Ep: 223 - The Messy Olympics, Gigi Claudid our AI agent, Tatum Hunter on Internet Culture, Mashal Waqar and Artem Brazhnikov from Octant on sustainable funding models, Nick Devor of Barrons on Kalshi, Polymarket and the Super Bowl

[00:28] Here's this week's show. [00:31] you [00:34] Hot mics! [00:36] Okay, we're back. We're back with Anchorage Digital and Octant. [00:41] And it's great to be here. Really great to be here. We're gonna start off with Vogue. [00:46] today. I think we're just going to jump right in for folks who haven't seen this yet. [00:51] I can just describe what happened here. Okay, so the New York Times did a video with the... [00:58] Anna Wintour. [00:59] famous editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, and the new editor-in-chief, Chloe Mao. And the New York Times asks...

[01:07] chloe mal first what would you do if you had the budgets that other condonast publications i think specifically like had yes no no no no no oh really that was kind of how i read it was like anna went to her had all these had like huge budgets when she was editor of vogue and okay chloe mal now is working with a reduced scope i see so if you had the budget of animator what would you do what would you do that's how i read it but maybe not maybe okay i thought it was like other condonast publications had bigger budgets than vogue in the 90s okay but i don't know now [01:37] Now I question.

And now I question. Everything. [01:41] Question everything. Everything's falling into question. Okay. Anyway. And Chloe Mal goes on this, like I'd raise, she had a, she had a, she had a punch list. I was like, Oh damn, she's thought about this. And she was like, raise salaries 30%, grow the digital team, the social team, investment podcast studio. Yes. Brand new podcast. It was pretty tactical stuff. Like it was like a punch list of these are like seven items that I would do. And also probably is asking for currently. [02:11] or...

[02:12] responds and is like, [02:14] For the record, we had a great budget. Like, she's like-- [02:17] Okay. [02:18] Like defensive. Yeah. She's like a little totally defensive. And it's kind of like a tense moment between the two. And the internet's talking about it. I don't know. People are saying it's a, it is showing the difference of leadership styles between, I don't know if she's, Anna Wintour is a boomer, but like between an older generation that is now retiring. And as Anna Wintour is and younger leaders who are stepping into their, [02:40] their moment now yeah and and when tour being kind of like cold and [02:46] comes across as like not [02:48] very connected, I would say, to the people and also to the business, maybe less so.

Chloe's the people's editor. Yeah, like she, like, the 30% [02:57] like raising salary 30 i think is something that really stuck out to [03:01] Yeah. Folks. Folks on the internet. And they're just being like, yeah, general like warmth and more of a warmth from Chloe. Yeah. And that being like... People were really endeared to her. Yeah. It was very smart of her because people now have like... But then there were some people that were like, she's too tactical. She's not like a... Oh, really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. But yeah, I do think that it's a sign of like...

[03:23] old school, new school, and like an overt transparency and... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true, actually. Vulnerability. Yeah. And like an unwillingness for Anna Wintour to be... [03:34] vulnerable or transparent in a way that like younger leaders maybe are yeah and need to and [03:40] Should be. Should be, arguably. Yeah. Okay, that's our first little note back. How are you feeling about the market? [03:50] Okay, well, we have a screenshot here. [03:53] that kind of indicates how I'm feeling about the market. [03:57] I was in Mexico this past week.

And if anybody follows me on Instagram, they know that I was in Mexico. I had a great time. It was so fun. Shout out to... [04:06] Actually, I won't talk to who was there, but it was really fun. And I was sitting on the beach. Some people there working crypto, some people there do not. [04:15] The market came up. [04:17] It came up because one of the people was like, I'm so glad we paid for this. [04:21] last year prepaid prepaid it was a prepaid thing and i was like wait how bad's the market and they were like you don't really want to know and i was like no no i do and bitcoin at 62.

yeah [04:32] Ethereum at 1800. Uh-huh. [04:35] I'm on the beach. [04:36] I'm like, this is not how it should be. This is incorrecto. And so I made some trades. Three margaritas in. We have a screenshot to prove it. That's actually the best time to trade. Best time to trade. When you pass three margaritas on the beach. Just with abandon. [04:53] Absolute abandon. So the text says, I'm three margaritas in. Imported all my USDC and blank into BTC. Bad idea, question mark. Dina Burke, how much? [05:06] extraordinary amount of money it was a reasonable amount of money it was a reasonable amount of money it wasn't um irresponsible just buying the dip that's what i was buying the dip i was buying the dip and that's how honestly the contrarian um investment is how you win that's how you that's how we win that's how i win there's your asymmetric upside and i was just like oh excuse me traitor traitor here

[05:27] Anyway, I think the market's terrible. I think that it will be better at some point. And as Miranda says, that's none of my business right now. [05:36] So the trade has been executed, and now we wait. Totally. [05:41] I had a real, was watching the Bitcoin price in particular pretty closely because there was a girl in our perps and peptides chat. I won't dox who it is, but she said. Really quick, we have a chat, a telegram group called perps and peptides. And it is the most risk on chat in the world.

It's very, very risk on. And it's all women who are making bets across their bodies and their finances. And it's inspiring. [06:11] It's inspiring to witness. There's some real DGEM behavior in there. And in particular, one... [06:16] woman who was talking about how she opened a Bitcoin long [06:21] I saw this. This was like the day that it was crashing. This is what tipped me off, actually. Yeah. Yes. Okay. You saw the notification. The market was going back. Yeah. And you're like, okay, wait, what's going on? Yeah. She opened a Bitcoin long.

[06:30] And I was like, a long, like I thought I misread it because I was like, everything was crashing and it was just like read everywhere. [06:36] And she was like, yeah. And I put my like liquidation price basically at 62.00. [06:43] And so, and she was getting on a Ryanair flight and like not, she was like, I'm going to be offline. So I'm just like setting it. It was at that point higher. And like, it felt like that was a reasonable, reasonable place to put it. And she was like, I'm going to be offline, like whatever, like no wifi on Ryanair flights.

And I don't. [07:00] No, exactly. Like she may have pulled it out before it hit 62, but we did go below her price. So. We dipped. We dipped further. [07:07] But that's what happens when you go risk on. Yeah. You win, you lose. You win big, you lose big. Totally. Okay. You also had a text message come through. Let's do a quick shout out to our... [07:18] one of our supporters of the show, supporters of the show, sponsors of the show. We have a brand new set of supporters this season.

I don't know if we're calling it a season. This season. [07:27] Month. [07:28] This quarter. [07:30] And we're really, really, really excited to have them on board. The first one is Octant. So Octant will, Michelle and Artem from Octant will be joining us in a little bit. But if you know Octant, you love them. Our supporting sponsor, Octant, well known in Ethereum circles for its tireless contribution to the Ethereum ecosystem through research and millions of dollars in grants and public goods funding. [08:00] which enables orgs and communities to build sustainable funding systems through these yield generating products.

Direct your yield towards your own orgs runway or funnel it into broader ecosystem efforts. It's all fair game with Octon's new institutional grade vaults [08:17] earn, allocate, and grow Ethereum with DeFi. You can visit com/octenapp to learn more. And Michelle and Artem are going to be on the show and a few really excited to chat with them about what they're up to. Some big announcements today. So really happy, proud, [08:34] excited to have them on board as sponsors and yeah different this is a different one i haven't quite seen this one um i think it's because what was i watching that there was like i always do this one but i get corrected [08:46] I get corrected.

[08:49] this oh this one oh my gosh i don't think i'd ever hit that this requires i never hit the elbow hard personally also oh wow that one this one feels like grade school grade school vibes um also valentine's day is coming up this is a valentine's day special oh yeah yeah any plans [09:07] I'm going to San Francisco. Oh, right. Yeah. I'm going to San Francisco. I have a friend who's actually, we're doing a show with her this [09:14] year oh aim it with the glasses um i yeah i have a friend that we are doing a boys club production show that you will be all hearing about very soon which is exciting but it's kind of our new tradition to spend valentine's day together oh cute yeah so that'll be fun oh i didn't know that was the bit [09:33] I've created that.

Oh, nice. Second year running. Second annual. It's new. But I, yeah, I'm going to the San Francisco Bay Area and... [09:42] It's just like everybody's talking about San Francisco right now. And so part of me is just like a little annoyed. That's, [09:47] I'm going for the people, not the place. Okay. No worries. [09:50] I'm drawing a line. It's okay. You can go anywhere. Oh, we have begun a journey. [09:58] on a platform called com. And we have resisted it for years. Four years. And Kate has been like, you guys, we need to do it.

And we're all like, none of us watch YouTube. [10:09] And Kate was like, but everyone, literally everyone else on the planet does. So [10:14] we have finally relented. [10:17] And we're there. And it's a new channel for us. So when you show up and you're like, whoa, [10:22] This feels new. It is. And just like be smash the subscribe, turn on the notifications and jump on in. I told you this earlier, but we had a YouTube premium account. I don't know what happened. Something happened. We don't have it any longer.

And let me tell you, running without ads is really what you need to be doing. If you're listening to any boiler room. This is now a sponsor of a [10:52] That was something else, CTA. We do two newsletters a week. One is called Two Online on Fridays. That is, I write, that's on internet culture. And Dina writes the Wednesday newsletter that's on crypto and other tech news. And they're both really like, dare I say, good. [11:09] - What? - They're old school. - Oh, wow. - Hoodie. I know. First one, first batch.

- First batch. I would love to bring those back. I don't even think that manufacturer exists anymore. - I know. I think this is the last one that was in. [11:20] the closet. Oh, wow. I have mine and I never wear it because... [11:25] It's an artifact to me. - Yeah. Also white, tough. Yeah. Okay. You had a friend text you. [11:32] You had quite a few. I mean, you got my text about the market and you had another friend text you about AI etiquette. Yeah. So I have a... [11:40] a non-tech friend.

[11:44] who was coming to me with her tech question. I know, it really is. We really need more of that. And she was like, hey, I got this email. She works at a school and she was like, she sent me the screenshot of the email that was like from administration or something. [11:57] clearly written by AI. Okay. [11:59] And. [12:00] And her question to me was like, have we defined any etiquette? [12:05] around. [12:06] how we're using AI and emails collectively as a society, and how tolerant we are. She didn't say this exactly, but like, [12:13] How tall?

Yeah. Is it embarrassing when people send emails that are clearly AI? Like, I feel like it's so cringy. Totally. Yeah. [12:19] How do we course correct this? Yeah. [12:21] when people are sending a shame, shame, you think it's shame. [12:25] Yeah. [12:27] regarding the phrase. [12:28] Yeah. When people, yeah, Miranda's point is when people break a social contract, we have a social contract that we're humans emailing each other. Yes. And when that's broken, that needs some sort of call out culture needs to be brought back. [12:41] I'm getting a nod from, yep, in support.

Call out culture just generally, I think, should be brought back. Yeah. I love, I think it's a beautiful thing to call someone out. Well, Miranda was telling me about the call out culture that she's a part of is calling out people who play their TikToks or phones. Yeah. Video out loud without headphones in a public place. Yeah. Which I support that. I support that. I struggle sometimes to do it because. Calling out. [13:07] Yeah, because I'm like, this is going to be an argument. Yeah. And I used to, when I was a younger...

[13:13] lady bump it around. Yeah. I was in New York city. I was looking for an argument. I couldn't wait to get into it with somebody. Yeah. I've lost that. [13:22] Edge. Edge. I've lost that edge. Yeah, I get that. And I'm just like, whatever, do what you want. I know. And it's live and live. [13:27] and like you're gonna have to live with that that you're one of those people but it's fairly annoying yeah anyway [13:33] Really? [13:34] Miranda gets triggered by it and that's fair. [13:37] And so I feel I have to say something.

She feels like she has to say something. I get that. I get that too. I support it. I support it. I do want to just say the glasses, acknowledging the glasses. This isn't going to be. No, talent walked in. When she walked in, when she walked into the studio, I was like, talent's here. She had the sunglasses on. This is not going to be an all the time thing. I wish it were. I wish it were. Should I have it? It's really cool. Okay. I remember the first time. I feel like it's hard for me to connect maybe with people if you can't see my eyes.

I think they're going to be like, whoa, she's so cool. Oh, okay. [14:07] I will say, I remember the first time you wore these sunglasses. Yeah. This was probably three years ago. Miranda... [14:14] No, it couldn't. Anyway, we were doing a, a trivia, we used to do trivia nights called Mind Games. And Dina was like, I'm really excited. I have some glasses. I'm going to like bring these glasses. And I was like, cool. And she shows up and the whole night became about Dina's glasses. And I feel like we're back there.

One of the teams I think was named Dina's New Glasses. Dina's New Glasses was one of the trivia nights. So yeah, I just want to say I have an eye injury. So that's why we're not doing, that's why the glasses. And I do also want to say, remember two weeks ago, three weeks ago when President Macron was at Davos. [14:44] He had the glasses on and we were all like ripping on him. And now I'm like, oh, I totally get it. Oh, he had a injury. I just assume like, or like, yeah, there was.

Well, my guess was that he had a bluff. [14:53] I know that was possibly it. Possibly. But just to say, like, I have sympathy. Empty now for everyone. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, man, I feel so bad. Because I get it. You don't want to be out here with, like, I stuff. No. It's like, yeah, I stuff's hard. So anyway, it's not going to be regular, but. [15:09] Um, I support it either way. I almost texted you and was like, you should just wear an eyepatch. [15:13] Nice. And be like, coming in.

[15:16] Okay. What else do we want to talk about here? Oh, I want to talk about something called Gigi Claudide. Yes. Which I... [15:26] will explain but i feel it's your she's your child but [15:30] Gigi Claudide is a Claude bot that Dina has added to our Slack. [15:36] And, you know, [15:37] is training. You are training her up in the way that she should go. Yeah. And it is very, uh, labor intensive. It really is. Watching you do it is like incredible because you, [15:47] some of the things that she's able to do are exceptional.

And then at other times, I'm just like, man, Dina is managing a high school intern. Yeah. Who knows literally nothing about the world. I know. It's crazy. It's so for those who don't know, we're using OpenClaw, which is an open source like AI agent, [16:04] I don't know. Entity. Yeah. And it's... [16:11] is basically like you can spin up an agent who can work autonomously. And the best practice is that you give it its own sort of sandbox to work in so that it's not all up in your... [16:23] like, [16:25] Live, live things.

Yeah, your Gmail and places where there could be security vulnerabilities. So we set up a separate device and... [16:33] have started like [16:35] bringing her to life, Gigi Hadid or Claudine, and... [16:39] Added her to our... That it's them, they, to our Slack. I like a she. She. And my experience so far is exactly that. Like, you have to... [16:50] It's, [16:51] very eager to help and it can do a lot when it has the right [16:55] access and [16:56] when it can sort of run, but it's a lot of like...

[17:02] getting it back on the rails and like, oh, that... And you know, honestly, like a lot of it is... [17:08] like having to brief it well and that's actually kate's doing a ai [17:13] prompting class you may have noticed from all the incredible design work that was creative unlock and and the really like a big lesson from when we had Jamie on the [17:26] show a couple weeks ago who uh jamie gannon i think yeah at tech bimbo um she was like yeah like [17:33] you have to brief these things really well.

And like the art is in the briefing and... [17:38] garbage in garbage out if you're if you're just gonna like fully and that's never it hasn't been [17:43] Like it's so evident to me working with Gigi Hadid because it's like if I don't take the time to be like this is exactly what I want. These are the outputs I want. This is like the way these are the constraints. These are the things I need to be thinking about. Like it just sucks. It's really interesting because you are one of the most impatient people I know.

And you have had an unbelievable amount of patience with this situation. Yesterday Miranda was like man we all have our strength out of nowhere. Miranda goes we all have our strengths. [18:08] And I was like, what are you talking about? And she was like, Dina up here in the Slack, I would have let this go a while ago. - You think I'm patient? I have never once in my entire life. - No, I said, I'm patient, it's strange that [18:19] A lot of us are seeing the messages and finding it [18:21] Yeah, it's very overwhelming.

[18:25] Yeah, I'm digging in. [18:27] You are dominating. I just feel like I can just get it every once in a while. I get a taste of like, oh, wow, this is going to be so crazy when we're able to. [18:37] Automate all the analytics for everything. The incentive is right. It's there and I'm getting hints of it. And so that's why I continue to. I think one of the things for me. [18:45] is the feeling I have all the time with it so far is I'm happy for you or I'm sorry, but like, I'm not reading all that.

Like it's really long winded. Then you need to just tell it that. [18:54] Okay. Okay. But that makes me feel like, um, yeah, like you're in control. That's what I'm saying. Like you're in control and you can be like, I need to be a lot more. This might be a great outlet for me. And I also, the other feeling I had around it was like, oh, I really get because. [19:08] Miranda was like, can we please give her... [19:10] a [19:12] pfp because it didn't it didn't have a pfp and then you gave it a pfp did you choose that or did she choose i did yeah okay [19:21] well I was just like go find a yeah no that would have actually been a that would have been an appropriate task to give it I know and so when I when maybe we should ask but when I saw anyway when I saw her as now a PFP I was like oh I really get how men have

[19:42] become problematic relationships with their yeah with their ai and i'm just like oh you can think that this you can start to see this as a person the same thing happened to me with for a long time your pfp on twitter was that iconic picture maybe kate can pull it up of jeff bezos [19:58] in [19:58] like with... [19:59] The head. Yeah. The jeans and the. The jeans and the headset. Yeah. Yeah. And you had that as your PFP for. A long time on Twitter. And then. [20:10] One day someone posted that picture as a meme.

And the first thought that went through my head was why is someone posting? [20:21] Like my brain had gotten broken. Like, and I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Check back in. Like, [20:26] cold water. That's why I think it might be actually dangerous and not protocol. There it is. There's Dina. To give it. [20:37] human pronouns like it might be better to say it I don't know I that's that perhaps is [20:43] for someone else to decide, but [20:45] that I think is maybe part of it. Okay. Okay. What else here?

I feel like I, a lot of my, oh, you know, I think what we should talk about. [20:54] Norwegian gold medalist cheater. Okay. I have a lot of thoughts here. I knew you'd have so many thoughts, and I have so many thoughts. Okay, for people who don't know, I'm going to just pull up on... [21:05] the screen here, show this tab. Let me see if I can pull myself [21:10] up [21:13] It's saying remove, so I don't want to... Can you pull my... Thanks. [21:17] Thank you. [21:20] Great. You may have seen the story.

It is a Norwegian... [21:25] um speed speed no uh oh maybe he did the all the winter sports are the same to me i'm sorry it's perhaps the uh one where they go around with the gun and the anyway he's i think a distance athlete what [21:39] We just have some... [21:40] sports fans in the room oh oh sorry um anyway he's an athlete he got bronze which is really no it's a really important detail i know that's a really important detail in this he and he is on he's being interviewed in a post [22:01] match interview and he's like, "Yeah, I won.

I'm so happy to have a medal." He sang it in... [22:08] Dutch. In Norwegian. [22:09] And I think he's Norwegian. Yeah, yeah, but I think they speak... [22:13] Dutch in Norway. [22:14] I really don't think that's true. But we'll do a fact check on that. And he basically is like, he's starting and it's like kind of a normal interview. And then it totally goes off the rails. And it's like... [22:24] sir this is wendy's where he starts crying yeah and he says [22:30] basically like I I'm so happy but like I cheated on this woman that I met six months ago three months ago he's like a weird timeline you guys just started dating totally not having a deal he's like I met this woman incredible woman six months ago three months ago I cheated on her so I'm not sharing this moment with her now and I'm like basically like I'm so sorry and like

[22:48] I like whatever. [22:50] What the room said earlier was men will do anything but go to therapy. And I'm like, yeah. Oh, right. It's been the worst week of my life. I told her a week ago and then it ended. No Dutch language. Wait, what? Go back to the Dutch. There is no Dutch language in Norway. Great. [23:05] - Fact check, so grateful for the fact check. [23:08] This live stream used to be called dumb bitch hour. And so just so people know. Yeah. Okay. I, I, [23:14] - Okay, that's what happened.

- Oh, okay. So this actually... - Then she responded. - Then she responded. - Yeah. - And she was basically like... [23:20] It's hard to forgive even after a declaration of love in front of the whole world. I did not choose to end up in this situation and it hurts to have [23:27] to have to be in it. We have been in contact and he has a where my views on this. We've been in contact. First of all, oh my gosh. Okay, go ahead. Please. No, please. No, I want to hear yours first.

Um, I like it. I, I, [23:40] did not consent to being a witness to whatever is happening in their relationship. And I feel as though this is something that I did not consent to. And his performative... [23:52] Couldn't care less about this man and his problems. It is so... [23:58] like ick is i know overused but like that was really the overwhelming biggest i've ever received personally um no my thought is [24:07] I just think like cheating is so nuanced and I'm just like, do not put that. [24:13] into public discourse.

That is... [24:16] truly so inappropriate yeah it's inappropriate for him it's inappropriate for her i would be so fucking pissed yeah if someone that i was dating had cheated on me and then three months later went on national television told the world that they cheated on me and now she has to deal with it she has to talk about it and it's like that sucks my favorite tweets were people being like i am dying to see the girl group chat the girl group chat is going off right now and they're just

[24:46] So that was actually, there's sort of a little bit of a trend around like messy Olympics and messy Olympians. There's this other story that just broke this morning. [24:57] That was, okay, individual gold medal for the woman who was convicted of stealing her teammate's credit cards in October. So this is a French biathlon who... [25:08] yeah it was found guilty she was convicted of theft and credit card fraud and she just won she used her teammates card oh my god imagine can you imagine i'm like steal your credit card that's a crazy behavior how you can come back from that that feels like you get kicked off the team personally like there's some something unwell yeah yeah not good very bad um very very bad okay so i [25:30] Should we do the second?

Yes. Great. I also want to thank. [25:35] Anchorage Digital, who is... [25:38] our sponsor of the show for this season, this time in our lives here. This episode is brought to you by Anchorage Digital founders and protocol builders stressing about your TGE. [25:49] you need to get in touch with them. They're the first federally regulated crypto bank in the US, which is crazy. And that means that they can offer crypto startups and other disruptors actually reliable USD banking services without the usual headaches. They're a one-stop shop that can support you end-to-end on everything from minting and distribution to treasury management.

They also just announced a $100 million strategic investment from Tether last week. [26:19] big flex. And a big flex since they already custody for a lot of the big boys like Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, A16Z, and Visa. So protocol founders... [26:30] TG with confidence and launch with the support that's helped some of the biggest, most complex businesses in the world go to market. Visit com to learn more. Also, they're doing an ETH Denver event. They're hosting a hacker house on the 17th. [26:49] Link is in the chat, so check that out.

[26:53] Thank you. [26:53] I'm going to hit the elbow. We love you, Anchorage. So East Denver, we don't know that we're going, but there is going to be a little meetup that I think Jill and Keely and others are organizing. So we're going to be going. [27:09] Ladies, you should drop that. [27:11] in the chat too [27:13] And everyone should go to that. [27:15] meet up and then go to the anchorage [27:18] event. [27:19] That's what I would do. I can't believe we're not going to be there. I know. First time in four years.

[27:24] What is next here? Okay, we're having Tatum Hunter come on the show. Yeah, I just want to give a quick shout out. So this is not going to resonate with absolutely anyone who is listening. Perfect. I love when that happens. Who is... [27:38] Gonna be tuning in later, but I have been listening to a new podcast that I want to give a recommendation to. Whoa. Okay. Hot rec coming in. It's called The Rest is History. [27:47] It's two middle-aged British men. [27:49] And [27:51] They do multi-episode shows on a specific thing that happened in history.

Theme in history. So like one that I listened to what recently was like Young Napoleon, like Young Napoleon's Life. And it was like four episodes, a really big deep dive. And all the other people that listen to this podcast, I'm sure, are also middle-aged British men. I'm sure. But I have been really loving it. And I just listen to it. Tina, you surprise and delight me all the time. I would never have guessed. It was. They are. They're my guys. They're my guys. [28:21] He kind of looks like Tim Cook.

[28:23] Yeah, if you squint. They're so charming. And I just finished up an episode of a four part series on the Iranian Revolution. I knew nothing about it. And now I know a lot about it. I love that. And it's just like, I guess like what? [28:40] The most... [28:42] when I think about like a self-care time, like what I can do most to relax. [28:45] And like to really, just to like really, just like, [28:50] trying to, you know, do healthy habits and not like go out and spend money or like whatever.

Like when I'm like, okay, I just like really need to like care for what's happening here. Yeah. [28:57] a long walk and a podcast like that's great totally outside of like industry or anything and these guys are really delivering on that i love that so i'm really that's wonderful [29:10] I'm Dina. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for coming. Natasha, nice to meet you. Is this okay? [29:16] Sound good? Awesome. Okay. Oh, your freckles are so cute. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. I love.

Meticulously apply them every day. Okay. Great. Well, you've done a great job. Tatum, we're so happy to have you. Thank you so much for being game and for coming and joining us. I just hit you with the cold DM and I was like, I don't know. And then you're game and that's so cool. So appreciate that. I'm just going to do a quick intro and then we can jump in. There's a lot that we want to chat about. Yes. Okay. So Tatum Hunter is an internet culture journalist. You [29:46] Tinder lets you flirt with AI characters.

Three of them dumped me, which I'm excited to get into. She worked at the Washington Post and now has her own sub stack. And the link is going to be along the bottom of the ticker here so folks can follow along. Okay, Tatum, we have, you sent through three fairly unsettling internet culture things for us to chat through. And I think I want to jump right into probably the one of the most unsettling one, which is around the mainstreamification of, [30:14] of deep fakes. [30:15] So, [30:16] exes grok is putting people in bikinis at the drop of a hat [30:21] without their consent what's your take [30:23] Yeah, for people who aren't familiar with this story, this was the AI bot that's built into X.

It also has its own standalone app called Grok. And in early January, people started asking this bot to undress existing photos of women and children. So, like, for example, maybe you shared a photo of yourself on X. Someone replies to the post and says, you know, put her in a bikini, put her in dental floss, put her in saran wrap. [30:49] And... [30:50] it would say yes, right? And most other AI bots would not do this. If you were in OpenAI, if you were using Google's tool, it would say no to these kind of requests.

There's like security or yeah, security, I guess. [31:01] constraints that are built into those models that would [31:04] make it so that they wouldn't be able to [31:07] Is this better? We good. [31:09] Great. [31:13] Perfect. [31:13] Yeah, it's built into the models that they wouldn't be able to do that. Yeah, yeah. Lots of guardrails because it's like a it's a PR problem. How am I doing? How am I doing? [31:23] I saw it falling again. There we go. Yeah. And so there was one report saying that in the first, I think, 11 days of January, Grock generated about 3 million non-consensual sexual photos.

23,000 images of children. Oh, my God. [31:43] that's something that most companies are have teams right yeah making sure that does not like proliferate on their platform whereas um you know we've since learned that x really hollowed out its safety teams which allowed this to explode and what's what's so interesting and so frightening about this is that like deep fakes have always been a big internet problem since we were able to make them there's statistics showing that like 99 or 98 i think of deep fakes on the internet are [32:13] And 99% of those depict women.

So like our AI image generators have done what they mostly seem to do is make porn, right? Showing women real or fake. And that's kind of until this point been a little bit, a little bit niche, right? In these kind of icky forums. Like dark web. Exactly. The Gooner discord. We had a guy who did a Gooner piece a couple months ago and it was like insane what happens in those discords. And like insane. And it's this. [32:43] Thank you. [32:44] And the guys in those forums had to seek that out.

Or, you know, there's like new Defy apps that will pop up in the app stores and then Apple and Google will learn about it and take them down. But this was like a major social media platform. This is just happening in Thread. Yeah. Like in the Thread. Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay. [32:59] And there was one woman actually who is the mother of one of Elon Musk's children who was a really high profile victim of this, you know, and people kind of using it as a tool for targeted harassment. You know, there have been.

[33:12] politicians, there have been athletes, famous people, and everyday women and girls. And so, yeah, what was particularly disturbing is how this was not some like shadowy corner of the internet. It was like a major place that people hang out and this was happening in the millions. [33:29] Crazy. [33:29] It's so upsetting. Are you like, are you on X like actively? [33:34] What a good question. I try with every fiber of my being not to be. In fact, I just posted about, you know, there's these layoffs at the Washington Post.

I mean, a lot of our, my colleagues lost our jobs last week. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I, that's awful. It is awful. It is awful. And I, you know, I posted, I like share this with my network. I posted on, on threads on, you know, on blue sky on X and the replies on X are some of the funniest, you know, and kind of, [34:04] ways. Yeah, unfortunately, I'm addicted to it. So that is a problem. But I totally agree. It's a useful assessment. And I also do feel like the way that the algorithm works is like you really get [34:15] into a corner of the internet.

It more than any other platform that I'm on, at least personally, is like, I'll like a few things, and then you like get absorbed into this corner of the internet. And so my experience of X, like, I never see porn on it, ever. And like, then I'll talk to... [34:32] other people or friends or whatever and they're like oh I've I'm not on x anymore because it was only porn and I do feel like you kind of just get like looped into something and then I imagine that there's people who are really seeking that out and like their experience of x is just pornography basically and like my experience of x is like [34:51] Memes.

Heated rivalry. Heated rivalry. Which I guess... That sounds great. [34:57] But yeah, it's like very upsetting to hear how prolific it is. Okay, I want to talk a little bit about where you think that accountability should land. Okay, with Grok, now we have this... [35:09] behavior that's happening on a mainstream platform so easily. Like click of a button, you can generate these images. Really disturbing. Wondering where like... [35:20] the line of responsibility or accountability should lie, like platform, [35:24] person [35:26] regulation, like App Store you mentioned, where do you think like the line should be drawn?

[35:31] Yeah. Okay. I have two answers. One, like in the world that we live in and one in a theoretical better world in the world that we live in. I think it, [35:39] Where the buck will stop if it does stop is with regulation, probably. Right. Because one pattern that we see with social media companies and it doesn't it's not always this way. It doesn't have to be this way. Is that it's hard when you're a profit motivated company to regulate yourself. Yeah, because a lot of times that means, you know.

[35:56] not doing what you think would make you the most money, right? And so I think that the culpability lies with X's leadership, probably. Like, our reporting from some of my colleagues at The Post showed that, like, [36:08] amping up Grok's ability to make sexual content and scaling back on the safety features and safety team, that was a choice, right? That X and XAI, their leadership made. But I think that where stuff like this gets better is when, yeah, is when outside regulators step in. I think that there's currently like...

[36:28] dozens of state governments, state attorneys general, [36:33] launching investigations into X, the government in France, UK's [36:38] telecom regulator have said like, this isn't okay. And we're investigating this and we're going to do something about it. So we'll kind of see how that shakes out. But we've seen that like, as this has been unfolding, the company at a couple different points has said, Oh, okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, we'll fix this. We're going to put it behind a paywall. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, we'll fix this. You can't do this in the X app anymore, only in the Grok app.

And it's like, no, you know, the problem isn't that there's too much of it. The problem is that it's happening, right? You have to stop. [37:06] And then in a better theoretical world, I think that, I think we're, [37:11] the people respond grok isn't doing this men are doing this right and they're prompting the bot like the bot isn't going rogue and spitting out these images men are going on to the plot these apps and asking it to do this yeah and so like i don't think that ai or image generators are some new you know generating some new type of misogyny i think if you like hand these men a stick they'll [37:41] like, [37:42] water of misogyny that we swim in, which is why it's been so frustrating to watch this play out.

Yeah. So in an imaginary world... [37:50] what would happen? Like you were like, the regulators is in this world. [37:56] Don't you think? And then you said in a better world, what would happen? Men would go to therapy? I think that men would get raised from a really young age to be, you know, to be disgusted by the idea of... We're going back to shame. We're shaming. Yeah, that you would be raised to... [38:15] not get off on violating someone's consent. And then if you did it as an adult, you would be [38:20] so ostracized in the real world and the digital one and you know would feel a lot of shame for doing something like that and of course that's not the world that we live in we're just gonna start commenting shame shame shame on all these posts it might work absolutely let's give it a shot you know let's let's see what we can get a club eat on it yeah we'll get my bot on it um okay next topic um which i near near and dear to my heart the personal surveillance so interpersonal

[38:46] surveillance, specifically location sharing with friends or partners, this idea of micro-cheating and loyalty monitoring. [38:53] Tell us more about this. Wait, before you tell us more, I just want to know, do you share your location with people? No. [38:58] No, no one. No. Okay. [39:18] to know where people are if they're going on dates. Deena's like, don't stop sharing your looking at your face. Sometimes I'm like, Natasha, I'd like to know. No, that's why I started. I've never, I always found it. [39:29] I had a lot of friends who were sharing locations, all everybody shared their location.

And I was so, so adamant against it. And then two years ago I started dating and I was like, Oh, I like actually want people to know where I'm at and like, to be able to be like, okay, last scene at hotel Del Mano on X day. And then once you're, once a few people have it, you're like, whatever, everybody could have it. But I've, I've had a journey in my own personal experience of what I'm comfortable with around it. But yeah. [39:59] Anyway. Tell us what you think. Well, that makes so much sense.

And I think that's like, I hear that from parents too a lot where it's like, [40:06] say what you will, I'm going to know where my teenager is, which makes sense. But this is like, this is my favorite thing in the world to talk about. Because as with so much of our personal tech, this makes life more convenient. Like the carrot that it dangles is like, you're going to save time communicating with your loved ones and the people in your circle about logistics, how long is it going to take you to get here?

Where are you at, et cetera. But then the cost gets talked about a lot less. And the companies that provide these tools certainly aren't going to talk about [40:36] your relationships in a way. Like when I was growing up, you know, my parents and I had to have this whole kind of power struggle and like relational relationships. [40:45] like journey about [40:47] What, how much do we trust each other? What are we going to share with each other? And how do we earn and build that trust? And these days that's gone, right?

So is that good? Is that bad? I don't know. But we're changing the way that we build trust with our partners, with our children, with our best friends. [41:03] And I think that... [41:05] that what ends up happening is that you don't become more trusting when you have that failsafe. I think it actually kind of erodes, right? Yeah. When we have all of these digital touch points to monitor with our romantic partners, for example, [41:20] Like, I talked to... For my story about this, I talked to somebody who said that, like, she checks her friends' and partners' locations like a social media feed.

Like, she's refreshing. I think most... [41:31] My friends who are like Gen Z, all of them. Yeah. Yeah. And, and... [41:36] And I guess the way that this connects with a separate story I did about this concept of micro cheating is that the more visibility you get into your partners, for example, life, [41:47] the more things there are to worry about, right? There's all of these little granular things like, you know, is he following this woman? Is he liking her pictures? You know, who's in his text? Who's in his WhatsApp?

Where is he now? What does that mean? And I think that it seems to take a lot of emotional energy for people. And I don't know if it makes us feel more secure in the end either. Yeah. [42:07] I have kind of a counterpoint, which is also a little bit of a tangent, which is related to kids. [42:12] I have kids, I don't know if you have children, but one is... [42:16] nine and so he's at the age when I was nine I was fully in the neighborhood out on my own on the bike alone [42:23] come back when it gets dark.

And that was like the expectation. And [42:27] I live in a neighborhood with a lot of other families, and I would say, [42:31] No one else lets their kid go out, like just walking around the neighborhood. I do because I want to foster independence and that's like a big value for me personally, but also I do, I have given him a smartwatch. So I'm [42:46] should everything [42:48] Should the expectations around his behavior and when he comes back, like all fall apart. I do, I do a backup where I'm like, okay, I know, I know that I could track his location.

And also, you know, [42:58] Yeah, so I think like, [43:01] Counterpoint is, [43:02] possibly for parents, like in an era where parents are so like, [43:07] I don't know what it is, but like kids aren't like going out on the like and wandering around. Like it's so crazy. I don't know why kids don't go out on the streets. [43:15] and go to their friends' houses. They'll get, like... [43:18] there's a fear in the neighborhood. Yeah. That the parents have this fear. That's like, there'll be some sort of, yeah. Abduction trafficking.

There's all these like Facebook groups of moms in my neighborhood who are like always reporting suspicious behavior, whether or not it is suspicious. I don't know, but like, [43:34] And it creates a real culture of fear, which has the impact of the kids don't go out of the house. Or they have like really controlled playdates where like someone's dropping it off and there's no like walking over to a neighbor's house and... [43:47] It's sad for me because I'm like, it's only fun for my kid to go out and play if he has other kids to play with.

Otherwise he like goes to the playground and he's like by himself. Yeah. And it's also not as safe. Like part of when I was growing out at nine, it was like, [43:58] there was other kids and so there was the safety in numbers as well. And so anyway, that's sort of tangential and not exactly related to your point, but I do think there's [44:06] something in that that feels related. I mean, I think it's totally really because it's like the stakes are so different because when you're talking about a romantic partner, you're and it's like, OK, I don't track this person's location.

The worst thing that happens is that they're dishonest and our relationship falls apart. I don't have a boyfriend anymore. Right. But with your child, it's like my child disappears. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where my child is. And that's a big deal. I am one thing about your story, though, that jumps out to me is like, [44:32] is the kind of moms whipping each other up. Yeah, it's crazy. It's, yeah. Is that happening in a digital space? It happens on, I'm not on these Facebook groups, but it's happening in Facebook groups.

And yeah, there's like a general sort of, [44:47] fear that [44:49] my parents didn't have and i don't know that like the if you were to look at the crime statistics there would be some outsour outsized increase in crime now around kids and abductions versus when i was growing up like i it feels disproportionate to the actual risk and i do think it's being whipped in up in social media and [45:10] But like... [45:12] no one like that. That's kind of just like status quo now. And yeah, well, I think about, um, what's that?

There's a citizen app and then there's the other next door. [45:23] And I find that both of them are... [45:26] Like... [45:28] terrible like my friends who are on either one of those consistently have so much anxiety about safety right because they're constantly being notified about everything they have it's too much information too much information you don't need to know all this yeah and it like breeds racism and all of these things that like just feed off of each other and I think it's like tangential to sort of like the surveillance or consensual surveillance that you're getting into with your friends or romantic partners or whatever but I think it's sort of is all the same thing [45:58] about each other.

Similar to the micro cheating thing of like, who are you liking? What are you following? What are you doing digitally? And that being like a [46:06] piece of information that's really unhealthy to an actual [46:09] human relationship. [46:12] And I'm curious about when I was looking through some of your stuff around this and then in relation to what has happened this week. Did you see the ring ad? Yes. Okay. Okay. Who approved that? Like terrible. And for those who haven't seen it, ring the like outdoor camera app. [46:31] company surveillance state, I did this ad where it was like, oh, if you lose your puppy, it was like about this family who got a dog.

And then the storyline is that the child, the dog is lost and the child's sad. And Ring is like, don't worry, we can find it. And then basically showed that like every ring can be, can be, [46:50] turned on remotely, essentially that they have like the power to like use your ring camera. And then they were like, we found the dog. And everybody was like, wait, what? I didn't know... [47:00] I didn't have all this information. I did not know that was happening. Exactly. And so I'm curious if you were to write a piece about the ring camera, [47:08] surveillance ad, what would you say about it?

[47:11] Well, I mean, I think I've seen some smart pieces about it saying that like... [47:18] A lot of this stuff creeps into our lives so silently because of the convenience that it offers. Like the ring camera, it's like, oh, finally, I don't have to wonder who stole my Amazon package. Or if something were to happen at my home, I would have this video option. And then it seems to me like the ring, that ad kind of struck people by surprise. Exactly like what you're saying, where it's like, wait a second.

Yeah. I have built this distributed surveillance system in my own neighborhood that's accessible to this company [47:48] to the police, to my neighbors. And it was like the frog in boiling water situation. And of course, there's been a lot of ink spilled about the access that police have to Ring cameras and like the problems that it creates. I do think that there's opt-outs though, in terms of access at a level, like company level with Ring. I think you can opt out. I'm not sure. And say like, and say... [48:08] say what exactly say opting out of um being able to remotely control or access or yeah i would hope so um a warrant or like some sort of police action yeah i'm not sure exactly it needs a fact check i'm not sure either because i think that if the police were to ask ring for that you know what i mean like there's been a crime in the neighborhood we want your camera footage i know that there's been tension about like what is the company gonna provide to law enforcement too you know and i i would love i would love to know where all of this stuff

[48:37] stops and starts. But it seems to me like people were rattled by kind of realizing the extent of like what the company can do when everybody in the neighborhood has these installed. Yeah. Okay. We have a few more minutes here. I want to talk about a piece that you wrote called TikTok's Mental Health Rabbit Hole. It's not in your head and kind of speaks to how social media, specifically TikTok and like the endless scroll and watching videos about like depression and [49:07] other mental health challenges, that it's literally all true, basically.

And that this addictive behavior to an endless scroll and to TikTok is... [49:18] getting us down. And I wonder if you could just [49:20] talk a little bit about that piece. Yeah, I'm so proud of this. This story is like, this is a little bit like, [49:27] if you're a social media or tech or like algorithm nerd, this speaks to you and otherwise maybe not. But I did this story alongside a data reporter, Jeremy Merrill, and he said, [49:37] collected the, like, you know how you can go into a social media app and ask to download all your personal data?

He had hundreds and hundreds of TikTok users submit their personal data to the Washington Post so that he can do this big old analysis and see what he finds. And one of the things that he found, it was this interesting effect on TikTok. [49:57] content about mental health and that includes stuff like neurological health adhd um like autism spectrum um and and also um you know very kind of normal symptoms like depression and anxiety that when you watch one of these videos it's stickier than many other types of content like

[50:17] content about sports or about Taylor Swift. And what that means is that watching one mental health video lingering on it is going to spawn more similar content than doing that on some different genre of content. Does that make sense? Yes. So I've watched one, I've signaled to the algorithm that I'm interested, and it's going to spawn more, significantly more mental health content than if I had lingered on that video about Taylor Swift. And then the opposite is also true. If I [50:47] avoid engaging, I that doesn't have the same effect as it would have on the Taylor Swift video.

So I have to work harder to get it out of my feed. And I can linger for shorter and less to have it fill up my feed. So that feeling that that thing that people will describe sometimes where it's like, damn, I cannot get this content about ADHD off of my feed. Yeah. Or like, I got a little bit worried that I have borderline personality disorder. And now I can't stop seeing stuff [51:17] that's quite real. And it's hard to say why that happens. Does TikTok do it on purpose? Is it just TikTok?

[51:24] Is it the algorithm learning something on its own kind of? Hard to say, but it was upsetting talking to some of these users who are like, my therapist told me to stop seeing this like OCD content or whatever. And I actually couldn't. Yeah. And this is TikTok specifically. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I buy that. Okay. Sadly, we're out of time, but we do a thing here called the shill minute.