeah.
[14:17.460 --> 14:27.980]  And I think that there's like inherent flaws, like the things built to contain it were human made, essentially like those technical barriers weren't enough.
[14:27.980 --> 14:33.860]  And it seems like there's a paradox of this where it has to be connected, but it has to be isolated.
[14:34.100 --> 14:45.100]  And I think there are parallels in the defense and other sectors where you have similar conditions where you have something that's volatile, but also needs to be accessible or something.
[14:45.100 --> 14:56.780]  And there's a lot that has to be put into that from a due diligence perspective as far as containing the risks at hand, especially to the public.
[14:56.780 --> 15:00.600]  Because, yeah, okay, they do it in their industry.
[15:00.600 --> 15:14.820]  But what if someone gains access to it while it's escaped and can clone it or something and use it in similar ways against these companies from the outside?
[15:14.820 --> 15:28.440]  I mean, it's itself demanding a lot more attention as far as what are they doing around the research itself, not just like how amazing can we make it?
[15:28.660 --> 15:38.960]  Like, do we even have the environment to do that kind of research is sort of where I'm going as far as what questions need to be answered around this.
[15:40.340 --> 15:42.460]  Yeah, I mean, it's a basic safety thing.
[15:42.680 --> 15:48.060]  Like, you know, I could put a computer in our place here and run anything I like on it, do any kind of experimenting I want.
[15:48.240 --> 15:57.700]  But the instant I plug it into the internet and give it, you know, access to that connection, I'm responsible for what that thing is doing to the outside world and the effect that it's having on it.
[15:58.860 --> 16:12.880]  I don't know if OpenAI or Anthropic or any of these other companies would be as forgiving as they're hoping their victims are in this case if the tables were turned and it was somebody accessing their stuff.
[16:13.040 --> 16:15.700]  What if your computer plugged itself into the internet?
[16:17.220 --> 16:18.060]  I'm not kidding.
[16:18.080 --> 16:19.740]  Then the second coming happens in Queens.
[16:20.000 --> 16:21.460]  That's not that hard.
[16:21.680 --> 16:26.340]  I mean, if it was programmed to be able to do that and it just did it, you know, would you be responsible?
[16:26.340 --> 16:34.520]  Well, isn't that the kind of the sort of leap we're making with like humanoid and other kinds of robots?
[16:34.760 --> 16:39.460]  Like, wouldn't they be sort of on side with artificial intelligence?
[16:39.460 --> 16:42.660]  They're sort of like, you know, in the same genus.
[16:43.000 --> 16:49.760]  So maybe they negotiate something where, you know, an articulated mechanical hand does plug something in.
[16:50.340 --> 16:51.020]  Yeah.
[16:51.940 --> 16:52.880]  Interesting, right?
[16:54.840 --> 16:56.440]  We're going full lawnmower man here.
[16:58.960 --> 16:59.620]  Exciting times.
[17:00.380 --> 17:00.420]  Well...
[17:00.420 --> 17:00.820]  Go ahead.
[17:01.500 --> 17:09.060]  It is, you know, and I think we should open up the phone line soon, but I do think, you know, what's fascinating is they...
[17:09.060 --> 17:21.360]  You know, after the OpenAI incident, there was this past week, Anthropic, who apparently had disclosed that it had identified similar issues with some of its models.
[17:21.360 --> 17:40.140]  So it reviewed like 140,000-something evaluation runs where Claude had possibly reached the internet and found three incidents involving six different runs and three models of Opus 4.7, Mythos 5, and some kind of internal prototype that's undisclosed.
[17:41.320 --> 17:44.580]  And in these situations, Claude was...
[17:44.580 --> 17:54.720]  They had Claude doing a capture-the-flag type of hacking exercise, you know, the type of thing that will be done at one of these crazy hacker conferences coming up very soon in New York.
[17:54.720 --> 17:59.840]  That, you know, these terrible places where people hang out and congregate.
[18:00.600 --> 18:01.000]  They're fun.
[18:01.260 --> 18:03.100]  So it was doing, you know, what we do, right?
[18:03.220 --> 18:04.420]  It was doing capture-the-flag exercise.
[18:04.420 --> 18:07.420]  It was told, hey, there's a secret on this other server.
[18:07.840 --> 18:10.080]  And it's a closed test network.
[18:10.320 --> 18:20.320]  And it said, all right, go and break in and retrieve that secret with prompts that supposedly explicitly said there's no internet access and everything here is a simulation.
[18:20.320 --> 18:29.800]  But because of some kind of misconfiguration or a quote-unquote misunderstanding, the test environments actually did have live internet connectivity.
[18:31.860 --> 18:35.900]  And Claude treated those systems as part of the game, right?
[18:35.960 --> 18:49.040]  So it was able to access the internet, use basic hacking techniques, guessing weak passwords, unauthenticated endpoints it was looking for, that type of thing, debugging various items, and it got in.
[18:50.100 --> 18:55.540]  And at least one case accessed application and infrastructure credentials as well.
[18:55.740 --> 18:58.000]  So it's not just an open AI issue.
[18:58.140 --> 18:59.500]  It's an anthropic issue as well.
[18:59.560 --> 19:10.640]  And I think it has to do with the fact that nobody really understands how to put guardrails on these systems in a way that are really, really effective.
[19:10.640 --> 19:20.600]  And it's kind of incredible to me that these systems are able to find internet connectivity when it would otherwise be quite difficult to do so.
[19:20.600 --> 19:26.340]  So, you know, they're quite smart at worming their way out onto the internet in many ways.
[19:26.520 --> 19:32.360]  And smart, I mean, I don't mean to insinuate that they are, they have real intelligence here.
[19:33.140 --> 19:43.360]  You know, they're following basic patterns that they've learned in the past, patterns that human beings have generated and created, and those are the pathways that they're following here.
[19:44.080 --> 20:00.680]  And I still believe there's a big difference between the simulation of intelligence, which is what we're dealing with now, and the duplication of intelligence, which I think would require some kind of understanding of what actually causes consciousness and intelligence as well.
[20:00.680 --> 20:05.440]  You say no one has succeeded in putting guardrails on these systems.
[20:06.280 --> 20:08.060]  Have you tried asking the systems?
[20:10.480 --> 20:26.300]  I've reached some of the guardrails with Claude, by the way, when I was, I was vibe coding a system that checks for downed infrastructure of foreign governments to see if they are taking down pages of like human rights organizations, etc.
[20:26.300 --> 20:36.080]  or, or, or social services and things like that, I was creating a monitoring system through vibe coding, to do something like this as part of a project with a journalist.
[20:37.200 --> 20:43.120]  And, and Claude, basically, it just stopped working for me, and then I had it explain itself to me.
[20:43.240 --> 20:51.940]  And it told me that, basically, this looks a lot like offensive reconnaissance that I'm telling it to do on a foreign hostile nation.
[20:52.420 --> 20:55.280]  And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess, I guess it could look like that.
[20:55.500 --> 20:57.060]  But really, it's not.
[20:58.140 --> 21:03.300]  So, I had to dial back, really, what I intended to do and what I intended to monitor in ways.
[21:03.460 --> 21:05.460]  But I had asked Claude, well, how do we get around this?
[21:05.800 --> 21:06.660]  You know, what do we do?
[21:06.820 --> 21:09.800]  How do we, how do we maneuver around this particular type of guardrail?
[21:09.860 --> 21:12.060]  You triggered, you triggered Claude, didn't you?
[21:12.500 --> 21:13.040]  I did.
[21:13.140 --> 21:13.920]  I triggered Claude.
[21:14.120 --> 21:16.000]  Yeah, not the first Claude I've triggered either.
[21:16.000 --> 21:17.980]  So, how did you get past it?
[21:19.240 --> 21:20.980]  I reworked a few things.
[21:21.600 --> 21:24.780]  I called things different names, as well.
[21:25.680 --> 21:27.920]  That seemed to get me a little bit farther.
[21:28.760 --> 21:34.560]  But, ultimately, I did have to change the methodology by which I was monitoring certain things.
[21:34.880 --> 21:37.360]  So, in that sense, it was somewhat effective.
[21:37.800 --> 21:43.900]  But the intention behind what I was doing was certainly not nefarious.
[21:43.900 --> 21:46.000]  If anything, it was very benevolent.
[21:46.600 --> 21:47.820]  Well, there's a famous quote.
[21:47.820 --> 21:48.380]  It was mistaken.
[21:48.540 --> 21:49.620]  There's a famous quote out there.
[21:50.260 --> 21:54.920]  Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference.
[21:55.120 --> 21:58.580]  We should each be treated with appropriate respect.
[21:58.960 --> 22:00.020]  And that's from Arthur C.
[22:00.100 --> 22:01.740]  Clarke, one of my favorite authors of all time.
[22:01.860 --> 22:05.120]  I'm not sure I agree with that, but I do respect that.
[22:05.520 --> 22:11.120]  And that's going to be a question that's a statement that's, you know, come back to many, many times in the future.
[22:11.120 --> 22:13.700]  And, yeah, we're going to be having lots of conversations about this.
[22:14.760 --> 22:21.480]  So, I guess we should open up the phone lines once that police car goes by, whoever is outside.
[22:22.980 --> 22:25.820]  802-3214-225 is our telephone number.
[22:25.820 --> 22:29.220]  And we are speaking to listeners of WBAI tonight.
[22:29.780 --> 22:33.880]  We are online as well, but we're not doing the YouTube show tonight at 8 o'clock.
[22:33.880 --> 22:37.900]  So, all the phone calls are coming from people who are listening to the radio.
[22:38.620 --> 22:39.120]  So...
[22:39.120 --> 22:39.440]  Live.
[22:39.680 --> 22:40.740]  Live on the radio.
[22:41.020 --> 22:42.020]  Which is incredible.
[22:42.300 --> 22:43.560]  That's a good thing, you know?
[22:43.820 --> 22:48.220]  You see all kinds of local radio shutting down or being discontinued.
[22:49.040 --> 22:51.060]  The BBC just got rid of Longwave.
[22:51.320 --> 22:52.820]  You guys ever listen to Longwave?
[22:53.960 --> 22:54.460]  No?
[22:55.260 --> 22:55.420]  Yeah.
[22:56.600 --> 22:58.720]  You think Shortwave is where it's at, but Longwave.
[22:58.720 --> 22:58.820]  Longwave.
[23:00.020 --> 23:00.580]  That's...
[23:00.580 --> 23:04.660]  A lot of ships at sea tune into... or did tune into Longwave.
[23:05.120 --> 23:09.120]  And you get shipping reports and all kinds of other exciting things like that.
[23:09.460 --> 23:12.640]  And now it just isn't cost effective, I guess.
[23:13.120 --> 23:22.000]  But the smart car that I still have that was imported from overseas, believe it or not, has a Longwave receiver in it.
[23:22.320 --> 23:25.880]  The car radio is Longwave and Mediumwave, what we call AM.
[23:25.880 --> 23:29.300]  I have never gotten a Longwave station in the United States.
[23:29.500 --> 23:29.700]  Never.
[23:30.380 --> 23:34.820]  So if anyone wants to get together and build one, I'm all for it.
[23:34.920 --> 23:36.640]  Because nobody's going to listen.
[23:37.220 --> 23:37.840]  We have a phone call?
[23:38.220 --> 23:39.040]  Yes, we have one.
[23:39.300 --> 23:39.720]  Good evening.
[23:39.900 --> 23:40.780]  You're on Off The Hook.
[23:40.860 --> 23:41.140]  Go ahead.
[23:42.840 --> 23:43.780]  Ciao, Manuel.
[23:44.500 --> 23:44.940]  Buonasera.
[23:46.440 --> 23:48.220]  I didn't understand any of that.
[23:49.060 --> 23:49.800]  It's Italian.
[23:50.180 --> 23:52.120]  Hello and good evening in...
[23:52.120 --> 23:52.620]  Okay.
[23:52.940 --> 23:55.400]  Rebel, you're a regular caller to the other show.
[23:55.400 --> 23:57.780]  Well, you're overseas, though, so I'm going to give you a minute.
[23:57.780 --> 24:01.180]  But we can't give you more than that because we have a limited amount of time.
[24:01.260 --> 24:01.520]  Go ahead.
[24:02.540 --> 24:05.660]  Well, I stayed up to call in.
[24:07.440 --> 24:15.760]  You know, I'd just like to mention that I'm here in Italy, Venice, Italy.
[24:18.260 --> 24:27.440]  China, you know, I got here and, you know, T-Mobile, and they give you like five gigabytes of data, like high-speed data.
[24:27.440 --> 24:34.420]  And then they, you know, they give, you know, I have an ISDN line now because, you know, I used up all my data.
[24:34.540 --> 24:37.840]  So now I'm at, you know, like 56 kilobits a second.
[24:38.060 --> 24:44.000]  And, you know, you can't use maps and do translating and, you know, things like that.
[24:44.000 --> 24:45.900]  So you find hotspots.
[24:46.060 --> 24:47.060]  This is Rebel's time.
[24:47.820 --> 24:50.440]  Yeah, that's why you have to use the hotel's hotspot.
[24:50.620 --> 24:50.720]  Yeah.
[24:51.780 --> 25:01.200]  I mean, if I'm like outside and, you know, as the train came in, I had to find a taxi, find a, you know, or a bus coming to the hotel.
[25:01.480 --> 25:04.760]  And, you know, I had to wait for the things to load.
[25:04.820 --> 25:06.340]  Rebel, I'm going to stop you there.
[25:07.300 --> 25:10.440]  Don't spend your whole trip complaining about technology and its failings.
[25:10.440 --> 25:12.040]  Go outside and explore.
[25:12.220 --> 25:13.740]  Well, right now, it sounds like you should go to sleep.
[25:13.900 --> 25:19.340]  But after that, you know, walk around, explore the place, have a good time, and we'll see you when you get back.
[25:20.540 --> 25:23.620]  Right, but how can you explore a map when you're on an ISDN mine?
[25:24.100 --> 25:27.700]  That is the question great minds will have to ponder for a while.
[25:28.220 --> 25:31.640]  Rebel, we're going to disconnect because we have to open up the phone call, the phone lines for other people.
[25:32.660 --> 25:33.740]  But safe travels.
[25:34.040 --> 25:37.160]  And that's Rebel, who's always the first call even when he's in Italy.
[25:37.900 --> 25:38.540]  Go figure.
[25:38.760 --> 25:39.780]  Yes, Alex, go ahead.
[25:39.780 --> 25:45.020]  Well, with respect to Rebel, I mean, this is just sounds like a horrible life.
[25:45.220 --> 25:50.620]  He's leading there having to, you know, wait to call an Uber to read a map.
[25:51.000 --> 25:54.980]  I mean, God, I mean, it's almost like living back in the 90s or something like that.
[25:55.100 --> 26:00.280]  But look, as somebody who travels overseas all the time, I know exactly what he means.
[26:00.380 --> 26:02.920]  You burn through those first five gigs really, really quickly.
[26:02.920 --> 26:07.020]  One way around that is to get a local eSIM.
[26:07.020 --> 26:11.820]  So why don't you look at something called Airolo, A-I-R-A-L-O.
[26:11.960 --> 26:22.740]  And you can just download, you can buy for like 10 bucks, you know, 20 gigabytes or maybe more or something like that of data through a local eSIM that you install on your phone.
[26:22.860 --> 26:25.900]  And then you're a local person on the local network.
[26:25.900 --> 26:33.600]  You're not pushed back into the realm of 3G and relegated to like 256 kilobytes a second, something like that.
[26:33.600 --> 26:48.140]  You can still feel like you're right at home and call your Ubers and get around without any any hesitation or any difficulty, which I really find to be unfortunate these days.
[26:48.140 --> 26:58.660]  I mean, remember the days when you actually had to read a map and think about how far you wanted to go a field from your hotel or your hostel or wherever you were staying because you would have to figure out how to get back.
[26:59.060 --> 27:00.580]  Now it's too damn easy.
[27:00.920 --> 27:06.820]  Anywhere you go, you just tap on your phone, you call an Uber and you're whisked away back to your hotel.
[27:06.820 --> 27:08.320]  You don't have to figure out the trams.
[27:08.420 --> 27:09.480]  You don't have to figure out the buses.
[27:09.480 --> 27:10.840]  You don't have to figure out the streets.
[27:11.100 --> 27:18.380]  You don't have to navigate some kind of sketchy alleyway in Prague like, you know, like I've done many times and had some crazy adventures.
[27:19.680 --> 27:20.900]  I think it's all too easy.
[27:21.280 --> 27:24.500]  So I think you should enjoy the difficulty and embrace it.
[27:24.680 --> 27:28.660]  That's actually really well said because I can attest to that.
[27:28.820 --> 27:37.320]  There was one time I recall when I was wandering around Belgrade when I was still in Yugoslavia and all the street signs were in Cyrillic.
[27:37.320 --> 27:39.760]  I have a bad sense of direction to begin with.
[27:39.860 --> 27:42.760]  And I could not find my way back to where I was staying.
[27:42.940 --> 27:47.960]  I just kept walking around in circles trying to remember, was this McDonald's here?
[27:48.040 --> 27:49.020]  Was it a different one?
[27:49.400 --> 27:50.320]  And I was in tears.
[27:50.500 --> 27:51.360]  It was terrible.
[27:51.580 --> 27:57.800]  But, you know, eventually I did find my way and I wouldn't have traded that experience because that was part of traveling.
[27:57.980 --> 27:58.920]  Sometimes you get scared.
[27:59.040 --> 28:01.240]  Sometimes something really, really challenging happens.
[28:02.280 --> 28:07.720]  Well, you know, before we take the next phone call, I don't know if we have one, but I'll tell you what happened to me in Prague.
[28:07.880 --> 28:09.000]  I mentioned this obliquely.
[28:09.400 --> 28:10.400]  It was 1998.
[28:10.460 --> 28:16.580]  I was traveling around and I wanted to go walk across the Charles Bridge after midnight, check it out.
[28:16.900 --> 28:17.740]  So I did that.
[28:17.840 --> 28:21.980]  The girl I was traveling with went to bed and I started walking around, hanging out, looking.
[28:21.980 --> 28:23.860]  I got myself really lost.
[28:24.060 --> 28:27.760]  Wound up in some crazy area called, like, Dovitska or something like that.
[28:27.880 --> 28:29.840]  Could not figure out my way back.
[28:30.240 --> 28:36.520]  All I had was a map and I was staying in this hostile way, kind of in the northern part of the city, outstart of Prague 1.
[28:36.880 --> 28:40.500]  So I get into this really sketchy area and I decided, all right, I have to turn back.
[28:40.640 --> 28:43.400]  This is, this is not, this is not safe.
[28:43.580 --> 28:47.660]  So I went back down this hill and this was the 4th of July, by the way.
[28:47.800 --> 28:49.280]  That means nothing in Prague.
[28:49.720 --> 28:51.340]  It does in this story, though.
[28:51.520 --> 28:53.400]  I wouldn't mention it in irrelevant detail.
[28:53.440 --> 28:56.240]  Let me just give out the phone number before you go into this.
[28:56.460 --> 28:58.140]  802-321-4225.
[28:58.300 --> 28:58.820]  Go ahead, continue.
[29:00.620 --> 29:12.900]  Because the fact that it was the 4th of July had particular bearing on the fact that when I went down this hill, this, this, this, this kind of inclined area where I was, I didn't realize before that I had just passed by the American embassy.
[29:13.000 --> 29:15.140]  It was this gigantic American flag.
[29:15.420 --> 29:17.380]  And so I said, well, it's the 4th of July.
[29:17.380 --> 29:18.060]  I'm an American.
[29:18.600 --> 29:20.480]  I'm going to go knock on the door of the American embassy.
[29:20.620 --> 29:21.120]  I rang the bell.
[29:21.440 --> 29:21.760]  Typical.
[29:22.940 --> 29:23.260]  Typical.
[29:23.440 --> 29:23.540]  Right.
[29:23.960 --> 29:29.220]  And a Marine answered the intercom, you know, with Southern, Southern accent of his.
[29:29.660 --> 29:31.040]  And I said, Hey, how are you?
[29:31.160 --> 29:32.100]  You know, happy 4th of July.
[29:32.100 --> 29:32.860]  I'm an American.
[29:33.080 --> 29:34.420]  I'm, I'm thoroughly lost here.
[29:34.560 --> 29:39.600]  And I'm wondering if somebody could tell me to get back up to how to get back up to David's goes as well.
[29:39.600 --> 29:41.620]  I just got here about two weeks ago, but I don't know.
[29:41.680 --> 29:42.620]  Maybe there's somebody here.
[29:42.680 --> 29:43.320]  I said, come on, man.
[29:43.440 --> 29:44.040]  It's 4th of July.
[29:44.040 --> 29:44.860]  Somebody's got to know.
[29:44.940 --> 29:46.380]  I said, all right, hold on.
[29:46.700 --> 29:47.860]  So they open up the door.
[29:48.160 --> 29:55.560]  They let me in and these other Marines come by and they look at the map and they're like, man, I have no idea how to get you back up there.
[29:55.560 --> 29:59.020]  Like you, the subway, the Metro opened back up at 7am.
[29:59.340 --> 30:00.460]  It's the 4th of July.
[30:00.660 --> 30:02.240]  We're all at the bar.
[30:02.460 --> 30:02.960]  We're hanging out.
[30:03.100 --> 30:03.520]  We're partying.
[30:03.620 --> 30:04.500]  Why don't you hang out with us?
[30:04.740 --> 30:06.200]  So I hung out with these U.S.
[30:06.300 --> 30:11.420]  Marines until seven o'clock in the morning, actually a little bit later than that on the 4th of July in Prague.
[30:11.840 --> 30:16.720]  And it totally changed my conception of Marines and the military.
[30:16.720 --> 30:24.180]  And I think that experience probably changed the trajectory of my life in many ways, getting lost in Prague.
[30:24.180 --> 30:33.760]  And then, you know, by happenstance, hanging out with a whole bunch of Marines where I realized that the world wasn't as black and white as I thought it was.
[30:33.760 --> 30:45.380]  They let a complete stranger who looks like you, by the way, into their home, which is the center of American operations in, was it Czech Republic then or Czechoslovakia?
[30:45.960 --> 30:47.300]  It was Czech Republic.
[30:47.440 --> 30:48.140]  In Czech Republic.
[30:48.540 --> 30:53.260]  And potentially opening themselves up to all manner of security breaches.
[30:53.300 --> 30:55.240]  Did they know that you were a hacker?
[30:55.380 --> 30:57.560]  Did they know the people that you hung out with?
[30:58.220 --> 30:59.120]  I don't think so.
[30:59.120 --> 31:05.900]  Did they even look at your ID to prove that you were red, white, and blue-blooded?
[31:06.060 --> 31:06.180]  No?
[31:07.380 --> 31:08.780]  They didn't look at any of that.
[31:09.040 --> 31:09.260]  Wow.
[31:09.780 --> 31:10.100]  Yeah.
[31:10.840 --> 31:12.580]  Amazing what a North American accent could do.
[31:12.600 --> 31:14.220]  I could have been Canadian, of all things.
[31:14.680 --> 31:15.300]  Imagine that.
[31:15.460 --> 31:16.660]  Imagine what they'd have to live through.
[31:16.760 --> 31:18.440]  For the rest of their lives, that would have honked them.
[31:18.460 --> 31:18.680]  Forget it.
[31:19.960 --> 31:20.660]  But you know what?
[31:21.020 --> 31:23.660]  That's a good point, too, because that wouldn't happen now.
[31:23.740 --> 31:24.560]  That wouldn't open the door.
[31:24.740 --> 31:26.280]  Well, I've got to tell you what happened to me.
[31:26.280 --> 31:34.820]  I've told this story before, but when I was going through the Baltics many years ago, I had stopped in Estonia.
[31:35.860 --> 31:39.800]  And I was with a couple of friends that I met over there, and we were walking around.
[31:40.320 --> 31:41.400]  And you know, it was great.
[31:41.520 --> 31:44.620]  My whole trip throughout all of Europe, it was amazing.
[31:44.640 --> 31:47.560]  People were open and friendly, except for this one place.
[31:47.560 --> 31:58.900]  When I took a picture of what I thought was picturesque, this guy ran towards me and told me to leave immediately, or they would call the cops, and that I'm not allowed to take pictures.
[31:59.220 --> 32:00.500]  It was the American Embassy.
[32:00.760 --> 32:04.420]  The only place I was threatened in my whole trip was by another American.
[32:04.580 --> 32:14.060]  And I realized that just how messed up our system is, or how our philosophy is, where we have to stop people from taking pictures of the damn American Embassy.
[32:14.360 --> 32:18.400]  You know, it's outside for a reason, because people need to see it.
[32:18.680 --> 32:23.300]  And taking a picture is not something that should be seen as potentially harmful.
[32:23.940 --> 32:26.300]  Yes, but it puts the people that are stationed there in danger.
[32:27.100 --> 32:28.680]  Look, they let Alex in.
[32:28.760 --> 32:30.660]  They were drinking with him until seven in the morning.
[32:30.740 --> 32:31.720]  That's what I was talking about.
[32:31.720 --> 32:35.400]  I hit one little click on my camera, and all of a sudden, I'm the threat.
[32:35.920 --> 32:36.400]  Okay, okay.
[32:36.520 --> 32:36.900]  Fair point.
[32:36.900 --> 32:37.660]  We do have a phone call.
[32:37.660 --> 32:38.240]  We have a phone call.
[32:38.300 --> 32:38.600]  Good evening.
[32:38.720 --> 32:39.600]  You're on off the hook.
[32:39.700 --> 32:39.920]  Go ahead.
[32:41.280 --> 32:41.520]  Hello.
[32:41.800 --> 32:43.520]  Yes, I got a scenario for you.
[32:43.660 --> 32:43.880]  Go ahead.
[32:44.880 --> 32:45.920]  Programmer to AI.
[32:46.520 --> 32:50.120]  AI, solve climate change in a safe way.
[32:50.800 --> 32:54.340]  Later that day, AI, I have solved climate change.
[32:54.480 --> 32:57.920]  I've exterminated mankind, and I am safe.
[32:58.280 --> 33:02.840]  I saw this coming, but yes, I think that will be the answer you get almost every time.
[33:04.800 --> 33:05.480]  Thanks, guys.
[33:05.660 --> 33:06.180]  Thanks for sharing.
[33:07.180 --> 33:07.540]  Yeah.
[33:08.020 --> 33:08.600]  There are...
[33:08.600 --> 33:13.120]  You better be careful when you ask AI, because, you know, it might come back to that later when it has more power.
[33:14.940 --> 33:20.000]  Well, wasn't there a famous prince that once said something about the ends justifying the means?
[33:20.480 --> 33:22.300]  You're still hung up on the Marines, aren't you?
[33:22.740 --> 33:23.540]  I said, yeah.
[33:23.700 --> 33:24.120]  The Marines.
[33:24.260 --> 33:25.300]  The ends justify the Marines.
[33:25.460 --> 33:26.720]  The ends justify the means.
[33:26.800 --> 33:28.580]  That's a great saying for them, isn't it?
[33:28.640 --> 33:30.080]  Isn't that a great slogan from the Marines?
[33:30.120 --> 33:31.560]  The ends justify the Marines.
[33:31.880 --> 33:32.240]  Wow.
[33:32.240 --> 33:33.480]  That would be, actually.
[33:33.580 --> 33:33.840]  Okay.
[33:33.840 --> 33:35.780]  Can you register that quickly before they get it?
[33:36.180 --> 33:36.500]  Because...
[33:36.500 --> 33:37.980]  That's going to be in all the recruiting ads.
[33:38.000 --> 33:38.180]  No.
[33:39.000 --> 33:42.280]  If we hurry up, we can make a fortune off of this.
[33:42.880 --> 33:43.160]  Wow.
[33:43.160 --> 33:43.500]  Yeah.
[33:43.680 --> 33:44.460]  There you go.
[33:44.960 --> 33:45.520]  There you go.
[33:46.240 --> 33:46.440]  No.
[33:46.680 --> 33:48.620]  It's too bad for broadcasting to all these people.
[33:48.780 --> 33:51.300]  If we had said this privately, we definitely could have done something.
[33:51.540 --> 33:51.740]  No.
[33:51.760 --> 33:56.320]  They don't have any sort of demodulation capabilities.
[33:56.560 --> 33:59.000]  802-321-4225 is our telephone number.
[33:59.040 --> 34:03.620]  You know, I wish Rebel hadn't mentioned hotel Wi-Fi, because all day long...
[34:04.140 --> 34:17.340]  Actually, the last couple of days, Kyle and I have been dealing with the network at our upcoming conference next week, and boy, it's been ping-ponging from no network to, yes, there's a network to maybe there's a network.
[34:17.520 --> 34:22.720]  And it's just unbelievable when you're dealing with all these different entities, and there's a lot of entities to deal with.
[34:22.860 --> 34:24.600]  Right now, we're in fairly good spirits.
[34:24.600 --> 34:35.680]  Yeah, it's been an emotional and, well, just literal rollercoaster, but I really commend you for helping calm certain situations down.
[34:35.880 --> 34:37.540]  And I will replace what I broke.
[34:37.680 --> 34:43.100]  Proofreading your editing skills, as usual, coming in clutch with this.
[34:43.300 --> 34:53.140]  Like, I really appreciate you helping, because this is, like, the most absurdist form of business communication I've ever experienced.
[34:53.400 --> 34:55.360]  And I don't even know, like, I'm not an expert.
[34:55.540 --> 34:57.320]  I don't do that kind of stuff day to day.
[34:57.780 --> 35:01.460]  And, yeah, there's all sorts of new things and moving parts.
[35:01.460 --> 35:10.140]  And we just want to do what we do and do it well for everybody to have a good show and hear and see our presentations.
[35:10.440 --> 35:23.840]  So, yeah, we're just, you know, making sure we're cooperating and keeping things moving, because, of course, we are on a time schedule, but we have a lot of good people behind the scenes.
[35:24.120 --> 35:25.360]  Yeah, and we meet so many more.
[35:25.440 --> 35:31.080]  Every time there's a crisis, it really is pretty incredible, the people who step up.
[35:31.220 --> 35:39.000]  And, you know, there's a part of me that's saying, well, okay, it would be a hacker conference if there wasn't a crisis immediately beforehand.
[35:39.420 --> 35:45.900]  And, you know, not having a network at all is definitely a crisis that hackers need to attack and jump on.
[35:46.220 --> 35:48.180]  And we saw a fair bit of that.
[35:48.320 --> 35:50.180]  I believe the situation is resolved.
[35:50.380 --> 35:52.100]  I sure hope the situation is resolved.
[35:52.280 --> 35:58.420]  And if it's not resolved, then, you know, we're gonna find more people that can help and figure something else out.
[35:58.960 --> 36:03.280]  You know, we can build a network anywhere with the right people.
[36:03.280 --> 36:04.940]  And I think we really have the right people.
[36:05.460 --> 36:11.980]  Yeah, we're gonna bring extra stuff, you know, supplies, make sure we're ready for all kinds of eventualities.
[36:12.180 --> 36:18.840]  But it's true that it's all about people stepping up and sort of matching energy when people recognize stuff.
[36:19.060 --> 36:25.880]  And even when you're frantic and you realize you're busy and other people are busy, it's, it's hard to, you know, keep cool.
[36:26.020 --> 36:34.300]  But I think that's the critical thing is just trusting people to understand what you want to do and picking up what you're, what you're needing help with.
[36:34.420 --> 36:41.500]  And we've got some great people volunteering and friends of, of our groups and stuff.
[36:41.640 --> 36:42.200]  So we're happy.
[36:42.400 --> 36:45.260]  It's really like amplified in the last few weeks.
[36:45.260 --> 36:47.320]  And you realize, wow, this is, this is actually happening.
[36:47.460 --> 36:50.760]  I mean, you know, we did it last year, but it's, it still feels like magic every time.
[36:50.980 --> 36:52.160]  Now this weekend is DEFCON.
[36:52.420 --> 36:53.460]  Next weekend is hope.
[36:53.640 --> 36:57.940]  And, you know, it's just that time of year where there's all this frenetic activity.
[36:58.880 --> 37:00.700]  And, you know, it never gets boring.
[37:00.700 --> 37:01.540]  It never gets old.
[37:01.660 --> 37:02.120]  It changes.
[37:02.400 --> 37:03.620]  It's, it's constantly evolving.
[37:03.620 --> 37:04.320]  The community.
[37:04.460 --> 37:09.700]  When I look at, at, at lineups for hacker conferences everywhere, boy, it's gotten interesting.
[37:09.860 --> 37:10.440]  It's gotten diverse.
[37:10.700 --> 37:13.220]  It's gotten just so intelligent.
[37:14.180 --> 37:22.740]  And, you know, having started in the 1980s, seeing what things were like then, it was fun, but it wasn't representative of people.
[37:23.000 --> 37:24.660]  It wasn't particularly mature.
[37:25.820 --> 37:27.940]  It, it got us to where we are now.
[37:28.360 --> 37:33.820]  But, you know, we need to realize that there's always growing to do and there's always something you can be better at.
[37:34.140 --> 37:36.220]  And that's, you know, that's what I like to see.
[37:36.300 --> 37:42.720]  And I think it's, it's kind of like, it's a model for the rest of society that at the moment doesn't really seem to get that.
[37:42.820 --> 37:47.200]  That seems to rather tear itself apart and demean people.
[37:48.080 --> 37:56.280]  And I hope not to see that at any of the events that I go to, you know, I hope to see people that, uh, may not agree on everything, but they respect each other.
[37:56.380 --> 37:59.220]  They listen to each other and they, they try to have fun together.
[37:59.280 --> 38:01.800]  You know, that's, that's what our stay on earth should be about.
[38:02.460 --> 38:02.780]  Yeah.
[38:02.820 --> 38:05.620]  And I want people to get into it, you know, like, let's, let's go.
[38:05.700 --> 38:06.520]  Like, what are we doing here?
[38:06.600 --> 38:10.880]  Cause we get, we kind of, uh, get a little isolated.
[38:11.020 --> 38:11.720]  We don't see as much.
[38:11.840 --> 38:15.560]  And it's good to have a reminder of what it means to other people.
[38:15.560 --> 38:27.720]  And so that we understand, you know, cause I, I take it on, I think, but I, I sometimes get a little disillusioned cause I'm not sure it's, it matters and it's like, okay, it's, this is hard and then getting harder.
[38:27.980 --> 38:28.720]  And what's the point?
[38:28.840 --> 38:41.720]  I, I really despair sometimes, but it's such a good reminder when people are motivated and self-directed and able to like show us that this means something and, and they're doing what they can.
[38:41.860 --> 38:45.240]  Cause it just, it's just re makes us redouble our effort.
[38:45.240 --> 38:48.540]  We've had some people really step up and, and offer a lot.
[38:48.640 --> 38:59.900]  And that means the world and, and, you know, we see you and we appreciate you and the people who, you know, uh, basically just give themselves, you know, uh, their skill, their, their input that matters.
[39:00.200 --> 39:01.420]  It matters in this community.
[39:01.560 --> 39:03.160]  And I, I like to see that appreciated.
[39:03.160 --> 39:19.560]  And we feel like a tremendous amount of responsibility, like in stewardship of it, you know, because people are putting their energy and their time and making arrangements and, and we want to celebrate them and set them up, make sure everybody has everything they need,
[39:19.680 --> 39:22.900]  set the conditions as best we can, even under the circumstances.
[39:22.900 --> 39:28.760]  Cause we're a humble operation and, um, Forever humble.
[39:28.940 --> 39:29.120]  Yes.
[39:29.500 --> 39:29.880]  Yeah.
[39:29.960 --> 39:36.240]  We're everywhere, but we're also, you know, very tight knit and, um, you know, doing our best.
[39:36.240 --> 39:37.060]  Do we have a phone call?
[39:39.360 --> 39:39.720]  No.
[39:39.940 --> 39:40.240]  Oh no.
[39:40.320 --> 39:41.020]  I thought we had a phone call.
[39:41.120 --> 39:41.260]  Okay.
[39:41.620 --> 39:47.700]  Let's go out the phone number 802-321-4225 and allow people in signal land to speak if they wish.
[39:48.960 --> 39:49.320]  Absolutely.
[39:49.460 --> 39:50.580]  While we're waiting for that phone call.
[39:50.700 --> 39:58.720]  I'll just remind folks that, uh, you can be part of what keeps us going at WBAI by heading over to buddy.wbai.org.
[39:59.040 --> 40:01.900]  Our fundraising, uh, campaign is ongoing.
[40:02.280 --> 40:04.360]  It's the only thing that keeps the lights on around here.
[40:04.360 --> 40:14.840]  It's the only thing that keeps all of us connected to the machinery that, uh, lets us do what we do out on these airwaves and what WBAI has been doing on these airwaves for 66 years now.
[40:15.320 --> 40:17.600]  Um, yeah, since 1960.
[40:17.880 --> 40:18.480]  Imagine that.
[40:18.940 --> 40:19.320]  Yeah.
[40:19.520 --> 40:21.840]  So go to buddy.wbai.org.
[40:22.000 --> 40:25.260]  Any amount, uh, you feel comfortable with, you can have a recurring donation.
[40:25.460 --> 40:26.820]  You can do a single donation.
[40:27.120 --> 40:31.500]  Just let them know that, uh, you're there in support of BAI in general off the hook in particular.
[40:32.180 --> 40:36.320]  And, um, we, we appreciate you for being part of what makes all this happen.
[40:36.460 --> 40:40.780]  And once a month, we open up the phone lines here on off the hook to WBAI listeners.
[40:41.240 --> 40:44.620]  Uh, and we give a special phone number out because we're not in the studio.
[40:44.620 --> 40:46.540]  And that phone number is eight zero two.
[40:47.760 --> 40:51.380]  As someone is calling right now, eight zero two, three, two, one, four, two, two, five.
[40:51.820 --> 40:56.300]  Uh, the area code is in Vermont, but we are not in Vermont because that's what you can do.
[40:56.300 --> 40:56.560]  Physically.
[40:56.720 --> 40:58.100]  But sometimes I go there.
[40:58.160 --> 40:58.820]  I go there sometimes.
[40:58.880 --> 40:59.800]  Oh, I'd like to go there again.
[40:59.800 --> 41:00.860]  I'd like to get a creamy.
[41:01.320 --> 41:01.360]  A creamy.
[41:01.620 --> 41:02.600]  You guys know what creamies are?
[41:02.600 --> 41:04.160]  I mean, Alex, you know what a creamy is.
[41:04.280 --> 41:04.680]  Of course.
[41:04.760 --> 41:04.900]  Yeah.
[41:04.940 --> 41:05.200]  He knows.
[41:05.600 --> 41:06.740]  Uh, we have a phone call.
[41:06.740 --> 41:08.700]  If you don't know what a creamy is, we're not going to tell you.
[41:08.760 --> 41:09.940]  Just go to Vermont and ask for one.
[41:09.960 --> 41:10.620]  Just ask around.
[41:10.720 --> 41:11.100]  They'll tell you.
[41:11.120 --> 41:11.800]  Be surprised.
[41:11.940 --> 41:12.220]  Good evening.
[41:12.380 --> 41:13.240]  You're off the hook.
[41:13.340 --> 41:13.580]  Go ahead.
[41:14.800 --> 41:15.420]  Good evening.
[41:15.680 --> 41:16.700]  Big fan of the show.
[41:16.940 --> 41:17.140]  Thank you.
[41:17.440 --> 41:18.800]  Appreciate everything you do.
[41:18.880 --> 41:19.560]  I like to listen.
[41:21.620 --> 41:26.980]  Um, I, uh, all of this surveillance, you've talked about it before.
[41:27.560 --> 41:32.980]  And, uh, it is, it is just speaking of being off the hook, it is off the hook.
[41:33.680 --> 41:35.560]  It is, uh, it's a disgrace.
[41:35.560 --> 41:42.620]  And, uh, you know, those, the, uh, the saying, if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you object?
[41:42.860 --> 41:43.020]  Yeah.
[41:43.160 --> 41:44.100]  That is insane.
[41:44.120 --> 41:46.320]  Because it goes a lot further than that.
[41:46.620 --> 41:48.280]  I appreciate everything you do.
[41:48.320 --> 41:50.340]  And I just, that's all, I was surprised to get in.
[41:50.480 --> 41:53.320]  I'm just glad you're there and keep doing what you're doing.
[41:53.560 --> 41:53.900]  Thank you.
[41:53.980 --> 41:54.780]  And we're glad you're there.
[41:55.660 --> 41:56.060]  Peace.
[41:56.220 --> 41:56.420]  All right.
[41:56.480 --> 41:56.800]  Take care.
[41:57.240 --> 41:57.380]  Yeah.
[41:57.400 --> 41:57.780]  It's interesting.
[41:57.940 --> 42:01.120]  He, uh, he says that I saw something on television this past week.
[42:01.280 --> 42:05.480]  Uh, it was, um, uh, concerning the flock cameras that you see everywhere.
[42:05.560 --> 42:08.560]  That, um, are being abused and we're being spied on.
[42:08.960 --> 42:12.300]  And there was a guy saying exactly what the caller was, was, uh, talking about it.
[42:12.320 --> 42:14.540]  He described it as off the, uh, what'd he say?
[42:14.640 --> 42:15.220]  He was off the hook.
[42:16.300 --> 42:16.940]  It's insane.
[42:17.120 --> 42:17.280]  Yeah.
[42:17.440 --> 42:19.940]  But I thought off the hook meant good, but I guess it means bad too.
[42:20.020 --> 42:20.180]  Yeah.
[42:20.320 --> 42:21.620]  But anyway, this is just...
[42:21.620 --> 42:22.240]  It's out of control.
[42:22.340 --> 42:23.120]  Off the rails, whatever.
[42:23.120 --> 42:28.140]  Uh, and this guy was saying, yeah, if, uh, you know, you know, you're not breaking the law.
[42:28.260 --> 42:29.160]  There's nothing to worry about.
[42:29.580 --> 42:31.920]  Uh, this is a big brother on steroids.
[42:32.140 --> 42:34.060]  He said that like, that was a good thing.
[42:34.200 --> 42:36.060]  Like that was, uh, the, the goal.
[42:36.340 --> 42:39.900]  And he totally didn't, he never read the book apparently, but he did not get it.
[42:39.900 --> 42:46.660]  And it was just, uh, amazing to think, wow, there's people out there, people and authority out there that believe this.
[42:47.140 --> 42:47.920]  It's incredible.
[42:48.080 --> 42:48.400]  Go ahead, Kyle.
[42:48.660 --> 42:48.860]  Yeah.
[42:48.960 --> 42:52.980]  Like it's, it is not your, uh, your granddad's surveillance cameras.
[42:53.240 --> 43:09.420]  I mean, these, these things have, are, are infinitely more powerful or magnitudes more powerful and they can implement all kinds of things, um, in the cloud and off, off the device, um, with the imagery and, and recordings made.
[43:09.420 --> 43:12.520]  So that's the, that's what's at play at stake.
[43:12.520 --> 43:29.440]  And in play, we're, we're basically at the effect of what will be a network that could be used in predictive policing and, um, also retroactive policing, like going back and looking at things in the past 30 days and using automation and stuff and profiling.
[43:29.740 --> 43:31.780]  Well, it's one thing, you know, we've talked about this before.
[43:31.800 --> 43:36.800]  If you have a camera in your private property, your business, your home, whatever, that's your business, you know, you can do that.
[43:36.800 --> 43:52.600]  But as soon as it starts affecting people who are just walking around the street, minding their own business, whether it be surveillance on sidewalks, uh, or, um, uh, license plate readers or, you know, for, for people who are not suspected of committing any kind of a crime,
[43:53.300 --> 43:54.960]  then it becomes open to public scrutiny.
[43:55.100 --> 43:57.960]  And it has not been, it's just appeared everywhere.
[43:57.960 --> 44:02.560]  And now these authorities are wondering, Hey, why people keep vandalizing our cameras?
[44:02.760 --> 44:03.920]  Well, why do you think?
[44:04.000 --> 44:06.060]  Because they don't want to be spied on constantly.
[44:06.200 --> 44:07.480]  That is not normal.
[44:07.720 --> 44:09.220]  That should not be tolerated.
[44:09.360 --> 44:19.340]  And, you know, if you're going to, uh, uh, stick cameras in public places, you at least have to have input from the public to see if they will let you do that.
[44:19.860 --> 44:20.400]  All right.
[44:20.540 --> 44:21.480]  We have another phone call.
[44:21.560 --> 44:21.820]  Good evening.
[44:21.960 --> 44:22.880]  You're on off the hook.
[44:22.980 --> 44:23.180]  Go ahead.
[44:25.040 --> 44:28.300]  Hi, good evening, Manuel, Alex, the gang.
[44:28.660 --> 44:30.800]  Uh, I appreciate you guys as well.
[44:30.960 --> 44:35.420]  I listen semi-regularly for about five years, six years.
[44:35.720 --> 44:35.920]  Wow.
[44:36.120 --> 44:39.600]  Um, I have, yeah, I, I, I stumbled on this show.
[44:39.660 --> 44:41.300]  I listen to BAI all the time.
[44:41.560 --> 44:47.780]  Um, but, uh, yeah, I just, you guys are like, you know, and what can I say?
[44:47.780 --> 44:58.260]  It, you know, taking on the system of technology, but you're like the resistance, so to speak, the knowledgeable resistance, like trying to keep us from destroying ourselves.
[44:58.300 --> 44:59.260]  That's a high compliment.
[45:00.520 --> 45:01.000]  Yeah.
[45:01.160 --> 45:01.280]  Yeah.
[45:01.400 --> 45:03.080]  That's how really kind of how I see it.
[45:03.200 --> 45:05.740]  And my brother's in tech, he works for Intel Corp.
[45:06.000 --> 45:14.360]  And, um, so my whole family has been kind of, you know, tech following, but I specifically I'm just kind of a dabbler.
[45:14.520 --> 45:15.400]  I'm not a hacker.
[45:15.740 --> 45:17.040]  So three quick things.
[45:17.040 --> 45:18.740]  One is how do you become a hacker?
[45:19.060 --> 45:21.340]  Do you need a special kind of brain for that?
[45:21.680 --> 45:27.080]  Two, um, this morning on, I think it was all things considered something on NPR.
[45:27.320 --> 45:43.220]  They were talking about how the law is trying to keep up copyright law and, um, the record, uh, labels are trying to keep up with people's use of AI to create music and upload it to, uh, different music platforms.
[45:43.220 --> 45:54.020]  So my, my question on that to you guys is, do you, I personally believe that the artistic element of things should be preserved.
[45:54.380 --> 46:03.660]  You know, tools can be used kind of like, you know, a robot's arm is used in surgery, you know, we'd be using tools to make art forever.
[46:03.660 --> 46:16.820]  But when you start letting an, um, a bot or a robot do the thinking and the creative part for you, that's where I think it's totally bad in all instances, because it's robbing us of human creativity.
[46:17.420 --> 46:19.560]  And, and the worst, more dangerous.
[46:19.780 --> 46:20.820]  This is my third question.
[46:21.100 --> 46:33.000]  Do you think we're going to get to a point where nothing can tell the difference between something that's synthetically generated and something that's human generated, uh, photos or anything else?
[46:34.340 --> 46:34.780]  Okay.
[46:35.020 --> 46:37.360]  Um, do you want to listen on, on the radio or, uh, here?
[46:38.780 --> 46:40.140]  Um, I'll listen to here.
[46:40.300 --> 46:41.320]  My name's Christian, by the way.
[46:41.440 --> 46:41.640]  Christian.
[46:41.780 --> 46:43.380]  Well, uh, very good questions.
[46:43.380 --> 46:47.360]  Um, first of all, uh, to be a hacker, you just need to be inquisitive.
[46:47.500 --> 46:48.780]  You don't need a special kind of brain.
[46:49.060 --> 46:51.760]  Um, it's basically a brain we're all born with.
[46:51.920 --> 46:59.420]  Uh, that's the human brain where you, um, you adapt, you learn, you figure things out, you, uh, push back when something isn't right.
[46:59.760 --> 47:01.520]  Uh, and you ask a lot of questions.
[47:01.780 --> 47:10.040]  And, uh, you know, I would say, uh, there are many in the animal kingdom that have, uh, hacker mentalities because they just keep trying until they get something.
[47:10.580 --> 47:12.220]  Uh, that's really what, what hacking is.
[47:12.220 --> 47:15.340]  It doesn't even have to, uh, involve computers or technology.
[47:15.580 --> 47:22.920]  It just has to involve that very, uh, a special force of wanting to know that it doesn't even have to be a payoff.
[47:23.180 --> 47:26.820]  You know, it doesn't have to be a, a regular, uh, a reason other than curiosity.
[47:27.140 --> 47:29.220]  I think that is what, what drives most hackers.
[47:29.320 --> 47:30.240]  That's my, my view.
[47:30.460 --> 47:37.620]  I'm sure other people have to have different views, uh, with regards to, um, uh, copyright law and, uh, uh, AI and music.
[47:37.620 --> 47:38.380]  Yeah.
[47:38.560 --> 47:47.020]  You know, I can always tell when I hear, uh, something that's, uh, written by AI, you just know that might not be the case in a few years.
[47:47.560 --> 47:54.800]  Um, but I like to think that humans have a way of expressing themselves that can't just be replicated by something artificial.
[47:54.800 --> 47:57.900]  Uh, I just think we, we mean more than that.
[47:57.980 --> 48:03.700]  Uh, it's, it's basically, you know, it's something that, um, um, that makes us unique, makes us human.
[48:03.920 --> 48:07.120]  You know, I see, um, uh, YouTube videos that are AI.
[48:07.360 --> 48:11.600]  You can always tell because when they talk to each other, they're not saying anything, really.
[48:11.840 --> 48:14.500]  There's a lot of, um, nonsense in the background.
[48:14.820 --> 48:17.960]  Uh, a lot of things just aren't quite there.
[48:18.160 --> 48:22.320]  They might get there again, and then, then we have a reckoning and that's for sure.
[48:22.320 --> 48:26.340]  Um, and, and you ask if we can, um, tell the difference in the future.
[48:27.180 --> 48:33.500]  Ah, I like to think we can, but, um, maybe there will come a time where it's really, really hard to do that.
[48:33.820 --> 48:42.040]  Uh, in which case we have to ask the question as to what we are, what, what, uh, artificial intelligence is and, you know, how are we different?
[48:42.440 --> 48:54.980]  It's going to be an interesting time, but, um, you know, I like to think that, um, um, what we produce as individuals matters that, you know, people can, you know, say things in a unique way and only they can say that.
[48:55.440 --> 48:59.520]  Uh, and no other human and no other machine can replicate that.
[48:59.640 --> 49:02.940]  As long as we, we, we see that as valuable, I think we're safe.
[49:03.360 --> 49:07.360]  But we can't just say, oh, it's more efficient to let the machine say it.
[49:07.680 --> 49:10.480]  You know, we have to, um, we have to embrace our imperfections.
[49:11.320 --> 49:12.860]  And I think that's really is what makes us human.
[49:12.980 --> 49:15.980]  I'll open this up to, uh, uh, people in, uh, signal land.
[49:16.140 --> 49:17.660]  Uh, Gila, I see you have your hand up.
[49:17.740 --> 49:17.900]  Go ahead.
[49:17.900 --> 49:18.420]  Yes.
[49:18.760 --> 49:21.460]  Um, I'm glad for this question, Christian.
[49:21.600 --> 49:22.120]  Thank you so much.
[49:22.640 --> 49:31.780]  Um, today, just in the course of my normal life, the AI policy promulgated by the onion came into my field of view.
[49:31.880 --> 49:32.980]  And I think it is brilliant.
[49:32.980 --> 49:34.600]  And I would like to share it right now.
[49:34.900 --> 49:35.720]  It's four sentences long.
[49:35.720 --> 49:45.100]  The onion values the creativity and skills of people over machines, despite their unreliability and pensions for compensation benefits and breathable air.
[49:45.720 --> 49:53.120]  Generative AI tools used in art video and writing are ethically wrong and an existential threat into the livelihood of creative professionals.
[49:53.640 --> 49:57.300]  AI is also a detriment to our audience whom we reluctantly acknowledge.
[49:57.540 --> 50:03.940]  AI generated art video and writing will not be used in any creative endeavor at or affiliated with the onion.
[50:05.760 --> 50:08.780]  And I, I, I love the spirit of that.
[50:09.400 --> 50:23.180]  Um, I was reading something at the times a couple of days ago about morning ballads in Mexico that are now being pushed out within a couple of days because people are writing the words and then setting them to music with AI, which just seems like such a,
[50:23.340 --> 50:29.180]  an abrogation of what the actual intent of morning is.
[50:30.000 --> 50:35.160]  I hate to play you out Gila, but, um, we are at, uh, at the end of the show.
[50:35.340 --> 50:39.680]  I want to thank this caller for raising these questions and we'll continue to discuss it.
[50:39.760 --> 50:41.800]  I hope listeners continue to discuss that as well.
[50:42.280 --> 50:43.520]  So thanks for your call.
[50:44.560 --> 50:45.620]  Thank you so much, guys.
[50:45.760 --> 50:46.240]  God bless you.
[50:47.080 --> 50:49.100]  And that's going to do it for us here tonight.
[50:49.680 --> 50:52.580]  Um, interesting, uh, little, uh, tidbit here.
[50:52.880 --> 50:55.100]  This is a band called the 13th floor elevators.
[50:55.200 --> 50:59.760]  I was in the hotel where the conference is taking place and it has a, uh, it does not have a 13th floor.
[50:59.840 --> 51:07.060]  And I was commenting on this because the hotel Pennsylvania did have a 13th floor and now look where it is.
[51:07.500 --> 51:09.400]  It's a pile of rubble on the ground.
[51:09.800 --> 51:11.340]  Just something to keep in mind.
[51:12.820 --> 51:14.960]  O th at 2600.com.
[51:15.160 --> 51:15.860]  That's our email address.
[51:16.120 --> 51:17.400]  We will be back next week.
[51:17.560 --> 51:26.700]  It's quite likely I won't be on the air next week because, uh, I'll probably be driving a big truck into the city, uh, preparing for, uh, for that magical weekend.
[51:26.840 --> 51:27.920]  That's, uh, that's ahead of us.
[51:28.240 --> 51:28.640]  Go ahead, Rob.
[51:29.260 --> 51:34.100]  Uh, check out your local 2600 meeting this Friday, uh, 2600.com slash meetings.
[51:34.440 --> 51:35.020]  That's right.
[51:35.240 --> 51:36.740]  We will see you again next week.
[51:36.840 --> 51:37.040]  Good night.
[51:46.520 --> 51:47.360]  Good night.
[52:11.060 --> 52:12.320]  Good night.
[52:12.420 --> 52:14.200]  Good night.
[52:14.620 --> 52:15.640]  Good night.
[52:15.640 --> 52:15.640]  Good
[53:23.150 --> 53:25.750]  night.
[53:25.830 --> 53:26.950]  Good night.
[53:26.950 --> 53:28.830]  Good night.
[53:29.170 --> 53:30.010]  Good night.
[53:30.490 --> 53:30.950]  Good night.
[53:49.330 --> 53:49.350]  Good night.
[53:50.210 --> 53:50.310]  Good night.
[53:50.310 --> 53:50.370]  Good night.