WWDC Announced, Gentler Streak Workout Tracker, and "The Cybernetic Teammate" by Ethan Mollick

Intro

Jeff Battersby (0s)

Bye bye.

Tom Anderson (0s)

You don't have to love me, but you will respect me.

Tom Anderson (11s)

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Basic AF. I am Tom Anderson, and as always,

Tom Anderson (18s)

I am joined by joyful Jeff Battersby. Good morning, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (22s)

I'm already salty, Tom.

Jeff Battersby (23s)

We didn't even start with the music.

Jeff Battersby (25s)

What the heck was up with that?

Jeff Battersby (26s)

I mean, the audience gets it,

Jeff Battersby (28s)

but I'm standing here waiting to dance and you're screwing me up by not playing the lead-in music.

Jeff Battersby (32s)

How can I even start the show?

Tom Anderson (33s)

Well, because you're salty and I wanted to keep you in that spirit.

Jeff Battersby (35s)

'Cause I am salty.

Jeff Battersby (39s)

Good, you've done well.

Tom Anderson (40s)

So we're going to have a, a very, we'll say exciting show today.

Tom Anderson (46s)

So I'm going to keep pushing Jeff's buttons and keep him fired up.

Tom Anderson (50s)

He had a studio malfunction.

Tom Anderson (51s)

First thing today, before we even got the show started, he's like,

Tom Anderson (55s)

I'm not hearing anything, Tom.

Tom Anderson (57s)

I'm not hearing anything.

Tom Anderson (58s)

Can't even hear myself.

Jeff Battersby (1m)

which is a problem. Nobody's listening to me, including myself, which is about par for the course.

Tom Anderson (1m 3s)

And so for this episode, we're going to, you know, we're going to flip personas.

Tom Anderson (1m 8s)

Tom will be me or Jeff will be Tom and I'll be Jeff.

Tom Anderson (1m 11s)

I couldn't even say that right.

Tom Anderson (1m 12s)

Crying out loud, right?

Jeff Battersby (1m 17s)

Please look into your programs. In today's show, Tom will be playing Jeff Battersby,

Jeff Battersby (1m 22s)

and Jeff Battersby will be playing the cranky Tom Anderson.

Tom Anderson (1m 27s)

Yep.

Tom Anderson (1m 28s)

And while I cover these first couple little things here, bump your gain up just a tad.

Jeff Battersby (1m 33s)

Okay, bumping my game.

Tom Anderson (1m 33s)

Um, yeah, again, dear listener, this is because of the studio malfunction earlier.

Jeff Battersby (1m 37s)

Well, I won't call it a malfunction, man. My kids were in here screwing around with my stuff.

Tom Anderson (1m 37s)

Um, go ahead and say it.

Tom Anderson (1m 43s)

There we go.

Tom Anderson (1m 46s)

So this is episode 58.

Tom Anderson (1m 49s)

Show notes for this show can be found at basicafshow.com/58.

Tom Anderson (1m 54s)

There you go.

Jeff Battersby (1m 55s)

Thank you, 58, now it's older than me, I wish.

Tom Anderson (1m 56s)

58.

Tom Anderson (1m 58s)

Okay.

Tom Anderson (2m 3s)

So we have a packed show for you today.

Tom Anderson (2m 6s)

So we're just going to jump right into it.

Tom Anderson (2m 9s)

Um, Apple has announced the dates for this year's WWDC.

WWDC June 9-13

Tom Anderson (2m 13s)

So the worldwide developer conference, June 9th through the 13th, all online,

Tom Anderson (2m 17s)

all for free, and they are going to have an event in Cupertino the day of the keynote, like they've done in the last couple of years.

Tom Anderson (2m 24s)

So some people will get invited out there to sit in the.

Tom Anderson (2m 27s)

Sun maybe and have some snacks while they stream the keynote to some displays there and Tim and Craig, and, you know, probably some others will step up here every now and then speak to the people.

Jeff Battersby (2m 37s)

Mistake. I'm going to say it's a mistake. The mistake streaming that stuff should be live. Yeah, it needs to be live. I think again, as we talked about in the last show, I think this is a problem because you can make magic with video that you cannot make with live work. So I think

Tom Anderson (2m 40s)

What's a mistake?

Tom Anderson (2m 57s)

Right, so we'll see what new vaporware they have planned for us this year, which that's probably not fair stakes.

Jeff Battersby (3m)

geez, okay. They have but

Tom Anderson (3m 4s)

They have shipped a lot, but we'll see.

Jeff Battersby (3m 7s)

just not the stuff they promised.

Tom Anderson (3m 8s)

Well, at least on the Siri front.

Tom Anderson (3m 11s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (3m 12s)

They, so I guess we'll see what Apple intelligence updates they provide, which probably around the Siri enhancements, who knows?

Tom Anderson (3m 22s)

But then the other kind of, I guess, rumor is the.

Tom Anderson (3m 28s)

Kind of look and feel update the user interface, maybe some changes there to bring iOS, iPad,

Tom Anderson (3m 34s)

OS, Mac OS a little bit more in alignment with a little sprinkling of stuff they did in Vision OS on top of it, which I'm a little bit intrigued about that.

Jeff Battersby (3m 40s)

Mm-hmm

Jeff Battersby (3m 43s)

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of interesting definitely in

Tom Anderson (3m 43s)

I think that could be fun.

Tom Anderson (3m 45s)

So that's something they're usually very good at.

Jeff Battersby (3m 48s)

Yeah, yeah, no doubt the I think that the the UI stuff will be interesting and fun

Jeff Battersby (3m 55s)

And if you look at any of the forums the Android people like birthday

Tom Anderson (3m 59s)

Yeah, so it's definitely March.

Jeff Battersby (4m 2s)

Yeah, yeah

Jeff Battersby (4m 6s)

Whatever people, you know as long as it works

Tom Anderson (4m 8s)

Right, right.

Jeff Battersby (4m 8s)

And, you know, that's, that's the thing.

Jeff Battersby (4m 10s)

I care about, so yeah.

Tom Anderson (4m 11s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (4m 12s)

All right, cool.

Tom Anderson (4m 12s)

So of course we'll give you a full recap when that, uh, when that happens.

Tom Anderson (4m 16s)

And, and after, and probably have a guest or two join us for that to get additional insights.

Jeff Battersby (4m 20s)

Yeah, yeah. Yes. We like a panel. So. All right. Um, all right. So for those of you with that are that are severance fans. If you go to Apple's site right now under Mac, Apple's selling a new computer called the Mac Luman Terminal Pro.

Tom Anderson (4m 21s)

That'd be fun.

Tom Anderson (4m 21s)

Have a panel, as they say.

Tom Anderson (4m 23s)

We do.

Lumon Terminal Pro

Jeff Battersby (4m 44s)

Again, you have to kind of be a fan of a fan of the severance

Jeff Battersby (4m 49s)

a television show, which is quite good.

Jeff Battersby (4m 50s)

The season just ended a week ago.

Jeff Battersby (4m 54s)

And I will tell you that, uh, obviously Apple's not really selling this, but what this is, is a, uh, is a link to, uh, a video, uh, about the making of really the last episode of, of Severance, which I'm going to say was pretty brilliant.

Jeff Battersby (5m 13s)

Uh, really amazing.

Jeff Battersby (5m 15s)

A lot of fun.

Jeff Battersby (5m 16s)

That video is quite good.

Jeff Battersby (5m 19s)

And you can see--

Jeff Battersby (5m 20s)

the editors working on in the back end using Mac minis.

Jeff Battersby (5m 23s)

And that's kind of the cool thing.

Jeff Battersby (5m 25s)

A lot of people using--

Jeff Battersby (5m 27s)

all the people using on the production team are using Mac minis.

Jeff Battersby (5m 31s)

So mind you, not Mac studios, but Mac minis to be able to do this editing work.

Jeff Battersby (5m 39s)

Other people remoting in to the same Mac mini.

Jeff Battersby (5m 43s)

And when they were on set, the Mac minis are set up, I think, in one of the editor's studios.

Jeff Battersby (5m 50s)

We're using MacBook Pros, and I can't remember one other Mac,

Jeff Battersby (5m 55s)

to be able to connect to those and do the work.

Jeff Battersby (5m 58s)

And they were-- obviously, this is an Apple video.

Jeff Battersby (6m 2s)

So they were very much beating the drum of this Mac mini is a killer machine, which it is.

Jeff Battersby (6m 10s)

Tom, you have one in your hands, correct?

Jeff Battersby (6m 12s)

You're using one of those at the office?

Tom Anderson (6m 14s)

Well, we have one and you're going to laugh when you hear what it's being used for.

Jeff Battersby (6m 18s)

OK, great.

Jeff Battersby (6m 19s)

So it's a display for ZoomRoom.

Tom Anderson (6m 19s)

It's a, it's even a little less than that.

Tom Anderson (6m 23s)

It's Zoom digital signage.

Jeff Battersby (6m 26s)

Oh, well, it's you guys are really pushing it to the to the limits with that

Tom Anderson (6m 33s)

Because they're so cheap, I'll say, um, inexpensive, cheap for us, it's $4.99, I think is what we get those for.

Jeff Battersby (6m 37s)

Okay, inexpensive cheap means it's

Tom Anderson (6m 45s)

Last year, we did this project.

Tom Anderson (6m 47s)

So we put Zoom rooms in, uh, in some of our classrooms.

Tom Anderson (6m 51s)

And so with Zoom and the, uh, the license agreement that we have, we get, I'm sure that maybe it's technically some limit, but it's unlimited digital signage if you have the Zoom room license.

Tom Anderson (7m 2s)

And so we had an old digital signage system that was running on these, uh, Android devices.

Tom Anderson (7m 8s)

And so those were kind of reaching end of life and we were going to update those and And we looked and it was like, "Well, how much are those boxes?"

Tom Anderson (7m 14s)

And they're like, "Well, they're like 400 bucks."

Tom Anderson (7m 16s)

And I'm like, "Well, crap, Mac mini is only $4.99."

Tom Anderson (7m 20s)

We could use the Zoom digital signage.

Tom Anderson (7m 22s)

So we did that.

Tom Anderson (7m 24s)

And plus for us on that is that we could put it into our MDM,

Tom Anderson (7m 29s)

which we've already got a bunch of stuff into,

Tom Anderson (7m 31s)

so we can manage them.

Tom Anderson (7m 32s)

We've got ARD access into them or Apple Remote Desktop.

Tom Anderson (7m 35s)

But the biggest benefit was we could turn our marketing folks loose in the Zoom admin portal, managing the signage,

Tom Anderson (7m 41s)

where before they had to send it to one of our folks

Tom Anderson (7m 44s)

and it was kind of a stupid setup, basically.

Tom Anderson (7m 48s)

And so because they would be late and people were,

Tom Anderson (7m 50s)

other people were sending us stuff, you know,

Tom Anderson (7m 53s)

so the business school, "Hey, could you put this up on the TVs?"

Tom Anderson (7m 55s)

And that's not what we should be doing.

Tom Anderson (7m 57s)

And so marketing took it over.

Tom Anderson (7m 59s)

So they bless everything and it's working out great.

Tom Anderson (8m 1s)

We've got 37 or eight of those around campus now.

Jeff Battersby (8m 4s)

Awesome. Love it. Yeah. So anyway, the the video really,

Tom Anderson (8m 5s)

So, but anyhow, back to your story.

Jeff Battersby (8m 11s)

really good insider look at what was going on both with the shooting of I don't want to spoil anything for those that haven't seen severance, but one of the last scenes I will say,

Jeff Battersby (8m 22s)

has a complete marching band in it, which was frigging phenomenal. And they were showing how they shot and edited that particular scene.

Jeff Battersby (8m 34s)

what they did in order to edit all those pieces. Now the interesting part of this story is the severance film editing team does not use Final Cut Pro and we'll have a link to both

Jeff Battersby (8m 47s)

the Lumen Terminal Pro and the severance. This is the Apple Insider article that says severance editor was all in on Apple hardware, but not Final Cut Pro. They're using Avid. And a lot of that if you read the article comes down to the fact that when Apple made that big.

Jeff Battersby (9m 4s)

final cut jump to Final Cut X or 10 or whatever the heck it was called back in those days.

Jeff Battersby (9m 11s)

It cut out so many features initially that editors were used to using that they had to jump ship.

Jeff Battersby (9m 19s)

So that's the interesting story.

Jeff Battersby (9m 22s)

I think Final Cut is now back up to speed, but most editors who may have been using Final Cut Pro are using Premiere, Adobe Premiere, or they're using Avid.

Tom Anderson (9m 34s)

And a bunch bunch dumped over to DaVinci Resolve

Jeff Battersby (9m 34s)

Not Final Cut.

Jeff Battersby (9m 38s)

Okay.

Jeff Battersby (9m 39s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (9m 39s)

You would know because you have all the fun stuff at your job.

Jeff Battersby (9m 44s)

So anyway, really, really interesting.

Jeff Battersby (9m 45s)

But if you're at all interested in kind of behind the scenes of how things work

Jeff Battersby (9m 51s)

and what's going on in the editing studio, what it is that, uh, they were

Jeff Battersby (9m 56s)

able to do, highly recommend it.

Jeff Battersby (9m 58s)

They, that, that marching band scene, they said, I think they had nine cameras.

Jeff Battersby (10m 4s)

Shooting that particular scene.

Jeff Battersby (10m 7s)

And so they had nine pieces of, of film.

Jeff Battersby (10m 11s)

We'll call it really video, but film that they were able to kind of build the moment with.

Jeff Battersby (10m 18s)

And it was really incredible to watch.

Jeff Battersby (10m 20s)

And one of the things, and I'll just say this out loud, obviously I'm an arts head and that will be part of the later part of our conversation as well.

Jeff Battersby (10m 28s)

But one of the things that, you know, people see a movie, it's just a movie.

Jeff Battersby (10m 34s)

Nothing going on, you know, a bunch of people who can memorize other people's lines and do work.

Jeff Battersby (10m 40s)

It, it, one of the things I love about theater.

Jeff Battersby (10m 42s)

One of the things I love about TV is how collaborative it is.

Jeff Battersby (10m 45s)

It is a collaborative, uh, art and it takes.

Jeff Battersby (10m 51s)

Everyone from a director with an idea to actors being able to take whatever information they're getting from that director and, and create a moment and a person, in the case of severance, multiple people.

Jeff Battersby (11m 4s)

And then you've got this whole group of people, including the director, who are putting the pieces of that puzzle together in such a way that you have something compelling to watch.

Jeff Battersby (11m 19s)

And this season of, and that final episode of Severance, very compelling if you haven't watched it, by the way, available to you on Amazon now as well, if you don't have an Apple TV plus subscription.

Jeff Battersby (11m 34s)

Really insightful as far as what's going on.

Jeff Battersby (11m 37s)

So highly, you know, highly recommend that, that, that you go check out the Lumont Terminal Pro for purchase on Apple's website and, and have a look at the video, really good stuff.

Jeff Battersby (11m 52s)

And Tom, I know you haven't seen Severance, so I don't want to blow anything up for.

Tom Anderson (11m 55s)

Right, yeah.

Tom Anderson (11m 55s)

First season, not the second.

Tom Anderson (11m 57s)

And those behind the scene videos are always,

Tom Anderson (12m 1s)

just from me being a nerd,

Tom Anderson (12m 3s)

those are always kind of interesting just to see what happens.

Tom Anderson (12m 6s)

We should do that for this show.

Tom Anderson (12m 6s)

I could give a tour of the closet here.

Jeff Battersby (12m 8s)

It's really exciting.

Tom Anderson (12m 8s)

I've got some empty boxes up in the upper right,

Tom Anderson (12m 10s)

a couple of suits here and a couple of button down shirts,

Tom Anderson (12m 15s)

some t-shirts down here.

Tom Anderson (12m 17s)

And that's my 2% of the closet.

Tom Anderson (12m 19s)

And then, you know, which is all I need.

Tom Anderson (12m 22s)

I'm perfectly fine with that, but that's my.

Jeff Battersby (12m 24s)

And I'm in the basement with Jeffrey Dahmer still.

Tom Anderson (12m 26s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (12m 26s)

But I have cute lights, you know, in a busted studio.

Tom Anderson (12m 27s)

And a busted studio.

Jeff Battersby (12m 31s)

I'm going to be salty about that for a minute, I think.

Tom Anderson (12m 34s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (12m 34s)

So now it sounds like you've got a new app that you've been playing around with.

Gentler Streak

Jeff Battersby (12m 38s)

You know, so, yes, I saw, I don't even know where I saw this.

Jeff Battersby (12m 44s)

I think it showed up on the App Store and I decided to have a look at it.

Jeff Battersby (12m 48s)

Apple, I think it was an Apple Design Award winner about maybe in 2024.

Jeff Battersby (12m 55s)

Don't know.

Jeff Battersby (12m 56s)

But it's an, it is a, an app called Gentler Streak.

Jeff Battersby (13m 2s)

It's a workout app and I'm looking at it on this device right now.

Jeff Battersby (13m 6s)

And it says, I can't use it on this.

Jeff Battersby (13m 8s)

I can't use it on my Mac and that's fine.

Jeff Battersby (13m 9s)

It's good for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iMessage.

Jeff Battersby (13m 14s)

Go figure that one out.

Jeff Battersby (13m 16s)

I guess you can send messages about what you're doing.

Jeff Battersby (13m 18s)

But what this is, is I would call it an enhancement to Apple's activity app.

Jeff Battersby (13m 26s)

So Apple's activity app is good.

Jeff Battersby (13m 28s)

It tells you how much you've slapped.

Jeff Battersby (13m 29s)

It tells you how much you've walked or run or done, whatever it is that you're doing in order to work out, in Tom's case, going into the garage and pumping weights, man.

Tom Anderson (13m 37s)

Clanging and banging, baby. Yeah, something like that.

Jeff Battersby (13m 38s)

Yeah, that's it.

Jeff Battersby (13m 39s)

Uh, that's not so much me.

Jeff Battersby (13m 41s)

I'm a hiker, soccer player, and, and, uh, you know, lie on the couch or, or something like that.

Jeff Battersby (13m 49s)

You know, one of the, one of those things is what plays for me, but this is a really, uh, well-designed app.

Jeff Battersby (13m 56s)

Um, it, uh, actually Apple rated as one of their essential health and fitness apps in the app store.

Jeff Battersby (14m 4s)

And what I'd say about it, it, it's giving you the same information that,

Jeff Battersby (14m 8s)

Apple's activity app is giving you as you, you work with it.

Jeff Battersby (14m 12s)

But what it does do is it provides essentially a little more detail on what it is that you are or aren't doing.

Jeff Battersby (14m 24s)

So for example, I do wear my watch to bed and I use it to track my sleep

Jeff Battersby (14m 30s)

and Apple's activity app will tell you that, you know, you got six and a half hours sleep.

Jeff Battersby (14m 38s)

You aim for seven, you got six and a half, and then it will give you basically a picture of what took place during your sleep.

Jeff Battersby (14m 46s)

But in the case of, in the case of Gentler Streak, it kind of explains what it is that you need to do to get better sleep.

Jeff Battersby (14m 56s)

So I'm typically sleeping well, uh, you know, good REM sleep, not a lot of awake time, uh, good core sleep, actually a lot of core sleep.

Jeff Battersby (15m 5s)

But one of the things that I noticed

Jeff Battersby (15m 8s)

and this is what it told me 'cause I didn't know it made any difference.

Jeff Battersby (15m 14s)

I'm sorry, good, yeah, core sleep.

Jeff Battersby (15m 16s)

What it was saying is that the final piece of sleep that you're supposed to get, which is deep,

Jeff Battersby (15m 24s)

I was not ever hitting what I would need for recovery.

Jeff Battersby (15m 29s)

And so, like, last night I decided I was gonna go to bed earlier than I usually do and let myself wake up

Jeff Battersby (15m 38s)

so I ended up getting almost nine hours of sleep,

Jeff Battersby (15m 40s)

which is kind of crazy,

Jeff Battersby (15m 41s)

but I think I'm still recovering from flying to California and, you know, on the day of the time change,

Jeff Battersby (15m 49s)

which is always my worst day of the year anyway.

Jeff Battersby (15m 52s)

And so I think I'm still trying to catch up from that and this told me what it was that I needed to do,

Jeff Battersby (16m)

which was I needed a little longer,

Jeff Battersby (16m 3s)

a little more sleep, a little longer sleep,

Jeff Battersby (16m 5s)

sleep and maybe I need to adjust my typical 7 hours.

Jeff Battersby (16m 8s)

to something that's closer to 8 to be able to get back to that.

Jeff Battersby (16m 11s)

But I wasn't getting that from Apple's activity app.

Jeff Battersby (16m 16s)

That was not all I was getting is, yeah, you just about reached your goal or you went a little over your goal or whatever it was that that I got.

Jeff Battersby (16m 24s)

The other thing about this app that's kind of clever and, you know,

Jeff Battersby (16m 28s)

I do a lot of hiking and it actually collects information while you hike.

Jeff Battersby (16m 33s)

And I am using the AllTrails app to be able to.

Jeff Battersby (16m 38s)

You know, mark out a trail or track where it is.

Jeff Battersby (16m 40s)

And I'm going good feature.

Jeff Battersby (16m 42s)

I've decided not to use it on my watch because it's just not good as far as finding out where you are on the watch, but on my phone, using it as a trail map.

Jeff Battersby (16m 51s)

It's great.

Jeff Battersby (16m 53s)

What this does is, is it plots a schedule for you based on your activity that is designed to give you a fair amount of rest after you work out rather than just pushing yourself.

Jeff Battersby (17m 8s)

So, wow.

Jeff Battersby (17m 9s)

weekend, went for a hike on Saturday, played soccer on Sunday. And it basically said, "Whoa, Nellie, you know, you played an hour and a half of soccer and you hiked for, you know, you hiked for a couple hours. You need to chill a little bit." And so I did. I paid attention to it. And so I feel like it's going to help me be a little more thoughtful about.

Jeff Battersby (17m 39s)

How it is that I'm working out what I'm doing, and it's giving me some guidance in that way.

Jeff Battersby (17m 44s)

So fun app, weird, really weird subscription levels.

Jeff Battersby (17m 54s)

Tom, you sent to me a screenshot this morning that said,

Jeff Battersby (17m 59s)

I won't say it on here, but what kind of pricing is that?

Jeff Battersby (18m 3s)

And what it is is they have, what it is, if you buy...

Jeff Battersby (18m 9s)

Into their subscription plan, immediately, basically within 48 hours of downloading and using the app for the first time, you get a pretty steep discount, about 40%.

Jeff Battersby (18m 18s)

Otherwise, you're paying for family plan, and that's the only thing that it goes on.

Jeff Battersby (18m 26s)

You're paying for either full price, which is about $55, or on the discounted plan, it's $33,

Jeff Battersby (18m 37s)

which is...yeah.

Jeff Battersby (18m 39s)

You know, three times 11, whatever.

Jeff Battersby (18m 41s)

Anyway.

Tom Anderson (18m 42s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (18m 42s)

And I wonder if that's like an app store thing, because the pricing is okay.

Jeff Battersby (18m 44s)

It might be.

Tom Anderson (18m 49s)

But what it had, it says Gentler Premium Yearly Family one year, 2749.

Tom Anderson (18m 56s)

And then there was a monthly, and then there was another Gentler Premium Yearly Family one year, which was 5,499.

Tom Anderson (19m 3s)

And then there's another Gentler Premium Yearly Family one year, 3,299.

Tom Anderson (19m 9s)

And then down below, there was--

Tom Anderson (19m 12s)

a monthly, and there's, I don't know,

Tom Anderson (19m 14s)

four or five other ones there.

Tom Anderson (19m 15s)

So, and one was the discount, one was without,

Tom Anderson (19m 18s)

but I just wonder if they can't put that in the list,

Tom Anderson (19m 22s)

'cause that's what was confusing.

Tom Anderson (19m 23s)

It's like, well, why is the yearly family 27.49,

Tom Anderson (19m 26s)

and then there's two others that are two different prices,

Tom Anderson (19m 28s)

and that's probably App Store stuff.

Jeff Battersby (19m 30s)

Yeah, yeah, it's a little wonky in terms of how it goes, but all that to say, in terms of app, truly great.

Tom Anderson (19m 40s)

Yeah, so this I looked at this

Tom Anderson (19m 43s)

Two three years ago. Maybe it's I've lost track of time. So it could be way longer than that. But

Tom Anderson (19m 50s)

And so it's one of those Coaching apps and one of the things that was so the whole gentler streak when it first started was

Tom Anderson (19m 57s)

to Basically allow you to have off days for your rings before Apple built that into to watch OS here in the last update I think it was but So then they moved in and started adding other features, the coaching.

Tom Anderson (20m 11s)

Um, which will show your exertion, your sleep, all of that.

Tom Anderson (20m 14s)

So the one I use is athletic.

Jeff Battersby (20m 16s)  

Uh-huh. Yeah, you've talked about that a lot.

Tom Anderson (20m 16s)

Um, yeah.

Tom Anderson (20m 18s)

And so that's another one I did test.

Tom Anderson (20m 21s)

Uh, bevel, I always want to say bezel, but it is not, it is bevel.

Tom Anderson (20m 26s)

Um, and it's another one of those apps.

Tom Anderson (20m 28s)

It was 50 bucks.

Tom Anderson (20m 29s)

Um, it looks really nice, but they all do kind of the same thing.

Tom Anderson (20m 34s)

And then they layer on some other stuff on top to try to differentiate a little bit because they all pull data from the health app.

Tom Anderson (20m 41s)

And so heart rate variability, sleep information, respiratory vitals, you know, your temp and all that typically lean heavily into the heart rate variability to show like your recovery score for the day.

Tom Anderson (20m 54s)

The newer things they've started to add is these, I think, athletic cause it their battery score. And so it's just like you're, you know, you start the day off at 100 and you wear it down and then you recharge overnight.

Tom Anderson (21m 10s)

The other thing that was kind of fun on these are the stress levels. Like they'll use that same information and then show you like your stress. And last year, about this time, I was having a medical procedure done.

Tom Anderson (21m 23s)

And I'm sitting in the lobby and it was, it was like a multi-step procedure, you know, go one day, go again, three weeks later, whatever.

Tom Anderson (21m 30s)

And I was a little nervous. And so I looked down and the stress meter was pegged at like 100. I was like, okay, so I know that works.

Jeff Battersby (21m 34s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (21m 35s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (21m 36s)

I'm stressed.

Jeff Battersby (21m 37s)

Fair.

Tom Anderson (21m 40s)

So it's good that there's, there's more and more of these. I think athletic is about 30 bucks a year. Bevel is about the same price as gentler streak. It's about 50. But yeah, those are fun. They're helpful.

Jeff Battersby (21m 49s)

Okay, yeah, it's a lot. I don't know if I'll do that after a year. That's a lot of money I think if everybody that's on my family plan decides to use it that it's worth it

Tom Anderson (21m 54s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (21m 59s)

Yeah. So what I did with, so they all have complications for the watch. And so I set up an automation so that the watch phase changes at 8.15 each morning and goes.

Jeff Battersby (21m 59s)

if

Tom Anderson (22m 10s)

To a athletic watch face, which is basically, I think, what is this face called? Uh, I don't know, but it's got, uh, I tried to do that completely failed, but it has the complications from athletics.

Tom Anderson (22m 24s)

So it shows the recovery score, it shows the, uh, like they'll show like a daily exertion target for you to try to hit. So it's got that on it. It's got heart rate, breathing rate.

Tom Anderson (22m 36s)

another one for a habit tracker on there, and then at 845 it switches back.

Tom Anderson (22m 40s)

So I kind of get a dashboard in the morning of how things went and then it goes back.

Jeff Battersby (22m 42s)

Oh, cool. Give you an idea what you need to do like that. It's pretty slick. All right. Next up is kind of a fun one. Silly. I was told around the App Store the other day and I saw an app

Notebook Artillery

Jeff Battersby (22m 58s)

that was featured on Apple's, you know, in the App Store as they often do about an app called notebook or artillery,

Jeff Battersby (23m 8s)

which I will say when I saw it, I was immediately.

Jeff Battersby (23m 12s)

drawn to my youth, like, which was a million years ago.

Jeff Battersby (23m 17s)

So, so many years ago, I can't even remember.

Jeff Battersby (23m 19s)

Yeah, I can't even remember when I was playing these games.

Jeff Battersby (23m 25s)

I seem to recall somewhere between fourth and fifth grade where you took a notebook and you drew all these little pictures and you had towers that you needed to hit and then you would shoot cannons and kind of blow stuff up.

Jeff Battersby (23m 39s)

a uh...

Jeff Battersby (23m 42s)

developer has created this game, a guy named Austin Ivan Smith. By the way, this is apparently a game made almost entirely by AI. That's what the developer says. And then he jokes and says, "AI as in me, Austin Ivan Smith." Which is really, really clever. And what he says is once upon a time in the

Tom Anderson (23m 57s)

That's good, I like it.

Jeff Battersby (24m 13s)

late 20th century A.D. near the turn of the penultimate decade of the millennia.

Jeff Battersby (24m 17s)

And he goes on to say that he, you know,

Jeff Battersby (24m 21s)

had played games in his middle school computer where he was blowing stuff up.

Jeff Battersby (24m 25s)

And always there was a notebook at hand where you would draw, you know, pictures and try to blow stuff up. This is entirely hand-drawn. It looks like it's on a, it looks like it's in a notebook from

Jeff Battersby (24m 42s)

the launch screen. It has a bunch of stickers on it and has, looks like one of those blue backed or blue books that you might have used to use.

Jeff Battersby (24m 50s)

It's just silly fun. Like light,

Jeff Battersby (24m 54s)

clever, has wind speeds and a bunch of other things that make it so it's so it's fun to do. And it is other than the fact that Mr. Ivan Smith is the one who created it, there's actually zero A.I. used in this to create this. So good times, good fun.

Jeff Battersby (25m 12s)

highly, highly recommend this 99 cents. So for a buck, you can have hours of silliness. And just really enjoy it. 99 cents

Tom Anderson (25m 25s)

All right, so far you've cost people $56 today give or take

Jeff Battersby (25m 30s)

Well, maybe if you spend the money

Jeff Battersby (25m 34s)

All right last thing and then we're gonna fight

AirPods Pro Mute

Jeff Battersby (25m 38s)

The the last thing is I this is kind of an interesting thing that I discovered the other day I texted you about it. I was watching

Jeff Battersby (25m 46s)

The one of the NCAA championship games, you know One of the the March Madness games and when the ads would come on I was watching it on Max by the way but when the ads would come on I

Jeff Battersby (25m 58s)

I would mute it and then...

Jeff Battersby (26m)

It would stay muted and I was doing something else, probably looking at my phone and texting you.

Jeff Battersby (26m 8s)

I heard the volume pop up ever so slightly when it went from the commercial break to the game.

Jeff Battersby (26m 18s)

And I thought, "That's weird." I thought actually that my iPod or my AirPods, sorry, iPods.

Jeff Battersby (26m 26s)

Good God, I'm old.

Jeff Battersby (26m 29s)

My AirPods.

Jeff Battersby (26m 31s)

It had dropped is what I thought.

Jeff Battersby (26m 33s)

I thought I was hearing the audio coming from the television,

Jeff Battersby (26m 37s)

and so I went and checked it,

Jeff Battersby (26m 38s)

and it was connected to my AirPods,

Jeff Battersby (26m 40s)

and then I hit the "Mute" button and it came back up to the level.

Jeff Battersby (26m 42s)

So tested it out, did it again.

Jeff Battersby (26m 44s)

When it went to the next commercial break,

Jeff Battersby (26m 48s)

and sure enough, it repeated the same thing.

Jeff Battersby (26m 50s)

Interestingly, per your suggestion,

Jeff Battersby (26m 53s)

I muted it during an ad,

Jeff Battersby (26m 57s)

sorry, during a game,

Jeff Battersby (27m 1s)

so I don't know that it knows that you're watching a game.

Jeff Battersby (27m 3s)

I think what it senses is that blank space between the ads and whatever it is that you're watching,

Jeff Battersby (27m 12s)

and it pulls it back up at that point,

Jeff Battersby (27m 13s)

but I thought that's a really slick feature that I would love if it muted automatically when you were watching the game,

Jeff Battersby (27m 21s)

and they went to an ad and then popped it back up when you did,

Jeff Battersby (27m 23s)

and that would be flipping brilliant.

Tom Anderson (27m 25s)

AirPods version of TiVo, remember that?

Jeff Battersby (27m 27s)

Oh, dude, yeah.

Tom Anderson (27m 27s)

Let me skip the ads.

Jeff Battersby (27m 29s)

Yeah, well, that's why I got it.

Jeff Battersby (27m 30s)

That's why I got a TiVo when I had one.

Jeff Battersby (27m 33s)

Anyway, I thought it was a really slick little feature that I was not aware of at all.

Jeff Battersby (27m 38s)

I don't even think it's advertised anywhere,

Jeff Battersby (27m 40s)

but it's definitely there.

Jeff Battersby (27m 41s)

And I don't know if it's tied to the Apple TV.

Jeff Battersby (27m 44s)

I don't know whether it's tied to the AirPods.

Jeff Battersby (27m 46s)

I'll have to experiment with it more, but pretty slick.

Tom Anderson (27m 50s)

And when it came back on with the low volume, did it get, I can't remember what you said,

Tom Anderson (27m 56s)

did it get louder or did you have to go back and unmute it and then it went back to normal?

Jeff Battersby (27m 59s)

So it did it, what happened is about a minute or two in, it then popped up

Jeff Battersby (28m 7s)

another level, and then if I hit the mute button, it came completely up.

Tom Anderson (28m 11s)

Okay. I wonder if that's kind of like a, Hey, your thing is playing.

Jeff Battersby (28m 11s)

So it it's correct.

Jeff Battersby (28m 16s)

I think it's that, but it really was tied to the end of that commercial break when I muted it during, during a commercial, which I often do don't tell the advertisers.

Jeff Battersby (28m 29s)

Yeah, it, it, and I don't know whether it may well be part of the Apple TV,

Jeff Battersby (28m 34s)

although I did do the same thing without the AirPods in, in the Apple TV did not do that, it didn't pop it up part.

Tom Anderson (28m 38s)

Mhm, right. Okay.

Jeff Battersby (28m 42s)

If I muted it, it stayed muted.

Jeff Battersby (28m 43s)

So just an interesting thing that I'm curious about.

Jeff Battersby (28m 48s)

So that's it, Tom.

Tom Anderson (28m 50s)

Okay. All right, well, you wrote the headline for this next section, I'll let you say it.

Jeff Battersby (28m 51s)

All right.

Ethan Mollick Study Finds Real Benefits of AI at Work

Jeff Battersby (28m 57s)

I still don't like AI, Tom.

Jeff Battersby (28m 59s)

Fight.

Tom Anderson (29m)

That's not exactly what you said.

Jeff Battersby (29m 2s)

No, no, I didn't.

Jeff Battersby (29m 3s)

I said, I still don't love AI, but I've, I've, uh, I've made the change.

Jeff Battersby (29m 10s)

I don't like it.

Tom Anderson (29m 11s)

You don't have to love me, but you will respect me.

Jeff Battersby (29m 16s)

Well, and let, let's start with, with, uh, what you said to me when we were having a little AI conversation the other day, uh, quote, Tom, no shame in the game, bro, because I said, you're trying to AI shame me.

Tom Anderson (29m 28s)

which we're going to come back to why in a minute. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (29m 28s)

Uh--

Jeff Battersby (29m 30s)

Yeah, we'll come back to why.

Jeff Battersby (29m 31s)

But I said, "No shame in the AI ga--"

Jeff Battersby (29m 33s)

You said, "No shame in the AI ga--"

Jeff Battersby (29m 36s)

Or in the game, bro.

Jeff Battersby (29m 37s)

Jeez, I can't even read my own writing.

Tom Anderson (29m 39s)

Need more sleep.

Jeff Battersby (29m 39s)

No shame in the game, bro.

Jeff Battersby (29m 41s)

You had too much sleep.

Jeff Battersby (29m 43s)

But I'll let you know when I start dinging performance reviews because people aren't using the tools.

Jeff Battersby (29m 50s)

Almost to the point where it's like,

Jeff Battersby (29m 52s)

"Yeah, I don't use Google or computers for work.

Jeff Battersby (29m 54s)

I like to do it all by hand, pen and paper."

Jeff Battersby (29m 56s)

That's fine, yo, but do it somewhere else.

Jeff Battersby (29m 59s)

Dude, you're a jerk, yeah, yeah, this is the normal Salty Tom instead of Salty Jeff.

Tom Anderson (30m)

What a hard ass.

Tom Anderson (30m 2s)

I was in a mood that day.

Tom Anderson (30m 3s)

Wasn't I?

Tom Anderson (30m 7s)

Right, right.

Tom Anderson (30m 10s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (30m 11s)

So let's talk about that a little bit and what it's all in love though.

Jeff Battersby (30m 12s)

Talk to me, pal, because I hate you too.

Jeff Battersby (30m 16s)

Yeah, right, yeah, that's what he said, yes.

Tom Anderson (30m 18s)

So that's okay.

Tom Anderson (30m 20s)

Um, so Ethan Mollick is a professor of management at Wharton and he's, I guess we could call him an AI expert at this point.

Jeff Battersby (30m 25s)

to go.

Tom Anderson (30m 28s)

Um, he's done a lot of.

Tom Anderson (30m 30s)

Studying a lot of research, a lot of looking into, uh, the different AI models, where they've progressed, where they fall short, where they even do an update and say, Hey, this isn't working as well as it did before the update.

Tom Anderson (30m 43s)

Um, so it kind of has his finger on the pulse of all that.

Tom Anderson (30m 45s)

He wrote co-intelligence living and working with AI, which is something I've been wanting to read.

Tom Anderson (30m 50s)

And as luck would have it, Jeff, my wife was at an HR conference in Nashville this week, and one of the vendors was giving that book away.

Tom Anderson (30m 58s)

So she brought one home, so I'll get a chance to read it.

Jeff Battersby (30m 59s)

Oh, awesome.

Jeff Battersby (31m)

You have to send it my way when you're done reading it, maybe.

Tom Anderson (31m)

Yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (31m 3s)

And, uh, right.

Jeff Battersby (31m 3s)

Or make me buy it.

Tom Anderson (31m 6s)

Okay.

Tom Anderson (31m 7s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (31m 7s)

Sorry.

Tom Anderson (31m 7s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (31m 8s)

Uh, so he released, uh, he writes all stubs, stubs deck, maybe I need some sleep to sub stack.

Jeff Battersby (31m 13s)

Mm-hmm, yeah, you had you had not enough sleep

Tom Anderson (31m 18s)

One useful thing is his sub stack.

Tom Anderson (31m 20s)

Uh, and so he has a newsletter that he sends out and the one that he put out

Tom Anderson (31m 26s)

this week was titled "The Cybernetic Teammate".

Tom Anderson (31m 31s)

And I tend to read all of these just because I think he has a very balanced approach to it,

Tom Anderson (31m 36s)

like what all this stuff might mean, what are the pros, what are the cons.

Tom Anderson (31m 41s)

And so this one was interesting because he's been working on a trial, a study of sorts,

Tom Anderson (31m 50s)

with Procter & Gamble, where they had 776 professionals, that's what they were called in the article. So these are people doing, you know, real work.

Tom Anderson (32m)

They're not put into a simulation to say, "Hey, act like you were doing some work here and see how this does." So this was in their day-to-day work. So that was last summer. And so they finally just put out the information here. So keep in mind, this is with the models as of summer 2024.

Jeff Battersby (32m 4s)

as if any work isn't real, but go ahead.

Jeff Battersby (32m 13s)

Got you.

Tom Anderson (32m 30s)

And the interesting thing, or the findings were pretty interesting.

Tom Anderson (32m 36s)

Where did my mouse go?

Tom Anderson (32m 37s)

Okay, there we go.

Jeff Battersby (32m 38s)

We're all having fun with hardware this morning.

Tom Anderson (32m 41s)

We are, and it's the allergies, it's gotta be the allergies.

Jeff Battersby (32m 46s)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (32m 46s)

Which I haven't done any in a while, so maybe that's it too.

Jeff Battersby (32m 47s)

Or the drugs you're taking for the allergy.

Tom Anderson (32m 53s)

So three takeaways, I put a bunch of quotes and I'm not gonna read all of that.

Tom Anderson (32m 57s)

It was just to kind of track us.

Tom Anderson (32m 58s)

We'll link to this.

Tom Anderson (33m 1s)

But what they found was in the study,

Tom Anderson (33m 4s)

AI boosted performance with these groups.

Tom Anderson (33m 8s)

And so what they did, they split these tests out

Tom Anderson (33m 13s)

in some different ways.

Tom Anderson (33m 14s)

So they had teams that were working without AI,

Tom Anderson (33m 20s)

and teams that were,

Tom Anderson (33m 21s)

but then they had kind of cross-functional teams

Tom Anderson (33m 26s)

that would not use AI and that would.

Tom Anderson (33m 30s)

And so kind of one of the takeaways,

Tom Anderson (33m 33s)

they said teams, when working without AI,

Tom Anderson (33m 35s)

teams outperformed individuals by a significant amount.

Tom Anderson (33m 39s)

But the surprise came when we looked at AI-enabled participants.

Tom Anderson (33m 42s)

Individuals working with AI performed just as well as teams without it.

Tom Anderson (33m 49s)

And so then they went on and teams with AI performed best overall,

Tom Anderson (33m 54s)

though the difference between individuals with AI in teams with AI wasn't statistically significant.

Tom Anderson (34m 1s)

And this is a direct quote here.

Tom Anderson (34m 2s)

But we found an interesting pattern when looking at truly exceptional solutions,

Tom Anderson (34m 5s)

those ranking in the top 10% of quality.

Tom Anderson (34m 8s)

Teams using AI were significantly more likely to produce these top-tier solutions,

Tom Anderson (34m 14s)

suggesting that there is value in having human teams working on a problem that goes beyond the value of working with AI alone.

Tom Anderson (34m 22s)

Both AI-enabled groups also worked much faster,

Tom Anderson (34m 24s)

saving 12 to 16% of the time spent by non-AI groups while producing solutions that were substantial.

Tom Anderson (34m 30s)

when paired with AI, both R&D and commercial professionals in teams or when working alone produced balanced solutions that integrated both technical and commercial perspectives, the distinction between specialists virtually disappeared in AI-aided conditions, and we saw a similar effect on teams.

Tom Anderson (34m 59s)

This was especially pronou--

Tom Anderson (35m)

employees less familiar with product development. Without AI, these less experienced employees performed relatively poor even in teams, but with AI assistants, they suddenly performed at levels comparable to teams that included experienced members. AI effectively helped people bridge functional knowledge gaps, allowing them to think and create beyond their specialized training, and helped amateurs act more like experts. And the reason I sent that over to you, one, was to troll you with some more AI stuff because I I know you enjoy it.

Jeff Battersby (35m 29s)

Yes, yeah, no, fair, and I'm always open.

Tom Anderson (35m 30s)

Um, but, but that mirrored pretty closely to some of the experiences that I have had, uh, with the things that I'm doing, um, and we made, you know, we were going back and forth in the messages this week and, you know, when I kind of made that snarky off the cuff comment there about the performance reviews.

Tom Anderson (35m 51s)

Um, but I was partially being serious and I do think we're not far from.

Tom Anderson (36m 1s)

That period to say it is becoming just like, well, I don't know something.

Tom Anderson (36m 6s)

Okay.

Tom Anderson (36m 7s)

Well, we say, well, go look it up on Google.

Tom Anderson (36m 9s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (36m 10s)

And, and how many times would you get aggravated with somebody?

Tom Anderson (36m 12s)

Hey, how do I do this?

Tom Anderson (36m 14s)

And then be like, well, did you Google it?

Tom Anderson (36m 16s)

Because, and there was even a site, right?

Tom Anderson (36m 17s)

Let me Google that for you.

Jeff Battersby (36m 18s)

Right

Tom Anderson (36m 19s)

So you could be a smart ass to them and type it.

Tom Anderson (36m 21s)

And it would make a little, little gif and send it to them as part of the thing.

Tom Anderson (36m 24s)

And it would show them the search.

Tom Anderson (36m 25s)

show them the search. And I think we're kind of at that point.

Tom Anderson (36m 31s)

Um, so, you know, 18 months ago, as part of our reorganization at work, uh, our AV services team,

Tom Anderson (36m 40s)

audio visual services team, you know, fell into my group. Um, you know, and I'm not completely

Jeff Battersby (36m 46s)

Heh, for all the joy.

Tom Anderson (36m 47s)

for all the joy. Yeah. Not a complete neophyte with AV stuff, but not, I wouldn't say by any stretch, like, you know, I couldn't take a stack of a traditional AV stuff, like extra components and program all that stuff out.

Tom Anderson (37m)

I could probably learn it, I'm sure, but I've never done it.

Tom Anderson (37m 4s)

And so, you know, I've spent the last 18 months or so trying to get up to speed with that.

Tom Anderson (37m 10s)

And, you know, we're looking at making some changes to what we're doing.

Tom Anderson (37m 13s)

And, you know, we've got the Zoom rooms that we've put in, I mentioned a little bit ago.

Tom Anderson (37m 18s)

But we're looking at maybe going with some different hardware.

Tom Anderson (37m 23s)

So we're considering the Logitech Rally Bars, the Neat Bars.

Tom Anderson (37m 26s)

You know, I should have told you that this week, sent you some pictures.

Jeff Battersby (37m 27s)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I want you to show me. Look super sharp.

Tom Anderson (37m 30s)

Yeah, so those look good, but I wanted some background information.

Tom Anderson (37m 33s)

Like who's, who else is using these?

Tom Anderson (37m 36s)

You know, what problems have they run into or have there, you know, is there any research showing long-term failure rates, you know, things like that.

Tom Anderson (37m 44s)

And so I use the deep research and chat GPT wrote a quote said, Hey,

Tom Anderson (37m 48s)

what else should I consider?

Tom Anderson (37m 50s)

It came back with some other things.

Tom Anderson (37m 51s)

Hey, give me the details.

Tom Anderson (37m 52s)

Are you looking for a large university, small, private, public?

Tom Anderson (37m 56s)

Do you care about, you know, X, Y, and Z?

Tom Anderson (37m 58s)

And I was like, okay, that's great.

Tom Anderson (38m 1s)

So I put all that in there.

Tom Anderson (38m 3s)

Uh, and then it ran for 10 or 11 minutes and it gave me a very long detailed, uh, report of, okay.

Tom Anderson (38m 11s)

Dartmouth is doing this.

Tom Anderson (38m 12s)

UPenn is doing this Utah state is doing this, these other schools.

Tom Anderson (38m 16s)

But what I liked about it is it's sourced all of those things too.

Tom Anderson (38m 19s)

So it gave me the link so I could click into it.

Tom Anderson (38m 22s)

Um, you know, higher ed magazine says this, um, Educause says that.

Tom Anderson (38m 26s)

And it saved me a ton of time.

Tom Anderson (38m 29s)

Like if I had Googled.

Tom Anderson (38m 30s)

That I'd have quit, right?

Jeff Battersby (38m 31s)

It'll take me a minute, especially with the way Google is set up now, where it's not pay-to-play.

Tom Anderson (38m 35s)

And exactly.

Tom Anderson (38m 39s)

And you know, another thing is we redid some job descriptions,

Tom Anderson (38m 43s)

like not so much the core responsibilities, but we added

Tom Anderson (38m 46s)

some other things about the tools.

Tom Anderson (38m 48s)

You'll need to know how to use the soft skills, right?

Tom Anderson (38m 50s)

And those sorts of things.

Tom Anderson (38m 53s)

Now, it's just a couple minute, you know, chat GPT thing.

Tom Anderson (38m 56s)

And I was talking to my wife about that and she does HR

Tom Anderson (38m 58s)

related things.

Tom Anderson (39m)

Job descriptions, pretty much 100%.

Tom Anderson (39m 3s)

They're, you know, starting in chat GPT and then they come

Tom Anderson (39m 6s)

back and tweak them to finish them up.

Tom Anderson (39m 9s)

And I think that it kind of ties in nicely with that study.

Jeff Battersby (39m 13s)

Yeah, it sounds like it. And to be fair, yes, I am reticent about AI. I think my reticence comes in from a completely different angle, which I'll talk about in a second. But as far as the ability to create, or you've shown me things where you've put in requests and it creates tables for you and does a bunch of other things that allow you to, or even and some database, I think you should be some.

Jeff Battersby (39m 43s)

database creation, some ideas about how you might they can't remember if it was you were looking for a way to to monitor what devices you had out there or, or what, but it is really capable of doing things that would take me ages, say,

Jeff Battersby (40m 1s)

creating Excel spreadsheets with fancy tables and pivot tables and things of that nature, and very capable of doing, doing those kinds of things. And I think valuable in the same way that, you know, I've been repairing.

Jeff Battersby (40m 14s)

Repaired a dryer the other day, and I was in the process of

Jeff Battersby (40m 18s)

replacing a switch for one of the burners on my stove.

Jeff Battersby (40m 23s)

Much cheaper to do that than it is to

Jeff Battersby (40m 27s)

than it is to

Jeff Battersby (40m 31s)

buy a new stove,

Tom Anderson (40m 32s)

Right.

Jeff Battersby (40m 33s)

which I don't want to have to do right now.

Jeff Battersby (40m 35s)

And, you know, that knowledge obviously has been on the

Jeff Battersby (40m 40s)

in videos.

Jeff Battersby (40m 41s)

there's tons of videos on how to repair anything.

Jeff Battersby (40m 43s)

As long as you have a little technical capability, basically the ability to use a screwdriver and see where things plug in and don't plug in, it's really easy to be able to do that.

Jeff Battersby (40m 55s)

I've over the years repaired dryers and other pieces of equipment simply by doing that.

Jeff Battersby (41m 2s)

And I see real value in AI in things like that.

Jeff Battersby (41m 6s)

I mentioned when we talked about the new version of Highland Pro that they are doing some LL

Jeff Battersby (41m 13s)

M stuff in that, but limited in terms of what they're doing.

Jeff Battersby (41m 17s)

In other words, it will not write you a sentence, which to me is great.

Jeff Battersby (41m 23s)

It shouldn't be doing that.

Jeff Battersby (41m 25s)

What it is doing, though, is I can inline by putting a forward slash, ask for a definition or a synonyms for particular words, which typically I'm hopping out to my phone and using the Merriam-Webster app to do the same thing.

Jeff Battersby (41m 40s)

And, you know, once I pick up my phone...

Jeff Battersby (41m 44s)

What happened? Somebody dog barked?

Jeff Battersby (41m 46s)

Yeah, one of the... I'm able, you know, I get distracted.

Tom Anderson (41m 47s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (41m 52s)

I am easily, you know, like your dog, you know, I see a squirrel and I chase the squirrel rather than chasing the thing that I'm doing.

Jeff Battersby (41m 59s)

So the ability to do that in line, while I have not completely embraced it, is certainly a valuable thing for me.

Jeff Battersby (42m 8s)

The big issue that I have, and you sent me a bunch of pictures this week of various scenes from "Severance" taken from, created in various illustration styles by plugging it into, I think, chat.

Jeff Battersby (42m 26s)

GPT currently has, yeah, they've integrated stuff like you would have seen in "Mid-Journey"

Jeff Battersby (42m 32s)

a little bit ago.

Jeff Battersby (42m 35s)

The problem that I have with this is at the IP end of it, the intellectual property end of it.

Jeff Battersby (42m 43s)

Studio Ghibli has now threatened to sue the ChatGPT folks because they were recreating or creating images that looked very much like Studio Ghibli animation.

Jeff Battersby (43m 3s)

I have a problem with the fact, and will continue to have a problem with the fact, that these companies have.

Jeff Battersby (43m 14s)

FED, non-public domain information into their systems to train them.

Jeff Battersby (43m 21s)

And that for people who are not moral, use that word, it's time to go back to church, Jeff, um, you know, who are not, uh, you know, who feel no moral obligation not to steal other people's intellectual property are going to, are

Jeff Battersby (43m 43s)

going to create things that have those qualities, uh, based on information that was collected and used, uh, I'll say it illegally, you know, they should not be trading their training, their systems on, on these other systems.

Jeff Battersby (44m)

So I do see value in AI.

Jeff Battersby (44m 3s)

Um, and so I still don't love AI.

Jeff Battersby (44m 7s)

I know I said like earlier, but maybe, maybe I like you.

Jeff Battersby (44m 12s)

I just don't love you.

Jeff Battersby (44m 13s)

Tom. Right.

Tom Anderson (44m 13s)

Do you like me back?

Tom Anderson (44m 14s)

A little check boxes, yes, no.

Jeff Battersby (44m 16s)

Right, right, right, and now we're going to start sending notes to each other.

Tom Anderson (44m 17s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (44m 19s)

Great.

Tom Anderson (44m 20s)

Now that'll be our app,

Tom Anderson (44m 21s)

just like that artillery thing you said.

Jeff Battersby (44m 26s)

But that's really where the problem comes.

Jeff Battersby (44m 28s)

And I do know, one of the benefits of writing for me, and one of my professors in my grad school program has said this, she said that she doesn't know what she really thinks about something until she's ready.

Jeff Battersby (44m 46s)

She writes it down until she has the ability to work it out on paper.

Jeff Battersby (44m 51s)

And for some things where it's just a matter of, you need to gather some, some information and be able to, you know, repair your dishwasher or dryer, I can see, I can see AI being useful for something like that, but when it comes to real thought, I still think it's important to have some of that yes, you know, I didn't.

Jeff Battersby (45m 16s)

Interesting and amazing that it brings the level of a novice up to a more professional level when you can plug that stuff in.

Jeff Battersby (45m 25s)

But is that novice ever then going to gain that information or is it going to be, you know, cat videos that they, that their mind is always, always looking at?

Jeff Battersby (45m 37s)

And that's, that is, that is my concern.

Jeff Battersby (45m 39s)

That remains my concern when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Jeff Battersby (45m 42s)

And that's not, I have not completed the cybernetic teaming.

Jeff Battersby (45m 46s)

article, I browsed it, I will go through it and read the whole thing.

Jeff Battersby (45m 49s)

And, you know, so I have some good understanding, but it's,

Jeff Battersby (45m 53s)

that part is problematic for me.

Jeff Battersby (45m 54s)

I think that already we have a dearth of, of thinking people behind computers.

Jeff Battersby (46m 2s)

Uh, you know, it did right.

Tom Anderson (46m 4s)

That existed before computers.

Jeff Battersby (46m 5s)

It, it, it, it, lazy people are going to be lazy.

Jeff Battersby (46m 8s)

You know, that's, there's no question about that.

Tom Anderson (46m 8s)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (46m 10s)

And people not interested in, in.

Tom Anderson (46m 11s)

And it's gotten worse.

Jeff Battersby (46m 12s)

Oh, heck yeah.

Tom Anderson (46m 13s)

Like, yeah, so many people have such pissy attitudes and don't want to work.

Jeff Battersby (46m 16s)

Right, right.

Tom Anderson (46m 16s)

And I'm like, that's great.

Jeff Battersby (46m 17s)

By doing, by doing your usual half-ass job, it makes you shine.

Tom Anderson (46m 17s)

Makes me shine.

Tom Anderson (46m 18s)

So it's like far less competition.

Jeff Battersby (46m 20s)

I see that time.

Jeff Battersby (46m 21s)

So anyway, that is, that, that is where my, where my love ain't love.

Tom Anderson (46m 23s)

That's right.

Jeff Battersby (46m 27s)

You know, I could, I do see value in certain areas, certainly.

Tom Anderson (46m 32s)

Yeah, well, and I hope somewhere along the line in in the legal system these things get figured out

Tom Anderson (46m 38s)

So maybe it's a licensing agreement. They have to end up coming up with it says

Tom Anderson (46m 42s)

Okay, so for each requests for something or you license our stuff you get paid for we get paid for it

Tom Anderson (46m 49s)

Or you can't whatever that ends up being and that the lawyers will have to figure that out

Jeff Battersby (46m 54s)

Yeah, I think that ship has sailed, I'm afraid.

Jeff Battersby (46m 57s)

I really, I really do.

Tom Anderson (46m 58s)

We'll see I mean there because some of the

Jeff Battersby (46m 59s)

I mean, we'll see, we'll see what.

Tom Anderson (47m 2s)

Newspapers they were like, oh, yeah, you can't put our stuff in there. They've already come to agreements. And so they're getting money So they're like, okay. Well, that's better than nothing

Jeff Battersby (47m 10s)

As long as the citations are legit.

Jeff Battersby (47m 12s)

You seem to have gotten good citations, uh, you know, when you were doing your, your deep research bit.

Tom Anderson (47m 15s)

Right. Right. And John C. Dvorak wrote a good piece. Do you remember John? Remember how he used to antagonize the Mac readers of, uh, yeah. Yeah. So, so I listened to one of his podcasts and he talked about that just as a side story. And he was like, it was so great because without fail, I would write those pieces and it would aggravate the heck out of them. And the editors loved it because it always kept people coming back.

Jeff Battersby (47m 17s)

Uh, yeah, I do.

Jeff Battersby (47m 24s)

Yeah, he was a jackass.

Jeff Battersby (47m 44s)

Right, right, right. Of course, right?

Tom Anderson (47m 46s)

You know, but that was trolling before the internet, I guess. Um, trolls have always been around. Yep. Um, but anyway, he wrote a piece on his sub stack, uh, about copyright and IP, uh, with AI. That was pretty good. So I'll throw a link to that, um, in the show notes too. Um, so yeah, I, I agree. You know, some of that does fall into the sketchy realm And there's some things to figure out, to some degree, to what degree.

Jeff Battersby (47m 50s)

Trolls always been around, pal. Always under the bridge.

Jeff Battersby (48m 4s)

Yeah, that'd be good to see I'd like

Tom Anderson (48m 16s)

Well, I think a lot do, a lot don't, and it just depends what it is.

Jeff Battersby (48m 17s)

People don't have as much integrity as you do, John, Tom, John, I'm talking about John.

Tom Anderson (48m 20s)

I mean, if some schmuck is making a Studio Ghibli thing to show on social or, you know, post on Twitter or threads or someplace like that, I don't really get upset about that.

Jeff Battersby (48m 24s)

Yeah, there's, you know...

Tom Anderson (48m 33s)

Now, if he's using it to make a product that he's going to then make money from, then I start to say, "Mm-hmm, yeah, that's a little..."

Tom Anderson (48m 45s)

Sketchy, but...

Jeff Battersby (48m 52s)

Look at us, Tom. We've solved the world's issues in 50 minutes or fewer.

Tom Anderson (48m 54s)

No problems. We've solved no problems.

Tom Anderson (48m 58s)

So this is becoming the basic AI show, Jeff. So maybe we'll...

Jeff Battersby (49m 2s)

You have to change the logo a little bit. Scratch out the two legs of the F.

Tom Anderson (49m 5s)

Well, we're still robots.

Jeff Battersby (49m 10s)

All righty, Tom. Pleasure to see you. As always, I do have to run, but we'll be back in two weeks.

Tom Anderson (49m 11s)

All right, Jeff. I know you got to go.

Close

Jeff Battersby (49m 17s)

By the way, we're going to have a guest in two weeks, and I'm really excited about it.

Tom Anderson (49m 20s)

Hopefully.

Jeff Battersby (49m 22s)

No, I think we will have her, and I'm super excited about that.

Tom Anderson (49m 24s)

Well, I hope so, but you know, if not at two weeks, I mean, it sounds like she's going to do it.

Tom Anderson (49m 29s)

But hopefully her schedule holds up.

Jeff Battersby (49m 31s)

Yeah, I think we'll be okay. So, we can look forward to a guest in two weeks. Somebody that I'm really excited to talk to. All right, so feedback at basicafshow.com. That's a place that you can always send things. We do get feedback, and we appreciate it. You yelling at us and telling us things that we do wrong, we got it.

Jeff Battersby (49m 52s)

A whole fun rant about how good Siri is.

Jeff Battersby (49m 59s)

And we might have, that was from Benjamin Young-Savage, who basically wrote a three-page email to us via Siri as he was driving south from Canada, which maybe he won't be able to go to Canada anymore based on what's going on politics-wise, but we'll see.

Jeff Battersby (50m 22s)

So we really appreciate that kind of feedback, and we may have Benjamin back on to rant at us in person.

Tom Anderson (50m 29s)

My all time favorite feedback was from your mom.

Jeff Battersby (50m 29s)

Yes?

Jeff Battersby (50m 30s)

I know.

Jeff Battersby (50m 32s)

Yeah, I know.

Jeff Battersby (50m 35s)

Stop playing games.

Tom Anderson (50m 35s)

Tell Jeff to get to work.

Jeff Battersby (50m 38s)

I'm happy that my mom listens.

Jeff Battersby (50m 43s)

There you go.

Tom Anderson (50m 44s)

And mine doesn't, so we'll take it.

Jeff Battersby (50m 46s)

We definitely will.

Jeff Battersby (50m 49s)

As usual, our music, which Tom didn't play.

Jeff Battersby (50m 52s)

the beginning, which may be even saltier.

Jeff Battersby (50m 54s)

Uh, Psychokinetics, Celsius 7.

Tom Anderson (50m 56s)

Dear listener, you will hear the music, don't worry.

Jeff Battersby (50m 57s)

Yeah, you will hear the music.

Jeff Battersby (50m 58s)

I didn't though.

Tom Anderson (50m 58s)

Or you have heard the music by now, more correctly, but it might be why I don't play the music.

Jeff Battersby (50m 59s)

Yeah, but I like to dance.

Jeff Battersby (51m 1s)

That's the thing.

Jeff Battersby (51m 2s)

And Tom screwed me over this morning.

Tom Anderson (51m 4s)

I don't know, we'll see.

Jeff Battersby (51m 6s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (51m 6s)

Anyway, uh, Psychokinetics, Celsius 7, uh, in our brilliant artwork, artwork.

Tom Anderson (51m 13s)

Heart woke.

Jeff Battersby (51m 13s)

And I just got myself a artwork.

Jeff Battersby (51m 16s)

I have a, I have a, well, the widow speeds impediment this morning.

Tom Anderson (51m 16s)

Speech impediment of some sorts.

Jeff Battersby (51m 22s)

Artwork is from the inimitable, inimitable man.

Tom Anderson (51m 27s)

All right, yeah, just take us home, man.

Jeff Battersby (51m 27s)

I've, I've lost it yet.

Jeff Battersby (51m 29s)

Right?

Jeff Battersby (51m 30s)

If you're sticking around this long, Randall Martin design, Randall Martin design.

Jeff Battersby (51m 34s)

He is inimitable.

Jeff Battersby (51m 36s)

I just can't say it.

Jeff Battersby (51m 38s)

Tom, anything else you have your newsletter, why don't you tell us that?

Tom Anderson (51m 41s)

Sure. TomFAnderson.com/newsletter. Sign up for that if you would like. And I do believe that is it, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (51m 47s)

All right we're really grateful that you've listened if you've listened this far and uh

Jeff Battersby (51m 52s)

please continue to tell your friends we're audiences growing at really kind of leaps and bounds suddenly we're starting to get some some listeners and we're really grateful for that so please tell others rate us like us do whatever you do on your particular apps and yes and uh that's it tom we're done

Tom Anderson (52m 8s)

Yeah, follow us in that app, if you would.

Tom Anderson (52m 11s)

And yeah.

Tom Anderson (52m 12s)

All right.

Tom Anderson (52m 12s)

Like he said, we do appreciate it.

Tom Anderson (52m 13s)

Tons of places to get this sort of information.

Tom Anderson (52m 16s)

Usually not as in the way that we do it perhaps, but take what you want from that.

Tom Anderson (52m 22s)

Uh, but no, we do appreciate you being here.

Tom Anderson (52m 23s)

So thank you for that.

Tom Anderson (52m 24s)

And, uh, we will talk to you in a couple of weeks until then.