The Eyeball-Scanning Plan Designed to Save Us From AI

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

Tracy, do you remember a few weeks ago, or maybe a couple months ago now, someone made a fake AI version of the Odd Lots podcast, and they replicated our voice and stuff like that.

Tracy Alloway (0:27)

Yes, I think they used ChatGPT to do it, and they basically asked ChatGPT to create a script for Odd Lots, and then they had someone replicate another app or something replicate the voices.

Joe Weisenthal (0:38)

It wasn't just someone, I mean, it was like somewhat like other AI app is like, yeah.

Tracy Alloway (0:43)

It was pretty good.

Joe Weisenthal (0:45)

It was good, I mean, it clearly was not us.

Tracy Alloway (0:48)

How much did it worry you, Joe?

Joe Weisenthal (0:50)

I think I'm more of an AI doomer worrier than you are.

Tracy Alloway (0:53)

Interesting, I mean, I have concerns, don't get me wrong, but what do you think is the worst case scenario? Is it robots taking over the world?

Joe Weisenthal (1:00)

No, I think that in a couple of years, the AI will do a really good job of making the Odd Lots podcast, and people will say, I don't really need to listen to Joe and Tracy anymore, the AI is good. I don't know, I'm like, you know, but I feel like maybe that's a little paranoid.

Tracy Alloway (1:16)

No, I feel like there is reason for concern. I hope, maybe I'm just being an optimist here, I hope we are a few years away from the Odd Lots replicant.

Joe Weisenthal (1:24)

I know, but I want to do this for like another 30 years. I don't want to just have like three or four years or a few years.

Tracy Alloway (1:29)

That's the optimistic scenario, is it, doing this in 30 years time? Okay, all right, AI, lots of people expressing some worries about it.

Joe Weisenthal (1:37)

A million different kinds of worries, yeah.

Tracy Alloway (1:39)

And we see all these good ways that the technology is being used, but also insidious ways. As you pointed out, someone made an Odd Lots episode. I think that was in a very fun spirited way, a nice way, but there are people who use this technology for more nefarious things.

Joe Weisenthal (1:57)

Yeah, I think there was like a 60 minutes recently where like someone was able to like impersonate someone's voice and say, hey, you know, you could imagine this scam where someone's like kids say, hey, I need money or something like that. And they call and it sounds just like them, especially in a couple of years when the tech gets better.

And it becomes a bit of a crisis in the sense it's like, do I know that a person is a person? When they talk to me on a Zoom, when they talk to me on a podcast, when they talk to me on a phone call, et cetera.

Tracy Alloway (2:24)

Well, even on Twitter, on a much more basic level, you have all these bots and I don't know about you, but there seems to be a new Tracy Alloway with the L as like an I and fooling everyone almost like every few weeks. And then you have to go through the whole bureaucracy of reporting to Twitter and proving that you are in fact, the original Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (2:44)

And not to get into much of a tangent, but wasn't Elon gonna solve this? Cause he said like, oh, I'm buying Twitter to solve the bots problem. And I don't, and as you say, it's not been solved.

Tracy Alloway (2:54)

I think that's a whole other episode.

Joe Weisenthal (2:55)

But even with like really rudimentary, like, you know, fake Tracy's and fake Joe's, like that's the most rudimentary thing, just like taking our avatar and like changing like one of the L's in Alloway to like a I or whatever, or a one, like that's just gonna get worse.

Tracy Alloway (3:12)

You know what's a really good business model? Creating a problem and then creating the solution to it.

Joe Weisenthal (3:21)

Yes, that's exactly right. So you have all, so we have all of these AIs and they're gonna like replicate us and they're gonna look like us and they're gonna talk like us. But the good news, in a sense, good, is that others are working on the problem of how do you prove that you are who you are in a world in which AIs can replicate our voices and our faces and our expression?