Share & Litigate & Tell with Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kayne

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Is Ben Affleck the boy who cried Dick Wolf right after this ad?

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Ramy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, African Alcohol by Volume 40 by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, New York, New York, 1738.

Centaur Design.

Please drink responsibly.

Eric Rideholme, Eric Rodeholm, told me that he loves when we're on together because it seems like the three of us, there's nowhere else we'd rather be and that we're really enjoying ourselves.

Eric Rideholm, creator of such television greatness as PTI, pardon the interruption, Around the Horn.

Yep.

There's got to be another.

I love those shows.

Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

Highly questionable.

Oh, can I show you a picture of somebody that was on date?

Oh, and this.

Oh, that's right.

High noon.

I was watching Dateline last night, and I saw a guy on there, and I was like,

that, yeah.

I mean, I'm a woman.

And what crime will I be sucked into in real life?

Let's find out.

And I said, this is the halfway point on a spectrum where the Poles are Ray Romano and Dan Labetard.

Whoa.

That, okay, let's just show exactly right.

Wow.

It looks like the disguise that they used in Argo.

It looks fake.

It does.

But I was like, that is, that is Dan Lebromano.

That's right.

Yeah, it looks like prosthetic circa 2002.

Who is this gentleman?

No idea.

I barely

got Le Romano.

We put this on to go to bed, and I was like, hold on, I got to take a picture of that to show Pablo.

Because I told Dan exactly what I just said to you.

Soder.

Yeah, who I was in bed with, yes, not Lebatard.

Wow.

And he didn't react in the way I wanted.

I really wanted a like, wow, that's exactly right.

So I said, I'm going to take a picture and show it to Pablo tomorrow.

I am here to validate it.

That is exactly right.

Thank you.

What was that guy?

I think he was in the Dateline episode.

I think he was either, I think he was probably like a prosecutor.

I have no idea.

I don't know.

A safe guess.

I truly didn't listen.

That feels like one of the stock characters.

That's someone who's going to be on a Dateline episode.

That's right.

Right.

Prosecutor and investigator.

Usually somebody who's just repeating exactly what the interviewer just said to them.

Dateline is incredibly popular still.

Much better than 2020 if we're taking sides.

Are we ranking the true original true crime podcasts?

I mean, that's Dateline.

So Dateline has a recurring cast of characters like Keith Morrison.

They'll host an episode.

So it'll be like Keith Morrison's episode, where he'll do the VO and then he'll do like the interstitial shots of him walking through the crime scene and then he'll do the sit-down interviews.

2020 has that recurring cast, and they just sit and do the exposition throughout the episode as if they're being interviewed.

And that blurs a line for me that I'm like, you're just a reporter.

Why don't you just report it instead of making it look like you're being interviewed?

That's like a producer's choice.

Yeah, and I think it's a dumb choice.

So that's why I'm Team Dateline.

You know, Keith Morrison's face.

The best.

You know who he's, whose uncle is

beautiful.

He looks like a guy who is also wearing like a keith morrison mask yes at this point which is a compliment he looks like glenn close

winged victory of samothrace

what's that the second one um it's uh it did autocomplete in my google search it's a headless piece of art oh yeah it's nike it's the god it's nike oh yeah i knew i know art yes i know art i know all art but would you show just because i do feel like glenn close

oh the glenn close yeah glenn close is right That's right.

Absolutely.

A true close call.

Winged victory of Samothrace, famous Hellenistic marble statue of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

It was like a new color.

I'm actually colorblind.

It's blue, I think.

You're colorblind for real.

How do you get dressed?

I mean, I'm not like crushing it.

No.

No.

But how do you do it?

Mostly like jeans.

Okay, so colorblind.

How colorblind is that?

There we go.

So

I can see a lot of colors, thousands and thousands of colors.

But you can see like millions of colors.

I can?

Yeah.

Regular people can see millions, but regular people doesn't sound as complimentary as I can see.

You muggles.

But I can see fewer colors.

So I can see a lot of, not most colors, but do you struggle with greens?

All kinds of shit.

Okay.

Okay, so like there's red back to the circles.

Yep.

Okay, but the other, whatever the other thing is next to you.

Blue, and then that's yellow, green.

If you told me that was blue or purple, I wouldn't know.

And yellow, green, I wouldn't know.

You wouldn't know.

What does it look like to you, the yellow?

Like, I would just, I would say either yellow or green, being unsure.

It's both.

So you'd be right well great never mind color fine to me where does this become a problem for you to play video games it becomes a problem i mean the only place it's actually a problem is when you go to museums and they have those colorblind things and they're like look here do you see the number and i'm like there's no number there and my kid's like it's an eight you know moron yeah you'll have to see you should stop going to museums my kids are mean also that's those are the two problems

and when would you encounter the winged victory of samothrace well you'd have to be i think at the louvre at the louvre at the louvre

yeah i feel like it's head on it.

Yeah, but I feel like...

It's a headless.

I feel like if you took Glenn Close and the texture of that part of the blouse.

He's saying he's wrinkly and old.

Yeah, kind of.

Yeah, yeah.

But like, like chiseled wrinkles.

He does have interesting.

There's John Kerry in this.

Yes, for sure.

Yes, for sure.

John Kerry and Glenn Close.

Yeah, I like that.

He is the John Kerry and Glenn Close of Ray Romano and Dan Levittar.

Yes, indeed.

I think we're going to start with my topic.

Yes, I think we should.

That sounds great.

It's a lot.

It's a great topic.

It's a great story.

I'm pretty sure neither of you read the whole thing.

Who could have?

I read most of the headline.

It was a very long story about a beige influencer.

And I don't know what to, I couldn't get any further than that.

I started scrolling, and you know, the little thing on the side that tells you how far you've gone?

It hardly moved when I was going, and I was like, I'm never gonna make it.

Once I saw how small it was, I was like, this is something Pablo can tell me.

Yeah.

The headline aforementioned is bad influence.

It is on theverge.com.

Subhead, one Amazon influencer makes a living posting content from her beige home.

But after she, this is sounding like a 2020 sort of setup now.

But after she noticed another account hawking the same minimal aesthetic, a rivalry spiraled into a first-of-its-kind lawsuit.

Can the legal system protect the vibe of a creator?

And what if that vibe is basic?

So it's a landmark case.

It's a great setup.

I love this story.

It's about, yeah, a landmark case seemingly in the world of influencer intellectual property plagiarism.

These are two Amazon influencers.

Are you guys familiar?

To define what that is,

that's just people who order off of Amazon.

And then tell you this is good, this is bad.

So they, yes, but also they have the ability to create a storefront.

This is scare quotes.

Amazon storefront.

I think we all know what that is.

I don't know, but I can, I feel like I'm in my bones.

If I say the links in my Amazon storefront, you can go click on like Katie Nolan's Amazon storefront, and it'll be like, here's the jeans she's talking about.

Here's

a can opener.

Everybody could be Oprah with her favorite things.

Right, but only on Amazon.

On Amazon that you get a you get a share of profit-wise.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

If in fact people click on your storefront to buy it from your store.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So this storefront operator, her name is Sidney Nicole Gifford.

She's 24 years old, living in Minneapolis.

She sued Alyssa Scheele, who is 21 years old in Austin, Texas.

What the aforementioned Sidney Nicole Gifford did was hire an attorney, send cease and desist orders to Alyssa Scheele because she claimed that Shield had participated in, quote, willful, intentional, and purposeful infringement of her copyright.

Dozens of posts across platforms like TikTok and Instagram, Posts in the case of C.

Nicole Gifford that look like this.

My vanity was needing some organization help, so I partnered with Target to share these bathroom and storage products that work so perfectly for makeup and countertop organization.

This is the prettiest trash bin, so I had to grab that.

Then I found this spinning turntable, which I thought would be so perfect for some of my skincare and fragrances.

Sticking with all the gold tones, I also had to get this candle.

For the other side, I got a vanity organizer and countertop mirror.

I love how all these pieces match each other and really go with the glam room aesthetic and everything's on my target storefront and so the plaintiff is claiming gifford that is gifford that is gifford uh there's a pattern

she's got that aesthetic that we all know there's a pattern of copying um basically days or weeks the allegation goes after she would share photos or videos promoting an amazon product uh shield the defendant would share her own content doing the same thing and this is what sheol's content would look like as an example oh my god can't wait Amazon Black Friday home finds that are actually worth the money.

Starting off with my personal favorite, my makeup vanity is on major deal right now.

This is hands down one of my favorite items in my entire home.

It has so much storage and it is absolutely stunning and would look great in any space.

Nothing makes me happier than opening this drawer and seeing how organized it is.

These organizers are truly game-changing.

Having a towel warmer has truly changed my life.

It is truly an 11 out of 10.

Next are these curtains.

We have them in every single room of our house.

I think they look so luxe.

I just can't get over how much these make our house.

You're familiar with this genre though, this type of of person.

Yes, but it's just,

I don't mean to sidetrack.

That depresses me so much because the language of it.

The happiest I've ever felt is when I opened this drawer.

This is the greatest thing that's ever been in my life.

I have three children.

This is the happiest day of my life is when this Bartesian was delivered.

You're saying it's a bit of a hard sell.

It's crazy.

The fact that that works on anybody makes me feel uncomfortable to just always go, this is, oh my god you guys this changed my life

this is a glasses case where I put in my glasses and inside this it cleans is a cloth that cleans my glasses truly I'm a different person having found these two together you have to get this it says nice to see you inside I am going to buy that now.

You can decide why.

I do, I understand what you're saying, though, that sense of like, you two can have access to the great stream of happiness.

You can dip your fingers in if only you buy these luxuries.

So it comes inside of this archetype, which I was not familiar with in this specific way until this story, which is the clean girl.

You've never heard of the aesthetic of the clean.

You're familiar.

Yes.

I spend a lot of time online, Pablo.

It's why my mentals are the way that they are.

Can you explain what a clean girl is?

Image-wise, to me, the first thing I picture is a slicked-back bun or ponytail with

very groomed brows and

dewy-looking skin.

And everything is very clean lines.

I guess for your home, it would be like all the picture frames on your house are the same size with the same matting and they all match.

Very few colors.

Yes, a lot of beige, a lot of neutrals.

Minimalist.

Yeah.

It's a current, I feel like, micro trend on

the internet.

Yes, it promotes quote unquote self-care, comfort, and looking put together.

Yes.

The most famous clean girl, if you were wondering, is perhaps Haley Bieber.

And there are many such people in the Haley Bieber coaching tree.

It turns out.

I almost said Alex Cooper.

Well, okay, yes.

Yes, a current practitioner, a master of the form, perhaps.

Gifford is claiming, though, in this lawsuit, that in the course of 70 pages of side-by-side screenshots, you can clearly see that she posts stuff and then Shield, the defendant, is copying her.

We can see a couple of just side-by-side still frames here.

Again, it's the gallery wall, black and white photo with a black frame.

They both have this, yeah, this sort of look.

As we cycle through, we see yet another example.

Oh, this is my favorite part.

What?

It's a tattoo.

So at a certain point in the story, you realize as there is this back and forth about, no, no, no, how can I possibly be held accountable for embodying an aesthetic that is not simply Gifford's to claim?

You learn that Sheil has gotten a flower tattoo that is disturbingly akin to Gifford's flower tattoo.

Same spot on their own.

Lower.

I guess what's weird about these two?

Just from this, from at this point in the story, what I'm thinking is, Gifford's first, right?

Yes.

So Gifford's like, I got this tattoo.

I selected it.

But I mean, first of the two of them, relatively.

Yes.

She is like, buy all this stuff.

And so this gal goes, okay.

Buy all this stuff.

And she does it.

And then she's like, hey, the stuff I bought, y'all should buy the stuff I bought.

Gifford, this is a success.

You did it.

The thing you wanted to do, do, you did.

Right.

It's weird to me to be like, well, hang on.

Someone bought the stuff that I said to buy and then told other people to buy it.

That doesn't seem right.

So at the core of it is the question of how can you possibly claim that you are the originator of a style that you yourself have derived from this larger recurring conceit of we're all trying to be Haley Bieber.

Or it turns out in this very particular archetype, Kim Kardashian, who turns out in a bit of a twist of the story to be established as the actual originator of a lot of people.

Oh, because her house is boring as f.

Right.

Have you seen Kim Kardashian's house?

I know you've been home.

I'm sure I have.

I know you've been to her house.

But

it's just like monochromatic.

Very sad and cold looking.

Neutral

is the term that they like to embrace.

Boring.

It's the absence of

like warmth.

It's the absence of

anything kind of folally interesting.

So it's an absence of

a personality.

It's an absence of like my, of injecting myself into my home decor.

Like, listen, you're talking to a lady who's got a blank wall because she's overwhelmed by the idea of hanging anything on it.

Not because I think it's like a nice cleanest that, like, I know I'm no expert on this stuff, but like.

It's hard to say, like, that's, she stole that from me when what that is, is like a blank wall.

Right, right.

So what's happening here?

Or a gallery wall.

that's a very common thing right we also in our house have four pictures on a wall watch out did uh go watch out now

you better have a lawyer but but even if we were to grant though that they're both very very similar to each other the legal precedent here is interesting um it references a lawsuit that it was actually a case in which nike so the the famous this is sports we're a sports show yes the famous uh jump man logo that Nike made popular of Michael Jordan extending his arm out, legs splayed.

It turns out that that was originally photographed in 1984 by this guy, and this is a strange name, but it's Co, CO, Rentmeester.

Co-Rentmeester.

I love it.

I love it.

Definitely not the name a child invents for himself when he's asked at a movie theater, sir.

I'm Ko.

What's your name?

Co-Rentmeester says that he photographed Michael Jordan in that pose and that Nike then reshot it with Michael Jordan and did that pose in their own advertising.

This is the original co-rentmeaser.

His leg is bent a little more than it is in the.

You see the right leg being bent a pad more.

And Nike, of course, looks like this.

Yes.

Well, yes.

The leg a little straighter, the arm a little straighter.

Perfected in that way, optimized in that way, you might even say.

The judge did rule that Nike had no liability for this.

Because you can't.

What Nike won on the basis of was this court finding that the images were not substantially similar because the photographer didn't own the pose.

Like, how can you possibly copyright this pose?

And that only creative choices like angle of photograph and camera shutter speed could be protected, which is interesting.

But the point is, a judge gets to be an art critic.

And in this case, what we're waiting on is the judge to determine, is the thing that these people are making a creative decision that can be protected as

precedent suggests.

And all of it speaks to what the f people are being incentivized to do.

Like the thing about all of this is that, and this is a recurring theme, I think, on this show,

the internet and its economy promised a great multiplying of sensibilities and tastes and different ideas.

And instead, it incentivized homogeneity.

And so here are people just doing what

this new economy is instructing them to do and simultaneously now claiming what I am doing though, because I am doing it.

I care about this.

This is me.

They are claiming that this is worthy of legal protection.

And this will be a landmark case if, in fact, it is ruled in favor of Gifford against Sheil.

No, I'm no copyright lawyer, but I don't think they'll possibly rule in favor

of whatever the first lady's name was.

I just can't see how you would.

Oh, do we have more?

Because I do want more.

I need more.

If you're in the jury pool for this, you may be lucky enough, should this go to trial, to see.

Now, see, captions are, I guess, to me, a number one indicator of if you're copying i've seen a lot of not to get distracted but i've seen a lot of this on the internet over the last year or two of someone alleging that someone stole someone else's content.

And a lot of the times the nail in the coffin for me is I'll look and be like, oh, same exact caption.

They took the same exact caption of the post and posted it on there.

And they're not usually in a legal battle.

It's just someone going like, hey, this girl's copying everything.

But this, the captions, I can't read them even with my glasses aren't the same they clearly aren't the same they're wearing the same sweater and that's but it's a sweater from amazon aren't we all wearing

aren't we all wearing the same sweater

but it's it's also like phone covering the face in the same way we all do that when we take a picture of ourselves right leg uh angled we all do that when we're taking a picture of ourselves i guess the way i feel is if you go onto instagram right now

you will find a billion people doing this exact thing i feel like at least the first hurdle you have to clear, and I don't think this is sufficient to win this lawsuit, but the first hurdle I would imagine you have to clear is: if I didn't exist, no one else would be doing this.

But in fact, if both these women were like, you know, vaporized at this exact moment,

you could find two new ladies that are doing this.

Side by side.

They're also not even selling the same products.

This one's selling, I think, the mirror, her most used object in her house, and that sweater.

They're selling the same sweater.

This is also, just just to be clear about how this all works is you see a photo of somebody and on these storefronts, the products are basically tagged so that you can buy, you can shop.

Oh, look, I want that sweater.

I want that mirror.

I want this Chris Evans and knives out sweater kind of deal.

Table knit, I think, is the

table knit.

It is worth pointing out here that the model in the product shot does look also like the same.

Is she stealing it?

Is she stealing it?

So part of this is about an alleged loss of income, right?

So Gifford is claiming that she would post this thing.

She'll very often replicate it and she would be able to see in a data-driven way the money taken out of her pocket because somebody else was allegedly doing the same thing and competing for the same exact

feels like the world.

You know what I mean?

I sell oranges.

Wait, now you're selling oranges?

What the f, dude?

I sell oranges.

But if there's enough oranges, the other guy's going to start selling them too.

Can sheer naked consumerism be an artistic creative choice to be protected legally in a world in which everybody who's a creator and influencer is also a storefront operator in which they're selling products as their actual main goal?

That is the legal scholarship that we're watching develop, which people have been, by the way, people have been waiting for because this is, of course, these complaints are rampant.

It's not just these two people are the first to have this complaint.

It's just that Gifford actually took the step of copywriting her stuff.

And how?

What do you mean by that?

Yeah, so here is

what do you mean by this?

She registered her social media post with the U.S.

Copyright Office, an unusual step, according to the story, not taken by most influencers.

You can just copyright anything you want.

How much does it cost?

This post that you posted has you in it.

So if you're not in the one that I made, then it's different.

Isn't mine different?

This is her claiming that her hair was dyed from black to brown

on September 27th, 2023, and that the the defendant

months later on December 2nd, 2023

did the same thing.

Also in her car.

I mean, listen, that's what a trend is.

Like

I'm seeing a lot of blondes currently go brunette and be very dramatic about it.

Side note.

They're very, they're being very like, oh my God, my hair is so dark, which is like, yeah, all right, that's what brunette is.

But it's a trend.

You know, a couple months ago, there was a trend of, I think it was called cowboy copper.

Same thing with like nails.

There's like nail trends, but it doesn't mean that you're copying as much as it means you're following what you're being literally influenced to do.

So I just have a hard time with all of this in general.

Copyright law in general is very confusing to me.

I sympathize somewhat with a defendant because it's a human being, but the thing that I brought in to talk about today, which we'll get to later, is AI and the idea of like, I don't, so I I guess what I'm trying to think through in my own mind is where I draw the line, but I don't draw it here.

Does she claim like I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Now I'm making right because she was making like 600 bucks a week.

I'm going to be mad that we're talking about that.

So the proxy answer I will give is that they were both able to buy new homes as a result of their Amazon.

I mean, what's up with money?

What's going on with money?

How does money work?

It does not make any sense.

Let's talk about that.

New beige homes.

Where?

In the markets that they're from.

In outside of Minneapolis and Austin, Texas.

Both lovely, lovely cities.

Well, Austin's sort of.

It's changing.

It's different, but it's lovely.

It's very different now.

I don't think it's weird anymore.

I don't,

yeah, I just, I can't.

Maybe I don't understand it.

I'd love to have Sydney on the pod.

Sydney, if you're there,

pop off in the conference.

I'd love to have a house, actually.

But I'm having trouble sympathizing with her only because it seems like what she does is

both

easy to replicate, no offense, and

the goal of her channel, or whatever you call call it is to get people to buy the stuff.

So there's also a sense of like,

you know, entrepreneurship, right, that people like to embody when they're influencers.

It's like, I did it myself.

I took my life into my own hands.

And then sort of slamming the door behind you to be like, and don't you do it?

I used to be one of the hosts of, I don't even know if it's a show

on Amazon.com.

If you went to amazon.com, the website, there'd be like a little, a little video pop up in the corner with a fella who'd be like, you like spatulas?

Guess what?

You did that?

I got a spatula.

You're going to freaking love it.

That was you?

I did that for a while.

I don't know how long I did that.

Good money?

They paid pretty well.

Or did you make money off of how many products were bought during the one ever?

I don't think I sold a single item.

I couldn't believe that they didn't fire me because they would give me.

You'd be like the Microsoft paperclip, but for Amazon.com.

But where did you film it?

There's like a studio in 34th Street.

Yeah.

During COVID, then

you would film them in your house.

But before that, it was a studio on 34th Street, and they would send me like a packet with, you know, all of like, this is, this is what, these are the products.

This is like the points about them that you should be making.

And they also have stuff loaded in the prompter.

And I would be like, I'm not going to read this and I'm not going to say that.

And I guess they loved it.

But I would be like, you know, this 20, they got 20 CD changer.

And I'd be like,

no one is going to buy this.

So I'm on the thing saying that.

Like, don't.

Don't buy this.

Don't buy this.

I don't know why you would buy this.

This technology won't exist in five minutes.

And they loved it.

I was there all the time.

This is a fascinating chapter of your history.

I really liked the people who worked there.

Yeah.

They were nice people.

The end.

Why did it end?

I got a different job and I left.

You said, baby, I outgrew you.

But it was very fun.

Because they did not care what I said, which didn't make sense to me, but they just let me say whatever.

It was very fun.

And all the other people were like professional hosts.

Like they were on the money.

They knew the products.

They could tell you the voltage of the thing.

I think at some point someone over there said they wanted somebody funny.

So then I went and I gave a presentation on some product.

Sick.

And then they hired me and then there I was.

Fascinating.

I was professionally bad at it, like extremely bad at selling it.

I'm going to find the old phone.

Yeah, we got to find it.

Is this available?

Was it live?

I think it's all

go to YouTube or something.

You know what I mean?

Maybe you had a big fan who just saved it.

I have a super fan who clicked it all.

That's what I've found.

Anytime I need something from my archive, I have a big fan who has it saved somewhere.

He's got it.

I also think that if if this lady does end up winning this lawsuit,

I don't think that's good for the internet.

I mean, the internet has always kind of existed in this weird space where you sort of are taking and recreating or taking and spinning forward or taking and elaborating or parodying.

It's all kind of in this, and it's always been a weird place with copyright law, if I'm remembering correctly, where it's like kind of the wild west of the law has had to evolve to follow up with how it works.

Yes, like even just like copying tweets.

Right.

I don't think the world is better if only one lady can advertise being basic.

Good news is that Alyssa Shield, who is the defendant, right?

Whose name perhaps you were searching for,

she has decided to pivot to a new aesthetic.

Well, that's usually an indication of guilt, I feel.

Well, she's hosting a podcast called Alyssa Shield Finds Out.

Oh no.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Veening Champagne, afforded an alcoholic volume, reported by Remy Control, USA, Inc.

in York, New York, 1738, Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

Michael?

Yes.

It's your turn on the main.

Ooh, Michael, it's your turn.

I don't have like an article behind this.

This is just like a video that I saw.

Right.

But anyway, I saw on the internet Ben Affleck articulating what the future of AI will hold for

like filmmakers, et cetera.

And it sparked a lot of thoughts among me and my fellow artistes.

Roll the clip.

Can I do that?

No, I don't have the power.

I thought I had it.

You might.

No, here it goes.

Look at that.

How do you see it?

I mean, is it a benefit or is it a real threat?

Is it possible that a Netflix could say, you know, we're going to do our own, excuse me, James Bond thing out there with a bunch of actors that are completely recreated for this market or that market?

A, that's not possible now.

B, will will it be possible in the future?

Highly unlikely.

C,

movies that will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI.

AI can write you excellent

imitative verse.

That sounds Elizabethan.

It cannot write you Shakespeare.

The function of having two actors or three or four actors in a room and the taste to discern and construct that is something that currently entirely eludes AI's capability and I think will for a meaningful period of time.

What AI is going to do is going to disintermediate the more laborious, less creative,

and you know more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will be lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people who want to make goodwill huntings to go out and make it.

Look, AI is a craftsman at best.

Craftsmen can learn to make stickly furniture by sitting down next to somebody and seeing what their technique is and imitating.

That's how large video models, our language models basically work.

A library of vectors of meaning and transformers that interpret the context, right?

But they're just cross-pollinating things that exist.

Nothing new is created.

Not yet, not yet.

Yeah, not yet.

And really, in order to do that, look, craftsman is knowing how to work.

Art is knowing when to stop.

And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it's taste.

And also, lack of consistency, lack of controls, lack of quality.

AI for this world of generative video is going to do key things more than me.

I wouldn't like to be in the visual effects business.

They're in trouble because what costs a lot of money is now going to cost a lot less.

And it's going to hammer that space and it already is.

Eventually, my hope for AI is that it's an additional revenue stream that can replace DVD, which took 15 to 20% out of the economy of filmmaking, which is, and there should be negotiated rights and individual rights to say, if you want to, because what do people want to make five minute, 30 second TikTok videos where they look like the Avengers?

Well, great.

You can, you know, just like you used to be able to buy your Iron Man costume at the store, you're going to buy your Iron Man pack and you and your buddies are going to look like Iron Man at Hawkeye, like, you know, on Twitch.

That's what's going to really happen.

Most of the comments, like once you see the video once on Twitter or whatever, then it starts feeding you quote tweets of the same thing.

Uniformly, pretty much, the comments are, Ben Affleck is brilliant.

And this is like you know he's really articulated what's gonna happen I feel so much better about AI but I don't feel when I watch this I'm like dude what are you I love Ben Affleck let me just I'll at the base of this I love Ben Affleck I think he's handsome I think he's talented I think he's smart I think he's so wrong about this yeah a lot of the responses when I first saw this Ben Affleck shockingly smart

a prophet of the way media is going to go and you are actually saying um

f all that

first of all benefit knows more about the movie industry and films than i will ever know but he

the thing he says ai can't have is taste and i think that also most people don't have taste yes most people don't know the difference between

a good joke and a great joke yes most people don't I'm in comedy, so I know those things.

I can't tell the difference between, you know,

a house that's been painted well and a house that's been painted exceptionally well because I don't know about that.

When people watch TV shows, you can lower the bar quite far and they'll still go, this show is awesome.

This is my favorite show.

And AI, I believe, can get to that level.

I agree with you.

What you're saying is that in a world where standard of success is just popularity, that what he is saying will not happen has already happened and it will happen more because the guardrail on popularity is not quality.

Yes, exactly.

And I'm not even not necessarily popularity, but only important inso much as that correlates with where the money goes.

Exactly.

I mean, like in order to make a living in this industry, I fear that AI will make that incredibly hard to do in the near future because people who pay money to have things made are very incentivized to make that happen.

If I could press a button or with a prompt, write a movie, that's going to save me $200 million.

I'll spend $199 million trying to make that.

That's what worries me.

The thing that's happening now, though, is that whenever I see AI, and it seems like it's discernible and obvious that this was AI generated, it feels like an indictment of AI.

Yes, totally, totally true.

So right now, it feels like to be AI is to indicate that you are getting like subprime,

like poorly made

work.

It feels like

my hope is that AI becomes stigmatized to the point where it becomes associated with bad things.

And what you are indicating, which I find very hard to disagree with, is that our ability to discern bad from good is actually less relevant to whether something will succeed as a commodity.

I worry that that's the case.

I think that idea idea that like all AI does is imitate whatever, you know, it can't create anything brand new.

What we've been talking about with Burphany and the other one is that really everything is imitated.

Almost everything you do for your entire life is an imitation of something you already saw.

And a computer will be able to imitate more,

integrate and imitate more things.

Yeah.

I don't hold myself like so special that a computer couldn't eventually do what don't think a computer would come up with Burphany, but I think other than that, I'm replicable.

I also think that like

the shortening of the attention span is discounted in the way that Ben speaks about, Mr.

Affleck speaks about it.

Thank you.

In that like

he is thinking about it from an actor's point of view.

And when he watches a movie or Shakespeare and two actors creating this, I think like a lot of media being consumed now now is almost like a second screen consumption.

And I don't think that people are paying as much like discerning attention to what they're consuming.

And that's obviously not the ideal.

In an ideal situation, you're putting your phone down, you're watching a movie.

I think younger generations were seeing less and less willing or capable of doing that.

And so I think like

AI slop.

can slip in under the radar a lot more easily.

I also will say when people say Ben Affleck sounds smart, we've had had Ben Affleck sound smart a lot of times.

Remember when he was on Bill Maher and everybody was like, whoa,

you're not listening to that.

Absolutely what we are saying.

You guys are saying, if you want to be liberals, believe in liberal principles, like freedom of speech.

Like, you know, we are endowed by our forefathers with an alienable lives, like all men are created.

No.

Ben, we have to be able to criticize bad ideas.

Of course we do.

No liberal doesn't want to criticize bad ideas.

But Islam

is the motherload of bad ideas.

Jesus.

So we have

ideas of philanthropy.

No.

It is.

It's an ugly.

It's an apostasy.

It is apart from it.

Or how how about the more than a billion people who aren't fanatical, who don't punish women, who just want to go to the store?

Wait a second.

Wait a second.

Don't say that.

Any of the things, but you're saying all Muslims

are stereotype nonsense.

Wait a second.

And you're painting the whole religion without.

No, no, let's get that.

Ben Affleck, when he's doing well, is

a great mind and a great talent.

And I wish that he would get his

together.

I wish he would figure out what's going on with him.

Ben Affleck.

He would, you know, better at him.

I don't know about that.

I don't know know what you're talking about.

And I want an eagle back tattoo in the shots.

I always forget

a philosopher in the streets.

Yes, exactly.

Do you guys remember when he made the movie The Town?

You know, have you seen the movie The Towns?

Yes.

Have I talked about this on this podcast before?

I'm having deja vu.

I don't think so.

Okay, well, The Town's so fing good.

Yeah.

When I saw The Town, this is my first thought.

My first thought after The Town, I turned to my wife and I said, Let's rob Fenway Park.

I said, Ben Affleck's going to be president of the United States.

He's very smart.

That's how I felt.

Very.

I really do love him.

I just, I think he's wrong.

I think he's

maybe insulated from these fears because of his stature in the industry.

Right.

As a guy who worked inside of a pop-up window on Amazon.com, what you're saying is that you're not going to be able to do that.

I value his perspective.

I found his perspective interesting.

I just think he's so, he seemed very sure of the fact that AI was coming for everyone around him's job, but couldn't do what he does.

And I think that's always a tough perspective to sell anybody because to me, I'm like, if it's going to be able to do everybody, like he said, it's coming for the CGI people.

Yes.

But it cannot be done.

We conceded that the CGI people are definitely screwed.

Right.

And I just think, um,

I just think that attitude has never historically panned out where you're like, yeah, it's coming for everybody else.

It will not come for me.

It can't do what I do.

I think, like, I think he's right in the sense of like the art of acting at its highest form.

But I also think to what you were saying is is that, like,

the average person cannot tell the difference between incredible acting and fine acting, or like decent acting, or like barely, you can tell when it's bad acting most of the time.

Well, I don't think most people are like, wow.

Like, so I was thinking about this the other day, actually, as somebody who tries to make things that are good first and foremost as my main standard of success.

Is this good?

Yeah.

And you're wondering, do I think this podcast right now is good?

It's real, it's real.

It's a real concern of mine.

But what I'm saying is that this is where I'm like, where are the guardrails?

Yeah.

If it's an open field in which it's just sheer popularity and the money follows the Amazon storefront, you know, revenues, what I'm hoping for is like,

truly, I thought this.

I'm so glad the Academy Awards exist.

I'm so glad that there are...

things, institutions that signal in a very obvious way, reward this.

It's good.

There's a critical appraisal behind this, which leads me into this incredibly unpopular position of awards shows

the thing that'll save us.

The elites who reward movies that I very seldom think are the best are the only hope we have for signaling in a market, in a market way.

This is worthy of your eyeballs because everything else is just left for, again, an open, boundless focus group in which people are like clicking on stuff.

Yeah, but

I hope that you're right about about that, but I think the enemy to that is,

you know, some studio making a film with AI and then paying

Alana, whatever the first woman's name is,

to make a video

saying how good that movie is.

Do you know what I mean?

So once you've got, once Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow and some third person say this movie is good because they've been paid X dollars to say it, Joe Blow is not going to care what

the Hollywood elite that haven't been paid have to say against it.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

Well, the question is, like, can AI plausibly write an episode of like Law and Order?

Can it write an episode of Chicago Fire?

Yes.

I feel like for sure.

Easily, yes.

I would be surprised if right now it can't.

Truly.

I'd be surprised if right now it isn't.

Which isn't to say it's going to write good episodes of it, but I don't think most people who watch those shows

because those are procedural.

So it's like it's pretty much the same kind.

The beats are literal, it's the same.

So, you know, we change the name, we change the job.

But you're interviewing the guy, the guy that saw the suspect the night before, the guy that saw the victim, then you're moving to that part of it, the investigation, then you move to the interrogation part, then you're moving to the court part, and then it's over.

And again, is it going to write episodes as good as the professional writers who are writing those episodes right now are writing them?

No.

But will the net gain of profit to the company making those be enhanced by scrapping all those people and making a slightly worse show?

Is Ben Aff like the boy who cried, Dick Wolf?

My goodness.

Holy moly.

Oh my goodness.

I hated that.

Can I be honest?

I hated that.

How is anyone

not depressed?

Every day I sort of come to this conclusion where I'm like.

Is this your topic?

I think so.

Again, I know this is a symptom of my depression, but most days I come to the conclusion that my depression is correct, that the way that I feel is the natural way that one should feel living in the current world that we live in, maybe given what I'm trying to do with my life.

Maybe that's what is influencing it.

But the more I look at like, oh, so the website that I used to go to to hear people's opinions that I value is now

mostly bots and other

content machines trying to get eyeballs on the most offensive or polarizing topics.

Misinformation and

people being paid to do things, but not disclosing that they're being paid to do things.

All of that has kind of like muddied the waters in a way that's very difficult for me to just go like, oh, everything's fine.

This is fine and good.

This is fine and good.

And we're going in a direction I feel is a good one.

Have you considered buying the mirror in Burfany's Amazon storefront?

It's in my cart.

Currently.

She said it changed her life.

It's on your storefront.

And I'm hoping.

And you can buy that from me.

I'll take a picture in it and post that and you can buy it.

As long as you don't show your face.

Not trying to make an ad for depression.

I just don't feel like how does everybody not also have it?

So the reason I know you're not alone is because there is a topic in our portfolio of topics that we could have selected on today's show that does fit entirely with this.

Which is it?

Because that's the one I picked.

Yep.

I picked that one.

I picked that one.

It's that the Oxford English Dictionary has selected its word of the year.

It's word of the year.

This is a thing that all dictionaries do because dictionaries are brands too.

And the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year is brain rot.

And of course, in the

phrase of the year, I guess.

Challenging.

The literal dictionary is a very good thing.

It's a challenge.

Jeff

Oxford.

It is not hyphenated.

So two words.

It is brain rot, though.

And if you're wondering, the other words of the year that, of course, have been selected.

Gaslighting, I believe, was last year or two years before.

There's always a thematic summary of sorts.

You guys see that?

That was good, I did.

You guys see that?

I'm sad.

I'm not good enough at hosting.

No, you were busy.

You were busy.

I was trying to scan a QR code to access the full version of the Washington Post story, which is owned by the company that Michael Cruz Kane used to host a show inside of a pop-up window for.

That's right.

I think I go, you go.

No, it's

how the aliens were supposed to come today.

Did anyone see that?

I'm so glad I didn't keep going.

Dan said December 3rd, they said the aliens were coming.

Who they?

Who is?

No clue.

And it's coming from Dan, too, which is like.

The guy who thought that vase and vase were two separate sorts of pottery.

Guy who sent me an Instagram video, clearly AI, of a cabin with snow falling and cartoons and was like, we should go here.

And I was like, Dan, that's not real.

Not a real place.

That's very fake.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

But anyway, he said that they are saying the aliens are supposed to come today.

So I said, I'll be on the roof with the sign that says, take me.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I got an ID4.

Hold on.

What was that?

Yeah, we were doing something.

Aliens.

No, no, stick to the other thing you were Googling.

This year, you're in a Google, you've Googled, you've Googled yourself into a pretzel.

The Oxford English Dictionary chose brain rock, a term that describes the overconsumption of material or content to the point that it deteriorates one's mental state.

Katie Nolan is the picture, it turns out, next to the word brain rot in the OED.

Thanks.

First used in 1854.

Walden.

Nailed it.

You knew that.

I knew that.

Just from letters.

Oh, I was like, wait, really?

How how dare you prep for this show i was so impressed how dare you prepare for this show it's my article and i'm still impressed that you knew it yeah so there are these like uh i love that every dictionary uh a dictionary organization what's called in in the washington post um i love that they all have these councils like a hall of fame like voting committee um that decides what's the word of the year um and casper grathwall hell yeah Is that one of the influencers?

That's one of the women.

Casper Grathwall, also in his homeowner era, president of the Oxford Languages, said that brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life and how we are using our free time like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology.

Contrary to Casper Grathwall, Collins' dictionary

named, as its word of the year, brat.

That feels right that Oxford and Casper Grathwall would say brain rot and Collins, which is a dictionary that sounds kind of lo-fi, would be like, our words boobs, y'all.

At the end of every episode of Hobbitori finds out, a show about finding out

six hours.

Katie hates, which is we say what we found out.

So, Michael, let's start with you to give Katie a little bit of time.

Oh, yes, because I've got something at the ready.

I would say I found out that the fellow who runs the Oxford English Dictionary is named, and I believe I'm getting this right, Ding Dong Primple Pants.

Primple Pants.

Something like that?

Yeah, and I was surprised by that.

Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

It's misinformation.

You're actively participating in the misinformation that's making me feel like I'm dying.

Actively participating in the middle.

How dare you slander a dictionary?

How dare you?

Can you say his real name again?

His name is Casper.

Oh, sorry.

Different name.

Grathwall.

We've had some

names here today.

Grathwall.

Casper Grathwal.

Well, that's what I learned today.

Casper Grathwall.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not going to forget it now.

I would have forgotten it before, but now I'm not going to forget it.

Yeah, he's up there with Burfany, and the names will never forget.

Katie Nolan.

What did I learn?

The, well, Butron's not doing it.

That maybe I need more MGs.

You know, that's, I think, what I learned today.

Doctor is in the comments.

Yeah.

Sound off.

Sound off.

Pop off in the comments.

Anonymously.

What I found out is that

on this show, we can actually validate Michael Cruz Kane's finest career credit.

Okay, let's see.

It's squeezing.

It's taking my blood pressure.

It's got a bunch of numbers on there that I personally don't know the meaning of.

98, that's a number.

You guys have heard of that one.

111, also 111.

So selling this.

So far, this checks out.

These are all real numbers.

And now here's everything you could possibly want to know about my blood pressure.

Let's see, hypertension, stage one, and stage two.

So if you don't see me when we come back, it's because I'm at the hospital or on the internet googling what those things mean.

I'm hopeful that putting this on my wrist is why it gave me that reading, but honestly, I might have a real problem live on camera for you, America, and the world to watch.

Is it not supposed to go on the wrist?

I don't, I have no idea.

No, no idea where it's supposed to be.

You don't know how to use the Amron Evolve without a second D Bluetooth blood pressure monitor.

Can you put that in your storefront so I can find it later?

Yeah, yeah.

I also just placed a bet.

And it sounds like, Michael,

yeah, take the under, I guess.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metalark Media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.