Mailbag, incl: I didn’t beat the S&P500. Should I give up? September 27, 2026

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

A LISTNER PRODUCTION Cheers. The S&P.

SPEAKER_2 (0:06)

The ISX.

SPEAKER_3 (0:06)

Stalks.

SPEAKER_1 (0:07)

This is the Motley Fool Money Mailbag.

Scott (0:10)

Welcome to Motley Fool Money. It's Sunday, it's special, it's Strawman, it's other things that start with S, including Scott and stupendous, superlative. What else would you call Andrew Ram Page, the man who breathed life into Strawman when it was just an idea and before it became the Everything app that is soon to take over the world then, no surprise, Strawman, singularity. Same first letter, yeah, I think there is, that's why.

Coming to you soon, I'm sure, is a Strawman AI that will revolutionise, not only commerce, but life as we know it. Mr. Page, how far away are we from a Strawman AI singularity?

SPEAKER_2 (0:45)

A long way, a long, long way.

Scott (0:49)

Come on, if you thought it was possible, you'd do it.

Andrew (0:51)

Well, the first thing that AI, artificial intelligence, has to overcome is sort of natural stupidity.

SPEAKER_2 (1:00)

It's more of an NS vibe at headquarters than it is an AI vibe.

Scott (1:05)

Do you know what's funny, though? I've been using ChatGPT a little bit, and it's kind of, you shouldn't read tone into it, because obviously it doesn't go to tone, it's an AI. But sometimes, I wouldn't do that. You should do this instead of like, oh, sorry, ChatGPT.

I'm sorry, I won't do it again.

SPEAKER_2 (1:24)

Thank you for telling me what I didn't know.

Scott (1:26)

I'm like, I'm not sure how far that is from the pod bay door. So it's a slippery slope.

SPEAKER_2 (1:31)

Bring back the sycophantic, oh, such an astute observation, Scott. I totally agree. I haven't been there to get upsides, but yeah, it's upsides too.

Scott (1:42)

The voice thing is seductive too. I don't mean to seductive in any other way other than it kind of sucks you into that conversation that almost feels like a real person.

Andrew (1:49)

Oh, it anthropomorphizes it for sure.

Scott (1:51)

I don't know what the other ones are like, but Chat Cheap BT, the way they've done the voice, it's interruptible, and it does the hmm, and it does the whole, oh yeah, I think that's a good, the tone, the tonality of it is really clever. And you don't think you're talking with a person at all. But I absolutely, and I've seen this before, but you absolutely do feel that kind of, it feels like it's interacting. And that is, it's a program, right? But it's human, it's a bit like I've said before, it's like the impulse island at Woolies, right? You know what they're doing to you, and you do it anyway, because you just can't quite help yourself. It's like that, it's like, I know what you're doing, but my brain still processes that subconsciously as a person having a conversation.

It's scary, but it's really cool.

Andrew (2:28)

Oh, it is, and again, it's no going back, gosh, we're already segwayed off things. I'll just say very quickly that I'm actually using voice, not so much the chat function, but the voice input function more and more.

Scott (2:39)

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_1 (2:40)

Because it's so good, mate.

Andrew (2:41)

Oh, it's so, well, it's faster. But also, I think the thing, well, I had to get over was that you go, the least shocking thing anyone will hear on this podcast, but a very disjointed stream of consciousness.

SPEAKER_2 (2:54)

So like, I want to kind of do this, but sort of that, blah, blah, blah. This is like, it's a mess.

Andrew (2:58)

It's a dog's breakfast of a prompt.

But what you learn is it's actually doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It'll piece it together. In fact, in a lot of ways, it's better because you get the more verbal diarrhea that you spout out, more it's got to work with. And while it might be grading, this is like, I didn't structure that well. It's not clear. I've repeated myself. There's lots of arms. It's a machine. It doesn't give a stuff about any of that stuff. And I find that really valuable, and it's kind of, particularly with coding stuff, it's like, hey, I'm doing this thing, and I kind of wanted to do that, but it doesn't really do that. And sometimes it does this, and it's just like the kind of thing that would have made my devs just like slap me in the face in the old world.

SPEAKER_3 (3:38)

I go, dude, can you just like spell that out a little clearer for us here?

Andrew (3:42)

Yeah.

SPEAKER_2 (3:44)

Yeah, but it's sort of like the...