We need to talk about 2024

So just follow Patrick and his followers.

Yes.

And then I never have to think about how to source my news again. I already have a plan now.

You don't want to follow me. All I do is post. I just post weird memes.

I think that means we do want to follow you.

I'm in! Subscribe and like. I'm ready to double down on the brain rot that I consume. You're listening to Off the VPN.

The show where two work besties get real about working in tech. What's up, Jasmine?

Hey, Allison, how you doing?

I'm doing pretty good. How are you?

I'm doing great. Guess what?

What?

We have another guest this week.

Tell me more.

We have a new guest, Patrick Austin. He is an editor at IT Brew. I'm super excited to have him. Um, I was really excited. I got to meet him in Atlanta, I think last year or this year actually. And I was, uh, really excited to chat with him and he agreed to come and chat with us about all the things. And he's agreed to just chat about all the awesome stuff that's happened in 2024. So welcome, Patrick. Welcome to the pod.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here off the VPN. Hopefully, you know, we go out with a bang and we start over, uh, next year.

Yeah. Can you believe it's, it's over? Like we're, it's, it's just right there. Is, isn't that insane?

It's been a great listen. Personally, I've enjoyed basically all the episodes I've listened to. So hopefully we can keep the train rolling in that direction, the good vibe direction.

Thank you so much.

I hope so. Jasmine, how did you find a super fan of Off the VPN?

I don't know. I thought it was just my mom who listens, to be honest. So that's exciting to know. So, Patrick, can you tell us more about kind of what you're doing on a day-to-day and what IT Brew is like, how you even got into your, your job, what is exciting about it. I want to know everything.

Yeah, sure. So I'm the founding editor of IT Brew. We're part of Morning Brew news and newsletter company. We are part of their professional division, which includes other sites like CFO Brew, HR Brew, Tech Brew, Healthcare Brew. I think I'm missing one. Retail Brew. That sounds right. So I've been here for about Almost 3 years. We started almost 3 years ago with just me and 2 reporters. We've grown since then. We're at 4 reporters now. We write news about the IT and cybersecurity industry every day. We publish a newsletter 4 times a week. We do virtual events, live events. It's been great to do. We've got a great, you know, great team of reporters who have been doing this for years. Personally, I've been in the tech reporting industry for over a decade. Before this, I was the technology columnist at Time magazine for almost 4 years. Before that, I did various reporting at places like Consumer Reports, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Ars Technica. Yeah, so I've been, I guess I've been doing this for a while now, but I actually got my start in IT. That was my first job out of college and then switched over to the tech reporting side because I am a huge nerd.

I didn't even know you used to do IT. Like, how did you transition? What made you transition into this?

Yeah, I did IT out of college. My first job was in— I was an assistant to an IT manager in a medical facility and it was pretty chill, pretty fun. I mean, you know, pretty stressful, but also, you know, in the early 2010s or so, I think the security landscape was very different. It wasn't as— I guess maybe not as dire as it is now. But yeah, I was in the medical IT industry. I really loved reading and writing. I was part of like my high school newspaper club or whatever and just wanted to keep writing. And I loved reading about tech news. So I thought, you know, after this job, where should I go? And I decided to try my hand at tech reporting at a tech outlet on The Verge. And from there, I just kept trying to make my own way. And here I am now.

That's amazing. Also, you name drop just like all the very impressive, I don't know, tech news companies. Patrick, I'm extremely intimidated right now.

Oh, please, no.

As someone who also doesn't really read the news, like even I know those names. Like that's very impressive.

Yeah, I think I learned a lot from each place I've written at. You learn what excites people, what people want to read, what people don't want to read, what news is important and what news isn't. So I think I'm just taking those skills that I've learned and applying it in this editor role. For IT Brew, and I think it's working pretty well.

I mean, seems like it. Uh, I didn't even realize founding IT Brew, that is like a slight thing. I don't even think you had that written anywhere. I feel like you should label that. You should, you should maybe own that a little bit more. That's very cool.

I'm not really, I don't like to, you know, talk myself up. Like I'm not really good at that. I'm just like, I just do the edit. I just do the job and, and, you know, clock in and clock out. And like I said, you know, I'm just the editor, you know, I'm kind of trying to make the team look good as, as much as I can. So yeah, maybe I should just add founding to the—

Yeah, you should. Can you?

One word.

By the end of folks listening to this episode, you can look up Patrick and make sure that he changed his title because that is insane.

You have to be honest. And if he doesn't add founding, let us know so we can talk.

We will blast him on the internet. So, so we're obviously talking about news, lots of things. I wanted just to do something a little bit fun. I have a little game for us, you know, with our guests, we love to have just like a little game just to get the neurons firing. And so the game that I have is 2 headlines and a lie. So I'm going to give you 2 new headlines from 2024. So things that might, you might recognize or you might not.

This is going to be bad if I mess this up.

No, no, no, it's okay because I won't lie, preparing for this game, it was actually really challenging to come out with lies. Because I even hit up Allison and I was like, I'm stressed because all of these things, like even asking ChatGPT to help me, I had to double check and Google and find out that there were actually things that were real that were not. So it was very hard. So if you guys get this wrong, do not feel bad because I, I had a hard time getting the list. All right, so you just have to choose the lie. All right, are we ready?

Okay, let's do it.

Okay.

So round 1, Apple Intelligence is summarizing breakup texts so you don't have to read them. Ooh. New AI tool claims to fix bugs before they're written, raises $50 million in seed funding. Or man marries hologram bride, then sues software company for discontinuing her updates.

The problem is there's only one problem, Patrick.

I think, you know, the problem is, did Apple Intelligence sum up the breakup text of this guy and his AI girlfriend? You know what I mean? It's kind of like it could be, you know, two in one sort of thing.

Them side by side.

This is tough.

What happened to us in 2024 that these headlines could all be true?

Yeah, a lot of terrible things happened. And one of them was the proliferation of the AI girlfriend. For starters. That's not even the worst one.

Yeah, that's the start.

You know, it's very, you know, all of these have a, have an interesting theme, which is AI.

Yes.

Um, and I think it's a really, you know, really strong start to this game that all of these are AI related, because I think 2024 was the year that AI took off and everybody and their grandma was like, have you heard about this AI thing? The Apple intelligence summarizing a breakup text makes sense to me in a weird way, um, because I guess it would have that information at hand. The second one, uh, what was the second one? An AI tool that solves bugs before they appear. That's interesting. How is it doing that? I guess that's, that's not—

I just got the headline, but apparently they raised $50 million in seed funding because they claim to fix bugs before they're written.

Hmm, fixing bugs before they're written— before the code is written or before the bug part of the code is written?

I interpreted it as the latter.

Right.

I feel like if that were to work, it's like, can you, can you, can you use like historical data on where bugs are most likely to pop up in the past and then just make, I don't know, like inline whatever predictions, like don't ship this code because we have high confidence.

Yeah.

That this is a bug. I don't know. I'm guessing at how that would work. I have no idea.

So we all agree on the hologram bride then? Is that just like a given? Like we all think that's true? Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, great. I'm glad we, I'm glad we were all decided on that.

That's totally real. So if one of them is a lie, I'm going to say, can you give me that last one one more time?

New AI tool claims to fix bugs before they're written, raises $50 million in seed funding.

Give me the girlfriend one. I guess they're both girlfriend ones.

They didn't say girlfriend. Apple Intelligence is summarizing breakup texts so you don't have to read them.

Ooh, that's rough.

So they summarizing texts or are we fixing bugs before they're written?

I think it's summarizing texts.

You think that's the lie?

Oh no, I think that's the truth.

You think that's the truth? So the lie is the bug.

So I guess, yeah, so I guess the lie would be the bug, the AI bug solver.

Okay. Allison?

Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. I'm with you.

You're right.

Especially because the first one is such a catchy headline. Yeah.

Okay.

You guys are right. Yes. Uh, there is no tool that fixes bugs before they're in. Also, I'm rabbit holed. Not yet. That would be great. I'm out of a job at that point.

Don't give them any ideas.

I actually went on a rabbit hole of all of the ChatGPT and just Apple stuff that they have that'll summarize like texts or people are arguing and using ChatGPT to help them argue. But Apple, I guess, is releasing this new thing where it shows you a summary of your text as like an alert. And so someone got a breakup text and then it summarized their breakup text in their alert.

That's got to hurt if Siri is telling you it's over.

Yeah, exactly right?

Don't look, just delete this. Also Jasmine, I was certain you were going to say "I've been rabbit holing on hologram brides." No no no no no no no!

Listen, it's hard out here but not that hard.

It's not that hard dating apps these days man.

Okay— Okay, I got a new one. So, and speaking of grannies, because we were just talking about grannies, an AI granny is phone scammers' worst nightmare. US recovered non-human biologics from UFO crash sites, former Intel official says. And startup launches smart spoon that analyzes eating habits, secures $15 mil in funding.

Smart spoon.

What was the second one again?

The second one is US recovered non-human biologics from UFO crash sites.

Okay, I feel like I remember reading that.

That does sound like a thing I would read or dream I would have. You know, it's the smart tech industry had I think was in its heyday maybe pre-2020. Smart everything. Smart toothbrushes, smart toilets, smart, you know, shoe insoles, smart jackets. I think Google and Levi's had a collab for a smart jacket that would, I think, like take your calls or something like that.

My calls? I don't need my jacket. Listen, I would love to touch my jacket and be like, please call the dentist.

Like, I think it's something like that, or you can like control music playback or something like that from the sleeve of your jacket or whatever.

Wow.

I remember being very cool, and I remember wanting one, and I remember them being very expensive, so I no longer wanted one. Yeah, but the smart spoon just seems so like, we're over that. You know, like Smart Spoon is so last decade.

What about the Ray-Ban Meta collaboration this year?

And I think my point still stands because everybody hates them. So yeah, I think the point still stands. It's, you know, it's the same with Google, Google Glass. You know, we had the Glassholes. That was a big thing for a couple of years.

I have not heard that. That is funny.

Yeah, they're called glassholes, and I will still call them glassholes when I see them. I just think the idea of wearable video recording tech without like the blinking red light that alerts you that it's recording, I think it's just so creepy. It's like weirdo behavior in my opinion.

I have 3 of them.

Okay, well, I know, I know, it's great to see you, um, I'll get out of here.

I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking.

But yeah, I'm gonna say human biologics. I feel like that is also something that, that I've heard in the past this year.

Yeah, UFO crash sites, guys. Non-human.

I mean, who, who—

casual—

who would know but the government? I'm not out there in Area 51.

I'm not, but maybe I should be.

What about AI Granny? No one has anything to say about AI Granny.

Oh, I think that's an amazing idea.

I love that.

AI Granny is a good idea. It messes with scammers.

Yeah, it says an AI Granny is phone scammers' worst nightmare.

So what I'm imagining is you call, you sort of let the AI Granny handle the scam call. Yeah, that's interesting. That seems like—

Let me, let me call my daughter. Hold on.

Really just like, where's the button for that?

All right, so let's, let's decide. So what do we think is the lie? Final, final thoughts.

I think smart spoon is the lie.

Allison?

I'm going with Patrick because Patrick, that was a very like— so I'm just playing this game off of gut feel, but you did like an in-depth analysis about like trends over time, which is exactly why you're playing this game right now.

Exactly.

I didn't know how this would go, but this I'm just jumping on the Patrick train for this one.

I'm very, very competitive.

I can see you take this very seriously. And you were right.

Let's go.

However, there is a smart—

the disappointment in me.

However, a smart fork was released this year. I don't think it was released this year. About like, it vibrates if you are eating too fast.

What? What? My, my cutlery is shaming me for eating?

My cutlery. 2024.

This will not stand.

Yeah, that's, that's going to flop probably, right?

I certainly hope so. I mean, I know there are—

I got 3 of them.

Smart fork, that's interesting. I remember a few years ago there being a smart fork designed for people with motor issues who couldn't properly hold their, you know, hold a fork and it would sort of vibrate or direct itself, you know, you know, adjust itself based on your motor skill issues. I thought that was a great idea. This is not. Yeah.

Completely agree. This is very different.

You're, you're totally right. You're, you're like a walking Google because I definitely saw that one as well. All right, so this is the last round. Are you ready? This one's probably gonna be easy, I think.

I'm going for the gold.

You're okay.

3,000 US flights are canceled as a global computer outage wreaks havoc on businesses, 911 systems, and government agencies. Company tests AI as temporary CEO. Profits hit an all-time high. AI-powered dog collar translates barks into emotions.

This is a toughie. See, I want to say the AI CEO is fake because They would never use AI to replace an executive.

Hmm.

They would only use it to replace the workforce.

That's some deep shit.

Then again, AI dog collar is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Um, but, and that would make it real.

Yeah.

Because the smart spoon is real. So why wouldn't the AI dog collar be real?

No, Smart Spoon is fake.

Oh, Smart Spoon is fake. Sorry.

There's a Smart Fork. Smart Fork is real.

Excuse me, I'm getting my computerized cutlery mixed up.

Someone let us know if there's a smart knife out there because we need to complete the set.

How am I going to be shamed for eating my dinner?

Exactly.

Hmm.

I think AI dog collar.

Final answer?

You think that's fake?

I'm gonna say that's— I'm— oh, this is so tough. I'm just gonna go for it. You know, no, I'm gonna say AI CEO is fake. I'm gonna stick to my guns.

Which one is it?

I'm gonna support— I'm gonna support my fellow worker and I'm gonna say the AI CEO is fake.

You're right. It's fake. Yeah, that was impressive.

3 for 3.

That is 3 for 3. I'm shocked.

Yes.

I mean, we all know about the outages. You're writing the story, so I'll let you talk more about that. Yeah, I agree. Like, who would put a temporary CEO? That seems crazy. But yeah, apparently not only is there an AI-powered dog collar, but there's— I sent this to Allison the other day. It's called DogGPT.

You didn't send me that.

I didn't?

I thought I did, but I requested immediately.

It was like, it was Bark or BarkGPT, one or the other. You like can record your dog's barks. It's in an open beta right now, and you, you have your dog bark into it and it'll tell you what the dog's saying.

Sorry, this has been really fun, but I actually have some things I need to go to.

I gotta go handle some things.

Yeah. I think, yeah, it's either DogGPT or BarkGPT, I think. Yeah, I thought I sent that to you. I'm pretty sure. I'll send it to you later then.

Okay.

I don't have a dog, so can you just record it for me?

Yes, Patrick and I have a dog.

Is CatGPT too on the nose?

Yeah, probably.

They're like, we can't.

Cat people get it, get it second. You dog people get it first.

Oh man. Yeah. I can't believe, yeah, no CEO would have replaced themselves with AI. I feel vindicated. This is a great boost in my self-confidence. So thank you. I'm glad.

I'm glad we did this for you.

I feel like even if we had 10 more of these, you would just like knock them all out of the park. That was very impressive to watch.

I'm going to send this to my boss and see if I can get a raise.

Wow. I am impressed. Great job. Allison, you didn't do anything. You just, you just quote on the Patrick.

Teamwork, you know, teamwork makes the dream work.

So thank you, Allison, for being in my corner. Corner.

I got you.

Supporting me every step of the way.

You're better than I am. I'm like the one who ends up like, I'm horrible at trivia and I make the person who knows the answer question themselves. So I just try to be quiet during— so you did good by not making Patrick.

Oh yeah, no, I was just like in full support of Patrick.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

You know, anytime.

Anytime.

All right. Okay. Well, so obviously, you know a lot about news and you're really good at figuring out fake headlines versus versus real ones and analyzing that. But I think that one thing that a lot of people struggle with in the tech industry, IT industry, uh, is actually like, how do you keep up with everything that is going on and everything that is changing? Like, I think the flight one, for example, like all 3,000 flights getting canceled, the CrowdStrike incident, like that probably hit like everyone's desks, right? But there's a lot going on every day and it can be overwhelming. So I have an advice question here for you that we'd love your take on, Patrick. So someone is wondering, how do you guys keep up with news in the industry? And then they said, I feel silly for asking this after 7 years in the tech industry, but I genuinely don't know how some of my peers are constantly on top of trying to be informed on the latest libraries, softwares, tech. News, et cetera. I eventually hear it from them, but it seems like their brains are directly wired to some kind of database that tells them about all of these new things. I mean, you work in the, in the editing industry, you know a lot about it. Is this a sense that you've heard about, like people becoming overwhelmed with the news and like, what advice would you have for someone who wants to stay on top of stuff but finds it difficult to do?

In terms of, you know, that never-ending sort of stream of news, I think that's always going to be there. My advice first off is to know that you're not going to read all of it and you never will, no matter how hard you try. Every morning I wake up to a couple thousand stories in my RSS feed that I have to sort of sift through. And it really just— going through every single story and reading the headline and the actual story itself, it would take forever. I wouldn't be able to do my job. Because I'd be too busy reading the news. And by the time I decided that what we should cover, it would be over. The day would be over. So I really feel for somebody trying to keep up with all of this news, especially, you know, in the— if you're a developer or something, there's always new updates or tools to learn or certifications to get, or, you know, just things to be aware of. And it's so overwhelming. There are a couple answers to this. One, you can be more be more select about where you get your news in the first place. For me, you know, I pick the major tried and true tech sites, your WIRES and your Ars Technicas and your, you know, if you're reading stuff on Hacker News or something like that, places that write the news, places that aggregate the news. There's another one I like, Techmeme. That's another one I like just in terms of aggregating that tech news. And I think if you leave it up to people who are professionals in the news business to sort of gather, gather the most compelling stories of the day or the week, I think you're in pretty good shape. At IT Brew, you know, we love to, you know, write our own stories. We also link out to stories that we think are the most important ones to, you know, learn about, you know, every, any given day. So we'll link out to interesting reads, stories with crazy stats, stories with interesting quotes in them. That will sort of get you looking in the right direction in terms of what should I be paying attention to? What matters in the industry? You know, specifically cybersecurity, IT industry. In terms of, you know, just other news, I think it's a, it's very personal. You read the sites you like, you read the authors you like. I think that's definitely a good way to go is to not just read the site, is to check the byline and read a reporter's past work. See if their work is something you agree with. See if their, their writing style is something you like. And just follow them through their career. There's so many reporters that I love whose career I follow religiously and have since I've, since I started reporting. Yeah. So aggregation is a big help. I use a lot of Reddits and subreddits. What is it called? MultiReddits to sort of organize, you know, different subreddits into categories. I have a tech category. I have a cybersecurity category. I have an arts and crafts category because I'm really into ceramics and stuff like that. So yeah, it just depends on what you're into and what your, what your patience is when it comes through, when it comes to sifting through all of that. How do you guys read your news?

I go through like different cycles. I think this person I, I relate to a lot as someone who constantly feels overwhelmed or I don't prioritize taking the time to read new things. I will say, and I think you know this, Patrick, that I am a big Morning Brew user. I will say that I like. The— I like that you talk about aggregations and trusting professionals. Like, I think something I like about Morning Brew is that first, I think that they, they get like a really shortened summary that allows you to click out to things that are interesting. And so it'll take like 5 minutes just to read this thing in my email. And I love that it does this. I also think it's very engaging, and I think that the language they choose to use is very inviting. It makes very complex topics seem more approachable. So I think it depends on that. I used to, I used to be like an NPR person. I listened to a podcast in the morning, like the Up First. That used to be something, but that media medium doesn't work for me. So I think I'm not probably the prime person to ask, but I know I think like balancing, I think finding what is the medium that works best for you at your point in life and finding something that works for you. Like there's so many different forms of medium. There's Twitter. People find all the information from Twitter, like, and that's obviously go look at your sources and things like that. But there are different ways that people can stay engaged. And I think it's just like finding your medium from what I know, but I didn't think of following people. That's interesting. That I trust. Yeah.

Yeah. People you trust for sure. I used to read a lot of Motherboard, the Vice tech site when they were still in there at their peak instead of whatever they are now, kind of a shell of what it once was. But a lot of those writers, Samantha Cole, Emmanuel Maiberg, Joseph Kebler, I think that's his name, sorry if I got that wrong. Um, you know, they started their own independent news organization, 404 Media, and have just been breaking stories every week, left and right, something new, and essentially affecting change about the subjects that they're writing. So, you know, I wouldn't have known about this small independent, you know, but growing media company if I wasn't following the writers whose stories I've already enjoyed in the past, as, you know, looking to them as trusted sources for news has led me to this, has led me to an amazing resource when it comes to news and information that is super important to know. Um, so yeah, I think, you know, being a fan of a writer is one way to keep up with the news. Well, another thing would be to talk to your friends, network, talk to people in the industry.

Friends? What are those?

That's a good point.

Hey, I'm going to ask you about the news, Allison. We'll never learn anything between the both of us. You ask me, I ask you. I don't know.

She's like, I heard about the smart spoon.

I actually spread a bunch of fake news to Jasmine about new AI technologies.

All I do is send you things like BarkGBT. That's what you get.

Okay, but Patrick, your point stands. Talk to your informed friends.

Yeah, talk to your informed friends. I'd say talk to your informed friends. If you're, if you're a big social media person, what I like to do is like the reporters that I, that I like to read and follow, I like to see who they're following and it leads me, you know, through this like network of associated reporters. That cover different areas, you know, because one person can't cover it all. So there are people who write about cybersecurity, there are people who write about hacking, there are people who write about the telecom industry and how the— and how that's affecting your daily life. People like Carl Bode writes a lot about that, or John Brodkin at Ars Technica writes about that. And I think it's really helpful to see who, who they're— who the friends of friends are, essentially, and just check them out.

That is a super good point. I wouldn't have really thought to do that, but, but yeah, once you, once you find someone that you trust and you respect as a writer, like they're probably following people that they trust and they respect and probably those people influence each other in all different ways in terms of their reporting style or how they write or whatever it is. So that's a very good point.

So just follow Patrick and his followers and then I never have to think about how to source my news again. I already have a plan now.

You don't want to follow me. All I do is post, I just post weird memes.

I think that means we do want to follow you.

I'm in.

Yeah.

Subscribe and like. I'm ready to double down on the brain rot that I consume. Well, thank you again, Patrick, so much for being here. I'm really excited just for next year and what's going on. Uh, I'm curious. Patrick, Allison, you know, we're closing out 2024. What is your manifestation for next year? I know we talk about things that we want to change or whatever. What do you hope to happen next year? There's a lot of things like we could look at the world and be like, uh, I predict like really bad things. You know, I think we were talking about this earlier, but what do we hope will happen for next year? What's something we want to manifest? Is it, is it possibly AI, uh, powered knives or is it something a little bit more?

Yeah.

First SpoonGPT.

Um, the cutlery set.

I like, I like that you said manifest— manifestations instead of predictions because I think you could rightly so predict, you know, a lot of negative outcomes. I think manifestations is more positive. It's what you hope for. And I hope next year there is a more level-headed view on upcoming technologies and the technologies that we're using now. Obviously, my go-to answer is a more skeptical look at artificial intelligence, at AI, things like that. There are a lot of benefits to AI. I'm kind of a, I kind of, you know, very much an AI, you know, poo-pooer. I think specifically like generative AI, like ChatGPT and OpenAI stuff, Midjourney, their video creation tool, Sora. I think these are dangerous and disrespectful tools, especially to artists and creators, to humans in general. I was listening to this podcast actually. Have you ever heard of it? Off the VPN? And they had—

Yeah, something like that. Maybe once or twice.

I was listening to the episode with an AI CEO on it, and I just thought there are so many positive ways to use AI, especially when it comes to IT and cybersecurity. You can use it to detect anomalous behavior. You can use it to sort of, you know, check and verify code for bugs and things like that. The issue comes when you're using it to mimic humanity in a sense. Write this for me so I don't have to, so I don't have to learn how to write it. Write this story for me. Make this picture for me. Make this video for me. Based on data, text, images, videos, all kinds of things that are generated by humans, used without their permission to make them obsolete. I think the example that was in that episode was a CEO proposing a reduction in pay. For using AI to write the code and only needing the, the staff, the development team to sort of integrate the code.

Not our guest, to be specific. It was a story we spoke.

Oh, yes. That's sorry. That's what I mean.

Our guest was not proposing 20%.

No.

There was somebody else that we were reading their story in case you haven't listened yet.

Yeah. And I just thought like, this is an example of the more nefarious use of AI that I am very strongly against using it to replace people. Who are doing the work. So my, my manifestation for next year, for 2025, is a more sort of pragmatic view on what AI does, how we can use it to better ourselves, to augment our human capabilities, and not to replace humans themselves. I also hope that we figure out how to reduce the environmental impact that AI has. Companies like Microsoft and Google are you know, at this moment, reviving nuclear facilities and coal plants, coal power plants to power data centers and, and, you know, AI, um, centric data centers. I understand that every technology has its sort of growing pains. I'm sure the, the first gasoline engine was very, uh, not exactly efficient, you know, and now we've got the electric car or, you know, hybrid cars that use gasoline more efficiently, obviously. I hope that the same is true when it comes to AI, and I hope that we recognize that our planet is going through a huge change in terms of climate change, and that these tools are currently setting us back and are detrimental to our goals when it comes to eliminating the negative effects of climate change. So that's, that's one thing I'm not predicting— manifesting.

Manifest.

That was a really good one. I was going to say, like, I manifest an apartment-friendly sauna. So that's very— I got to think about mine a little bit longer.

Those exist, Jasmine. We can make that happen for you. Yeah, that was an amazing answer, Patrick. Oh, my gosh. No one here is following that. We're just going to leave that manifestation.

He doesn't have any manifestations.

Yeah, what do you want to manifest, Allison?

An apartment-appropriate sauna. Actually, that's a joke because I did just buy a sauna off of Amazon. You can buy like, um, whoa, don't get it. Don't get it. It's not like a real sauna. And I don't know if it's like killing me yet or not, but you plug it in and you like sit in it and it's not, it's not like bamboo or anything. It's like one of the— it's like a fake sauna, but it works.

It's a really hot— what do they call that? Like when you— sleeping bag. It's a very hot sleeping bag, basically.

Yes, that's exactly what it is.

Is it sort of sleeping bag shaped?

Um, not exactly. Because it's like a tent? Yes, it's kind of like a tent, but you sit in it and then like your head sticks out and your arms stick out. I'll send you a photo later.

But yeah, I changed my manifestation to that.

No, because your manifestation was beautiful, Patrick. We're not saying that. That is staying. I think just to piggyback off of yours really quick though, I do think something that you said in the beginning was about like level-headedness. I don't know if that, that was the exact term that you used, but that is something that I would love to manifest. Like for us to be able to have conversations about like difficult topics like this one that is You know, it's not that I don't think it's like tearing people apart, but I think that it does seem like you introduce yourself as like an AI poo-pooer, uh, right? Like it feels like there is like different groups of people that are just sort of like approaching AI and technology in different ways and they see it in different ways. And I love your call out there of just like, let's do this in a level-headed way. Let's try and have discourse around it that is, uh, respectful and is ultimately like moving humanity in the right direction and thinking. Through all of the implications where we can of like what it means to live in a world with AI. And I think there's a lot of hype around it that I think a lot of people lose sight of the things that you're talking about. Are you replacing human behavior? Does that mean you're replacing jobs? Like, and then there are people out there saying like, yeah, I wanna cut my developer salaries by this much. And tech is just one industry of many, like to your other point about like creative artists, people who write things, people who create videos, all this stuff just being used, right? So I, I will also manifest us being able to like move forward in society in a very like level-headed, proper way to, to solve this problem together. And maybe a real sauna, but that's secondary.

I'll add that to the list also.

Yeah.

Can I make it— I wanna maybe add is like, I wanna manifest just closing the knowledge gap on how this stuff works, especially for people who are technology leaders. I think that AI is seen as like magic and people don't really know, like, I think that there is a lot of misnomers out there and misunderstandings. And I also think that there's things that seem scary but really aren't that bad. And then there are things that are really scary that we should be paying attention to, right? Like there's some like AI tool and everyone's freaking out, but I don't know, I was just watching a documentary about, on Netflix about all of the pollution from fast fashion and like Amazon. I'm like, we should be looking at that. I'm not really worried about ChatGPT right now. Like, yeah, there's elements to it that we need to pay attention to, but I just think that like making sure people are informed on these things so that they have a better, I'm not as scared about AI as others are. And I do hope that like, we can have informed conversations about things and talk about like the, the things that matter and not can we, but should we and those sorts of questions. And like, what are we being intentional about what we're using it for? Because yeah, it's changing our space and I think we could do amazing stuff with it. And I wanna be positive about it being just like an evolution for us, but I'm not really saying anything new. I don't think I, it's just more like, I just, I manifest that not everything's gonna be solved, but at least hopefully like knowledge will be more accessible for people so that they can get up to speed with how this stuff works. Yeah.

And we can make progress because of that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool.

I thought we were gonna solve it all today.

Do you have 5 more minutes?

Oh yeah, sure.

Yeah, totally.

I don't think we'll be solved in like the next decade.

Like I think we're still gonna be talking about this stuff. Um, for sure.

And then we'll have another AI guest and we'll be like, hey, You know, AI data is here.

Oh no.

Or it's me and I upload it to the cloud and we're still doing off the VPN, but it's like my—

It's just my dreams destroyed.

It's just my uploaded consciousness.

I mean, we've already been—

We're just getting headlines for eternity.

We've already been replaced, Jasmine. You know, the podcaster thing that exists.

So our first hate mail, our first hate comment. I'm starting to get a couple more. I'm going to put them all together. Yeah, we got at least 2.

That means you're a success. Congratulations.

I know.

I think we can stop now.

Yeah, you might as well call it quits.

Yeah, quit while we're ahead. 2 comments.

Well, thank you all again for listening. Happy 2024 and happy New Year.

2024, 2025.

We hope that 2024 was a hit for you, and if not, 2025 is around the corner. We've been so excited. Just, you know, we launched Off the VPN this year, and it's been a really fun time just getting to do this. So if you've listened to at least one episode, you're a repeat listener, and that's good enough for me. And so thank you for listening. We have exciting plans for you guys in 2025. New folks to bring, new conversations to have, and we're really excited. And thank you again, Patrick. And thank you, Allison, for doing this with me every other week on Wednesdays.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you, Patrick.

Thanks for listening to Off the VPN.

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