Ep 171: MALWARE, serious tech news from unserious people. 1) SpaceX Rocket Launch 2) Tesla's We, Robot event - CyberCabs, Robovan, Personal Assistant Robots 3) Roblox's Dark Side

[00:00] I don't know that I want to live on Mars. [00:02] I haven't gone to Australia, so there's other places on my list. [00:06] First, malware is a non-technical look at the tech news of the week. This is a podcast where we learn together about everything from crypto to AI to whatever comes next in tech. I'm Natasha Hoskins. I'm Dina Burke. And this is Boys Club. Wait, is it just Boys Club? It's just Boys Club. [00:26] The boys club podcast. No, no. [00:29] Just boys club. [00:30] It's the Elon episode here at the Great British Bake Off. [00:35] Oh, man. Yeah, I've been having a lot of feelings about... [00:39] Him. I... [00:41] I... [00:44] Done now. [00:45] I know. It's tough. There's a lot of objectively very cool stuff. [00:50] A lot of objectively cool stuff. But it's being birthed by a man who's so deeply romantic it's awfully... There's not even a... [00:58] scale for how off he is. - Also, I'm just like, you're so, [01:05] doing such cool things. You're so smart, you're so talented. Just shut the fuck up about the other stuff. [01:12] Amsterdam last week. [01:14] We were in Amsterdam. We had so much fun. I had such a great time. Such a beautiful city. We were there with Kraken. We were at the Bitcoin Amsterdam conference. Um. [01:26] The man conference is what we coined it. It was the man summit.

[01:31] It was a summit for men. Oh man. And a certain type of man too. A man who was either wearing [01:39] a Bitcoin... [01:41] Suit. [01:42] Like he either had on a suit that had Bitcoin logos all over it or literally a backpack. [01:47] And didn't want to talk to us. Uh-huh. [01:52] Wasn't interested in us. [01:53] which I don't know whatever anyway we had some really fun meetings with some boys club ladies [01:59] in Amsterdam, the sweetest, the funnest, some people who are non. And we learned [02:05] a couple curse words which I want to share. [02:08] here. [02:09] - Great. - 'Cause they're so excellent. [02:11] They're so excellent. The first one is, well, there'll be a Dutch way to say it. [02:15] Which I don't know. [02:16] Ant fucker. [02:17] Mm-hmm. [02:18] which is what you call, that's the English translation, which is what you call someone when they're too [02:24] too into the details they're thinking small they're thinking small yeah elon posts about the robo van [02:31] the big van bus thing and vitalik responded to that tweet and he he was talking about the co2 levels in the van and how the co2 levels wouldn't be optimized or something like that in the van that was him that was being an ant fucker that's being an ant fucker that's that it's not about the co2 levels in the van we're not worried about that right now [02:51] Yeah. And then the second one [02:53] which I haven't not yet had the opportunity to use, but I'm really trying to integrate it into my vocabulary somehow. [02:59] is when someone's really dumb, you call them a stupid box. That's the English translation of the Dutch phrase. Oh, man. Which is perfect. That's so perfect. In prepping for talking about some of these things today, I felt like a stupid box. I often do. Oh, man. Okay, so let's get into it. So robots and rockets we're talking about this week. And then also a dark story about Roblox,

[03:29] internet as I've now learned from you. Should we talk about the live pod? [03:33] Yes. [03:34] So this Thursday, [03:35] In two days, we are doing a live podcast recording in New York City off Canal Street above Happier Grocer or Happy Grocery. [03:45] one of those. And it's going to be really fun. We're going to talk about some feelings. We're going to talk about decentralized science and we're going to talk about reproductive health and data. It's going to be a smart time. If you like hot, smart women, you should come and you should hang out with us. So this Thursday, we, it's very limited seating. [04:05] and capacity. If you have an RSVP, it starts at seven. Don't get there any later than that, because we'll have to turn you away if we reach capacity. And if it goes well, then maybe we'll do more live pods. [04:16] Bye. [04:18] Maybe. [04:22] - - [04:23] Thank you. [04:25] Hey Natasha, so a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way.

[04:54] go to kraken.com backslash boys club not investment advice crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to us customers through payward interactive inc [05:07] Big [05:08] big thing happened on Sunday. The SpaceX Starship rocket was caught by chopsticks. [05:13] that's the headline that's the headline essentially what happened is on sunday morning spacex successfully caught a 20 foot story tall rocket booster [05:24] So it was caught by... [05:26] the SpaceX Mechazilla [05:28] and essentially the Mechazilla is this [05:31] piece of equipment that has these two little [05:33] arms that are coming out, which they call chopsticks, that caught the super heavy booster. [05:40] The Mechazilla is this nickname that they have for this. It's 400 feet tall. It's a rocket catching structure. [05:48] And I've watched all these videos of Elon talking about it. And one of the things that they had is like it had feet and it had arms initially to catch it. And he was like, just get rid of the feet. [05:58] And one of the engineers is like talking back to him. He's like, so we like had to figure out how to do it without the feet. And in the end, like Elon was right. And that's how they were able to catch this big rocket is because it was just these two chopstick structures that come out of the Mechazilla. [06:13] that then allows for it to catch the rocket. [06:16] What was 20 stories high? The... [06:18] The super booster. The super booster is 20 stories high. You really lose that in the in the videos. The scale is totally crazy. That's insane. Crazy scale. And you don't. Yeah, you really can't see that in 20 stories high. You're in you're in Midtown.

[06:31] 100%. It's enormous. It's enormous. And the whole structure that catches it is enormous. The rocket is huge. So there were two successful aspects of this launch. One is that... [06:44] the rocket took off. It's a seven minutes all in essentially. The rocket took off. It broke through the densest part of the atmosphere. And part of the rocket was released into the atmosphere and successfully sent to wherever they're sending it. That is a little unclear to me. And then the base of it, which is the 20 foot structure, returned back. [07:02] back to the launch pad and was caught by the mechazilla and [07:08] That's extraordinary. Like it's this extraordinary feat that has happened. And when you watch it and you listen to it, it sounds like a sporting event. So I kind of want to play it for listeners to understand sort of like the immense excitement and shock and awe that was a part of this. [07:26] So I want to play two parts for you. One part is the liftoff, the moment where [07:32] And you're like, anytime you hear a liftoff like this, you're like, this is extraordinary. Like something extraordinary is happening. So this is the liftoff. [07:41] T minus five, four, three, two, one. [07:52] Okay, so that happens. And then... [07:55] It's like a seven minute thing. They're talking about the success of it. [07:59] the top portion of it being sent into the atmosphere. And then now we have it coming back. We're now down to three Raptor engines. We can see those chopsticks now.

[08:29] This is absolutely insane. And it's so fun because you're hearing all these people and when you watch the video, it looks like hundreds of engineers watching it and they're just losing their mind. Totally. And I get like I honestly get chills watching it because it just feels extraordinary. It feels like a feat of a magnitude of... [08:51] minds that have had to be put towards it. So that happened on Sunday. Really exciting. [08:56] So I want to talk about what SpaceX is up to, why they're doing this, and then also what's next based on this going so successfully. The main reason that this is exciting is it's showcasing that these rockets can be, one, reusable, and two, that it can safely return. Because the idea is that right now there's nobody in it. [09:14] They're just sending these up. They're sending the rockets out into the atmosphere. And then now they're able to come back down. [09:21] them to do several things that they want to do. [09:23] That rocket has to go up and back and down safely. And it also has to be used over and over and over again. For cost efficiency, mostly, is what I understand about it. For cost efficiency. And also, like, if it explodes, then everybody dies. I see. That's it. [09:36] Safety and cost. [09:38] Not even like efficiency, but like it's impossible. It's like you can't even do it. So they're wanting to design these vehicles to be fully and rapidly reusable is the language that they've talked about. There's two things that they're working towards right now. One is that NASA paid SpaceX $4 billion to send vehicles. [09:57] NASA astronauts to the moon. Starship is the rocket that they're working on with NASA, and the mission is called Artemis 3. This is targeted for September 2026. Okay. And they will send astronauts

[10:11] to [10:12] the south side or something of the moon, like an area of the moon that we've not gone before. And that's a program that they're working on with NASA, $4 billion to do that. The other thing that they're working on is being able to send people to Mars. So first, they're going to do the starships, Artemis 3, that program with NASA to the moon. And then they're working towards a Mars lineup. So having an initial landing on Mars and then sending a crew and flight to follow to Mars. And the whole process, [10:41] mission here and interest is to work towards having people be able to live on mars and [10:47] all of this work is in an effort to propel that forward. [10:51] Mm-hmm. [10:52] So crazy space travel in the [10:55] our midst is space travel in the room with us. I think it is. I've heard the distinction talking about space travel and talking about commercial space travel and that being the idea of the second thing you're speaking to of people going and living on Mars, not as like a NASA engineer, but as totally. [11:13] Jeff Bezos. Yeah. You're going and you're hanging out there. Space tourism or like relocating, relocating to Mars. So Elon posted on X. He said the tower has caught the rocket. Big steps toward making life multi-planetary. [11:29] was made today. [11:30] Hmm. So that's his vision of the future is that we can live on multiple planets and that this is a step towards that. I don't know that I want to live on Mars. I'd I'd. [11:39] I haven't gone to Australia, so there's other places on my list.

[11:44] first, but I think it's extraordinary. It's incredible to see. And the thing that made me the most happy was seeing all of these engineers who, this is their life work, and they're literally putting rockets into space and making these incredible technological advancements. And it was really amazing to witness. So that was Sunday. [12:05] *music* [12:09] From Elon to Elon. From dust to dust. I'm going to talk about the Wee Robot event. [12:15] Great. [12:15] This was, I honestly, I guess it was last Thursday night in L.A., [12:21] But... [12:22] I was traveling... [12:24] It was five o'clock in the morning in Amsterdam and I was flying home to New York or to Nashville. [12:28] And I was seemingly getting it live. So I don't understand how time works and time zones work. But it felt to me like it was Friday morning. Well, also what's so funny is our team is so jet lagged. And so we're on 24 hours. [12:42] Not my choice. You, Miranda, and I were texting, and you and I were in Amsterdam, and Miranda was in New York, and it was like 2 a.m., and Miranda was like, [12:51] go to sleep. What are you guys doing? And we're like, we're both just like, I don't know. We can't. I'm just here. And then I woke up to text from you at like 5am. And then the next day I was texting you guys at like 630. I was like, this is manic behavior. Just totally. It totally felt manic. And that was honestly my peak manic experience. [13:08] moment was that Friday morning. It was like 5 a.m. I was eating McDonald's at the Amsterdam airport and I was watching this and I was like, holy shit. I could tell you were like, it's happening. I was like, what's happening? And you're like the robot. I hadn't slept all night. Like I didn't sleep that night. And so you'd fully lost it. Not because I was out partying just because of the jet lag. And so anyway, I was hit with this having been up for 24 hours, eating a spicy make chicken sandwich in the Skipple airport, watching it live and losing my mind. It was

[13:38] The reason why it was a show. [13:40] It was a show. It was theater. It was theater. One thing that really struck me where I was like, wow, Dina needs to take a nap is Miranda made a joke and she was like, oh, we could meme this. And you came back and you were like defensive about it. You were like, it's fine to joke about it. But like, this is actually pretty incredible. And I think being negative, I don't think this is the moment to be negative. [14:10] it's not that it's not that serious [14:13] Oh my gosh. Totally. So anyway. [14:16] last Thursday night in LA on the Warner Brothers lot. [14:21] Okay, that's where it was. Yeah. Okay. Tesla and by extension Elon Musk put on a tech spectacular show. It was fully designed. Like it was a set. There was set design. There was lights. There was music. It was not... [14:37] your typical investor update. [14:40] Yeah. Live crowd, full audience, which you heard in the recordings. And they were obsessed with him. They were obsessed with him. Fully fan. I mean, he he got an audience of fanboys. [14:50] As I would, too. 100%. There was so much-- [14:53] I love you. I love you, Elon. Yeah, it was so cringe. That was really unbearable to me that part. So Tesla was unveiling prototypes for three things, which I'm going to talk about. [15:04] The taxis, a.k.a. the cyber cabs, [15:06] the [15:07] robots which are called Optimus and the bus which is called the Robovin, Robovan. I don't know. He had a pronunciation for it. It was live streamed on X.

[15:18] So everyone was watching it. I'm going to talk about the three products and the implications, but I do want to just like high level for people to have a grasp of the basics before I get into the product stuff. The main thing, again, it was a show that if I was very futuristic, it was modeled after iRobot, which is a movie from 2014, a Will Smith movie, which it was modeled so much after that, that the director of that film was like, Hey, [15:40] what the fuck? It looks exactly like... Exactly. It's a dupe. It's crazy. Elon arrives in a cyber cab. And it's like... Yeah, yeah. And he's driving in. And it's like at night and there's lights. It's so giving nerd in high school who now has money. It's so giving that. It's just like... It's so obvious. I can't even believe someone is just going to allow themselves to be that much of a cliche. Totally. I was showing my kids the rocket launch and... [16:10] we were watching that and then I was like, okay, let's, I want to show you guys this other thing, this thing. And when I pressed play on the video, [16:17] And he pulls in the cyber cab and he, the door opens and he walks out. They both are like, oh my God. They freaked out. Natasha, in unison. It was totally. Oh no. You have Elon stands. You have Elon stands in your own. A little too. [16:35] Elon stands in my house. But it was full. It was totally natural. It was like they saw this cool car. [16:40] Of course. And they see the lights and the music and they're like, they lost their minds. He's a superhero. In that moment, I was like, oh.

[16:48] He's marketing to Gen Alpha as much as anything else. You know what I mean? Get them while they're young. Totally. So the TLDR is at the, it was very fun show. It was a show. It was super entertaining. Very entertaining. Yeah. Robots, they're dancing, whatever. Before I get into the details, I do need to say the stock price is down 9% after the show. [17:10] - Nine, 10%. - Wow, that's a lot. - It's a lot, it fell considerably. And the main point is that people were like, okay, [17:18] Fine. [17:19] Cool show. [17:20] not substantive enough. He didn't have any details on rollout. He didn't have any details on regulation, pricing, all of this stuff was very, very vague. He talked for probably 15 minutes, and he didn't get into the details that people have been asking him, in fairness, for years around the cyber cab in particular. A lot of details missing. But yeah, just going into this, know that the sentiment around it was, wow, that was really fun to watch and also not quite enough to [17:48] keep investors happy so sounds like this podcast we don't have investors so that's not it we don't need to keep anyone happy uh okay except for our listeners and i hope that you guys are happy [18:03] okay so the [18:04] Taxis were very much the main event of the show. He's been talking about for years. I think 2016, he started talking about it. People have been asking him about timelines, what's going on, cybercabs, what's up. He has consistently said two more years, two more years, two more years. And that is what he said this time as well. But we did get the first look at the prototype of what's going to be a fully self-driving vehicle called the cybercab. No pedals, no steering wheel.

[18:30] So you're in it and it's a little computer box that you're driving around in. It's marking the transition of going from supervised self-driving, which is what... [18:38] Tesla's have now to fully autonomous self-driving. So it was incredible to see it is a [18:44] prototype [18:45] and I think it's important, all the three things that he showed were all prototypes. [18:50] I'm personally very, very excited and very, very pro self-driving cars. I think it will result in a lot of lives saved. I'm on the road here in Tennessee and people are texting while they're driving. I think there's a lot of human error that happens on the road that could be prevented. Traffic efficiency, I think it can do a lot for giving mobility to people who don't [19:16] or can't drive disabled people [19:18] folks, elderly folks, really excited about the possibility to lower emissions and also just all the crazy changes that it's going to make for urban planning when you no longer need parking spaces and parking spots. And also, [19:34] Cheap operating cost will be around 20 cents per mile and he's very much talking about it as a cab So it wasn't really about like your car It was being positioned in a way where it's like this is gonna be a fleet and you can buy a [19:47] cars and turn them into a fleet, but it was very much like, you'll probably have a subscription, it will come and pick you up, and then... [19:55] it will drop you off at your destination and then it will go on and do [19:58] other things. And so you're not going to be needing to pay for your own car if you don't want to, if you live in probably a certain type of semi-urban place. So it's cool. It's really cool. It's a really cool vision. He said it would come in below 30K in production in 2026, which I think is what a lot of the investors reacted to. Not enough there. There was some stuff that he did in

[20:24] vision casting, we'll be able to turn parking lots into parks and green spaces. And he touched on that. But if I'm giving notes, he could have done a lot more to talk about [20:36] the safety, the efficiency, the energy, the green spaces stuff, like how it will be transformative, potentially, for human life in such a positive way. And that was really missing, as well as like, there has been a lot of questions on the rollout plan, the tech stack. I will say I was pleasantly surprised by his opening notes. [20:56] were very much about [20:58] basically tech optimism versus tech pessimism and that what he's trying to paint and what he believes is a world where [21:07] technology makes the world a better place where it's not Blade Runner, but it's these other versions of the future that are more efficient and brighter. And I think when we talk about the robot stuff, I have some thoughts around that. But I did like that as like a setting. A global note was like it was all just very surface level. Yeah. It didn't get into the nitty gritty on any of it. Yeah. [21:27] It may be like that was what it was for. It was for my eight year old to watch and be like, holy shit, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And like, maybe that's fine. But I think if you are a Tesla investor. [21:38] You've been hearing that for a while and you're like, OK, well, what's the processing power? What are the sensors that you're using in autonomous vehicles? Hardware isn't the limit. We know how to build a car. It's the software. And those were the questions that felt like they were unanswered. One note for me, everybody was like, oh, the doors are so cool.

[21:58] What is that? [21:59] Where are you opening those doors? I've just imagined myself getting in an Uber on the streets of New York. Yeah. Never going to happen. Or even I'm just like, I'm at a... [22:10] I'm in LA and I'm at a valet. [22:12] and they're opening that what are we even talking about the door so the doors open up the doors open up and out like they don't open just up they open up and out i'm like the it's insane pass on that i do think that that was why the boys were so excited was to see that that was like oh my gosh so maybe it's again theater maybe it doesn't make it into the i just like imagine myself just trying to like squeeze open the door slightly and squeeze in and just like it hitting [22:42] van the robovin the bus which i'm not gonna spend a ton of time on it's a party bus basically it's it was a surprise no one expected it but he was talking about the cybercabs and then he was like and then for highly dense areas we're gonna be doing this bus and the bus comes out i can carry up to 20 people or things goods he's saying it's solving for high density it's very prototypey like it did it seemed it would never last for 10 minutes on new york city streets like as soon as [23:12] I think for me, what was exciting about it was just this idea of the... [23:17] Autonomous vehicle thing? [23:19] It... [23:19] is so adjacent to Uber. [23:22] And Uber can be so annoying. And the bus idea, the Roboven, I was like, oh, this feels like the future. They're constantly just showing up and they're taking you to wherever you're going and you're getting with other people. And the efficiency around a bunch of people going to similar areas and that being able to cut down on congestion in highly dense areas.

[23:45] urban areas i could like really see that future in a way where autonomous vehicles i'm always just like aren't there just gonna be a ton of more cars on the road although if it all plays out the way that i think people are hoping it will play out is that there will be no more traffic because everything will be communicating but yeah i do think still there's like a congestion which the vans would help solve for right right [24:05] So that was interesting and felt futuristic in a way that was exciting. Yeah. And then the third thing was the robots. Yeah. [24:12] humanoid personal assistant. [24:14] robots [24:15] come marching out at the end of the presentation and they came out marching in a group which was i don't know that i would have made that choice it kind of had some sinister undertones it was like a army of them that came out and alan starts talking about them and he's talked about humanoid assistant robots in the past so this wasn't a surprise necessarily but it was the first we've seen the prototypes of them and it's very much your personal assistant it's gonna water your [24:45] Whatever you can think of, it will do. [24:48] And... [24:49] Twitter took that. People thought of things. Primarily sex. So that was- As you can imagine. Definitely the first thing that came up, which was reinforced by the cage dancing. There was a scene at the end- I hated the cage dancing. I hated the cage dancing. But he put the robots in a cage and played music and they danced and everyone was like, oh- [25:08] I mean, I was thinking sex, but now I'm definitely thinking sex. [25:12] So that was the final thing. Now, there has been a lot of, not controversy, but a lot of chat about the robots that they were remote controlled. Okay. So again, it's theater.

[25:26] It was a show that we were watching. There's been a lot of investigation that's been happening around this and nerds on Twitter trying to figure it out. And basically what people have come to is that they were walking on their own, that that was AI, but that... [25:38] they were pouring drinks and they were like hanging out with people and talking to the crowds and that they were being [25:42] remotely controlled and and probably voiced by people because oh okay to be able to have a [25:49] conversational robot [25:51] in low light that like that would have been an insane [25:54] - Okay. - Development. - So. - And that's not happened. [25:57] Okay, the two clips that I saw right after [26:00] it came out that where I was like, whoa, this is crazy. Is them, yeah, pouring a drink. [26:05] and like pulling a [26:07] on a draft, a beer on draft. And then the other was like this conversation that one of them was having with one of the Elon fans who was there at the show. And what was interesting to me is it was very conversational. [26:20] And more than anything, it was interesting to see that man was like... [26:25] you could tell [26:26] having this weird experience of not knowing what [26:30] how to [26:31] talk to the robot, but not wanting to like be rude. It was like really interesting. Like, yeah, they were like, so where are you from? And they were like, he's like, oh, well, I'm from Fresno. And they were like, oh, what neighborhood in Fresno? And it was just a really bizarre story. [26:48] experience yeah to witness and to try to understand and and my thought was like I would be the same I would be doing so much emotional labor on behalf of this robot I'd be like I hope this robot and understands that I think what's happening is extraordinary that we're able to have this conversation and robot mad at me

[27:06] But like it was... [27:08] It was shocking to see that interaction. [27:11] Yeah, if it was remote controlled, then that's less interesting. But still, I think what he did successfully is... [27:20] you can see a world that he's [27:22] trying to create. You could see it [27:24] Where I'm like, oh... [27:26] What's exciting to me about [27:27] all of these robots in and amongst us doing whatever we need them to do is what does it make possible for humanity when you think about creative expression or entrepreneurial endeavors like so much of what our day to day is taken up by is like a lot of mundane tasks that make it difficult to spend time with people you love or to work on side projects or whatever it is and I think some of that stuff is really important like I think about this is totally an aside but Alison Roman [27:56] brooklyn-based cook book author and she has this whole theory about not having too many kitchen tools because she's like i feel like a huge part of what's important about cooking is this idea that you're like using your hands that you're like touching the food that you're like engaged with this process as a [28:16] nourishment for your body. And I find that to be true around cooking. I really enjoy cooking and it's like this really... [28:22] It's like a life-giving thing. [28:25] One fear I have about the robot world is that we're not doing any of those things anymore and we're not engaged in the texture of life. But a positive would be [28:35] folding your laundry and cleaning your bathroom and all of these things that take up a lot of time and space that are annoying, frees you up to do all the things that are more important to you. Yeah, I think that to that note, again, another note to Elon, was that I think that the examples that he gave around what the robot can do for you were the wrong examples to give. To your point that like, we don't want it to be doing the things that...

[28:59] that nourish us. We don't want it to be watching the kids. We want it to be cleaning the gutters. [29:04] I mean, I don't know, maybe someone finds some deep meaning in cleaning the gutters, but like mowing the lawn. And I even think the bartender example was probably the wrong thing. [29:13] thing to use because I think people really like talking to bartenders and that's a part of the human experience that I think probably shouldn't be replaced by robots and [29:22] that felt [29:23] like a miss. I saw a great tweet that was about the bartender that said, bartender here, guess what? The robots are never going to be programmed to take a beer off your tab because they feel sorry for you after your wife took the kids. Totally. And I was like, oh, so true. So true. So true. And so anyway, I think there was a mess on like some of those examples. And I think there's a lot of examples of things that we don't like to do. Changing the oil in my car would have been a [29:53] $30,000 on a robot to put the tobacco on. I saw someone used the word clankers to describe the robots and they were like, we've got our first slur for robots. I saw that. [30:03] Ha ha ha ha. [30:04] so funny which i feel like really summed it up [30:08] I think one thing I want to say about what I have an articulation actually around the guy talking to the robot and what. [30:14] my experience of watching that and thinking about [30:17] projecting onto this human man what his experience was, is that I couldn't separate the idea that that robot would have emotion around the conversation. [30:26] that it would have some feeling around like talking and trying to be smart and asking him where he's from.

[30:32] I can't imagine a being... [30:36] That doesn't have feeling. Yeah. [30:38] Like it's conceptually I can't get there. [30:40] I mean, I think that will be a thing that we're going to have to wrestle with as a human race. Seriously, like that's going to be, I think, a defining question. I was like, [30:50] They do or they don't and if they don't then how does the way that you treat them change? I [30:56] And if they do, how does the way that you treat them change? And also if we start to have this is so hypothetical, but like if we have to start to have robots and we believe that they don't have emotion, we treat them as though they don't have emotion. Like, how does that start to map on to how we treat other human beings? Because we get used to treating these beings as robots. [31:15] emotion and if there's like classes that start to arise as a result and some of us are living on mars and some of us are living here and then there's robots and who knows but it's fun to think about isn't it it's really fun to think about and it feels maybe not in my lifetime but in a lifetime something that will be a reality and that's pretty crazy [31:35] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly.

[32:05] Kraken.com backslash boys club, not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss and is offered to us customers through payward interactive Inc. No third party transfers available. Fun story here to end. Let's hear it. Roblox. Okay, cool. It's not fun at all. It's really dark actually, but it feels important to share because it didn't get a lot of press last week and I felt like it needed to get more press. So Roblox for any people, [32:31] parents are saying they might be familiar with it but it's basically a gaming platform 80 million daily active users huge roblox minecraft they're kind of twinned in their reach and penetration into the lives of kids who are online they won public in 2021 huge company last week [32:49] There was a report released on Roblox and its users, and it is... [32:55] damning [32:56] And I'm going to read some highlights from it. [32:59] But before we get into what the report, [33:02] says, I do need to say that it's what's known as a short seller report. It was put together by this company called Hindenburg Research, which is an activist investment firm. And they have a reputation of when they've seen companies in the past doing shady stuff, they've like put together big research reports and released it to public and presumably were shorting the stock in advance of putting out that report. So it is... [33:24] We're playing chess. They're playing chess. Yeah, for sure. But I don't think it's possible to make this up, you know, grain of salt in that there was a vested interest and motivation to have this go public and for it to be as inflammatory and hysterical as possible to get as many headlines as possible so that the stock would tank. But

[33:44] It's kind of crazy what they found. So there's a couple different buckets of issues that they found. The first bucket is them lying about their users, number of users, engaged users. It's overrun with bots. Their numbers are inflated. They just had their earnings report and released some numbers around engagement and users and growth and stuff like that. And Hindenburg Research found that that was a lie and that they have totally inflated numbers. That obviously is of interest to people who are trading this stock. [34:11] the stuff that got the headlines the the second stuff falls into two boxes the [34:16] pedophilia grooming stuff and then violence. [34:19] on the platform. So both [34:22] Just so dark. So dark. The predatory grooming stuff... [34:28] is really disgusting. They had a bunch of examples of how this is taking place in Roblox, but just some highlights. There were a lot of criminal indictments and cases that named Roblox as the key way to target children. If you're looking to do that type of thing, you're going to go there first. And that's as evidence in all these different cases that are out. [34:49] have [34:50] been tried no screening on problematic names so like jeff epstein fan accounts you can like name yourself epstein and epstein island stuff like that a group of 103 000 members [35:01] soliciting sexual favors openly. [35:04] just [35:05] Chat rooms trading in child pornography. So. I know. What the fuck? [35:08] registered as a child like they did some tests where they were like going in as different types of users and registered as a child they could access this escape to epstein island diddy party like there's over 600 diddy games so there's a whole bunch of really weird grooming pedophilia stuff

[35:25] and then [35:26] Honestly, what was more concerning to me [35:28] mostly because of the scale and the reach of this next category, which was around the violence. I would also just say, I think one of the reasons so that people don't [35:37] take what you just said the wrong way. [35:39] you can kind of your son playing Roblox, you can give him some literacy around do's and don'ts. [35:46] of being online and being groomed. [35:48] There's like some clear things that you can say, like, this is a red flag. Don't engage with this. Like it's, [35:54] obviously really complex and really [35:57] dark and there are people who are [36:00] sophisticated about the way that they are predators, which is disgusting, but you can give some guardrails to... [36:07] ensure that [36:08] Oscar knows. [36:09] these are things that you, [36:11] do not engage with. And I think the second bucket that you're about to talk about, it's a lot harder to like, [36:17] give some clarity around how to [36:19] Navigate online totally and you also can just come across it and you're like right going through your day and Roblox and then you come across a [36:27] beat up homeless outside 7-Eleven simulator. One million visits to that. [36:32] That's so sad. [36:34] another one beat up the pregnant was what it's called beat up the pregnant and it's [36:39] you go in there and you [36:41] beat pregnant women in a Walmart parking lot. [36:44] Guns at the hospital, a hospital shooting rampage. You go through the hospital and you shoot people. Palestine and Israel hang out. All ages welcome here to purchase bombs and knives and attack each other. 13 million visits. That is so fucked. The reach on these things is insane.

[36:58] It's insane. That's insane. Crazy. And so [37:04] yeah just to parents listening this is what's happening on this platform and i hate to be like there's part of me that's resisting even telling the story because i hate it's very easy to get into sort of hysterics around parenting and children online and sure [37:18] There's you can find evidence of any story that you want to tell around how dangerous it is for kids to be online and I think that [37:25] I just, yeah, I just want to be careful about that. But I do think that given the scale of what's happening on Roblox, I think it's important for parents to know that and. [37:35] I don't even know how it's like how is it legal to do that? Are you [37:42] You have... [37:43] Outlawed it now. [37:45] no roblox anymore full outlaw yeah okay zero tolerance policy yeah nice [37:51] That feels appropriate based on the stories you just told. [37:55] okay thanks for the PSA [37:58] Yeah. [37:59] For any parents listening. Any parents listening. [38:05] Okay, draft tweets to just give us a little bit of... [38:11] a happy way to end. When I watch a dark show, then I'd be like, I need a palate cleanser and I'd turn on like a 30 Rock or something like that. So here's your palate cleanser. [38:21] Um... [38:22] Oh my god, mine are really, really, woo, okay. [38:28] The only one I have. I only have one. Is this COVID or UTI is a fun post-Singapore game?

[38:37] dark in a different kind of way okay wow wow wow yeah i think that one that that's literally perfect draft tweet i think it should stay in the draft totally i love it for here um i have one that you guys told me i couldn't post which i understand why but i've been saving for tweets i and i can't stress this enough we'll stop scrolling for every kelly clarkson singing video [39:01] It remains true. [39:03] It remains true. But I was I was told that it was too similar to another person's tweet and I would never want to. You would never. But I will say ever since you told me that tweet, I now stop at every single Kelly Clarkson video. It's like change my brain like something happened. [39:18] and I'm like I have to watch this I have to watch it and it's always good always good it's always she's a talent she is a talent sure is generational talent um okay see you later