Pod Insights Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast Joanna Stern is PROBABLY Not a Robot About this episode Joanna Stern stopped by to chat with Marques about everything from John Ternus becoming the new Apple CEO to whether or not humanoid robots are the correct form factor for the future of helpful AI robots. They also talk about her new book (out now!) where she let AI run her life for a full year. Then they talk YouTube and going independent in media before wrapping it up with A Race to Z typing test. It's a very interesting conversation and we hope you enjoy!
Links:
Joanna Stern - I Am Not a Robot
New Things with Joanna Stern
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Transcript 16,069 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Andrew Manganelli? This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, host Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring your fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episodes and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:33 Speaker 01 Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. AI is only as useful as the context it has to work from. But when that context is scattered across tools, threads, and DMs, that means your team and your AI agents end up flying blind. That's the problem that Jira solves. What's the goal tied to your project? What got decided last week in Slack? Atlassian's teamwork graph pulls all these pieces together, from Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. So, nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com.
1:18 Speaker 01 That's J-I-R-A dot com.
1:20 Speaker 02 If Apple doesn't provide me a large language model to talk to, in a way, I don't care.
1:25 Speaker 01 It took me like half an hour to watch the video because I kept pausing it and laughing so much.
1:29 Speaker 02 I'm a little scared about Waymos on New Jersey highways.
1:32 Speaker 01 It's a different type of driver.
1:34 Speaker 02 They say AI is going to change healthcare. What does that really mean? AI is going to change our streets, our highways. What does that really mean? Oh, we're going to get humanoid robots in our homes? That it's going to change our lives forever? What does that really mean?
1:50 Speaker 01 Joanna, thank you for joining me on the Waveform Podcast.
1:53 Speaker 02 Thank you for having me.
1:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:54 Speaker 02 All the way here in Kearney, New Jersey, which is 20 minutes away from my house.
1:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, we like having people in person on the podcast more than virtual because it's just more personal. It's more fun.
2:03 Speaker 02 We're right here.
2:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
2:04 Speaker 02 This, you know what? The two most powerful people in New Jersey tech media are in the This room.
2:10 Speaker 01 I'm willing to accept that.
2:13 Speaker 02 Do you think there's anyone else?
2:14 Speaker 01 In New Jersey? I haven't thought about that, actually. I'm not really sure. There's gotta be other-
2:18 Speaker 02 In tech media. We know there's a lot of important media people in Jersey.
2:21 Speaker 01 Tech media. I don't know certain people where they're from, but I'm, I'm just gonna go ahead and accept the crown.
2:26 Speaker 02 I'm pretty sure it's just us.
2:28 Speaker 01 I'm willing to take it.
2:28 Speaker 02 I mean, there's a lot of others and we are the top, is what I'm saying here.
2:33 Speaker 01 I like it. I like the confidence. We should talk a little bit about tech, cause there's, there's a bunch going on. We have your book here in front of us. We're also gonna talk about this. I'm really excited about-
2:41 Speaker 02 This is my new way of promoting the book.
2:43 Speaker 01 Is just holding it up to your face during the entire podcast.
2:45 Speaker 02 It makes all the podcast editors very angry.
2:48 Speaker 01 I like that.
2:48 Speaker 02 To block it.
2:49 Speaker 01 We were just talking about the cover, by the way. The title is very, and the colors and the shapes. And I have to talk to you about humanoid robots as well.
2:55 Speaker 02 Oh, I would love to.
2:56 Speaker 01 I have so many takes.
2:58 Speaker 02 I know you do.
2:58 Speaker 01 They sometimes get me in trouble. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
3:00 Speaker 02 I love your takes and they're mostly right. So, yeah.
3:02 Speaker 01 Perfect. So tell me about this book. It's called, I Am Not a Robot. What is, what is going on in it?
3:08 Speaker 02 My year using AI to do almost everything. You can search that all. You really just have to search, I am not a robot, but Joanna Stern, because if you search, I am not a robot, then you just get CAPTCHAs and it's a disaster.
3:19 Speaker 01 Totally.
3:20 Speaker 02 Great idea for the name of a book. Not actually a great idea when you go to sell the book.
3:24 Speaker 01 For SEO.
3:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's terrible SEO CAPTCHAs situation. Yeah, this is about my year trying to use AI in as many parts of my life as possible. And that's my pitch. Go buy the book.
3:37 Speaker 01 Giving it a shot, being optimistic, open to it being either awesome or terrible, just fully, fully immersing yourself.
3:44 Speaker 02 Fully immersing myself and I don't define AI as just generative AI. It's not just chatbots. You've got self-driving cars in here, humanoid robots, healthcare, tons of different applications of what once was called deep learning, but now everyone just calls AI or chatbots or generative AI.
4:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's neural nets. There's all sorts of things. It's just all artificial intelligence.
4:06 Speaker 02 Yep.
4:06 Speaker 01 All the time.
4:07 Speaker 02 Yep.
4:08 Speaker 01 Awesome.
4:09 Speaker 02 Not only do I have a book out, I have a new media company, which we know we're gonna talk about, but it's called New Things and you can go to thenewthings.com or- Look at these sound effects.
4:20 Speaker 01 We got a sample.
4:20 Speaker 02 Or you can go to my YouTube channel, Joanna Stern.
4:23 Speaker 01 Perfect.
4:26 Speaker 01 We'll link everything below so people can find it. First, we can talk, actually, there's a little bit of tech news that we haven't talked about a ton yet on the podcast, which is Apple's new CEO. That's a fun one. What do you think about?
4:36 Speaker 02 You feel like you haven't talked about that a lot on this podcast?
4:38 Speaker 01 Well, we have talked about it, but I haven't gotten other people's thoughts outside of the podcast, so now I'm excited to start doing that.
4:43 Speaker 02 Because I've been listening to this podcast in my car, and I'm pretty sure you've done a lot of coverage of this.
4:47 Speaker 01 We did have a lot of optimistic musings about the future of Apple, and I'm curious. Do you agree with our thoughts on John Ternus being the new CEO? The product guy?
4:54 Speaker 02 I do, I do. I think, look, we, we love products. That's our focus. Tim Cook is kind of, he likes products. I think we say he's not the product guy, but he's like, he likes them.
5:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, he likes using the products to be good at his job of making the company really good.
5:12 Speaker 02 He loves using products to make money.
5:14 Speaker 01 Yes, exactly.
5:15 Speaker 02 Right?
5:15 Speaker 01 Right, yeah.
5:17 Speaker 02 We do too, but we also just love using the products. Like, even if someone told me, "You're not going to make money using this tech product, I would love to still use it."
5:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:25 Speaker 02 And I think it's, I love your guys' optimism. I'm optimistic. I think it just means that the most senior leader at the company is going to be able to talk a little bit more thoughtfully about these products. Why they made these decisions, what goes into it. You and me have both met Tim Cook over the years, and he's great to talk to. He clearly loves Apple. He loves the products they're making.
5:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:49 Speaker 02 He's going to get, like, deep into the product.
5:52 Speaker 01 You've interviewed a bunch of Apple execs over the years, and I get, I mean, you've talked to Tim. Do you ever talk to him about products, or it's more just like global company vision, big picture stuff? That's usually what he's good at.
6:02 Speaker 02 It feels like that's where the conversation usually goes.
6:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:05 Speaker 02 Right? When you, I mean, I've watched your interviews with him too.
6:08 Speaker 01 With the CEO.
6:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, with the CEO, that's, but there are other companies where the, I would say, what's a, what's a good example of?
6:16 Speaker 01 I mean, I talked to a YouTube CEO in the weeds of the products all the time. I haven't done an interview with him in a while on camera, but we did do one, and that was very product focused. And I think in general, just when I talk on camera about stuff, I'm trying to connect it to the viewer. And that is through the products that we're both using. So we have experiences with the products. We think there are things that are great about it. We think there are things that could be better about it. And then the competition unveils some shortcomings and we get to compare and contrast. So that's what's fun to me.
6:43 Speaker 02 I feel like actually what's really interesting is that right now in the tech industry, the closest CEOs to the products are the AI companies because they're the founders.
6:52 Speaker 01 True. Yeah.
6:53 Speaker 02 Right?
6:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:55 Speaker 02 Like you've got the Microsofts, you've got the Amazons, you've got Apple. And they're not the founders anymore.
7:01 Speaker 01 Right.
7:01 Speaker 02 Right? And they're not, they're making these big decisions about cloud infrastructure and all the things that are not the consumer product. But when you go and talk to the Darios or the Sam Altman's of the world right now, they're also really deep still into the product that they helped create.
7:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
7:17 Speaker 02 So you have these conversations. Look, there are plenty of conversations these guys are having right now, right? They're on the circuit and everyone is talking to them. But if you're a person like me or you, you can get really good conversation around the products because they're in it.
7:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Also, there's a lot of AI in your book. On, actually, give us the, give us the 10,000 foot view of how you used AI for an entire year. Well, you had the day, but also the entire year in the book. How did that go? What happened? You don't have to spoil everything, but how did it go?
7:53 Speaker 02 Oh, it went. It went. That's, that's, that's the top, that's the big answer.
7:58 Speaker 01 It happened.
7:59 Speaker 02 I want, look, there seemed to be a moment last year, 2025, even end of 2024, where there were so many new products coming out that had AI in them.
8:09 Speaker 01 Yep.
8:10 Speaker 02 And there were all these grand proclamations being made by these CEOs saying, AI is going to change our lives. It's going to be amazing. And I was like, why don't we just try to live that and see if that's true? And can I live five years into the future and see what these people are talking about using today's technology? And not giving people a perfect view, right? Because the models have been getting better, the products have kind of been getting better. And see what what life is like. And I tried a big thing that I think is different about this book versus any other AI book is, first of all, it's meant for consumers, the people who are using this stuff.
8:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:46 Speaker 02 It's not just generative AI. It's not just chatbots. We get into self-driving cars. There's humanoid robots. There's medical AI. And I wanted to look at all these parts of life and say, okay, they say AI is going to change healthcare. What does that really mean? AI is going to change our streets, our highways. What does that really mean? Oh, we're going to get humanoid robots in our homes that is going to change our lives forever. What does that really mean? It actually means nothing because they're really not ready.
9:12 Speaker 01 Agreed.
9:13 Speaker 02 And so that's, I, and the book was like done by the year. So it's, I wrote this in 2025. It starts in winter of 2025. You know, New Year's Day. And I just tried to, throughout the year, use AI as much as possible. I do want to say, there were places where I couldn't use AI. I say in the beginning of this book. If I went full throttle, I would be divorced and I would have lost everything that was important to me.
9:38 Speaker 01 Wow.
9:39 Speaker 02 So I use that in a tempered way, right? Like, I wanted to still be a human and a good parent and a good spouse and all of these things. But I really, yeah, I mean, name it, I tried it.
9:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's so many interesting things in that. Like, I, first, I've wanted, there's a video I've wanted to do. Because I, in the back of the day, I did a Google versus Siri versus Alexa video. And now it feels like the modern version of that would be to do GPT versus Gemini versus whatever other, like, perplexity, all the best ones, Claude. But every time I think about trying to do that, I always feel like there's some massive update around the corner that as soon as I put out my video, it would be out of date. And so I don't know if I can make that video or if it's even worth making because it's not useful anymore. How do you feel about those comparat? There's no one model that seems to forever be number one. It feels like it's not a useful comparison.
10:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think that would be a tough video for you to do. Like, it would have a very short shelf life and you would hear from a lot of people saying, like, I just switched to Gemini. Or I just switched to that, like, every, every week it's different. And I'm very clear in this book to say, I never actually mentioned model names. Maybe there's one or two places where I mentioned 4O or something like that, but I really, because I knew that if, you know, writing a book, you only want to sell it for like a day.
10:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:57 Speaker 02 I mean. Or apparently, successful authors don't want it to be sold for just a day. I'm not really, I don't know yet. I don't know if I'm going to be a successful author. But so, but I think the themes of it, right? So if I was using an image generator, right? I knew that wasn't going away. Yes, there's some examples in this, like where the image generator just like completely gaslights me and keeps saying, like, I was generating a picture for my son of five hamsters. And it kept being like, yeah, no, there's five hamsters in this image. And we're like, no, there's six hamsters in this image, you know? And then they'd be like, no, no, look, I did it again. And then it'd be like, seven hamsters. And some stuff like that has gotten better.
11:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:35 Speaker 02 But, yeah, thematically, I really tried to just stay on that and not be mentioning specific models, because if I had, like, at the time, I don't know, GPT would have been the best. And then, you know, today, people believe Claude or Gemini, or, you know, Gemini's probably getting updated in a few weeks at I O.
11:53 Speaker 01 Exactly.
11:53 Speaker 02 We can't say.
11:54 Speaker 01 Yeah. So to your point, AI is a lot more than just the chatbots. There's the self-driving cars. There's the medical breakthroughs. There's all kinds of stuff. What was the most surprising thing that you maybe found in looking at all these different things? Because the word AI now, it's, it includes a lot of things we used to call, what did we call it before? There was like the, the
12:13 Speaker 02 Machine learning?
12:14 Speaker 01 Yeah, machine learning, exactly. Or even Neuralink's or whatever, all these other stuff. What are you, what are you surprised by?
12:20 Speaker 02 Um, well, there's a lot of surprising moments in the book, just in terms of my usage. I think one of the big messages that I want people to know in this book, and I think maybe your viewers already know it, or listeners already know it, but there are so many places right now where we hear about this hate of AI. You might hear it from your friends, or from your listeners or viewers. And the truth is, AI is already in your life. There's just no way you're going to be able to say no to it, right? And you've made this point before, like, about the image processing and the AI and the algorithms that go into so many different things. But I think even broader and deeper than that, for instance, one example's, I have a big chapter in here about AI reading my mammogram. And I sought
13:00 Speaker 02 that out, but many are going to get their x-rays, or mammograms, or ultrasounds, and they're already being read by AI. There is a radiologist behind the scenes using AI to say, actually, that looks like cancer. So that was one thing that I didn't really realize how ingrained it was already in parts of our lives that we don't think about. I think even like self-driving cars, you, we know they're in specific cities, but that AI is affecting your life because your car is driving next to it.
13:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. I saw Waymo out here the other day, which I thought was insane.
13:35 Speaker 02 Really?
13:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was like right around the corner and I saw that they're starting to test in New York City and I'm a little worried about that. For them, actually, mostly.
13:43 Speaker 02 This is making me mad because now you are the top New Jersey tech reporter.
13:47 Speaker 01 Oh, really? I mean, I, I tested Waymos in Austin and I tested the robot taxis in Austin. That's the only place I've ever ridden in a like fully self-driving taxi service.
13:57 Speaker 02 Really?
13:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then I heard that they were bringing it to New York City and I thought, that sounds bold. And then I saw one and I thought, oh, that's.
14:03 Speaker 02 Did you see it in New York or in New Jersey?
14:04 Speaker 01 I saw it right here on this block in New Jersey.
14:06 Speaker 02 Really?
14:07 Speaker 01 Yeah. So it must've been somebody coming from New Jersey.
14:09 Speaker 02 You are the leading tech New Jersey reporter. This is insane.
14:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. Is this breaking in first?
14:14 Speaker 02 New Jersey one, or whatever it is. You, I'm so jealous of the job you're about to get there.
14:18 Speaker 01 So they're out here.
14:19 Speaker 02 No, I had no idea they were in New Jersey. I knew they were like in Brooklyn and they've been testing them.
14:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:24 Speaker 02 Around the city. Wow. And you sure it was Waymo?
14:27 Speaker 01 It was definitely Waymo, yeah. And I, I saw that because I recognized the headline that I had just seen and I'm like, oh, okay, confirmed it's true because I see one here probably dropping someone off at the helicopter tours or something like that.
14:37 Speaker 02 Interesting.
14:38 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm a little.
14:39 Speaker 02 I'm a little scared about Waymos on New Jersey highways.
14:42 Speaker 01 It's a different type of driver that you have to deal with and I, and I feel like in each one of these cities, the self-driving car, I guess something not, people don't always talk about is it has to assimilate to the driving style. So in California, these big multi-lane highways, all this stuff. And then of course, the neighborhoods, well-paved roads, usually nothing too insane, at least from the footage I see. Austin, similar stuff, slightly different intersection types.
15:05 Speaker 02 Right.
15:05 Speaker 01 You come to New York and New Jersey and the way taxi drivers drive, the way Uber drivers drive, the way people on scooters fly past you and bicycles in the bike lane.
15:13 Speaker 02 And jug handles in New Jersey.
15:15 Speaker 01 And all roundabouts and all these other crazy things. I, I'm curious. I'm curious how it handles that stuff.
15:21 Speaker 02 So I, in the book, go to Phoenix and go with my whole family. I have two sons and my wife, we went to Phoenix for spring break. We called it our Waymo fun vacation.
15:29 Speaker 01 Okay.
15:29 Speaker 02 And we went there for a week and we took about 40 Waymos. And I had been in them in different cities, but I really felt like I got, when you're really in one city and you, you can pick up all of the little things, the cars do.
15:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:43 Speaker 02 You really feel like you're starting to understand that driving style?
15:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, the city, the city-specific driving style is fascinating. And I wonder, yeah, cars all have to talk to each other and get better at driving in each place. So if a Waymo starts to move, because this is the thing, if you're a Waymo in New York, and then you do a drop off in New Jersey, and then you pick someone up and they want to go to South Jersey, and then Philly, and now you're in, now you're a Philly Waymo. Now, what is that like?
16:05 Speaker 02 This is so many years away, but I would say in five years, something like that could be.
16:10 Speaker 01 That's really interesting.
16:11 Speaker 02 Could happen.
16:12 Speaker 01 You have the book here. You decided to write a book. I'm curious about the decision to write a book in the first place, because you have this long history of you've been, obviously, you've done podcasting, you've done writing for your website, you've done video stuff. Why the book and why not for a book?
16:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a really good question. Why did I do this book? As I am exhausted from being, talking about this book.
16:33 Speaker 01 It's made you think about it more.
16:34 Speaker 02 I should ask my bot version of myself why I did this book. I thought this was going to be a moment in time. Like, the beginning of this book, I talk about the internet and this idea that in 1995, let's say, were you even born?
16:48 Speaker 01 I was, I was two years old.
16:49 Speaker 02 Right, okay. I had a feeling. I was in fifth grade. I wasn't that much older than you. I mean, a little bit.
16:57 Speaker 02 Like, if someone in 1995 came up to you as a two-year-old Marquez, and you were like, "I can't even speak."
17:04 Speaker 01 "Hi, I only know three words."
17:08 Speaker 02 And told you, everything you do is going to be on the internet, right? Everything, you're going to shop on the internet, your mail's going to be on the internet, all these parts of your life are going to be going through a computer. You would have been like, "Hell, no."
17:21 Speaker 01 People of the time certainly didn't believe it, let alone want it.
17:25 Speaker 02 Right.
17:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:26 Speaker 02 You'd just be like, "No." And then, and then if you told them, actually, and 10 years after that, it's all going to be on a little screen that you put in your pocket. And then they told two-year-old Marquez, "You're going to review those screens."
17:38 Speaker 01 You'd be like, "Hell, yeah." Be pumped.
17:42 Speaker 02 It'd be like, "You're going to be a famous reviewer of little rectangles in your screen, in screen rectangles." You'd be like, "Okay, I want to be an astronaut."
17:53 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:53 Speaker 02 "Mommy."
17:54 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah.
17:56 Speaker 02 So my point is, is that with the book, I thought everyone keeps saying we're on this, at this moment where AI is going to make that change. It feels like it's good to have this piece that like will stand the test of time to either be completely wrong or completely right.
18:14 Speaker 01 So this is the moment in time where we are, there is spectacular specu- specul- spec- hmm, speculating. Speculation.
18:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, do not edit that out.
18:24 Speaker 01 Spectacular speculation.
18:26 Speaker 02 Yes.
18:26 Speaker 01 About, about whether or not this is the future, basically. And we're all living in a time where, okay, we know the world as it is, we know the search engines, we know the structures of the internet, we know how we sort of switch on and switch off, but this AI thing is going to change everything and we're all skeptical.
18:39 Speaker 02 What if we, and this is the premise of the book, what if machines are a part of every part of the fabric of our lives?
18:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:45 Speaker 02 Every part, just like the internet became.
18:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:48 Speaker 02 But now, machines that have smarts, that have, that are smarter than humans, these people say, are going to change our lives.
18:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:58 Speaker 02 So, look, I'm covering that every day and you are too, and it's going to seep into, but I thought maybe a book form would be good. And also, I'll be honest, like, I really want to hit a different audience with this book.
19:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, what is it, how is this audience different than your normal, like, video audience?
19:13 Speaker 02 I am here talking to your audience and I hope they will read the book, or I'm really hoping that your audience will tell someone in their life, where they're like, you know, your audience like heard us debating if you should do that video on Gemini and Claude, and they started getting mad, like, we know, in their head, they were like, no, man.
19:30 Speaker 01 Wait for 5.7.
19:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly. 5.7, 5.5 with the image better than this, you know, nano banana.
19:36 Speaker 01 Sentence that didn't exist a year ago.
19:39 Speaker 02 Right. Nano bananas better than my 5 point, whatever. I want them to tell their person in their life that isn't super deep in, you should go read this book because it summarizes and gives you a really good understanding of what AI could do for you.
19:54 Speaker 01 Okay. Yeah.
19:55 Speaker 02 I do also want- Let me look at this person, Nano Banana Nerd. I want you to also buy the book, but you could buy it for a friend.
20:02 Speaker 01 There is a lot of, I guess there's the two versions of the way people think about this future. I always have my own nuanced version of this, which maybe we'll get to, but there is clearly a lot of positive use of artificial intelligence, especially in things like pattern recognition, like in the medical field like we talk about. Oh, it'll look at this MRI, it'll look at this tons and tons of data in a way that a human can't and find a pattern and maybe that actually means something that we didn't know about before. So there's a ton of upside, but then there's also a bunch of downside and you hear stories about this all the time about the chatbots talking crazy to people about all sorts of other negative things. How do you think about the positive versus negative trade off of all of our lives being filled with artificial intelligence?
20:45 Speaker 02 I wish that I had a better answer at the end of this book. I mean, you should still read the whole book and spoiler alert, I don't have a better answer at the end, but you should still read the whole book, even you Nano Banana friend. Similar to any other tech tool, and I know you've made this point in your videos, there's going to be good and bad. And so like, there is a very good chance this is totally worse and has far more negative consequences than any other technology. Like, I feel like I sound like Sam Altman sitting here.
21:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, but.
21:18 Speaker 02 But I need to learn how to do like a great Sam Altman impression. Like he thinks so thoughtfully off to the side. You know, you study people when you interview them.
21:27 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. You always watch a bunch of interviews of other things they've talked about before and then you realize they're going to do the same thing.
21:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's like looks up really thoughtfully.
21:35 Speaker 01 Does a few calculations.
21:36 Speaker 02 And that tells you the good news. Like, the job displacement is real and people right now, I mean, I just started this new media company and the amount of incoming I have from young people out of college who just can't get a job because they feel like AI has taken over these basic tasks, whether it's video editing, whether it's design.
22:02 Speaker 02 Writing, that feels real and people are furious about it. And they're like, why do we need this technology?
22:09 Speaker 01 It's hard to answer now, and that's the point of being in this moment in time. I have my nuanced take, which I say, it kind of relates back to smartphones. I saw like the time before smartphones where I was like playing around with the VHS camcorder. And there was a bunch of different tech and then, you know, smartphones came along and they brought all these different technologies into this one supercomputer in your pocket. And it's gotten really, really, really good. And also it's sort of slowed down in improvement. And I have a hard time picturing a post-smartphone world, meaning we've moved on from this form factor of the rectangle in your pocket to something else. A lot of these big tech companies are trying to prepare themselves for a post-smartphone world. Oh, what if it's a glasses thing? What if it's a computer on your face?
22:53 Speaker 01 So they're all trying that stuff, but I personally still have a hard time imagining that the smartphone isn't the center of that universe. Do you have a hard time with that? Or do you feel like we could just move on from smartphones?
23:05 Speaker 02 I have a picture at the end of the book. Bring it back to the book. Okay. We can, we get a tight shot of that?
23:12 Speaker 01 Yeah. So for audio listeners, there's a then, a now, and a soon. Is exactly what I was talking about.
23:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:19 Speaker 01 The then is someone sitting down in front of a computer with a tower PC. The now is just holding the supercomputer in your pocket. And the soon is this girl with some cool glasses on, which are...
23:30 Speaker 02 That's me.
23:31 Speaker 01 That's you.
23:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
23:31 Speaker 01 Which is clearly smart glasses.
23:34 Speaker 02 That's super cool, smart girl.
23:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. And that's the soon. That's the soon.
23:38 Speaker 02 That's the soon.
23:38 Speaker 01 Post-smartphone.
23:39 Speaker 02 Post-smartphone.
23:40 Speaker 01 Not alongside the smartphone.
23:41 Speaker 02 Alongside, you know what? Actually, we need to revise this illustration in addition number two. The phone is in her pocket.
23:47 Speaker 01 Okay.
23:48 Speaker 02 Or in her purse, or you know, it's sitting in the car or something. It's close by.
23:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:53 Speaker 02 Because the phone powers this. And I, one of the reasons I, well, if you read all of this text here, it basically says, we went through this, but we didn't lose these other things. Right? I mean, we don't, well, actually I was just by your desk. You do still have like a giant tower.
24:06 Speaker 01 Maybe not for long, but I do.
24:08 Speaker 02 Maybe not for long, but you know, yeah, sure, you're going to get like a Neo. You're, it's going to power everything you do.
24:16 Speaker 02 We still have these, right? So we have this long history of tech where things don't get replaced. They just, we get added.
24:22 Speaker 01 We get augmented.
24:23 Speaker 02 Augmented. And our focus shifts, right? I mean, certainly the smartphone and this idea that the smartphone will be replaced. I totally am with you. This is, I can't see it ever. Like this is, like the devices keep getting more perfect.
24:35 Speaker 01 It knows everything about us. It fits in our pockets. We get to put it down and then pick it up, which I think is actually something we don't think about a lot, but it's super important. And then there's obviously all the thoughts about how often you pick it up, how often you put it down. But the face computer, maybe there's a world where you use the face computer a lot and you use your phone a bit less because it's more convenient. You take photos and videos with it. Maybe you talk to it, but you then check the rectangle in your pocket a little bit less. But that's still the thing that has all the power, all of the best compute, all of the best form factor. So I just, I don't know. I don't see it going away.
25:08 Speaker 02 Okay. So in the book, I write a lot about the wearables. And this is perfect segue. So we'll talk about this one. Did you ever try this out?
25:16 Speaker 01 No.
25:16 Speaker 02 This was the B. This is the B.
25:18 Speaker 01 Okay.
25:18 Speaker 02 Okay. It was, Amazon actually ended up buying it.
25:21 Speaker 01 Looks kind of like a Fitbit?
25:22 Speaker 02 Yeah. It, the hardware's unremarkable. It's fine. But this I wore for most of the year and it has a microphone and it records everything you do. Right now I press the button and green means this is recording. And so everything that's being said goes to Amazon's cloud. They transcribe it. They pull it back down. They get rid of the audio and then I get a summary of our conversation. And it also gives me to do's about our conversation. So if I've told you like, Marquez, I'm going to apply to be the New Jersey one tech reporter.
25:57 Speaker 01 Number one.
25:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't, is it?
25:59 Speaker 01 Top three.
26:00 Speaker 02 I actually meant that it's the channel name. I don't know. Is there a New Jersey TV network?
26:04 Speaker 01 There might be.
26:05 Speaker 02 Yeah. Anyway, this will all be in there and it will say, you need to go apply to be the New Jersey number one tech correspondent. Right? Everything from this conversation will have been summarized by AI and it will give me this crazy to do list, a detailed to do list. And you can keep this on all day and it happens.
26:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:24 Speaker 02 It's basically another brain in a way, right? I'm outsourcing my memory. I don't need to remember what we did here. I don't have to actively go and put that in my to do list.
26:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, we were just talking about this. Was it last episode they were talking about this of, I already sorta? Augment part of my brain in a way where I've just given up on remembering certain things and I use, well, right now it's a task app and I just, oh, there's something I have to do, I immediately take out my phone and I open the task app and I write it down just to make sure I don't forget because my memory is not perfect. And everyone is willing to draw the line in the sand in a slightly different place about how much they're willing to augment or offset their own brain. When you're going all in on everything, do you feel like it's making you, I guess we thought about this as like less smart or less useful?
27:15 Speaker 02 Less human.
27:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, less human. Does that feel bad to like not use your brain as much or is it convenient and then you can do all sorts of other random stuff you didn't think about before?
27:23 Speaker 02 There are moments where you're like, oh, don't worry about it. My bracelet got it.
27:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:28 Speaker 02 Like, I don't have to worry about that.
27:29 Speaker 01 And that's nice, kind of.
27:30 Speaker 02 That's nice, kind of, right? Because there are certain times where you know you're missing things. There's, of course, the flip side where it's like, I don't want to record everything. I don't want to live in my own surveillance state.
27:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:40 Speaker 02 And what I need to remember to do is not that important. It's like, change the water filter in my house.
27:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, but if it's unimportant, I'm gonna forget.
27:50 Speaker 02 Well, that was one of the findings in here is that I say, like, especially to my wife, like, I say I'm gonna do all these things and I never do them. Or I don't, it's not, I don't ever really do them, but also I just don't have, I don't remember to do them. Right? And so I think this idea of some passive computing that is on us, but works hand in hand with the smartphone, is coming. I mean, and, well, I'm gonna do something next because I want to, I want to get your tape, but I, I mean, I know how you felt about many of these devices.
28:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I'm, I'm willing to give them a shot. This is my thing. And I know that the, the main trade off that I think, I think the most about, and I'm, probably a lot of people watching think about, is the trade off between the data and the privacy and the convenience. And it's almost like a sliding scale. The more convenience you get, the less privacy you get. If you're gonna have it remember everything you said and give you a summary of it, it has to listen to a lot of what you're saying and it's gonna be super convenient because it gives you that back in functionality. And so how far do you want to slide that? Ah, you know what? I'll let it listen to everything. I'll let it see everything through my face cameras and I'll let it hear everything through the microphones and then I'll be the most productive human ever alive. Or the other side of that, which is, I just want it once in a while, just to remember one or two things and that's fine.
29:10 Speaker 02 And I think that's going to be the calculation going on at every tech company, right? At Apple, at Amazon, at Google. If we're not providing a great tool and utility, people are not going to deal with the privacy trade-off, right? So the glasses, I think, are a great example. Right now, not a lot of people don't trust the Meta glasses, but there's a good enough utility there, especially on the camera front, right? That we're willing to put these cameras on our face in, I mean, I use them in specific situations, right? Places I wouldn't want to be holding my phone. And so there's a good enough utility there and a good enough benefit.
29:53 Speaker 02 But once you start, I don't know, always recording or always having those glasses on, what is the benefit? You need to prove that. And that's the conversations that I'm sure Meta, Apple, et cetera, are having about what is the features that we can build in here to make that privacy trade-off work.
30:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, every company has to, has to find a different place for that line in the sand. That is also one of my, I guess it's more, it's less of a theory, but it's kind of proving out, which is that Apple is not winning the AI race, but because they've basically not competed at all, it's come around the other side where people like that about them. And they can focus on being the hardware that we run the AI stuff on at some point. But they have had a focus for a long time on the privacy. And because of that, they do not offer as much convenience. See Siri, Apple Intelligence, et cetera.
30:47 Speaker 02 I actually don't mind on the Apple Intelligence stuff. I think you're totally right. If Apple doesn't provide me a large language model to talk to, in a way, I don't care.
30:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:56 Speaker 02 But Siri is so atrocious, it is so terrible.
31:00 Speaker 01 It's pretty bad.
31:00 Speaker 02 That- It can't do the basic things that were really been promised. And I talk to Siri all the time.
31:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, still.
31:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, what other choice? I'm like, using CarPlay. I mean, we have, you probably have deep thoughts on this, but it's just a different podcast. Let's cut it there. Or like, I need Siri to just play a song, or tell me some basic information in the car, or use my HomePod.
31:24 Speaker 01 Stuff that doesn't require a ton of data and information.
31:27 Speaker 02 I tell the story all the time. Every morning, I just want Siri to play NPR news in my bathroom while I'm just washing my face and putting on my makeup. Why do I have to ask five different ways and have to perfectly explain the name of the podcast? And that's like, that is insane.
31:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
31:45 Speaker 02 It is 2026.
31:47 Speaker 01 So we had to, growing up, learn how to Google search.
31:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:51 Speaker 01 Which was, oh, you kind of use a certain words in a certain order, and then you will find what you need. And as they got better, it became less important to know those skills. The AI is kind of the same way. Like, you have to learn how to prompt it. You have to learn how to ask it to get a certain result. But after a while, they should be good enough that you don't, you should just use natural language and it should just know.
32:09 Speaker 02 Conversational AI. We have the very basics on all of the other chatbots now.
32:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:14 Speaker 02 And look, Apple's gonna do this. They're gonna do it this year. But I'm with you. Like, you don't need to give me a chatbot that knows everything. But just, please, like, one that can easily play NPR in the morning, or just tell me the weather, or, you know, just, just some of the really basic things. We got timers, right? I'm fine. Like, I spent a lot of time yelling at Apple about that. We got the timers.
32:37 Speaker 01 Finally got timers.
32:37 Speaker 02 I don't mean to be really selfish and, you know, spoiled and say, not, like, I'm very thankful for the timers, Apple.
32:45 Speaker 01 Multiple timers.
32:46 Speaker 02 Multiple timers, right. But now, we need a little bit more.
32:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
32:51 Speaker 02 Okay, so I wanted to bring this to you on the podcast. I think it's gonna be the hottest AI wearable of the year.
32:57 Speaker 01 Okay, the hottest AI wearable of the year. Ah.
33:00 Speaker 02 It's a pin.
33:01 Speaker 01 It is a pin?
33:02 Speaker 02 And I know you've had feelings about pins, tech pins.
33:05 Speaker 01 Well, this pin is probably better than the other tech pin.
33:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, this is why I brought this. I wanted a review. I wanted the Marquez review of the product that I made.
33:15 Speaker 01 Okay, so it's a, it just says some text on it. It says, "verified human. I am not a robot." Now, I didn't have to do anything to earn this pin and prove that I'm a human. This is like a trust basis, like you believe that I'm a human?
33:28 Speaker 02 I've spent a few minutes with you today. I feel feel like you're a human, but we, you know, one way I was gonna have you tested is that if you poke yourself and see if you bleed.
33:38 Speaker 01 That could be simula- I mean, I could simulate that. You're saying I passed the Turing test?
33:44 Speaker 02 Let's see. Let's see if there's blood.
33:45 Speaker 01 So far, so, so far, so good.
33:47 Speaker 03 We gave Marques the blood update last week, so.
33:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was a pretty solid.
33:51 Speaker 02 Oh, I saw that room back there. I was worried about that room.
33:54 Speaker 01 They had to get that blood.
33:56 Speaker 02 Has any other guest made you bleed on this show?
33:58 Speaker 01 No, no, we haven't beta tested the like making me bleed live yet, but I feel like it would do a pretty good jo- I mean, I would bleed for sure.
34:07 Speaker 02 Okay, well, then you guys have really advanced Marques bot here to amazing potential.
34:15 Speaker 01 We had to make.
34:15 Speaker 03 We have a great team.
34:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:16 Speaker 01 Yeah, the back room is full of a bunch of like non-working prototypes that are kind of just like sparking and it's a whole thing back there, but.
34:23 Speaker 02 What else are your other impressions of this pin? Look, it's been really rough for other pin makers out there.
34:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:29 Speaker 02 And I, this review means a lot to me.
34:32 Speaker 01 So, so the other pin that I think you're referring to also has the word "human."
34:37 Speaker 02 Yes.
34:37 Speaker 01 Um, with like an extra letter or something, I think, but it says "human" on it. That one had a bunch of other claims of things that it said it could do. This one, I don't think there are any claims of things that it should do. It should just verify that I am a human.
34:51 Speaker 02 Yep.
34:52 Speaker 01 Which importantly should mean that if I'm a robot, I should not be able to wear this. Like a humanoid robot should not be able.
35:00 Speaker 02 Oh, good point.
35:01 Speaker 01 To like dawn the pin.
35:02 Speaker 02 We can take that into account on the next.
35:04 Speaker 01 Some security steps in there.
35:06 Speaker 02 This is a decent review.
35:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:08 Speaker 02 Um, how about the battery life?
35:11 Speaker 01 Oh, it seems like it'll never turn off, which is really nice. The tech that lasts forever is, and this should last a really long time, is underrated, in my opinion.
35:20 Speaker 02 Wow, this means I almost could cry. This is a huge.
35:24 Speaker 01 I have worn like, like two or three, you know how, uh. The swag you get at tech events, you always get a pin?
35:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:31 Speaker 01 Like that, this, that's all I know. You don't get the like little apple pin?
35:34 Speaker 02 Oh, the apple pin.
35:35 Speaker 01 Like WWDC or like random, and we used to make a pin too, like this, this feels like right in line with like the nice swag.
35:40 Speaker 02 Well, I really modeled these after, I mean, again, you might be a little, no, I don't think you're too young. Do you ever go to TGI Fridays where they had like all the flair?
35:47 Speaker 01 Of course.
35:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:49 Speaker 01 My birthday was, I was born on a Friday.
35:52 Speaker 02 Oh, really?
35:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so I used to go to Fridays on my birthday every year, even if it wasn't a Friday, uh, just somewhere in New Jersey, wherever I was. Yeah.
36:00 Speaker 02 I loved CJ and they're like not around that much anymore.
36:03 Speaker 01 They're, yeah, unfortunately. I mean, I get it.
36:07 Speaker 02 Can't, but that sampler was amazing.
36:09 Speaker 01 The breadsticks went crazy.
36:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:10 Speaker 01 But yeah, this is, this is a solid one.
36:12 Speaker 02 Truly one of the best samplers. Okay.
36:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:14 Speaker 02 It means so much.
36:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:16 Speaker 02 I now know how every tech exec does.
36:18 Speaker 01 Seems like you have a bunch to kind of.
36:19 Speaker 02 Well, I'm, it's free for you.
36:21 Speaker 01 Oh, thank you.
36:21 Speaker 02 Actually, the promotion we ran for the preorder was that you had to preorder the book and I'd send you a free pin.
36:26 Speaker 01 Okay.
36:27 Speaker 02 Which the shipping on the pin was more than the pin.
36:29 Speaker 01 Uh, yeah, that's, that's what we learned when shipping our pin as well, is we had to figure out the pin economics.
36:35 Speaker 02 But if you two want the, well, we had to get like a quote, I'm gonna have to put your quote on the pin review page. I know that's gonna cost a lot of money.
36:43 Speaker 01 Battery life seems infinite.
36:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:45 Speaker 01 In quotes.
36:45 Speaker 02 Battery life seems infinite. If you would like to get this Marquez approved pin, you just have to preorder and then you go to Joanna Stern dot com and get your pin.
36:56 Speaker 01 Now you know.
36:57 Speaker 02 Although I'm frightened because I'm actually like doing, well, my AI agent, it deals with all the orders and sometimes it messes up and it's a mess.
37:05 Speaker 01 I'm sure it'll do, it'll do great for this. On the, okay, on the bottom of.
37:08 Speaker 03 Is that true? You have an AI agent doing all of the backend on your?
37:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, on the pin.
37:12 Speaker 03 Oh, just the pin?
37:13 Speaker 02 Well, I mean, on, also it built my website and everything, but yeah.
37:16 Speaker 03 Whoa.
37:17 Speaker 02 Yeah. It's actually a beautiful website, I have to say.
37:19 Speaker 01 That I believe, that I believe.
37:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:21 Speaker 02 But no, it like, if you submit a form, the, or you email, the AI agent puts it into the spreadsheet and then sends an email to my publisher to say there's a new pin order.
37:38 Speaker 01 Support for the show comes from Shopify. So, starting a new business is so daunting that most people quit before they even start. But you don't have to be like most people and you don't have to do it alone. Shopify makes it easy to take the leap. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day one. Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide from household names to small businesses just getting started. Their templates and AI tools help you get a website up and running fast, no coding needed. If questions come up, Shopify's built-in AI assistant Sidekick is ready to help you build, troubleshoot, and keep moving. And the best part is that all of Shopify's tools are conveniently located in one easy-to-use platform. And because Shopify handles the setup and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it.
38:22 Speaker 01 If you're ready to hear the sound of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.com/waveform to start your free trial today. That's right, you can start your free trial at Shopify.com/waveform. That's Shopify.com/waveform. Support for the show comes from Framer. The future of website building is one that seamlessly blends all of your tools that we have available. And you should use a platform that has it all and stays useful even after you launch. That's what Framer is. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. You're able to prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. On Framer, agents and humans work in tandem.
39:04 Speaker 01 So, agents bring speed and scale while people bring taste and judgment and control. And that's what all takes place in the same workspace where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and published. Everyone's ideas land on the canvas, stay editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Framer is an enterprise-level solution. Thousands of businesses from early-stage startups to Fortune 500s are choosing to build their websites in Framer where changes take minutes instead of days. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com/wave for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's Framer.com/wave. Rules and restrictions may apply. Support for the show comes from Framer. The show comes from Pipe Drive.
39:45 Speaker 01 Sales teams spend up to 50% of their time on admin work rather than selling and building relationships and closing deals. They could really use a tool that covers all the admin stuff. That way, sales teams can actually focus on the work they were hired to do. That's where Pipe Drive comes in. It's an intelligent, AI-powered sales CRM, loved by growing sales teams. Their new meeting intelligence feature, like an AI note taker, are built right into the CRM. Pipe Drive automatically pulls deal history, email records, and previous conversations. You can walk into a call already briefed. During meetings, Pipe Drive's AI note taker records and takes notes, so you can stay in the conversation. Then it turns those notes into accurate, auto-drafted CRM updates, ready for you to review and approve. The end result: less admin, more selling.
40:27 Speaker 01 Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipe Drive. Our link gets you an exclusive 30-day free trial instead of the usual 14-day trial, so no credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/wayform to get started. That's pipedrive.com/wayform, and you can be up and running in minutes. There's a little humanoid robot at the bottom of the pin. How do you feel about humanoid robots?
40:52 Speaker 02 I have so many thoughts, it's a whole other podcast.
40:54 Speaker 01 No, it's this podcast. It's this, this waveform. This is the one.
41:00 Speaker 02 I really want them. It's weird, because I feel like I'm really excited about this category, because I've lived through so many new tech gadgets and hardware, and this is one that we've all seen for so long. We've seen it in cartoons, and we've seen it in movies, and there's always this promise. And so now we like, see them, they're really being made by these companies, or Tesla, or Chinese companies, which is my recent YouTube video. And we want them to work. But they don't.
41:37 Speaker 01 Yes.
41:38 Speaker 02 I know you also have thoughts of like, why is this form? Like, is this the right form?
41:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:43 Speaker 02 But I don't even care, it's cool. And it's so fun.
41:47 Speaker 01 I, I do think it's fun. I have this thing, so like you said, I don't know that this will be the most efficient form for a functional, multipurpose robot. Let's say it's in your home, or something like that. You just want it in your home, and it does things like laundry, and puts the dishes away, and cleans stuff, or whatever. Having it be an upright, bipedal... Ten fingered thing with eyes and a head and stuff. It's like, it is fun and you do get that like Jetsons feel or the futuristic, our C3PO is a tall one, right?
42:21 Speaker 02 Yep.
42:21 Speaker 01 In Star Wars. Like, it's cool, but it's also a little bit creepy when we anthropomorphize things that are clearly not human, almost like an animatronic friend. And it has to get through that, what's the valley called? Uncanny. Uncanny. It has to get through that uncanny valley of being a little creepy before it gets to being really nice. I don't know if I'm willing to deal with that.
42:47 Speaker 02 I have spoken to so many, I spoke to a lot of robotics experts for the book and there's definitely this, there's a, there's a, two sides. There are the people that say we should have custom, single utility robots that do the things that you're talking about and are really good at them, right? And then there's a side that the world is built for humans. This is the form factor. This is what we look like.
43:12 Speaker 01 I've been thinking about this a lot. I thought, so I agree with that. I also think that we as humans built the world around all of the shortcomings of the human form and we can do better.
43:23 Speaker 02 Literally short. Like, we can't even reach things. Our arms don't extend.
43:27 Speaker 01 Driving is the perfect example for this, right? So you have a car. Let's say it's not a self-driving car. You could theoretically have a human, a humanoid robot, sit in the driver's seat of your car and hold the steering wheel and press the pedal and drive it. That's one version of this solution. Now you have an operated car from a robot. But it still has the same blind spots. It still only has a set of eyes on the front. It still only has the reaction time of things that it can see and hear. Or your car is covered in sensors, covers all the blind spots. It has this neural link that like maps all this information together, can see way further around all the sides of the car and has instantaneous response and doesn't have to move through the steering
44:10 Speaker 01 wheel and the pedal. And it's a much better self-driving car operated by a robot in that case. So even though, yes, we did design the car form around the human, I think that is actually a limitation that we can do better by designing the single-use robots. So, yeah, the world may not look the way it does in many years if we have a bunch of really good robots instead of the world like built the way it is.
44:35 Speaker 02 I love that idea and I think I see it, I see, you see it really clearly in the book when I, I don't know if anyone in the world knows as much about laundry folding robots as I do.
44:44 Speaker 01 How many CES laundry folding robots have you talked to?
44:47 Speaker 02 I have talked to so many.
44:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:49 Speaker 02 I've also had a laundry folding robot in my house.
44:52 Speaker 01 Wow.
44:52 Speaker 02 And the interesting thing about the laundry folding robots, talking about CES, there are those demos where it doesn't use hands.
44:59 Speaker 01 Right.
44:59 Speaker 02 The shirt goes through a different way, it goes through a conveyor belt, it folds, does these things. What the humanoid companies want to do, and even some other startups that are doing some wacky things with laundry folding, they want to give it hands.
45:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:13 Speaker 02 And the hands, they want to train it on thousands of hours of folding.
45:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:18 Speaker 02 Right? So I had this, this robot in my house and it's just two robotic arms, but it doesn't, it's like clenching, I keep doing this, like that's how they look.
45:26 Speaker 01 Mr. Grabs.
45:27 Speaker 02 They're like the grabs in like the, you know, in the arcade where it comes down and the claw that you don't get the free thing.
45:33 Speaker 01 Which is actually, it's probably better for folding things.
45:35 Speaker 02 Kind of, but like.
45:37 Speaker 01 Some things.
45:37 Speaker 02 Some things.
45:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
45:39 Speaker 02 If, there was a lot of, I've learned so much about the complication of folding laundry. It's really simple for us. Right? And there's this idea of Moravec's paradox where things that are really simple for humans are really hard for robots and things that are really hard for robots are really simple for humans. This robot, like, it struggles so much to fold because it doesn't have the hands, it doesn't have all of the, the right moves, like when the, when the shirt falls, it doesn't quite know it because every time a shirt falls, it looks different, right? It doesn't know where the arms are, it doesn't know where the neck is.
46:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:11 Speaker 02 It could also only fold t-shirts, which is a problem, you know, for, you know, if you only wore t-shirts, it's a problem for people.
46:18 Speaker 03 Sorry, we just had this argument, uh, last week on the podcast about how, about, how about, just about how garments, the nature of fabric and garments are so complex that I have no faith that an ML model is anywhere close to understanding how they work.
46:31 Speaker 02 And, and that's what was proven by this. And so now you have millions of dollars going into solving a problem of folding garments with, that are trying to simulate the human way of doing it. Right? Like you're, and I would like found myself cheering this robot in my basement. It was two giant arms hooked up to a big laptop, it's got all these things. And I'm like standing in my basement, you can do it, you can fold my t-shirt in under 10 minutes, you know? Like.
46:59 Speaker 02 Why not create a robot that doesn't have arms that folds laundry a different way? And which we know that some companies are doing.
47:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, this is, and I remember like talking in the Tesla factory about there are things that they have humans do that the robots simply can't do, like when they have to connect like a hose for some system to another one, it just sort of dangles and the robot just misses it, doesn't like is trying to calculate the position, has no idea what to do, the human just grabs it, grabs it, connects it, and it's fine. So there are definitely things that are probably forever going to be better for humans. But yeah, for the things that are like small mundane tasks, like I don't want to clean, like we have robot vacuums, they aren't a human, it's just a thing that rolls around on the ground. That's perfect. That's all it needs to be.
47:39 Speaker 02 Pretty good.
47:40 Speaker 01 The, the, the single use robot thing, I think that gets stronger and stronger in my head every time I think about it.
47:45 Speaker 02 And I think for certain tasks, it's going to make sense for sure, driving, right? That, that one's already here. Took a long time for us to get here. But a lot of these other single tasks that we want in our homes hurt just so hard. I mean, like the dishwasher, I know, you know, the scene of the Neo robot went viral of it doing the dishwasher for me.
48:05 Speaker 01 Struggling, struggling.
48:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, right? I mean, because that's like a very huge, like the dishwasher was built for a human.
48:13 Speaker 01 I was laughing at your video for like, it took me like half an hour to watch the video because I kept pausing it and laughing so much. Because it was really, it was tough. I'm like thinking about it. And it's fine that it's slow because I'm not doing it.
48:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:25 Speaker 01 So it can just happen in the background. But just watching the robot like try to bend over at the waist.
48:30 Speaker 02 I thought it was when we were filming it, I mean, I was like, you know, you know, you're live in this moment. And yeah, it's like yelling at my producer, David, come over here. Like, you know, we can't miss this. It might fall, got to get from, like, I thought it was going to fall into the dishwasher, you know?
48:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:45 Speaker 02 And last, last week, we posted a first video, one of my first videos on my own YouTube channel. Mark has, I'm really trying to
48:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:55 Speaker 01 We have a soundboard.
48:56 Speaker 02 We have, I'm aware you have a soundboard. I'm surprised we haven't used it more here. It's very impressive soundboard.
49:02 Speaker 03 I got you.
49:03 Speaker 04 Um, Grok, context, please.
49:06 Speaker 01 That's a new one.
49:06 Speaker 02 That's a new one, yeah.
49:07 Speaker 01 That's a brand new one.
49:10 Speaker 02 Where was it going? Oh, so I wanted to do this story on these Chinese robots, the Unitree G1 that you see going viral everywhere on the internet.
49:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, how is that?
49:21 Speaker 02 Well, the video's doing pretty well, but most people are angry that I'm really talking about the fact that they're all coming from China. I mean, the thing that I wanted to talk about there was that we're letting these Chinese robots into the US and we're so worried about Chinese EVs and we're so worried about Chinese phones, but yet, like, we're like, oh, let's let these giant humanoid robots that are 80 pounds and can do Kung-Fu come into America. Like, that seems odd. And it's a really interesting exploration of why China is obviously ahead of the US on manufacturing these, because they're ahead of us on everything on manufacturing in terms of electronics. But what was just funny, you should watch that one too, is like, the robot can't do anything. I mean, it can do some things. It can do, it can dance, which my kids love, and it can do Kung-Fu, which my kids love.
50:07 Speaker 02 But other than that, it just like sat in my house doing nothing.
50:10 Speaker 01 It can do choreographed things, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think this is what I've seen about a lot of the AI promises, is there's so much training left to do and there's so much learning left to do by the robots that we're sort of selling the promise of the future.
50:24 Speaker 03 I made the humanoid robot bet that there would not be a single humanoid robot shipped to a customer in 2026 that can do all the autonomous things.
50:32 Speaker 02 Oh, it can't.
50:33 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
50:34 Speaker 02 I think part one, you're wrong. I think they will ship.
50:37 Speaker 01 They will ship it.
50:37 Speaker 03 Do you think the 1X is gonna get shipped?
50:39 Speaker 02 I think that they will ship it to select few. I don't think that I will be.
50:43 Speaker 01 But it won't do all the things.
50:45 Speaker 02 I don't think Marquez is gonna be select few.
50:47 Speaker 01 No.
50:48 Speaker 02 Let's say this, if I get New Jersey packed.
50:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:53 Speaker 02 New Jersey tech media packed right here.
50:55 Speaker 01 Okay.
50:56 Speaker 02 If one of us gets the 1X.
50:57 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
50:58 Speaker 02 We have to go, we have to share a New Jersey.
51:00 Speaker 01 Hundred percent. Yeah.
51:02 Speaker 02 You know?
51:02 Speaker 01 You're welcome to try to ask it to do whatever you want.
51:05 Speaker 02 You're welcome to come to my house.
51:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:07 Speaker 02 And sit with it in the car. It sounds like you want your humanoid to ride to drive your car.
51:11 Speaker 01 It's gonna be really bad at that.
51:13 Speaker 02 We will shut down the town for that.
51:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:15 Speaker 02 Um, and so I think they will, to answer your question else, I think they will ship them autonomous. Zero chance, no way. Maybe it does one thing autonomously, which is like, open the door.
51:26 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:27 Speaker 02 Won't do that. Um, maybe, maybe it will do one task autonomously.
51:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, we had a.
51:35 Speaker 02 Actually, that's what we will do. You can control my 1X from here in your VR headset.
51:41 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. I'll just start doing the dishes.
51:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:44 Speaker 01 Through the, through the headset with the handle. Yeah, that'll be great. We had a Amazon Astro Bot here for
51:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:51 Speaker 01 like two or three, maybe longer, three or four years.
51:53 Speaker 03 No, it's still here.
51:54 Speaker 02 Oh, really?
51:55 Speaker 01 It's still here?
51:55 Speaker 03 It's still here.
51:56 Speaker 01 That's so unfortunate. It's just unplugged. The poor thing. It's.
51:59 Speaker 02 I had one too in my house.
52:00 Speaker 01 Oh, really?
52:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
52:01 Speaker 01 So you're aware of how bad it is at most things. Like, it would sort of just roam around being a security camera, which I guess is technically a successful, and it does what it says it will. But all the other things it's supposed to be able to do, it would not be very good at. And then it would just kind of trip over things and get stuck on wires. So it was this little robot, big wheels.
52:19 Speaker 02 It was just a, like a Lexon wheels to like play music.
52:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, that, that's the closest we've gotten so far, which.
52:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, and the whole idea of like, it would take the drink to the, to the, like, to the other room.
52:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:31 Speaker 02 It made no sense to me because like, it couldn't grab the drink.
52:34 Speaker 01 A person would have to be in both rooms.
52:36 Speaker 02 Right.
52:36 Speaker 01 At which point you could just ask the person.
52:39 Speaker 02 Right. Right, which.
52:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:43 Speaker 01 Made it a tough sell.
52:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:44 Speaker 01 So, yeah, I do, I tend to think we are quite far from the humanoid robot future. But I'm curious to see how that plays out, if it'll be humanoid robots, or if I'll be proven right, vindicated. It'll just be a bunch of specialized, smaller, really efficient, hyper-adapted robots for individual tasks everywhere. Your dishwasher will just have an arm in it.
53:04 Speaker 02 Or the humanoids will just be in factories and industrial settings.
53:08 Speaker 01 Even that, I don't think needs to be humanoid. Because even those are like, connect this hose, like, put the door on the car. At this point, it's just an arm. Like, we have this robot arm in the studio, which we've put a camera on and we can teach it to do things. But in this factory, it doesn't have to learn anything. It just has to grab the windshield and put it on the car, or grab the next windshield. Doesn't have to be shaped like a, like, C3PO.
53:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, I guess, and that's the argument that Amazon's made, too, right? They've got millions of robots and they're not humanoid.
53:35 Speaker 01 We'll see. I'm very curious. All right. Well, I have another question about just going independent as a media person. Because you've done now, writing and video as part of, like, The Verge and Wall Street Journal, and having your own YouTube channel. How does that differ? Like, what was the choice to go independent? And how does it, like, compare to being a part of a larger structured corporation?
53:59 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, no, like, look, I'm only four weeks in. Well, like, I'm two months, three months in, but we just launched the YouTube channel. We just did that last week, two weeks ago. Which, boy, you know?
54:12 Speaker 01 Subscribe on day one.
54:13 Speaker 02 Really making, it's a lot of work. You've been working hard here.
54:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. It is, you know, video production is one of those things where, you've probably heard my octopus analogy. You end up wanting to do the video stuff, but there's a ton of stuff around the video stuff that you also have to do now, which is, you know, the behind the scenes, the inbox, the accounting, the, you know...
54:34 Speaker 02 The bookkeeping, the insurance.
54:36 Speaker 01 All that stuff.
54:37 Speaker 02 I underestimated that. People told me, but I really underestimated that work. So, but now I'm finally getting past some of that, where I can actually get back to the content. I mean, I'm launching a book in the middle of all this, which do not recommend. But one of the reasons I did do this was because this book was coming out, I was going to be on things like this, and I wanted to be able to talk about the new thing. So, it's called The New Thing. It's called The New Things. Go subscribe. Joanna Stern is the YouTube channel.
55:06 Speaker 02 But a lot of it, like truly, you know, inspired by people like you. For so long, I had been publishing to YouTube and I became really obsessed with videos on YouTube, you know, a few years ago at the Wall Street Journal because I started realizing this is where the audience is, right? The Wall Street Journal is made, the audience is amazing, but they're older, they have more money. And I felt in many ways I was not being as accessible to all the other people in the world that want to know about tech. And so I started focusing a lot on my YouTube videos at the Journal and those would appear on the Wall Street Journal's website too, but I was really looking at the data on YouTube.
55:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:45 Speaker 02 And more and more, I wanted control over that. I wanted control over the audience. I wanted control over what we do because, you know, you have editors and editors are amazing and I still have some editors that I'm hired and are working with at the new thing. But I just wanted the freedom to do even more stuff and weirder stuff.
56:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, even weirder than what you are already. Some of your, I really like a lot of the interesting video idea concepts that you came up with and decided to pull off at the Wall Street Journal. I wonder what even weirder looks like. What is your favorite
56:19 Speaker 02 I mean.
56:19 Speaker 01 weird idea?
56:21 Speaker 02 I don't know if it's even weirder, but like, I just don't have to ask permission to do certain things.
56:25 Speaker 01 Totally.
56:26 Speaker 02 You know?
56:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. And you get to sort of experiment with what works because it connects with the audience, but also just what you want to do and just to see if it works.
56:33 Speaker 02 Right.
56:33 Speaker 01 Yeah. What was, what was the process for coming up with ideas for that audience? Maybe there's a little bit of a different audience for the new thing versus the Journal, but how do you come up with an idea of what makes a good video?
56:45 Speaker 02 I mean, for me, it's just curiosity. Like if I have a question about something like this book, like I just, what does the world look like when AI is everywhere? Okay, let's go out and answer that question. Let me go and report that out. Let me go talk to people. Let me go test it. I mean, I think the major overlap that both of us have is that we test things. We don't just like go and talk to the companies making it. We wait for us to be able to use a lot of this. And so I want that to be a guiding principle of my coverage forever.
57:13 Speaker 02 I think the the tough thing about tech is like it's all overlapping now in so many ways. Right? So if I want to not, you know, it's like, oh, I mean, I don't want to talk about AI, which is not what I want to do, but I think that there might be too much AI coverage. How do I figure out how to put those pieces together in stories that are still interesting to people? These people can be very oversaturated right now with YouTube, AI YouTube. And that's, I don't want to only be AI YouTube. I really don't.
57:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:45 Speaker 02 Like, I don't want to be just, you know, every day, like, here's 10 prompts that you can do to.
57:50 Speaker 01 That channel is already out there.
57:51 Speaker 02 That channel is already out there. So I think my guiding principle is like, things that I'm curious about, things that are going to affect our lives with tech and, you know, not be super technical, but be technical enough that I can still talk to the people who love tech, but also like with the same thing with this book, the people in our lives that are still curious, we all use phones, like, we all use tech. How do I help make your life better and explain something to you?
58:17 Speaker 01 Yeah. Do you have a big project idea or a big video idea that you haven't come, haven't done yet that you think you could now pull off? Or is it all top secret?
58:27 Speaker 02 We need a little bit more time to get up and running. Right now, it's just like, get through the book launch.
58:31 Speaker 01 Yes, which is a lot of work.
58:33 Speaker 02 Get through WWDC.
58:35 Speaker 01 Okay, June?
58:36 Speaker 02 Yep.
58:36 Speaker 01 Yeah. I have a feeling September is going to be very busy. Usually ends up being a little chaotic.
58:42 Speaker 02 Yep.
58:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:43 Speaker 02 So like, you know?
58:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, I kind of think of a, I've talked about this as like this, we have the waves of like the off season, the on season, like September will be on, October will be on. And then you'll have like, post CES January is a nice little, little resting period. You can sort of lick your wounds, reset a little bit.
59:01 Speaker 02 What's this year?
59:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, this year it was like Samsung pushed back a little bit. It just kind of kept happening. But you can, you can sort of think of random new ideas and fun stuff you want to try that isn't.
59:11 Speaker 02 I mean, I have a lot of those ideas. It's just. Figuring out the flow, I mean, I could talk, pick your brain on for hours, how you manage all of the different things and channel. And I'm also writing a newsletter. So like, that's, you know, twice weekly newsletter, YouTube videos, shorts, events, all of those things. And how do you think about it all cohesively?
59:31 Speaker 01 I tend to go down the rabbit hole of that often. It's like content strategy. And I don't have a newsletter and I'm not also doing like a book tour. So I'm mostly just focused on, the content strategy for me is like, long form versus short form, or now, short, long form. That's actually something that's a meta in my head. Three to five minute long form videos kind of died in the last four or five years. And why did they die? Everyone's optimizing for a long watch time, but people want to watch our videos.
1:00:01 Speaker 02 Casey Neistat was talking to me about this and he said Marquez is doing this well.
1:00:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:00:06 Speaker 01 I mean, I was doing long shorts, which were kind of weird. But I want to do short longs.
1:00:10 Speaker 02 But you like, just have an idea and like, you know what? People might want to hear me on this and it doesn't have to be 10 minutes.
1:00:15 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:00:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:00:15 Speaker 01 I think that, I think we need more of that.
1:00:17 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:00:18 Speaker 01 So, there's a thought for the world.
1:00:20 Speaker 02 There's a thought. Free.
1:00:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:22 Speaker 02 I gave you a free pen.
1:00:24 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I gave you a free content strategy idea.
1:00:27 Speaker 02 Amazing.
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1:02:32 Speaker 01 All right, I got a couple of rapid fire questions for you.
1:02:34 Speaker 02 Oh, gosh.
1:02:35 Speaker 01 Feel free to take-
1:02:36 Speaker 02 I hope it's about the magic mouse.
1:02:39 Speaker 01 I'm gonna throw one in there about the magic mouse.
1:02:41 Speaker 02 I have two of them.
1:02:43 Speaker 01 You, what? Is this your, this isn't your mouse of choice, is it?
1:02:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is.
1:02:47 Speaker 01 Okay, maybe this isn't rapid fire.
1:02:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, everyone is-
1:02:49 Speaker 01 Explain yourself.
1:02:49 Speaker 02 Everyone is rolling their eyes in the studio.
1:02:52 Speaker 01 Explain yourself. You intentionally use, and it sounds like you have two, so you bought another magic mouse?
1:02:56 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. Because when I'm charging, I like to have them in and out.
1:02:59 Speaker 01 That's, now you know you could just get one mouse and just, right? Like you could just keep using it while it's charging.
1:03:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, I love the scroll-y feel, I like the clicky part, I like it.
1:03:14 Speaker 01 Okay, have you, hmm.
1:03:16 Speaker 02 Have I tried other mouses?
1:03:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:17 Speaker 02 No, never, never.
1:03:20 Speaker 01 But do you not like the other mice?
1:03:22 Speaker 02 I was born only using the Magic Mouse. In fact, in 1995, when you were two years old and I had my first computer, I had a prototype of the Magic Mouse.
1:03:30 Speaker 01 They've always had-
1:03:31 Speaker 02 Johnny Ive sent it to me.
1:03:32 Speaker 01 They've had bad mice for a long time, actually. Like, I have, I unboxed some of those old, like, iMac G3s and the mouse, even from those times, was notably unique.
1:03:42 Speaker 02 The see-through, the, the plastic see-through ones?
1:03:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:46 Speaker 02 It's an awesome mouse.
1:03:47 Speaker 01 It's an awesome mouse.
1:03:48 Speaker 02 I mean, it's just cool looking. I don't know.
1:03:50 Speaker 01 Thank you, thank you, thank you. Insane mouse trust. Okay.
1:03:53 Speaker 02 Okay, yeah.
1:03:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, desktop or laptop person?
1:03:56 Speaker 02 Am I gonna be canceled for the Magic Mouse stuff?
1:03:59 Speaker 01 No, no, no.
1:03:59 Speaker 02 Should we edit this out?
1:04:00 Speaker 01 I, no, I'm, we have, I'm not gonna name names, but we have people who work here-
1:04:05 Speaker 03 It's me and Michael.
1:04:06 Speaker 01 -who are also-
1:04:07 Speaker 03 We like the Magic Mouse.
1:04:08 Speaker 01 Magic Mouse freaks.
1:04:09 Speaker 02 Yes, Alice, I knew that we shared a bond, except for this whole basketball thing that you're always talking about.
1:04:15 Speaker 01 It's just something about the Magic Mouse that's, that brings out-
1:04:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:04:19 Speaker 01 I just get mad for no reason.
1:04:21 Speaker 02 Maybe John Ternus is the first thing he's gonna do.
1:04:24 Speaker 01 Yo, that's actually huge. Wait, he has to know the Magic Mouse is bad. He's a product guy. He has to know the Magic Mouse is bad.
1:04:30 Speaker 03 Marquez, please talk into the mic.
1:04:31 Speaker 01 Tim Cook-
1:04:32 Speaker 02 I was like-
1:04:33 Speaker 01 I could-
1:04:33 Speaker 02 Podcast alert. Podcast alert here.
1:04:36 Speaker 01 Did you see that, you've seen the clip where I asked Tim Cook about the Magic Mouse? And he's like, will you make a mouse like that? He hasn't thought about that in years. Tim-
1:04:43 Speaker 02 Wait, no, I haven't seen the Ternus one.
1:04:45 Speaker 01 Well, I haven't asked him about it, but I know that he knows.
1:04:48 Speaker 02 He can get to him first.
1:04:49 Speaker 01 He knows the Magic Mouse is bad.
1:04:51 Speaker 02 Of course he knows it, because he also has two, and this is exactly what he does.
1:04:55 Speaker 01 He takes over at Apple.
1:04:56 Speaker 02 I don't know if that's true, that's not, I have not reported that out. Please, as a reporter, I will confirm that. Actually, Apple PR will not confirm.
1:05:03 Speaker 01 September 1st, when he, he becomes the new CEO, I'm starting a countdown timer to when Apple releases a good mouse.
1:05:09 Speaker 02 Okay.
1:05:09 Speaker 01 Cause there's a lot of stuff I want Apple to make that's maybe at the top of my list.
1:05:13 Speaker 02 And honestly, I'm fine with that mouse just having a port someplace else.
1:05:17 Speaker 01 That would be a really nice start.
1:05:18 Speaker 02 Right?
1:05:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:19 Speaker 02 I mean, Alice agrees.
1:05:20 Speaker 01 Even if that's the only change they make?
1:05:22 Speaker 02 That'd be fine.
1:05:23 Speaker 01 Even if it's still an ergonomic nightmare, just move the port. Okay.
1:05:26 Speaker 03 Do you have hands?
1:05:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:27 Speaker 03 How is it an ergonomic nightmare?
1:05:29 Speaker 01 Cause it's the shape-
1:05:30 Speaker 02 He wants them raised.
1:05:30 Speaker 01 I have a, like, a hand that is maybe three times the size of the hand they designed it for. That's true.
1:05:35 Speaker 02 That's true.
1:05:36 Speaker 03 That's true. So what if they just made Magic Mouse XL?
1:05:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, what if they made Magic Mouse-
1:05:40 Speaker 01 That would solve one of the critical issues.
1:05:42 Speaker 02 Ultra.
1:05:43 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, Magic Mouse Studio. That would solve one of the two horrible things about the Magic Mouse.
1:05:49 Speaker 02 It's $27,000 to get that mouse. Would you buy it?
1:05:54 Speaker 01 No, I would just use an MX Master, which is just fine.
1:05:57 Speaker 03 If you spend an extra $600, it has wheels.
1:06:01 Speaker 01 All right, I'm in.
1:06:02 Speaker 02 No, my feet, its little feet.
1:06:05 Speaker 01 It just walks around.
1:06:05 Speaker 02 Little feet.
1:06:06 Speaker 03 Little scurry.
1:06:07 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:06:08 Speaker 01 And a tail.
1:06:08 Speaker 02 I'm pretty sure John Ternus is listening and taking these ideas right now.
1:06:12 Speaker 01 John, if you just watch this part of the podcast, Magic Mouse 2, please, you can do wonders.
1:06:18 Speaker 02 Okay, rapid fire.
1:06:19 Speaker 01 Rapid fire, laptop or desktop?
1:06:22 Speaker 02 Laptop, always.
1:06:22 Speaker 01 Laptop, always. Okay, no desktop at all.
1:06:24 Speaker 02 I have a Mac Mini running stuff, but.
1:06:27 Speaker 01 Totally. What browser do you use? Are you an AI browser person or are you a regular browser person?
1:06:33 Speaker 02 I have a lot of browsers. Right now, Chrome Vertical Tabs. I know you have a lot of feelings on that.
1:06:37 Speaker 01 I like Chrome.
1:06:38 Speaker 02 I heard a lot about Arc on this podcast. I don't know what those, I guess.
1:06:42 Speaker 01 Arc is nice. Arc is not the AI browser, but it is the beautiful, functional browser that a lot of us like. But then there's like the perplexity Comet and Atlas.
1:06:52 Speaker 02 Comet a lot. Yeah, I've been using Comet a lot. You know, here's a true story. I used Microsoft Edge for a long time on a Mac. I know, it hurts people. It hurts when I say it, but they had this great feature called collections, which everyone else ripped off, but you could group your tabs or you could group your shortcuts together and it was amazing. Especially like when I was working, like I'd be working on a project, like the book, and I'd have 10 documents and 10 different things and I just wanted them in one collection.
1:07:23 Speaker 01 Oh, like a tab group?
1:07:24 Speaker 02 It's a tab group, but it's saved.
1:07:27 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. So, okay, it's persistent.
1:07:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's like a bookmarks manager, but it was better than that.
1:07:32 Speaker 01 And then every other browser was like, we'll add that. And then we were like, finally no more Edge.
1:07:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:07:38 Speaker 03 Can I share a quick, I've never met someone else who uses perplexity Comet. I don't use it anymore, but I wanted to share the last time I used perplexity Comet, which was me asking it to search. I gave it a bunch of things that I, I was making a mood board. And I was like, can you go and collect these images for me? And I gave it this big list of everything I was looking for. And it's like, go, go out and find these images. And it came back and it found me 20 images. And I was like, that's fantastic. And I was like.
1:08:03 Speaker 02 Was it pictures of the Magic Mouse?
1:08:05 Speaker 03 Sure.
1:08:08 Speaker 03 Story, it can totally be. But then I asked it, okay, now here's an updated version of the list. Go out and find images. And it said, I don't have the ability to find images.
1:08:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:08:17 Speaker 03 And I spent an hour where it was just like, I can't do this, Ellis. I don't have image ability.
1:08:21 Speaker 02 You're like, you did it.
1:08:22 Speaker 03 The in this chat are the images you found me. And then I was just like, I deleted off my computer. I was like,
1:08:27 Speaker 02 I use Comet a lot in the book because it became like a reporting assistant where I could say, write to this company, see if they're willing to do an interview about this. And it could just do that in the browser. Yeah, Comet's good. And I'm I'm testing Personal Computer by perplexity now, which is pretty good, too.
1:08:44 Speaker 03 Okay, I'll re-download it.
1:08:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:08:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:08:46 Speaker 02 Okay, sorry. These are not rapid fire.
1:08:48 Speaker 01 Task app or pen and paper?
1:08:52 Speaker 02 Both.
1:08:53 Speaker 01 Both?
1:08:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, like when I like, when I'm doing something, like if I have like a day of video publishing, I have like a lot of things to do or, column or whatever I have going that day. I have like lots of tasks that I need to do at the moment. They're like immediate tasks and I write those on a paper on my, on my desk.
1:09:11 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:09:13 Speaker 02 But then I have this crazy notion to do list thing that I've made. It's really not great. Do you use Notion for to do's?
1:09:20 Speaker 01 Not for to do's. We use it for project management for like a per video basis.
1:09:24 Speaker 02 Yeah, so do we. Well, we started doing that. And then I just because I was like, I'm already here. Let me try to use the AI to build a to do list thing. And it did a pretty good job, but, because I'm also doing meeting notes in there. So I'm doing a lot in there right now.
1:09:38 Speaker 02 But that like has a big list and that's like further. It's like stuff I need to do for the day, but it's not like I need to do it this hour.
1:09:46 Speaker 01 Okay, that's a yeah, good distinction. All right. I haven't used a pen and paper in years, I think.
1:09:53 Speaker 02 Since 1992.
1:09:55 Speaker 01 Basically. Phone, phoning your pocket right now?
1:09:59 Speaker 02 No, it's on in my backpack on the side.
1:10:02 Speaker 01 Oh, which one is it?
1:10:03 Speaker 02 It's iPhone 17 Pro.
1:10:05 Speaker 01 If you had to use a different phone, which one would you pick?
1:10:09 Speaker 02 iPhone 17 Pro Max.
1:10:11 Speaker 01 That's a good answer. What if you couldn't use, what if you couldn't use any Pro? What if you couldn't use any iPhone?
1:10:17 Speaker 02 Samsung Galaxy. No, I'd probably do a Pixel. I don't know. I have been trying to, I have been playing around with a lot of the Android foldable phones.
1:10:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:10:26 Speaker 02 My issue, and I'm sure I'm gonna have the same issue with the foldable iPhone is very big for me.
1:10:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, it's it's interesting. The way they're trying to allegedly, allegedly, it's gonna be like this much smaller. Passport style and then wider. So it could be smaller and fit in your pocket better than the current Pro.
1:10:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, I just do a lot of texting on like the fly when I'm commuting and stuff like that. And then it's like, okay, I'm putting it in my pocket. It's too big. And then I love being able to open it up and do much more with the bigger screen. But I don't take advantage of that in that many scenarios. And I think I would more if I actually had a smaller footprint.
1:11:04 Speaker 01 Interesting. Okay.
1:11:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:11:08 Speaker 01 How fast can you type the alphabet?
1:11:09 Speaker 02 Like, I don't know, 90 words? I don't know, 80 words per second?
1:11:13 Speaker 01 Is this your keyboard of choice? So it's a bit of a tradition around here for our guests on Waveform to simply type A through Z.
1:11:20 Speaker 02 Capital or no?
1:11:21 Speaker 01 As fast as they can. It doesn't matter. We have a leaderboard. No pressure. You'll have three tries. And we also offer any of these fine, beautiful keyboards over here if you'd like. I don't know if you typically write on.
1:11:31 Speaker 02 Oh, as if I win?
1:11:32 Speaker 01 No, if you want to get a faster score, if you type faster on any of these keyboards, we can swap it out.
1:11:38 Speaker 02 No, I think I can do it this.
1:11:39 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:11:40 Speaker 02 Oh, boy.
1:11:41 Speaker 01 No pressure. I'm gonna point my microphone. You just, so the way this works, so before you take your three attempts. The way this works is you, as soon as you type the letter A, it starts counting.
1:11:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:11:50 Speaker 01 And you just go A, B, C, D, E. If you miss a letter, you still have to hit that letter. And then that's how you get all the way through Z.
1:11:57 Speaker 02 Can I type something else? Okay, no, no, I'm gonna, I can do this. I can do this.
1:12:02 Speaker 01 You got this. The first one, you'll just figure out how it works and then the next two, you'll lock in.
1:12:06 Speaker 02 All right, ready?
1:12:06 Speaker 01 Ready.
1:12:17 Speaker 02 Oh, you have to press it. Okay.
1:12:20 Speaker 01 You got your first?
1:12:21 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:12:22 Speaker 01 First rodeo, so now you've seen it.
1:12:23 Speaker 02 10.5.
1:12:24 Speaker 01 Okay. I won't tell you the scores unless you want to hear them, but...
1:12:27 Speaker 02 Well, I see it says best time right under 5.
1:12:29 Speaker 01 Oh, no, no, that's because I did it earlier. But you have two more shots.
1:12:32 Speaker 02 You did it earlier.
1:12:33 Speaker 01 I just did it to make sure it worked.
1:12:34 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:12:35 Speaker 01 But we have a leaderboard of everyone who's ever been on the podcast and how fast I typed it.
1:12:38 Speaker 02 Well, you're at the top. Or you're on there at 5, so I know at least...
1:12:41 Speaker 01 I, my official time might be slower than that. I don't remember. They'll find the leaderboard. But you got, you got extra shots to get even faster.
1:12:50 Speaker 02 All right.
1:12:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:51 Speaker 02 We go again?
1:12:52 Speaker 01 Go for it.
1:12:56 Speaker 02 I want to go again. I restarted.
1:12:59 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:12:59 Speaker 02 Wait, how do I restart?
1:13:00 Speaker 01 I think you hit Enter and it restarts.
1:13:01 Speaker 02 Okay, got it. All right.
1:13:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:13:04 Speaker 02 Sound effects, go.
1:13:10 Speaker 02 I'm going again.
1:13:15 Speaker 01 Go.
1:13:16 Speaker 02 Is that how it works?
1:13:16 Speaker 01 I think, yeah, just send it, just send it until... Until you get to see.
1:13:31 Speaker 02 Oh, so much slower this time.
1:13:35 Speaker 02 It was doing better when I wasn't looking at the...
1:13:39 Speaker 01 Are you like Home Row, just like banging keys, or are you trying to like?
1:13:42 Speaker 02 I'm trying to touch type, but I'm like, then I realize...
1:13:44 Speaker 01 Some of them are in weird places.
1:13:46 Speaker 02 Well, you realize you skip a, uh, letter and then you're like, oh, I hit that. Like, that's what's...
1:13:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, you gotta make sure...
1:13:52 Speaker 02 I'm like, oh, I've moved on. And it's like, oh, no, like, you didn't get, you know?
1:13:55 Speaker 01 Hit B, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:13:55 Speaker 02 Because like, I should just be looking at the screen and touch typing without looking at the keyboard.
1:13:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's high difficulty.
1:14:03 Speaker 01 All right.
1:14:04 Speaker 02 Also, you know, this is making me realize, like, my kids don't know how to type. I have an eight-year-old who does not know how to type.
1:14:10 Speaker 01 Hmm, what about on a phone screen?
1:14:12 Speaker 02 On a phone screen, kind of, but, or on an iPad, but like, mostly they just do voice.
1:14:17 Speaker 01 Oh, that is...
1:14:19 Speaker 02 And I'm really upset about it, and I'm gonna start working with him on Saturdays on typing.
1:14:22 Speaker 01 Because something we talked about is something that, quote, "kids these days don't know anymore." They don't really have to know file structure, or how, or that files are even a thing. And they also don't really have to know how to Google things, and I guess they don't really have to know how to type very much.
1:14:37 Speaker 02 No.
1:14:38 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:14:38 Speaker 02 I mean, they know how to type like, um... They know, they know how to type emojis.
1:14:44 Speaker 01 Of course. Well, that's important. Because you can't just say, well, you could say the emoji, but you gotta really find the perfect one.
1:14:49 Speaker 02 All right, one more time.
1:14:50 Speaker 01 Go for it.
1:14:50 Speaker 02 This is very embarrassing.
1:15:03 Speaker 02 Okay, I beat my time there. 9.3.
1:15:06 Speaker 01 9.3, lock it in.
1:15:08 Speaker 02 Alright, I feel like if I did this a few more times, I would be way better.
1:15:11 Speaker 01 Totally, I think that's usually-
1:15:12 Speaker 02 You know what, I think we proved that I'm a human.
1:15:14 Speaker 01 On the-
1:15:14 Speaker 02 My pin on-
1:15:15 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly, that's very important. Uh, do you wanna know leaderboard scores, or do you just wanna-
1:15:20 Speaker 02 Yes, I do.
1:15:20 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:15:21 Speaker 02 Is there anyone good on the leaderboard?
1:15:22 Speaker 01 It's in Slack. I think, I'll tell you who's around you in, in your time. Let's see, I got a DM from Adam. Boom, okay, your 9.3 is exactly in between our own cinematographer Brandon and David Blaine.
1:15:37 Speaker 02 Wow.
1:15:38 Speaker 01 Right, nestled right in between those two.
1:15:39 Speaker 02 David Blaine doesn't have magic tricks to be faster?
1:15:42 Speaker 01 He was, he was also like, "I'm gonna be super slow," and then he got faster and faster as he went, so, there it is.
1:15:48 Speaker 02 Well, that, I mean, I feel like I would also, okay, tell me what you are. What, it's that fine?
1:15:52 Speaker 01 Um, I ended up, I, this is the, the whole leaderboard.
1:15:56 Speaker 02 Cleo's at 4?
1:15:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:59 Speaker 02 That's amazing.
1:16:00 Speaker 01 Tom Scott had a 3.5, insane. Some people are just insanely fast typists, but-
1:16:05 Speaker 03 Didn't, didn't Tom Scott do it on like his Dell laptop?
1:16:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was like, like his keyboard was the loudest thing-
1:16:11 Speaker 02 Alright, I'm coming back and I'm gonna practice, this is not good.
1:16:14 Speaker 01 That's good, no, that's perfect.
1:16:15 Speaker 02 I would really love to come back with the 1X robot and-
1:16:19 Speaker 01 Oh, maybe they'll type. Let's see how fast they can type. Joanna, thanks for coming on, thanks for talking to me, and, uh, I'm, I'm gonna point people towards watching your videos and reading this book because I think it's all, it's all very interesting.
1:16:32 Speaker 02 What about, what about the best AI wearable in the world?
1:16:34 Speaker 01 And of course, well, they can get their hands on this wearable if they get the book, of course.
1:16:38 Speaker 02 That's right, that's right. I noticed you stopped wearing it.
1:16:41 Speaker 01 I, I can't, I feel, I feel bad lying.
1:16:44 Speaker 02 Uh-huh. You can't put it on?
1:16:47 Speaker 01 No, I just- It would imply that-
1:16:49 Speaker 02 Oh, you feel bad lying that you're... I see. Okay.
1:16:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:52 Speaker 02 So true, yeah.
1:16:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. I'll get Marquez to wear it.
1:16:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, you should get-
1:16:55 Speaker 01 I'll give him the pin.
1:16:56 Speaker 02 Get the real Marquez to wear it, and I so appreciate that Marquez Bot for you being so honest here.
1:17:01 Speaker 01 I appreciate the pin. I will-
1:17:03 Speaker 02 You know what we should really do as a test? Can you fold your t-shirts?
1:17:07 Speaker 01 I can't fold anything, yeah, no. I just kinda have claws-
1:17:09 Speaker 02 Can you fold laundry?
1:17:10 Speaker 01 I haven't fold- no. Actually, genuinely, no. I can put stuff on hangers, sometimes.
1:17:16 Speaker 02 Uh huh, uh huh.
1:17:16 Speaker 01 But yeah, I avoid the folding stuff.
1:17:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, we should test that. It would really be a... That's the Turing test.
1:17:21 Speaker 01 Me versus CES robot. That actually is basically the Turing test. The caption means nothing anymore. It's fold my laundry.
1:17:27 Speaker 02 But if humans can fold the laundry, you're a human.
1:17:29 Speaker 01 There it is. Now we know.
1:17:31 Speaker 02 Great.
1:17:31 Speaker 01 We'll have you back on at some point. Thanks again, and see you soon.
1:17:43 Speaker 02 Good thing I recorded this. I'll have my B bracelet.
1:17:45 Speaker 01 Nice.
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