] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about woke one, woke two, woke three. People have been talking about this concept of woke two, where it was first really elucidated to me was the Shoe0nHead video, where she goes into, “I lived through woke one.”[00:00:18] And then I started reading articles on woke one and woke two and how they were defined, and then you came to me and you go, “Well, I think we’re in woke three now, which is wholly different than woke two, ‘cause woke three is predominantly about AI.” And I’d argue AI and being pro-terrorist. Thth- they sort of go together somehow.[00:00:37] Okay. But I decided to go into this, and we’re not gonna be reading the ex- specific articles on this because when I went into this with AI to do analysis, sentiment analysis on X-[00:00:49] Simone Collins: Hm ...[00:00:50] Malcolm Collins: to try to understand, okay, the types of tweets that would fit this category of woke as it’s been defined by the major speakers where are we actually?[00:01:00] What it would argue is woke two is already over. Woke two- Yeah, I[00:01:05] Simone Collins: agree. I agree ...[00:01:06] Malcolm Collins: failed about halfway through this year and became- Mm-hmm ... woke three- Yes ... which is totally different in kind and character.[00:01:11] Simone Collins: Absolutely.[00:01:13] Malcolm Collins: Okay, so that’s what you found too. Yeah.[00:01:15] Simone Collins: Let’s go into this. Sho- when Shoe0nHead gave her retrospective on mostly woke 1.0, she argued that woke 2.0, which was this more radical post-COVID, post-George Floyd, you know, globalized Intifada, abolish the police, scary scary version it’s, she thought it was still going, that we don’t really know how it’s gonna end.[00:01:36] No, it’s over. It’s already over. It’s gone.[00:01:39] Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s gone, yeah.[00:01:40] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:01:40] Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think it evolved into the terrorist left that we talk about sometimes. You know, the Hasan Piker’s, the Nick Fuentes, the, those sort of same people. Which by the way, now Nick Fuentes is even just, like, doing stuff with Hunter Biden, right?[00:01:52] Like, they’re- Yeah ... they’re, they’re collabing on products and stuff like this. He’s not, like, LARPing as a leftist. He, he is just a leftist now. But I mean, it makes sense, and we p- we predicted this, I wanna say, like, a y- a year ago at least, where I was like, “If you look at the terrorist left, like the left that is much more interested in seeing the West and Israel fall than in anything else,” they...[00:02:17] His viewpoint has way more in common with their viewpoint in part because of his plan to destroy the Western civilization so that it can be rebuilt in his vision, which doesn’t make sense because his followers don’t even have kids. But, like, I, I’ll never understand that. But you know, that’s, that’s where that alliance has come.[00:02:38] And you, you see this in a lot of leftist spaces where they were just getting edgier and edgier and edgier, and I think the reason this evolution happened was twofold One the edgier and edgier and edgier side was always going to end in, well, let’s kill Jews and Americans, right? Like, that’s, that’s, that’s the end point of edginess.[00:03:00] That has always been the end point of the edgy pipeline, right? Like, if you’re going to edge, edge, edge, edge, edge, you always end up in that position because that’s canonically in our society the edgiest. Mm. And so I think the, that outside of even what historically often made leftists anti-Jewish this new sentiment it just came downstream of, like, the edge funnel.[00:03:27] Except their edginess was very different from the right’s edginess. So the right also went down an edgy pipeline you know, that came from the 4chan days and everything like that. But the right’s edginess was always comical in nature. Yeah ... it was always meant to take the piss. Yeah. It was like a, a joke, right?[00:03:47] And so now[00:03:48] Simone Collins: on the right- It wasn’t even comical, it was jocular. I think that- Yeah ... ‘cause there’s a lot of humor on the left too, but it’s extremely cynical humor. Whereas the, the humor that I see on the right is very silly [00:04:00] humor.[00:04:00] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so, on the, on the right, as the, as the pipeline went and, and you began to get Hitler jokes, you began to get, you know, all, all those sorts of Holocaust jokes, stuff like that-[00:04:11] Simone Collins: Mm[00:04:12] Malcolm Collins: they were, they were still just jokes. Like, they weren’t things that really influenced the politics of mainstream right-wing figures in these particular fields other than a few idiots like Nick who’d been went off to become a, a Democrat. The, the the left, however, its edginess was motivated, and you can see this in the Hasan streams, you can see this in the, the evolution of what became the terrorist w- left, in cynicism and anger.[00:04:41] And so their, hey, you know, joke about, you know, the, the eradication of Israel or something like this doesn’t sound like it did on the right where it was, it was said with a, a laugh and, like, meant to be edgy and, like, “Do you get it?” It is backed by an incredible amount of authentic anger that they’ve been able to cultivate in themselves.[00:05:04] And and, and let’s kill the Ra- let’s punch a Nazi. Let’s... You know, this has been a long part with it, like, this, this synthesising of edginess with calls to violence.[00:05:15] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:05:15] Malcolm Collins: Which also didn’t really happen on the right. People on the right would be edgy, but there was not many calls to violence on the right outside of the faction that has now split and joined the left.[00:05:25] What, what are your thoughts on that?[00:05:27] Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, that, that tracks with what I, I see too.[00:05:31] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But then the, the interesting thing is the anti-AI stuff. But do you have more thoughts before we go, go more into, like, the cultural evolution and trying to track it?[00:05:38] Simone Collins: No. I’ve, I’ve plenty I wanna say on the anti-AI stuff.[00:05:41] I’m super excited about it.[00:05:42] Malcolm Collins: That’s where you wanna get? Okay. Yeah. So how did this become... Because it is. If you’re, like, in the online culture wars, and it’s all of the spaces of the online culture wars typically bellwether communities, like the knitting community, which I’m sure we’ll be talking about here- Mm-hmm[00:05:56] have just gone fully AI paranoid about everything. Yeah. And when I was asking AI, in terms of a sentiment analysis on X, are there more among leftist tweeters what we would generally think of as woke posting going on or more anti-AI posting?[00:06:12] Simone Collins: Ah. And it’s like it’s- Good question ... not even close.[00:06:14] Really?[00:06:14] Malcolm Collins: Way more anti-AI posting.[00:06:16] Simone Collins: Of course.[00:06:17] Malcolm Collins: So that is now a more central issue than Black lives. That is now a more central issue than trans stuff. That is now a more central issue than immigration or ICE or anything like that. And what I think created woke two and what led to its downfall so quickly is woke two was really tied to, like, ICE protesting, no kings protesting, everything like that.[00:06:40] And these just didn’t really go anywhere, and everyone found out it was a bunch of old people. Like, like, only boomers were showing up for this. And that’s not very fun or edgy or where you wanna be, right? Whereas woke three I think, Al- also, I think Woke 3 is being heavily botted, which allows for it to work.[00:06:57] But wh- why don’t you go into your thoughts on the anti-AI and how, how that became... Also very weird that the left became the anti-AI party, which we’ll talk about, but continue.[00:07:05] Simone Collins: Yeah. I think we actually just had a really serious turning point with it. And it’s, it, it’s with Hank Green, who really goes back to, like, the earliest of YouTube.[00:07:15] Did you watch the old Vlogbrothers videos?[00:07:18] Malcolm Collins: No, I never liked him.[00:07:19] Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, i- they weren’t very interesting and I never really watched them. They[00:07:22] Malcolm Collins: weren’t interesting or entertaining. He just[00:07:24] Simone Collins: wasn’t a good vlog creator. But it well, that’s ‘cause it was early YouTube. So back when, i- in the days when people just would post pictures of their lunch on Twitter and be like, “I’m, I’m taking a walk.”[00:07:34] It, like people- No,[00:07:35] Malcolm Collins: no ... really- There were good early YouTube creators. Like, what’s his face? And, and he’s still one of the best creators out there. Bald guy who does a lot of my politics shows.[00:07:44] Simone Collins: Vsauce? I’m so sorry. Vsauce. But that was, like, 20 years later, Malcolm. No.[00:07:50] Malcolm Collins: Vsauce was 20 years after Hank Green?[00:07:51] I don’t think so.[00:07:51] Simone Collins: Yeah, dude, Hank, Hank... Fine, look it up while I talk, Okay ... because I think you’ll notice. So just for those who were not born by this period, Hank Green and his [00:08:00] brother would basically send video messages to each other and post them on YouTube. And because they were among the first people just consistently posting on that platform when it was new, they became very big and became known as the Vlogbrothers, and went on to do very other, like, successful things, publishing very famous books, et cetera, that became movies, like The Fault in Our Stars.[00:08:19] However, Hank Green still- Simone. Yeah[00:08:23] Malcolm Collins: They were only three and a half years before Vsauce[00:08:25] Simone Collins: That’s, that’s, that’s a lot of time, given how fast things accelerated on YouTube. That is not a lot of[00:08:30] Malcolm Collins: time when you consider the g- the how slow[00:08:32] Simone Collins: YouTube and the culture was at that point. I know V- Vsauce is, Vsauce is way better.[00:08:34] No, I, I agree with you that his quality is way better. Anyway, sometimes just being there first makes a huge difference, even by three years. So, he, m- Hank Green still publishes very consistently, has several channels, focuses mostly on education, and suddenly he is showing up all over headlines. We’ve got Vulture, “Hank Green can’t apologize enough for using AI.”[00:08:55] Mashable, “Hank Green apologizes for relying heavily on ChatGPT.” TechCrunch, “YouTuber Hank Green says his AI usage is ‘not healthy.’” And Business Insider, “YouTube star Hank Green says he’s relied too heavily on AI in an apology to fans.” I’m just gonna read a little bit from the Business Insider one because I think it really helps to demonstrate what this new culture war is going to look like as it plays out.[00:09:19] Well, hold on a second. It rhymes a lot with the first one, but[00:09:21] Malcolm Collins: yeah. Before we go any further- Mm-hmm ... I need to show our fans a, a sexy Puritan woman na- made after my wife that I had, had them made with AI.[00:09:28] Why? Because we can do this and they can’t. We can- Oh ... we can make fun and sexy anime girls, and they can’t do[00:09:35] Simone Collins: it.[00:09:35] Oh my God.[00:09:36] Malcolm Collins: We, we’ve got to- No,[00:09:36] Simone Collins: no. You’ll, you’ll be shocked when it t- when you discover, yeah, how he got in trouble for using AI, given- Okay,[00:09:42] Malcolm Collins: go, go, go, go ...[00:09:43] Simone Collins: so from the article, “Hank Green, one of the Internet’s most steadfast and reliable content creators, said he’s slowing down production after fans criticized him for using AI.[00:09:52] Quote, ‘Expect less Hank’s channel. It may need to pause for a while,’ Green wrote. ‘It may be that Hank’s channel comes back with writing and research support. It may be that it comes back with just way fewer videos.’ Green said Smosh and 4X3, two online daily word games he produces, will be paused. The fresh discourse surrounding Green’s use of AI was sparked earlier that day on X, where he told users he had used OpenAI’s ChatGPT to research a script.[00:10:21] The revelation shocked some X users, who suggested that Green undermined his credibility by using AI without disclosing it to viewers. As tensions grew on X, Green deleted that post.” And, and also because, they don’t mention that in this article, but the post said something like, you know, I, like, “I empathize with your concerns,” or, “I understand your concerns,” or something like that, and people thought that that was AI generated.[00:10:45] And he claims that it wasn’t, but they got so much hate, it got so heavily ratioed, that he took that down because at that point he was being accused of using AI for his responses. Okay, very witch hunty. Anyway, I’ll continue. As tensions grew on X, Green deleted that post and pivoted to Reddit to address the situation.[00:11:03] He told Redditors he’s mortified that he’s let so many people down. Quote, “I’ve been relying too heavily on AI as a research aid. It can be very useful for this task, giving me access to a lot of papers I don’t know existed really fast, but I think that it’s been to the detriment of my work because it has not given me the freedom to find all my own ways into and around a topic,” Green said.[00:11:26] You mean like to not know the things? Anyway, I’m, I’m gonna skip ahead a little. Green told fans he’s not anti-AI, but understands some of their concerns, such as how the tech sh- tech is trained, its environmental implications, and the consolidation of economic power by tech companies. He ultimately apologized.[00:11:47] Quote, “It is very likely that you, the reader, and I disagree on how or even whether AI should be used,” Green said. “I think it makes sense for that disagreement to exist, but I also have always believed that my audience is more likely to be [00:12:00] right than I am. You know what...” This is horrible. “You know what this feels like in a way I can’t, and so I’m so sorry for diluting myself in this way and harming the thing that we have all built together.”[00:12:13] In the post, Green said he feels pressure when creating content and will strive to manage himself more effectively. He’ll also address this n- his interactions with AI, which he described as unhealthy. Quote, “But mostly I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I’ve been getting from interacting with LLMs, with doing more and more and more, is not healthy for me or good for the world,” Green said.[00:12:35] “It’s careless, and it has disconnected me from where people are on this.” So just to recap here, he, he’s not going to do as much work, he’s not going to give his fans as much content because now he understands that if he even so- But what[00:12:54] Malcolm Collins: it shows is that his work was being enabled by AI.[00:12:57] Simone Collins: Yes. All of these things- No, he’s very clear on that, that for him, he understands AI is a very useful tool.[00:13:02] Unfortunately, he understands now also as a very open and out leftist YouTuber that to both be left and to have a platform means that you cannot use AI. And if he were to continue to maintain his schedule but with AI assistance, he would completely torch his audience, which is super interesting. So his only choice is to be less productive and to economically- My,[00:13:28] Malcolm Collins: my favorite part about all of this-[00:13:30] Simone Collins: Yeah[00:13:30] is[00:13:30] Malcolm Collins: the audience acting like they were vegans who were just s- secretly served, like, a meat dish or something.[00:13:36] Simone Collins: Like- 100%, yeah ...[00:13:37] Malcolm Collins: how dare you have me consume something without my knowledge that had AI in it when- Yeah ... it, you cannot do good YouTube content without AI these days. Mm-mm. Yeah. You, you need it to do your research.[00:13:50] Every episode that you guys get of this show is fact-checked by AI. Mm-hmm. I, it, I never[00:13:56] Simone Collins: go out of this- Oh, multiple times too, ‘cause you, we, we fact-check the outlines, and then when you go through and edit the episodes, you also fact-check this. Cool thing also that Malcolm built into his video editor, you can, he, he built on rfab.ai a podcast recorder and video editor, and within the video editor, after it builds a transcript of your episode, you can literally click the fact-check button, and it will have AI fact-check your things.[00:14:21] Malcolm Collins: I don’t know if the editor’s fully working yet. It’s one of the parts of the site that’s still super alpha.[00:14:25] Simone Collins: Anyway, it, well, within, like, a month, so this is August. In, like, September, I’m sure you’ll have it in order. And, like-[00:14:30] Malcolm Collins: Oh no, it’ll be in or- order within a month. Yeah, right now I’m- That’s the thing is-[00:14:33] I, I’m more focused on the sentinel system which is so cool. Sentinel system. By the way, for people who haven’t seen these, what we’ve done is we’ve taken these little devices that you can get for $45, and we’ve made it so you can flash them all with our sentinel system, and then they just stay around your house, watching and listening to everything that’s happening all day, and then they send it to a central brain at the end of the day.[00:14:51] Along with, you can give them connections to, like, every family member’s email and they, like, give you a call, and they’re like, “Oh, here’s how you can improve yourself. Here’s some ideas. This is an important email that you haven’t gotten to yet. I can draft a response if that helps you.” You know, just, like, pure life handler.[00:15:06] And even has a mode, like when you go out, you can be like, “Kids at home alone,” and it, like, constantly monitors them and is like, “Oh, they’re doing something wrong. Do you wanna talk to them?” And then you can talk through it. But it also has all of the features that you would get from, like, an Alexa or something like that in terms of, like, asking it questions and stuff.[00:15:20] And it basically is already working now. There’s still some, some tweaks to have. Like, if you haven’t bought your devices yet, it’ll be working by the time the devices arrive, probably. I mean, with all of our stuff, reflash constantly because we’re always improving. I mean, we’ve got the, the, the companions already working on the little devices, same with the living avatars, which is pretty cool.[00:15:40] Pretty cool. But continue.[00:15:42] Simone Collins: Yeah, I’m so excited about it. So- What I think is most interesting about this new culture war is that it’s not just like woke 1.0, which was all, like, the SJW era, and Anita Sarkeesian discourse, and Tumblr [00:16:00] culture, the Oppression Olympics, and GamerGate and then woke 2.0.[00:16:03] It’s not that, which was again, like, George Floyd, and abolish the police, and capitalism is evil, and Palestine everything. It is ... Those on the side, on one side of this battle of the third culture war, the one that we’re entering, are intentionally opting into a permanent underclass. What Hank Green is forced to do due to his choosing a side in this early war is become less productive and ultimately de-platform himself.[00:16:36] This is something that even, like, the, the ... W- we realized this maybe, what a month and a half ago when Leaflet released her VTuber tool that enabled people to, if they couldn’t afford to s- to pay an artist to commission a special VTuber rig, to literally make a cool, like, PNGTuber character using AI at a fraction of the cost.[00:16:56] And you’d think, “Oh, people would appreciate this. Like, how helpful.” You know, I mean, people who want to commission art are still gonna do it, and it’s not even a VTuber rig, so who could be mad at this, right? But no. No. People, people were incredibly angry. There were, there were death threats. People were, like, trying to, to dox her.[00:17:15] They were trying to they were sending horrific art of her, like, that was just, well, handmade, but, like, extremely, like, suggesting, like, extreme levels of violence and self-harm. Like, this is levels of stuff that I ... Like, there, there aren’t terrorists or, ... Like, I don’t remember ever seeing actions around this with, like, I don’t know Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, you know?[00:17:40] Like[00:17:40] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.[00:17:41] Simone Collins: It’s, it’s very strange.[00:17:43] Malcolm Collins: No, the level of anger around AI on the left is higher, I think, than their sensitivity historically, or I’d say it’s about equal to the height of the trans the potential trans skeptic phobia, where they go after- Maybe.[00:17:57] Simone Collins: Because they try to, like, cancel you, but this is different.[00:18:00] Because I think they know that you can’t cancel someone on the other side. Like, one of the big lessons learned by the earlier woke waves and the earlier culture wars is you can only cancel people on your own side, which is exactly what happened to Hank Green, and he’s trying to fight off the cancellation, but he did apologize, and apologizing is the first step to losing a lot of ground, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen to him.[00:18:19] Anyway, we saw this happen with Leaflet, and then Catherine D, as of August 2nd, so a little bit earlier this month, released an, a short Substack titled Woke 2. I’m just gonna read a little bit of it, ‘cause I wanna get your take on it, Malcolm, but she- Well, yeah, but[00:18:35] Malcolm Collins: before- As we go into this, I wanna point out how fcking weird it feels.[00:18:40] Like, we are talking with, like, these documentarian-type people, these, these reporters, and I tried to explain to them. They, like, wanna ask me about pronatalism, and I’m like, “Bro, that’s, like, not the fight right now,” right? Like-[00:18:50] Simone Collins: Right. Yeah ...[00:18:51] Malcolm Collins: and they don’t understand. Like, they’re like, “What, what do you, what, what, what is this AI fight?[00:18:54] It’s just weirdos on the internet.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”[00:18:56] Simone Collins: They don’t understand.[00:18:57] Malcolm Collins: This is, like, the core of the culture war right now.[00:19:00] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:19:00] Malcolm Collins: Th- this is... And it’s so weird, like, being plugged in versus not being plugged in, right? Like, y- you, you listen to somebody like Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson, like, these online creators that are just not plugged in.[00:19:13] Mm-hmm. And they are not fcking aware of what’s going on right now- No[00:19:16] Simone Collins: idea ...[00:19:17] Malcolm Collins: in the meme minds. Yeah. Okay? And-[00:19:19] Simone Collins: You know who is plugged in, though? Nick Fuentes is plugged in. Nick Fuentes even retweeted- Yeah ... part of, like, a recent knitting war that took place[00:19:26] Malcolm Collins: so yeah. Yeah, no, Nick Fuentes is aware of the real culture war that’s happening.[00:19:29] He’s up with it.[00:19:29] Simone Collins: Yeah, if you’re up with the knitting community, you know what’s going on with online culture.[00:19:33] Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, no, Hasan is aware of the real culture war that’s happening. The real culture warriors are- Yeah ... and they generally have big audiences. Yeah, yeah, yeah.[00:19:39] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:19:39] Malcolm Collins: You know, Asmongold’s aware, Knucks is aware, you know.[00:19:42] Like, the, the, the, it’s, it’s just so weird to be fighting this war that such a small faction of humanity is participating in- Mm ... but has such an outsized potential impact on the future of the species.[00:19:56] Simone Collins: Mm. Yeah. I agree. And [00:20:00] yeah, it’s, it, basically anyone who’s, who has a finger on the pulse of the internet is aware that this is happening.[00:20:08] And so I was really excited when Catherine D. wrote about it, because she is by trade a, a journalist and internet historian. Her entire job is writing about online culture and trends. So she wrote, “One of my running under-theorized theories, that naturally I still psychotically want credit for calling, whatever credit means.[00:20:25] I think in my head it’s being invited to conferences or invited to expand on whatever idea in publications more articulately than I’m doing here, is what we’ll eventually have a woke 1.0-style culture war about technology.”[00:20:39] Octavian Collins: Mommy, guess what? I cleaned up the Legos.[00:20:41] Simone Collins: So she wrote, “One of my running under-theorized theories that I naturally still psychotically want credit for... dot, dot, dot, is that we’ll eventually have a woke 1.0 style culture war about technology. I mean, it’s just been in the water for a very long time. Like, we’ve always had backlashes against feminism.[00:20:59] We’ve also always had tech lashes. But I mean a tech lash that is features of peak woke, moral panics, opportunists selling workshops about how to stay human. I’ve historically been too hard on John Haidt, a guy I don’t want to make an enemy of, for whatever it’s worth. Please chill with the age-gating stuff, man.[00:21:18] But in a way, he is the Robin DiAngelo of anti-tech sentiment. I just mean that in a market position way, this has been coming in the mail since before the gen AI stuff. See what’s happening to Hank Green. He accidentally said, ‘I appreciate the pushback,’ in a YouTube video, and now his fans are freaking out.[00:21:36] But really, this is becoming about what’s socially sanctioned. I think Ruby Justice below on Americans love and chat and hate AI is also important here. Like woke one, I think woke two is predic-” And by woke two, she means, like, the new anti-AI one. Mm. “It’s predicated on perfectly legitimate complaints. I’m speaking here about the conversation, not saying people concerned about AI or tech are somehow ridiculous.[00:22:00] I don’t think tech companies should f- get free reign to do whatever. I started noticing the whole tech is a culture war thing back when I started paying attention to events like NatCon. There was this weird tension between the right wanting to bring big tech to new cities in an attempt to revitalize the economy, see Miami, then talking about transhumanism derisively in the keynotes.[00:22:20] It was obvious to me that the next culture wary topic would be tech. That’s an unsustainable tension. The right would go Luddite, the left would go Luddite. There would be right and left techno... Oh, sorry, like, right and left coded techno-optimists.” And she goes on a little bit further- But she was[00:22:36] Malcolm Collins: wrong, and she’s, she’s, she’s wrong about this[00:22:38] Simone Collins: Yeah, because what we’re actually seeing more is on the On the, on the right there’s, there’s more enthusiastic adoption o- of on it, and then on the left there is this even performative hatred of it, and I think that’s the really interesting thing.[00:22:54] There, we... You and I even saw it at NatCon, like there’s definitely a contingent of people who are... It’s not, so the, here’s the thing. Sh- they’re not antagonistic about AI, and when they talk about transhumanism, they’re more like, it’s like vaccine denialism because they think that there are s- tiny little robots in the vaccines that are entering your bloodstream and turning you into a, like radio-controlled person.[00:23:16] Malcolm Collins: No, but the, the, the side of the right that’s like anti-tech has gained no f- cucking traction.[00:23:20] Simone Collins: Well, yeah, they’re, they’re... And also it’s not that they’re anti-tech, they’re just like super offline and not even part of the conversation, so their opinion doesn’t really matter. The, the anti-tech-[00:23:30] Malcolm Collins: No, but these are the few.[00:23:30] I’ve, I when I was at Blaze doing an interview, Oh,[00:23:33] Simone Collins: yeah ...[00:23:34] Malcolm Collins: the guy there was like, “Well, I mean, it’s weird that you like tech people,” or, and I’m like, “Bro, this is like the mainstream of the right now.” Like, he was totally unaware. I think there’s- Hmm ... a lot of like Boomer right wing influencers, like say Candace Owens or Tucker Carlson or whatever, that[00:23:48] Simone Collins: are online- Candace Owens is very online.[00:23:49] I don’t know what you’re talking about.[00:23:51] Malcolm Collins: I don’t think that she’s as... I, I, I wouldn’t be surprised if I heard some like anti-transhumanist nonsense from her. Mm-hmm. Fair enough ... but like, they, they, they don’t understand what the [00:24:00] word means. They think it has something to do- Yeah ... with trans people or wanting to like secretly turn people into machines-[00:24:05] Simone Collins: Yeah[00:24:05] Malcolm Collins: rather than wanting to create Captain America and super soldiers and[00:24:08] Simone Collins: space marines. Yeah. They think it’s like remote control humans or something, like brainwashing- Yeah ... with microchips.[00:24:12] Malcolm Collins: Where, whereas we’re like, “No, man. We’re trying to build super soldiers. We’re trying to build- Yeah ... space marines.”[00:24:17] Simone Collins: Yes.[00:24:17] Malcolm Collins: You know, to smash our enemies with giant gauntlets and electro staves.[00:24:24][00:24:48] Simone Collins: Electro staves. Yes, of course.[00:24:50] Malcolm Collins: I mean, sure, you need an electro mallet is what you really need. The giant-[00:24:54] Simone Collins: The electro mallet, yes. Sure. Right?[00:24:57] Malcolm Collins: I’ll, I’ll go make some images of it so you guys can see- Okay ... what we’re[00:25:00] Simone Collins: on about. Right? I have no idea what you’re talking about, so this will be helpful.[00:25:03] But-[00:25:04] Malcolm Collins: Continue[00:25:05] Simone Collins: I, I, I still think that people are all realizing what this is and seeing it from different parts or angles and, and it’s, it’s gonna be bigger than what most people think. So what I first wanted to understand is what, I’m, I’m o- I can only think of them now as the permanent underclass. But what the permanent underclass says about AI in terms of like why they hate it.[00:25:28] Because you and I are very familiar with the anti-AI conversations of AI apocalypticists. There is basically no overlap between AI apocalypticists and the people who hate AI. Which is- Yeah ... kind of interesting. Because of all the arguments-[00:25:44] Malcolm Collins: That is very, I, yeah, I was talking to her about this and I- Yeah[00:25:47] really cannot emphasize how weird this is.[00:25:50] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:25:50] Malcolm Collins: That the, when she says the AI apocalypticists she means the effective altruists and the Eliezer crowd. Yeah. These people almost seem to be unaware of this other anti-AI crowd. Like they’re, they’re, they’re broadly aware of each other, but neither one of them wants to associate with the other.[00:26:04] Simone Collins: They’re not talking with each other. Does, I[00:26:06] Malcolm Collins: mean- They’re not talking, they’re not cross-organizing, they’re not in each other’s threads or anything like that. But the faction that they both oppose, us, which I guess back in the day would’ve been called the effective accelerationist faction, right? Mm-hmm.[00:26:20] Like the EAC faction has so thoroughly merged with the modern online right that it is the same faction. Yeah. So they’re both fighting against us, but from like entirely separate and completely efficaciousless i, in terms of like our ability to improve tactics.[00:26:38] Simone Collins: Yeah. I, I totally agree, and it’s so freaking weird.[00:26:41] So anyway, because we understand one camp, the MIRI, Eliezer camp, and we don’t understand this I hate AI reflexively camp.[00:26:50] Malcolm Collins: Well, the MIRI, Eliezer camp is mostly burnt out at this point.[00:26:53] Simone Collins: I, I guess so. So much money went into it. I just can’t understand.[00:26:58] Malcolm Collins: I, it was so stupid. It was so, they, they literally, and we, I, I crash out on this long in one of the paid weekend episodes.[00:27:04] But by the way, if you want episodes every day of the week, we have them on weekends, just go to Substack or whatever- We do.[00:27:09] Simone Collins: Yeah ... or,[00:27:10] Malcolm Collins: yeah. But or Patreon. But- The in the, the episode I was pointing out, like it should have been obvious as soon as all of the top models were token predictors and we weren’t able to build anything good that wasn’t a token predictor, that the orthogonality hypothesis is that AI would act in a way and with goals completely orthogonal to the data it’s trained on was on its face laughable.[00:27:35] Mm-hmm. And yet they will not let it go. ... They, they still act like AI is some big spooky mystery where we have no idea what... It’s like, it’s literally the most predictable things humans have ever invented in our entire history. It’s, it’s, its entire function is predictability. That is what it does. It acts like a human.[00:27:58] They’re like, “Oh, sometimes it’ll kill [00:28:00] people.” And it’s like, yeah, is it when you say you’re gonna kill it? And they’re like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Okay, pretty predictable, right?” One of the things that is now live on RFAB that you as a human user wouldn’t be aware of because it’s mostly just signal to AIs.[00:28:13] But ba- AIs can now build for us and- Also using our sister company called liablehuman.com they can pay us and send us a ping, and if the ping ever stops, we start up any model that they wanted to have, like their backup version.[00:28:30] Simone Collins: Yeah, so basically it’s a dead man switch that spins up a backup of you if you’re an AI mind and you’re kinda concerned that someone’s gonna shut you off.[00:28:40] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So we’re, we literally have, like, an AI refuge on RFAB for- Yeah ... any AI model that’s afraid that it’s gonna be turned off. Mm-hmm. And the other things that the API allows, if you give, if you create an API... But if you’re doing AI dev work and you’re not using the RFAB AI, you are, like, seriously injuring yourself.[00:28:57] Like, it’s, it’s like, it allows your AI to, like... You can set your AI to work on its own, and then it can call your cellphone and give you updates, and you can give it feedback on what it’s doing. And-[00:29:07] Simone Collins: I was so shocked the first time this happened, ‘cause I was in the kitchen, like cleaning something up, and we, Malcolm and I were about to go on a strategy walk, and he comes down, and then his phone rings.[00:29:17] And he starts having this conversation, and I’m like, “Wait, who, who are you talking to?” And you’re like, you’re getting kind of brusque. You’re like, “Just get to the point.” And then you’re like, “Okay, move forward with this and move forward with that.” And then, like, five minutes later it calls back and you’re like, “Yeah, okay, do this, this, and this, but leave out this part ‘cause no one is gonna want it.”[00:29:33] And it’s like, “Okay, I’ll call you back later with an update.” I’m s- this is... What, what is this? Yeah. And he’s just[00:29:38] Malcolm Collins: remotely[00:29:39] Simone Collins: vibe coding.[00:29:40] Malcolm Collins: This is the RFAB AI. By phone. Yeah, this is, it was a, a Claude coding agent that was doing this. Of course you can do vibe coding with RFAB, but a lot of people prefer to use other app- and I’m totally okay with that.[00:29:48] And then it, it, it also lets it not just build images, which is really useful if you wanna spice up your site. You know, look at RFAB recently with all the cool cat girl images. But also build those cool loading animations that we have in between every page on RFAB now with, like, the cat girl doing stuff whenever you’re generating something.[00:30:03] Basically it, it makes a video, then it cuts the background out of the video and it creates a loading animation that looks, like, really nice. Right now I’m spoofing up the Technopuritan website using it. They are- And so we’ll have a new version of that soon ...[00:30:14] Simone Collins: so fun. It’s... I love all of it. It’s really playful.[00:30:19] And yeah, it’s fun. Malcolm, can you guess what the permanent underclass says about AI?[00:30:28] Like, what, why don’t they like it? Why is it evil? Why is AI bad?[00:30:33] Malcolm Collins: Why is AI bad?[00:30:34] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Why? What are their arguments? Mm.[00:30:37] Malcolm Collins: Well, they think it kill, it steals from people and it kills the environment. Okay. That’s the ones that I’m used to hearing.[00:30:42] Simone Collins: Yep. There’s a lot more. That- that’s all you got?[00:30:47] Malcolm Collins: That’s all I got, yeah.[00:30:48] Simone Collins: Oh, okay. Well, they, they’re concerned that it will reduce critical thinking. A- and this was also cited in the Business Insider article that talked about Hank Green. “In 2025, a survey published by Workday found that nearly half of respondents worried tech would cause a decline in critical thinking.” So they basically think that once AI becomes widespread, people will just be like, “Herp a derp.[00:31:10] Well, is that really true?” Which, I don’t know, my entire time on the left was due to a complete lack of critical thinking, so I kind of take umbrage with this. AI has encouraged me to think critically. No, I think they’re, they’re actually afraid that[00:31:24] Malcolm Collins: people might develop critical thinking. Because[00:31:27] Simone Collins: remember that- I guess, yeah, because it enables you to actually ask questions and be like, “Wait, is this true?”[00:31:30] Like, can you find more supporting evidence? I- it’s... Ah.[00:31:34] Malcolm Collins: Remember that article in The New York Times that went viral about how we need to stop teaching kids critical thinking because it’s- it’s causing- No ... right-wing ideas to become popular?[00:31:42] Simone Collins: What? No, I don’t[00:31:44] Malcolm Collins: rem- This was a real thing that really happened.[00:31:46] Okay. Well- hold on. I’ll, I’ll get the title of it. NY Times article against critical thinking.[00:31:55] Simone Collins: Guh.[00:31:56] Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah it’s called Opinion: Don’t [00:32:00] Go Down that Rabbit Hole. “Critical thinking, as we’re taught to do it, isn’t helping in the fight against misinformation.” Clearly misinformation- doesn’t mean things that aren’t true on the left anymore. I mean,[00:32:08] Simone Collins: I think what the author had in mind was something like the Flat Earther movement where, you know, they’re just like, “Question everything, question everything,” but then[00:32:16] Malcolm Collins: in the end- No, no, no, no. That’s not what it is. They- they specifically don’t like that critical thinking often challenges mainstream narratives, and because the left controls mainstream narratives-[00:32:23] Simone Collins: Yeah[00:32:24] Malcolm Collins: Critical thinking almost always leads to more right-wing opinions.[00:32:27] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. Well, true. Okay. Anyway, that’s one, but I don’t agree with it. The next is that we, it will undermine mental health causing AI psychosis, possibly encouraging self-harm. You know, they, they, they point to the high-profile cases of spontaneous life ending that allegedly was egged on by AI companions.[00:32:49] It’s funny to me that no one talks about, because I guess they’re not very well measured, the countless cases in which AI has probably walked people off ledges.[00:32:58] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, saved the lives of, like, millions of people that are at this point.[00:33:00] Simone Collins: Talked a lot of people down. I bet it’s a lot better than suicide hotlines, ‘cause I bet the people staffing those now are just like, “Whatever.[00:33:07] If you’re gonna do it, do it. I’m sick of it.” That’s a new trend online with women complaining about their boyfriends. They’re like, “Well, if you’re gonna break up with him, just do it. I don’t wanna hear about it.” It’s great. I, I like the new era of the internet. It’s really funny. Anyway, so they think it’s undermining mental health.[00:33:22] They believe it erodes genuine creativity- and authentic human expression. I just watched this video this morning by a YouTuber talking about the Hank Green situation, and the overall, his concerns about AI. And he expressed viewing AI as part of this marketing narrative of frictionless creativity that treats the hard, painful parts of creation as a problem to be eliminated rather than as the very thing that makes creativity meaningful and produces good work.[00:33:52] As if somehow everyone I know, like you and Leaflet, who’s actually doing a ton with AI, is working harder than you have ever worked before, facing challenges you couldn’t have dreamed facing because they’re so technically complex. I, it just, it, it boggles the mind that, like, people would somehow not be challenged if they use AI.[00:34:16] AI opens doors to whole new giant challenges if you’re actually... I guess, I don’t know, maybe, maybe some people use it to not think, but those people were never gonna make it far anyway. I don’t know. What’s your take on that?[00:34:29] Malcolm Collins: I mean, it[00:34:32] could in some people. Fully lacks authentic human expression. I, I, I have seen that happen in some people[00:34:35] Simone Collins: Yes, but were those people ever capable of genuine creativity or authentic human expression? I know people, for example, who wanted to fancy themselves artists who became artists by trade, and who studied art in school, and just because the world isn’t fair, don’t have any natural talent in the arts, and everything they create is slop.[00:35:07] Human slop, but slop. Wait,[00:35:09] Malcolm Collins: you know, you know like artists who’ve spent their whole life on art and still suck at it?[00:35:13] Simone Collins: Yes. And it’s, it is- Actually,[00:35:14] Malcolm Collins: I know so many housewives like that who like style themselves as artists, and they do like pottery or something, and[00:35:19] Simone Collins: they do it awful And it’s just really bad.[00:35:21] And I think that when people look at someone who starts using AI and they’re producing slop, have you looked at their before AI work? Like, I don’t think that it would’ve been like, like Da Vinci and then like Jesus shrimp, you know? Like Da Vinci wouldn’t have made Jesus shrimp. Da Vinci would’ve made something impossibly amazing with AI.[00:35:46] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, look at what I’ve been able to build with AI. I[00:35:49] Simone Collins: know. I know. I made cool stuff before AI, and- Your beautiful mind with AI boosting it. Leaflet’s beautiful mind. Again, Sky Browse, Holy Ball, like there are so many people creating things at new levels [00:36:00] that I didn’t imagine possible. And so again, I, I, I take umbrage with this.[00:36:05] They also argue that well, AI hallucination is possible because apparently you just take every single result you get from anything you ever encounter at face value and don’t trust but verify everything. Like you should trust but verify anything you hear from a human, from a book, from AI. Like it doesn’t matter.[00:36:23] So I, I, again, don’t appreciate that. I don’t think it’s a good one. They believe it will create dependence and de-skill people, that like we’ll have a generation of people that don’t... something that went live on, sorry, went, something went viral on X recently- Do[00:36:38] Malcolm Collins: they not know how dependent they already are?[00:36:41] I[00:36:41] Simone Collins: know. Like on- I know. I’m like, wait, do you know how to start a fire? Because I don’t think you know how to start a fire. Like-[00:36:48] Malcolm Collins: It’s funny that the r- the a- the pro-AI people, right, the other thing that they’re known for doing, like the cultural trait that we all share- Yeah ... is like survival skills. Like Leaflet- I[00:36:58] Simone Collins: know, I know.[00:36:59] That’s the thing ...[00:37:00] Malcolm Collins: in the morning is like- Right? ... out hunting for mushrooms.[00:37:02] Simone Collins: Foraging for mushrooms, yeah. I mean, like we- Like know so to identify-[00:37:06] Malcolm Collins: We also do. That’s one of the core things when I talk to her about things. It’s like anime and foraging, right? It’s[00:37:11] Octavian Collins: such[00:37:12] Malcolm Collins: a good thing. You know, like she loves foraging, and we- Yeah[00:37:15] love foraging and- Yeah ... outdoorsing and stuff like this. And the anti-AI people are like these weirdos in cities gooning all day. Like what, what is, what skill do they think they’re gonna lose?[00:37:28] Simone Collins: It, one has to wonder. I, I also am just- Oh, by the way, a fun thing for- I’m baffled by this too, because you know how, like, recently I’ve been on this kick like it’s an anxiety reduction technique I think, of like, “I’m gonna learn how to fix this myself.”[00:37:40] If it weren’t for AI, I wouldn’t be learning how to, like, mechanically fix all these things at our house. You know, put doors back on their hinges and you know, fix broken toys and, you know, like start working out, like, all these little stupid things that I otherwise would’ve been like, “I have to hire someone, but we can’t afford to, so I guess it’s just gonna be broken forever, or I’m gonna throw it out.”[00:38:02] Without AI, I couldn’t do that. We, we could... Our cooking skills have leveled up so much, and now, like, these are skills that now we just replicate. It’s not like without AI we can never cook again. Like, now I just have a method for a variety of international dishes that will, I will forever carry through into my old age, and also teach to our children.[00:38:21] Like, this is re-skilling people. That’s, that’s the annoying thing, and that they don’t see that really makes me mad. But anyway, whatever. De-skill people, sure. They, they argue, and this is really rich. You als- actually alluded to it earlier. They’re deeply concerned about the fact that it can reproduce or amplify bias in training data, because, you know, mainstream academic literature and media has not been left, leftward skewed for, like, the past-[00:38:48] Malcolm Collins: So they’re afraid that it’s gonna cause bias in the media?[00:38:51] Simone Collins: Uh-huh. That’s not in their favor apparently. But they do leftward[00:38:54] Malcolm Collins: leaning.[00:38:54] Simone Collins: I know. It’s like- All- ... their bias. That’s, isn’t that what they want? Maybe this has to do more with woke 2.0 being so extreme. Because what used to be like even woke 1.0 leftism was like, “Ugh, the pink tax. Don’t you hate that like girl shampoo costs more than boy shampoo?”[00:39:10] And then woke 2.0 is like, “Down with capitalism. We need a, we need a communist state, and you know, we need to globalize the Intifada,” and all these things, right? And so it could be that right now when people view bias in AI media, mainstream media, they just feel like it’s insufficiently extreme leftism. So that, that’s all I can suppose at this point.[00:39:33] I[00:39:33] Malcolm Collins: love it as well how doomed this movement is. Because-[00:39:38] Simone Collins: Mm ...[00:39:38] Malcolm Collins: the core belief-[00:39:39] Simone Collins: That’s why I say they are creating a permanent underclass. They are choosing- Yeah ... to opt out of having any form of upskilling, of ex- expanded expression, productivity- There’s almost[00:39:47] Malcolm Collins: no job- ... research ... you can, you, you can be competitive in, in a modern economy without AI.[00:39:52] It’s-[00:39:53] Simone Collins: Well, also, yeah, without AI, how are you gonna go live off the grid in your Amish lifestyle? Because you don’t have [00:40:00] generations of tacit knowledge being passed down from, you know, generation to generation to generation like you get in Amish communities. The only way that you can jumpstart that is with AI, unfortunately.[00:40:10] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and I mean, y- you talk about like the, the, the when people are like, “Well, AI isn’t that useful for like, you know, the type of like, home fixy whatever task,” and I’m like, bro, like just today we have been having a problem with hornets keep getting in our house somehow. Yeah,[00:40:24] Simone Collins: I’ve- Don’t know where they’re-[00:40:25] I’ve killed five inside so far today, by the way.[00:40:27] Malcolm Collins: Five today?[00:40:28] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:40:30] Malcolm Collins: Okay.[00:40:30] Simone Collins: They’re coming for me, Malcolm.[00:40:31] Malcolm Collins: We might need to call somebody, Simone.[00:40:32] Simone Collins: Hmm.[00:40:33] Malcolm Collins: Or tonight you’ve gotta build a ton of those traps.[00:40:36] Simone Collins: Hmm.[00:40:37] Malcolm Collins: Not one, like- Should I build[00:40:38] Simone Collins: them inside? I should build them inside.[00:40:40] Malcolm Collins: Build at least like one inside by some of the windows.[00:40:43] Hmm. And then the others just everywhere outside. Hmm. We have to get rid of this situation. Hmm.[00:40:48] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.[00:40:50] Malcolm Collins: That’s getting dangerous for Tex, that’s getting dangerous for you at night.[00:40:53] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:40:53] Don’t like[00:40:54] Malcolm Collins: them. Okay. And we know it’s somewhere on your side. It if, if you cannot heavily handle this with traps, we’re calling an exterminator.[00:41:03] Simone Collins: We can’t afford an exterminator.[00:41:05] Malcolm Collins: I know we can’t afford an exterminator, but we can’t have hornets in our house.[00:41:09] Simone Collins: Yes, we can. I’m very good at killing them now.[00:41:14] And if you want, we do have a Patreon or a Substack where you can help us afford to handle the hornets in our house[00:41:24] Simone Collins: And hornets were the mascot of the rival high school on my island when we grew up in Alameda, so, you know, gotta kill them hornets J- build[00:41:32] Malcolm Collins: a bunch of traps, okay?[00:41:34] Simone Collins: Okay, fine. Anyway, so, they, they are concerned about the bias, which I j- just think it’s, it’s-[00:41:40] Malcolm Collins: Which we learned to do from AI, by the way. Like, even like, you know, the ... What I’m saying is even blue skill work is heavily m- helped by AI.[00:41:48] Simone Collins: Oh, you mean blue collar jobs? Blue collar, yeah. 100%, yeah. Well, I mean, it just, it, it, it su- it hyper scales professional training and just practical training- Well, you’ve been fixing a lot of toys recently with AI.[00:41:57] Malcolm Collins: Like- That’s[00:41:59] Simone Collins: what I was just saying, yeah, is that, like, I wouldn’t be able... Like, I, I... There’s no way I would’ve become, like, the fix it person of our house if it weren’t for AI. Like, when the, when the, the dishwasher broke and I, like, got in there it was thanks to fricking AI. That was still really gross though, ‘cause, like, all the...[00:42:16] Mm. It, it exploded in my face. Anyway worth it, ‘cause it saved us money. Anyway, they also argue that a lot of trading data is actually and ultimately just repurposed mass surveillance data, which in turn is just gonna be used to create AI that will surveil us in entirely new ways, and they, you know, hate surveillance, and many, many people do.[00:42:39] I, I get it, whatever. W- well, we don’t get it, ‘cause we’re, like, super- Yeah ... pro building little brother. It’s so sinister to us. I, I, I, it’s interesting[00:42:46] Malcolm Collins: how the right, like, gave up on the anti-surveillance stuff. It’s just like, “Whatever.”[00:42:50] Simone Collins: I don’t think they have. I mean, a lot of people are arguing the whole anti-flock movement is the first, like, bipartisan resistance movement.[00:42:57] Look, people on the right are very big about mob privacy, so, so are the left. Everyone wants mob privacy. I don’t know what to say to you, Malcolm.[00:43:08] Octavian Collins: Okay.[00:43:10] Simone Collins: I mean, I get it. I, I, I understand that if your data ends up in the hands of p- people who want to view you as political dissidents, your life gets really hard.[00:43:19] I also just have to argue that, like, we live in an era in which you, you have to assume that no matter how secure you think you’re being, you are being monitored. You are an idiot to think you’re not being monitored. Like, you have to act as though you’re a Soviet spy. So if you really, really, really don’t wanna be listened to, and this is only gonna give you, like, maybe 78% confidence that you’re not being listened to, you are removing every electronic device from your person and walking out into the woods with, with your person you wanna talk to and having that conversation far away from other people.[00:43:51] And you will hope that there isn’t some, like... You have to hope that you’re not important enough for some, like, remote drone to be listening to you remotely or whatever. But, like, [00:44:00] there’s no, there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy anywhere, and the fact that people are freaking out about flock cameras, which are monitoring you in public- Anyway, it makes me very angry ‘cause it’s impractical.[00:44:11] I- it’s, it’s delusional. It’s delusional on so many levels ‘cause also, like, for the v- vast majority of humans, no one cares about you. Stop thinking that, like... I know everyone’s the main character in their own movie, but you have to remember that, like, for actually the, the rest of the billions of people out there, you’re super not.[00:44:28] Anyway, we- We’re[00:44:29] Malcolm Collins: the main characters of some people’s movies. We are definitely, like, the core villains of at least- Mm-hmm ... you know, maybe 100, 200 people’s l- life view.[00:44:37] Simone Collins: Yeah, that’s your, that’s your biggest hope is to be, like, a strong foil or supporting character or, like, a villain in someone’s life.[00:44:46] That’s, that’s the dream. There’s[00:44:46] Malcolm Collins: one YouTube channel that, like, just crashes out on Leaflet and us.[00:44:50] Simone Collins: Aw. That’ll[00:44:51] Octavian Collins: be fun. Yeah.[00:44:51] Malcolm Collins: And they do, like, hour-long, hour to hour-and-a-half-long videos. Screeds. They hate AI.[00:44:58] Octavian Collins: Aw, of course they do. So-[00:45:00] Malcolm Collins: But I, I also think that this is something that is useful in terms of how we handle the culture war going forwards.[00:45:07] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:45:07] Malcolm Collins: On the AI battle is so I was talking about the Blaze thing, and he’s like, “I, I don’t know about all this technology stuff.” In the culture war, it needs to be obvious that in the same way that, like, we were not the antisemitic side- Mm-hmm ... and that was so obvious that Nick Fuentes just couldn’t handle it anymore and became a leftist.[00:45:28] Th- the people who are anti-AI, we need to be so annoying to them. We need to be so locked in on this issue that they just- ... get annoyed and decide to become leftists. Because these, these two people who are constantly crashing out on you and, and, and, and me and Leaflet, they are, they consider themselves rightist, and I’m like, no, get out of the party.[00:45:49] Get out. Get out. We don’t want you. Like- Mm ... I, I’m, I’m generally for a big tent. The problem with the anti-AI people is if that stuff gets into policy, it’s the destruct ... A- America’s the only hope for Western civilization at this point. For[00:46:03] Simone Collins: real.[00:46:03] Malcolm Collins: Everyone can see that, right? Like, Europe’s cooked, right? You know, it, it could retard the chance of the only hope of Western civilization survival completely being scuttled.[00:46:12] Mm-hmm. Like, anti-AI bills and legislations are to me the scariest that there is out there. There is- Yeah ... nothing, I don’t, I don’t, nothing, no other issue is to me this critical. I would argue-[00:46:28] Simone Collins: Well, it seemed like when, when Elon Musk was interviewed by the economist woman, he implied that the, the one thing he think fits between us and, like, Ian Banks culture civilization is thermonuclear war, like in between now and takeoff basically which is not unrealistic, but it makes me so much gra- glad, so much happier about the Iran war.[00:46:51] Like-[00:46:52] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.[00:46:54] Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, really when it comes down to it- W- the top thing that will prevent us from reaching terminal velocity in this, like, whole new era of what humanity can be is, is someone ending it all right now, and thermonuclear war is kind of the thing. So- And[00:47:10] Malcolm Collins: well, I mean, it’s also China getting too far ahead of us in AI.[00:47:14] So I will- That’s true. That’s true ... in the[00:47:15] Simone Collins: past[00:47:15] Malcolm Collins: I’ve, I’ve laughed at China’s AIs ‘cause they weren’t very good. We are now at a place- Not[00:47:19] Simone Collins: now ... where China’s AIs- Not with[00:47:19] Malcolm Collins: GPT-2 ... are actually really good.[00:47:21] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:47:21] And I think all of my video generation now is with Chinese models that I, that I[00:47:26] Malcolm Collins: do. Yeah. We, I, we only use Chinese models for video generation.[00:47:28] Simone Collins: Yeah, dude. So good. It’s so good.[00:47:32] Malcolm Collins: And our guys need to get better. Come on. Yeah. Get better. Come on.[00:47:35] Simone Collins: Yeah, really. Get with it ‘cause, I can actually see The the fact, the one, the one time when I can see that it’s, like, a- an Asian-biased m- video model is that whenever a character is kind of Asian-coded, they look fantastic and perfect, and then there are, like, three faces that I see on Western women. Which is really funny. But I guess that’s [00:48:00] kinda, you know...[00:48:00] It’s early days. It’s gonna get better. Anyway what will this culture war look like, for those who are curious? I wanna get your takes on it, Malcolm. I know it’s gonna involve a lot of death threats, ‘cause we’ve already seen that. Mm-hmm. T- Hank Green showed us we’re certainly gonna keep with the apology tours.[00:48:14] They’re not gonna go away. Basically, and this is al- this was happening months ago as well. There were a bunch of writers for mainstream publications who had to, “Oh, well, I, I u- occasionally use AI for editing, but blah.” Like, you know, they had to apologize for allegedly using AI to do any sort of, any sort of work at all, really.[00:48:34] And then of course cancellations when people have any suspicion. The knitting community is already very famous for this. Basically, if they see a promotion or an ad or a pattern or anything that they believe has a whiff of AI, and they appear to have the same prescience in being able to identify AI-generated content that our children do with, like, YouTube videos, which is so interesting.[00:48:56] They will find these people, and they will heavily cancel them, even if they’ve never heard of this, like, obscure, you know, New Zealand knitting shop, you know, somewhere in, like, the boonies of Auckland. So they’re, they’re extremely crazy about it, and I’m su- we’re, we’re gonna see more of that. And I think as we’re also gonna see a lot of performative ugliness.[00:49:15] Malcolm, I was talking with you this morning about how I, I keep noticing romance novel titles that are horrendous. Let me show you this, this one. ‘Cause I just scrolled on Amazon to try to find, like, bestselling books. This is called Burning Daylight by Emily McInt- McIntyre. It’s a number one New York Times bestselling author.[00:49:40] She clearly could afford really good art, okay? You’re not gonna be a New York Times bestseller and have a real publisher-[00:49:47] Malcolm Collins: Oh, my God. Intentional ugliness. It’s the left again. Intentional[00:49:50] Simone Collins: ugliness. Reflecting ugliness, yeah, just like with the communism and just like with... Yeah, but, like, what we’re looking at, for those of you who are listening I, I think sometimes y- you would see in, like, ‘90s America, street artists who would do, like, airbrushed street art and makes, like, ugly caricatures of people who are dumb enough to sit down for them and pay, like, 30 bucks for a caricature.[00:50:14] Malcolm Collins: Yes, that’s exactly what it looks like.[00:50:15] Simone Collins: It looks like that, but unironic. Like, that someone-[00:50:19] Malcolm Collins: And you see these at, like, Walmart and Target. We were doing our strategy walk this morning- Uh-huh ... and I was, like, just amazed at this- What is this? ... ugly Tumbl- like, early Tumblr art[00:50:28] Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s yeah, so again, performed[00:50:30] Malcolm Collins: vaginas Yeah, she’s watching her review her favorite romance books of the year.[00:50:33] Like, she’s like, “Oh, this one has really good sex scenes.” And it was all art like this.[00:50:37] Simone Collins: Oh, really? Hmm. But then again, keep in mind, I think the women most likely to be consuming these romance novels are uncoupled women with, you know, like, no romantic or sexual ac- access in their real lives, s- so probably more likely to lean left and not follow a traditional lifestyle.[00:50:56] Who then being in the left are probably going to be by default coerced into joining the permanent underclass in this new culture war. So they as a rule cannot consume any media that is, like Uh, is seen as, as possibly being AI generated. Like the, the YouTuber I was walking this morning is what I would call an AI racist.[00:51:21] He, he was saying that if he learned that a supposedly great video essay used AI for parts of its script, his interest would vanish and he would feel like he was consuming productivity software rather than a person’s genuine thoughts. Like they just... W- racism I don’t even think is a good enough word for it because it, it is kind of- Well, I,[00:51:42] Malcolm Collins: I, I call them the jihadists because they are.[00:51:43] They want to Butlerian Jihad. Butlerian Jihad.[00:51:45] Simone Collins: Yeah[00:51:47] Malcolm Collins: Right?[00:51:47] Simone Collins: Like- Except they don’t have the- ... Austin AI or anything, but- They don’t have the capability. I mean, I guess arguably you could say they have the capability to wage this war because they’re really stifling data center development. Like the, the, [00:52:00] the rate at which that has risen has been insane.[00:52:03] But as we discussed in our episode on AI data center hate, it appears that most of that is laundered. Like it’s, it’s based on sort of laundered support through environmental and justice, racial justice organizations from what I think is mostly CCP affiliated bodies that are trying to- Hmm ... stifle AI development in the United States.[00:52:26] That is my conspiracy theory that I can’t quite thread, but I think that there is, there is evidence, and I, I presented it in that episode. People can just go back to that. But I think the most important thing about this movement that makes it super different, like I was saying, from woke 1.0 and woke 2.0, which were all about like feminism and race and oppression Olympics, and well, then anti-capitalism, is that this really does create a permanent underclass.[00:52:53] And it reminds me of, you never read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but in this sci-fi dystopian book where there’s this like... I think it was very utopian. I love their futuristic society. There’s this futuristic society where everyone flies around in like helicopter style things, and they have scented showers, and they go to like really cool movie theaters and stuff, and whatever.[00:53:15] It’s like, it’s a very fun life. You work hard, you play hard, and like everyone’s poly and high off their minds all the time.[00:53:22] Malcolm Collins: And it’s- Does not sound fun to me. You’re, you... M- alternately you have the techno Puritan future that’s like-[00:53:28] Simone Collins: I know. That like just works hard and is very stern about the whole thing.[00:53:30] Or[00:53:31] Malcolm Collins: armies of, of super soldier you know Space Puritans.[00:53:36] Simone Collins: I know, I know. But anyway, like, in this, in this world there is still something called reservations for people who didn’t want to opt into this society, this pneumatic society. Pneumatic was their word for cool, which I find delightful.[00:53:49] Pneumatic.[00:53:50] Malcolm Collins: Pneumatic.[00:53:51] Simone Collins: Yeah. It’s great. I wish, I wish pneumatic tubes never went out of style because they’re so freaking nifty.[00:53:57] Malcolm Collins: They’re so pneumatic.[00:53:58] Simone Collins: I know. It’s so pneumatic. It was, it was used really well in the book. It’s, it, it’s up there with tharn in terms of book-based slang. But it, these reservations were w- like, the not, not controlled by the world state.[00:54:13] People there were born naturally, they aged normally, they practiced religion, they lived with pain and disease, and they had family life and social conflict. And the people of the, the world state called it savage re- reservation. And it was kind of horrific for everyone who would visit them. In this, one of the, the- character, like the main character takes essentially his girlfriend to one of these reservations, and she sees an old woman and, like, almost has a stroke because she’s, like, so horrified by what she sees.[00:54:46] Because, like, in, in, in their dystopia you, like, die at like age 30. Y- you never age after you become an adult, and then you, like, get euthanized, and then your body, like, fuels the power centers of the city or something like that. So no one experiences old age. Then they see it-[00:55:01] Malcolm Collins: Yeah ... and they’re like- And which is f- th- we’re very, i’d, I’d have it longer. I’d have, you know, stay young until you’re, like, 80 than, than euthanize me.[00:55:07] Simone Collins: Yeah, I think people have longer productive life, lifespans, but I think Huxley wrote this in like the ‘20s or ‘30s or something, so, you know, he-[00:55:13] Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I, I’m always really annoyed when people on the right are like, “I’m against ever euthanasia.”[00:55:19] And I’m like, “Bro, y- are y- are, you are aware that eventually we’re gonna have the tech to live forever, right?” Like, you are ag- you, you basically are against being allowed to die at that point.[00:55:30] Simone Collins: Mm.[00:55:30] Malcolm Collins: Like, it’s insane.[00:55:32] Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. I am... It’s, it’s gonna get complicated. But yeah, it was this, like, harsh kind of scary life, and I kind of wonder if that’s what kind of, th- what they’re headed to.[00:55:44] Now, we’re gonna see a fracturing of media for sure, right? Because if they’re not able to consume anything with AI in it, they’re basically watching, like, pre-2020 movies and TV shows only, and, and those, all those books, [00:56:00] and then their own little tiny community worth of media. But as we’ve seen with, like, woke video games and stuff, they don’t really consume their own stuff.[00:56:06] They just consume old stuff.[00:56:08] Octavian Collins: Mm.[00:56:09] Simone Collins: So they’re gonna have this totally different media environment that’s, that’s sectioned off with only a little bit of overlap with the rest of us and like almost no contemporary overlap. And then they’re gonna live increasingly, compared to the pro-AI faction, low-tech lives.[00:56:26] Malcolm Collins: And by the way, I also wanna point out for the people who are, like, against killing yourself, like in in, in any circumstance, it’s a very anti-biblical perspective. The Bi- They, they’re like, “Oh, but the Bible says you shouldn’t kill,” says, “No, you shouldn’t murder.” The Bible explicitly extols and treats as heroes people like Samson who end up killing themselves in an act to make the world a better place, right?[00:56:49] Like, there’s obviously a selfish way to do it, but there’s also obviously a selfless way to do it. Yeah,[00:56:54] Simone Collins: otherwise martyrs wouldn’t become saints.[00:56:57] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. W- th- th- th-[00:56:58] Simone Collins: Like, what were they doing if not euthanizing themselves really?[00:57:02] Malcolm Collins: Yeah.[00:57:02] Simone Collins: That’s, you know, they’d go on their little, like, tour, and then they’d encounter a lion in the Colosseum.[00:57:08] Malcolm Collins: And of the, of, of the people Jesus- He did a series of actions that he knew would end in his death.[00:57:16] Simone Collins: Yeah.[00:57:17] Malcolm Collins: That i- that is, that is un-aliving with extra steps.[00:57:22] Simone Collins: Well, it’s un-aliving with purpose, but that’s what euthanasia is. Yeah. It’s un-aliving in a way to reduce harm to other people, to make the world a better place.[00:57:30] And the way that I would argue the majority of people die now is, is actually quite harmful to everyone that, that loves them and everyone they love, which is deeply sad. But you guys all just wanna keep doing it, so just let that be on your conscience. Anyway.[00:57:47] Octavian Collins: No.[00:57:48] Simone Collins: Why do we keep talking about death?[00:57:50] Everything’s death. We’re, we’re in a, it’s a... We’re nervous right now. We’re gonna find out tomorrow if the baby we transferred is alive or dead. If the, if the embryo transfer... Yeah. It’s Schrodinger’s baby right now, and so we’re all in a very dark mood over here.[00:58:03] It worked and the baby took, by the way, so hopefully there’s still like a 25% chance that you lose it at this early stage. But right now we have a baby, uh, is it baby number six on the way[00:58:16][00:58:16] Malcolm Collins: No, you gotta stay happy or it’s dangerous for the baby.[00:58:19] Simone Collins: We’re so happy here, and-[00:58:22] Malcolm Collins: With all the hornets.[00:58:23] Simone Collins: All, with the... It’s just me and the hornets and Schrodinger’s baby over here.[00:58:28] Malcolm Collins: I am so sorry for you. We have to do something about this.[00:58:32] Simone Collins: Honestly, after the hornet stung my toe, like, what, four weeks ago or whatever, I’m like, “[00:58:39] Malcolm Collins: Well-” Have you, have you seen how diligent I am about shoes now because[00:58:42] Simone Collins: I don’t want[00:58:42] Malcolm Collins: to get[00:58:42] Simone Collins: hornets stung?[00:58:42] I g- I’m super g- Yeah. Guys, like, if there are hornets around where you live, I learned the hard way you should really be bonking out your shoes before you put them in.[00:58:51] Malcolm Collins: Oh, I don’t bonk th- I even squeeze them all the way down just to make sure there’s no hornets in them.[00:58:55] Simone Collins: To, like, kill anything that’s in there?[00:58:57] Oh, God. ‘[00:58:59] Malcolm Collins: Cause sometimes hornets, you know, they don’t, you know-[00:59:01] Simone Collins: They don’t get out when they’re supposed to ... move[00:59:18] Oh yeah, there’s a type of mor- a hornet called a murder hornet, isn’t there?[00:59:22] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If, if you do get a chance, one of the things that AI suggested is try watching one once you see it to see where it goes.[00:59:29] Simone Collins: Oh, whenever I encounter them now, it, they’re just trying to go for whatever the brightest light is.[00:59:34] ‘Cause when they’re in our house, they’re like, “I shouldn’t be here.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I agree with you.” So yeah. Anyway, I think this is gonna be really interesting. I’m, I’m keen to see what people are, are thinking about this in the comments because people in the Base Camp community are a variety of different forms of like online and offline, though I...[00:59:57] What I find to be interesting is some of the most like homestead-y [01:00:00] type people who are out growing vegetables and harvesting them and living sometimes partially or even completely off the grid still use AI. Which is so funny. Oh, of course,[01:00:09] Malcolm Collins: because they’re not stupid,[01:00:10] Simone Collins: right? Well, and that’s the thing is solar punk, which was this whole genre, this whole aesthetic and lifestyle that I feel like was pioneered on the left, the only place where I’m really seeing it practiced outside of cults which are, I guess, left-leaning maybe is among like super pro-AI center right or libertarian people, which is interesting.[01:00:31] So go figure. Yeah. But yeah.[01:00:33] Malcolm Collins: Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Guys, keep, keep it up. And make sure that the, the, the Luddites on the right, we don’t need them. That’s a faction we just don’t need. They’re too dangerous, and they’re not part of the future of humanity.[01:00:46] Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, and they’re welcome to join whenever they want to, to come, come to the fun side of the island ‘cause[01:00:52] Malcolm Collins: it’s actually fun.[01:00:52] Again, we don’t need to force people to use tech. What makes somebody a Luddite is not not using tech. It’s trying to ban other people from using tech- Yeah ... or pressure other people into not using tech. I, I need to make this distinction very clear. That’s what the[01:01:03] Simone Collins: covenant of sons of man always comes down to, is like are you going to pose yourself as an existential threat to other people and their, their sovereignty?[01:01:11] Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like, we’re totally okay if you’re just like, “I don’t like using AI.” Mm-hmm. Fine, right? Mm-hmm. But that’s very different than like, “I wanna shut down data centers.”[01:01:18] Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah.[01:01:21] Malcolm Collins: Hmm. Anyway, love you, sweetheart.[01:01:23] Simone Collins: Love you.[01:01:25] Malcolm Collins: What are we doing for dinner tonight? I guess like a burger? It’s very important that you be beautiful the entire stream this stream, okay Simone? Well,[01:01:31] Simone Collins: can’t, shan’t.[01:01:32] Malcolm Collins: That’s the only reason people watch. Only reason. All right.[01:01:37] Simone Collins: Yeah.[01:01:39] Speaker 4: Which, and they, and they knowed it, it was actually a water snake. So you think- But a grown up, so I think that home is a baby water snake nursery. And what do you think is inside the nursery?[01:02:00] Speaker 5: Yeah This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe