OpenAI Leadership Changes, Mind Reading Tech, and the Future of Messaging Apps

What happens when the world of AI is shaken up and its leaders are forced to make unexpected exits? We're journeying down the rabbit hole of the recent Open AI shake-up, where the plot features a board of directors and a founder forced out. But the story doesn't end there. The ousted CEO has hitched a ride to Microsoft, and we're left pondering the implications for Open AI and the future of artificial intelligence.

Then, Imagine being able to not just read minds but translate brainwaves into text and images. That's the brave new world that Meta and the University of Texas are pioneering. While the potential for mental health support is staggering, we're also tackling the elephant in the room - the ethical and privacy concerns such AI breakthroughs bring. On the other hand, Apple's RCS revolution and the blue bubble vs green bubble debate is changing the way we communicate. But is this a direction Apple is truly committed to?

Finally, we're exploring the future as it unfolds - rewatching your dreams through advanced headsets, the possibility of diagnosing brain disorders and mental illnesses through revolutionary technology, and understanding the brain in ways we've never done before. From Microsoft’s takeover of OpenAI to the integration of messaging apps and technology, this episode promises to take you on a riveting ride through AI's recent upheavals and breakthroughs, and what they mean for our future. Buckle up and enjoy the journey!

Chapters

• 0:00 AI Shake-Up and Mind Reading AI
• 10:05 Microsoft Acquires Open AI, Leadership Changes
• 34:10 Brainwave Technology and Its Potential Applications
• 49:03 Understanding Brain Potential and Function
• 55:16 Future of Dream Recording and RCS
• 1:04:52 Integration of Messaging Apps and Technology

Transcript

John: 0:00

Man, we do have quite an interesting topic this week. We sure do yeah, and it is well. And there are a few of them, a few big headlines for us to touch on you know, so this will be a good one.

John: 0:16

And the first of them, actually, why don't I just label them real quick, off the top right, do it up. I just want to say I'm thankful that we have so much good stuff to talk about. Number one we're talking about the open AI. Shakeup is how we're titling this? Because the guy who founded open AI and led to where we're at with chat, gpt and things like that, he ended up getting forced out by their new board of directors. Now, for those who don't fully know how this stuff works, I think most of you probably do, but you know, board of directors are often people who are from other organizations, you know, and that's what this is. That's what's led to him getting voted out. So, if I'm not mistaken right, he is going to work at Microsoft. Is that correct?

Denison: 1:22

Yes, yeah, one of the board members does work at Microsoft.

John: 1:29

Yes, yes, that is true too, isn't it? Which is very bizarre about this story as well, but I don't think it's officially official yet, but I do think that Microsoft is the main option for where he would go. What's been even more interesting about that is last I saw, which was just two days ago, over 500 of the 700 staff at open AI have said they're going to leave, and all said that they would go to Microsoft. This will actually bring up a part of this story that I kind of have a weird thought about, you know, because it seems very oddly manipulative, but we'll dive into that for sure.

John: 2:21

Number two the second topic we're going to talk about is Meta's mind reading, ai, and then working with the University of Texas right On this technology to help. I mean, really, what the goal of a lot of this is right now is to help people who have some sort of mental issue, if you will. Right yeah, whether it was something genetic or something that they in incurred through some part of their life, right yeah, and it's interesting how the services involve basically chat GPT, but chat GPT one, yeah exactly earlier version of chat GPT Right.

John: 3:12

Stuff that us consumers have never used, because the first version of chat GPT that came out was three right.

Denison: 3:20

Yeah, exactly. Well, 3.5 is what is what chat GPT was using utilizing. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

John: 3:27

Yes, yes, so you know what that means. It's three, but they added some interaction stuff to make it more usable for the average person, right, correct? Oh yeah, and so that will be an interesting one for us to dive into. Also, apple's RCS revolution, man, mm, hmm, that's that's. The goal of this is for it to interact with Android phones more easily, right?

Denison: 3:53

Exactly, exactly. Some people are calling it the blue, the green bubble killer. The green bubble killer, you say yeah, exactly.

John: 4:04

So that's. The main thing is to make it all blue, blue messages, right?

Denison: 4:08

I mean it's sure and the easiest way. Yeah, we could say something like that. It's a little bit more complicated and we will go into that. Yeah, okay, Well, what?

John: 4:20

does that mean? What does that look like? We have a lot to talk about, mm hmm, and we're going to slam into it, man, so let's go ahead and start rolling. What's going on? Everybody? I'm John and I'm Denison, and this is the catch up.

John: 4:50

I just want to tease real quick, too, that we are on the cusp of having a new theme, finally, mm hmm. Sure, yes, and it's very exciting. It's something that I have been working on, not of my own creation, but with the guy that we've worked with for this Very good. He's been kind of in my for a little while, but he's had other things going on, which is totally fine. So we'll have an extended version, we'll have a tight version, and it's going to be really sick. So we can't wait for you guys to check that out, but we want you otherwise to check out the three best ways to support this show.

John: 5:34

Number one there it is. There's an example of what a one looks like. Mm hmm. Number one Leave us a rating and review. Where ever you're listening or watching, those options are always available. Sometimes it's as simple as hang the like button on the button. Hang the like button on the video when you watch the live stream or subscribing Right, and then other times you listen to the audio version and you leave a rating and review. It very much is quick, it's very effective, it helps us a lot to grow, it helps us to be in front of new audience and then lets us know what we're doing well and what, if anything, we can improve on. So Super helpful. Number two there's a number two Well jump on the.

John: 6:30

Just in case, jump on the live stream with us. We go live, except for this week because of the holiday. You'll live every Thursday On Facebook and on YouTube. You get to jump in with us in real time, make your voice heard, let us know what you think about the topics that we're discussing in real time, and is our favorite part of the show, to be honest is to give you thoughts, oh yeah, yeah and hear what you have going on.

John: 7:00

And number three there it is. If you want to support, oh, there's a three, thank God. Well, I will say, if that was an Apple iPhone, then probably interact a lot better with the new RCS revolution. I digress.

Denison: 7:21

Maybe, maybe, maybe. There you go.

John: 7:26

Just over here flexing man, I'm holding right there. Well, number three, if you want to support us monetarily, we have a whole store that's linked where every listening and wherever you're watching, with merch and apparel, and we have new merch on there too that we really think you'll like. Genuinely, I might never Whoa which is? There we go. That's the one I expected. Yeah, yeah, so I got weird for a second.

John: 8:03

But no, honestly, with all sincerity, there are a lot of new options for you guys to check out and we really think that you would like them. So all of that are three best ways to support this show. And with that said, let's dive into this topic. Man Topics yeah, man, old me just gets so hyped for the new us dude.

Denison: 8:27

Yeah, I know man, I know he's feeling it.

John: 8:30

Yes, and it's playing with a soundboard, in case you were wondering what that is. But yeah, so, with that said, let's talk about the open AI shake up first. Oh my Lord, oh my Lord.

Denison: 8:48

You're trying to get everybody hyped about these, about these, these topics. Man, they're pretty dope.

John: 8:55

I hope they're half as high as we're getting. Man, I know I mean even half of it. So so with that, with that said um, yeah, these open AI changes are interesting because this board of directors voted the bro out right, which what's his name?

Denison: 9:13

My name is Sam Altman. Yes, sam Altman, okay.

John: 9:19

So he gets voted out, but he started chat or, I'm sorry, started open AI.

Denison: 9:25

Yeah, he was a. He was a co-founder of the open AI.

John: 9:29

Yeah, and so you know, obviously it's grown a lot since then, especially just in the last calendar year, with the explosion of chat, gpt being the thing. And then you know, going from there, uh got a comment going by the way what's up, darren? How are things going? Uh, going well, man, it's good to hear from you. Um, yeah, Thank you for jumping in the comments. Sorry, we're just getting back to you too, um, but yeah, so, with that said as well, um, the tech you know has exploded and all that kind of stuff. And, as we've talked about for several weeks, microsoft well, we've talked about this just a foundation part for a long time, which is that Microsoft, uh, owns a large part of open AI right.

Denison: 10:22

Mm, hmm, yeah, yeah, I mean, um, they don't technically own them, but they have invested, um, they are investing, I guess I should say I think it's like $4 billion uh, into open AI. I think it's over. I suppose the investment is supposed to be over a few years or whatever like that, but yes, uh, so in some ways they do have an ownership stake in there. Uh, just because of the sizable investment that they put in there. Um, a lot of it is just, you know, for uh, a lot of the investment is there for uh, technology sharing and stuff like that. Um, as we've already seen with a lot of um open AI's and um Microsoft's co-pilot and how those both kind of um mirror each other open.

John: 11:18

AI's chat, GBT and, and uh, Microsoft's co-pilot, so yeah, yeah, yeah, and a lot of software and technology shared between them, like you were saying and you know. And so for for this to be an interesting situation where, for some reason, the board of directors decides to make him no longer be able to lead chat, gpt, then next, or, I'm sorry, open AI, uh, but then you know, you hear, oh well, now he's going to be over at Microsoft, which would be working on co-pilot and those type of things. If I remember right, that still hasn't been fully settled yet, that's not affirmed yet.

Denison: 11:59

Uh so technically, at least according to an article from the Washington Post. Essentially, the way that it went down is, you know, of course, we had it on uh on Friday where they uh, they fired uh, sam um with their concerns of saying that he was not being fully candid, candid to the board about everything that was going on, um, right, and then, um, on Sunday, they had talks on trying to get him to return back, to excuse me, uh, back to open AI, um, but apparently those fell through. I think, uh, one of the things that Sam put in there as saying like you know, I'll come back if you, you know, of course, restate, restate um, add him or cast on, reinstate him as the CEO and um they wanted. He also wanted all of the board members to um, essentially leave um all of the board members to resign.

Denison: 13:09

Um, and then he'll come back and he'll be good. Um. Some of the board members were okay with that, some weren't, some of them weren't, and so, essentially, the deal collapsed. Um, and then, uh. According to this, it says uh. A few hours later, microsoft hired um Sam to lead their AI research division of Microsoft.

John: 13:35

Yeah, yeah which is interesting because also open AI is named three CEOs in three days, correct, since he's left. That's how much people don't want to be with that, and that's what we found, too is over 500 people within open AI of the 700 total staff signed a letter that they would leave and they would also go to Microsoft, right?

Denison: 14:02

Correct, Correct, To be a part of the new division that Microsoft has, um uh created, uh, that Sam is going to be in charge of.

John: 14:15

Yeah, and it has. He has been hired by them, um, and officially started, like we were saying. But what do you think? You know what? What does this mean? Why, why? What was the push for this Um as far as him being over at Microsoft? Now, you know why. Why was that push for so hard? Why is that a thing that's happened? Cause it seems I say it because of this, especially when it's AI and when it's consumer AI, um, you know, you want it to be effective, but, of course, you want it to be safe. Yep, this does seem how weird, alt, that he got fired but now he's over it. Microsoft and 500 staff want to join him there. It almost seems like it's just a normal plan, but they went through a dark way to make it happen.

Denison: 15:20

Yeah.

John: 15:22

I mean, yeah, I mean. I can or go ahead.

Denison: 15:25

No, I just want to know what you think. No, I mean, I, I can see that. I can see that, and I wouldn't be too surprised if, you know, some documentary comes out years later saying that there was, there was internal documents of something similar to like this happening within Microsoft and stuff. I mean, it would be a great play for them. But, um, I think, uh, the way that it really played out is the board um didn't like him, uh, didn't like you know, I don't, I don't think it might have been. It may not have been exactly a reflection of his leadership style or like what it was actually going, because, honestly, um, Sam did lead the company to excuse me, uh, become as big as um, essentially become as big as it is. Um, I'm sorry, but yeah, no, it did receive that Gosh darn. So sorry, I'm trying to fix something going on with it's our YouTube side, but essentially, sam did you know he did a lot, he did a lot to get open AI to where it is right now, and so it's one of those things that's a little surprising.

Denison: 17:03

But anyway, I think they ousted them because they had something that they didn't like. They didn't understand the type of backlash that they were going to get. And so when they tried to backpedal, it kind of blew up in their face. And then Microsoft, who already had a pretty big relationship with Sam, sam Altman, as well as Open AI in general, the team at Open AI yeah, microsoft was easily able to kind of swoop in, kind of as this parent, parental figure in some ways, and just scoop up all these people, right, scoop up Sam, scoop up a lot of employees, if they all actually do decide to resign and move over to Microsoft.

Denison: 17:52

So this is a great play for them to kind of make light of a bad situation that Open AI got themselves into. Yeah, I mean, you know, sure, if I were to go into the more speculative side, this is an amazing way to get a open AI. Essentially, get open AI without having to spend any real money, right, sure, you're not having to do a full corporate takeover. You could just let itself destruct, right, let itself destruct and scoop up all of the people that you really want on that in that company. And then now you essentially have all of the proprietary, all of the knowledge, all of the research and development, all of that now in-house for a fraction of the price.

John: 18:56

Yeah, which is really where my concern from this comes from. As far as what's interesting of this on the outside looking in, because if all those people were to leave from Open AI and join Microsoft, or even if half of them did right, you can pretty much say goodbye Open AI. You know what I mean? Yeah, especially with all those leaders stepping down or getting fired or not blasting a CEO after being named as such, and with the development and integration of chat GPT software being so large already with Microsoft, they're kind of putting themselves in a position where they could manage and be the leaders of this kind of stuff. And you know, what's interesting about this, too, is we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, where chat GPT was blamed for a wild AI crash that Microsoft had while they were developing new AI service. And then we find out the next day or, I'm sorry, the next week, when we had our last episode of what the Microsoft AI services they would offer. Right, and this was built in step with Open AI technology software. Yeah, exactly.

Denison: 20:37

Exactly.

John: 20:39

Yeah, Darren, in the comments here he says sorry, I don't know much about AI, but which platform is in lead as far as AI programs? It's definitely chat GPT. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Denison: 20:54

With the close second being the Bing AI, which has now been rebranded as co-pilot, and then, after that, it would be Google's AI which is barred. Yeah.

John: 21:08

But also to your point, bing AI is chat, gpt, yep, but it's suited for the internet, yep, and it was the quickest thing ever to 100,000 users, right? Yes, gpt was.

Denison: 21:26

Yeah, it was. It was other than threads. Threads technically beat it. Yeah, that was weird?

John: 21:35

Yeah, but that was a little bit. No, what are you going to say?

Denison: 21:40

Sorry, no, I was just going to say that was a little different, because threads was really and truly just bringing over existing users from another platform.

John: 21:50

So yes, and I meant to say 100 million, right, not 100,000. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah For both. But you know with you're right, because threads may looking at now no one even uses that app anymore.

Denison: 22:09

Yeah, exactly.

John: 22:11

But according to the latest available data of this month, chat GPT currently has 180 million users. So that's kind of crazy. Yeah, it's pretty substantial. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm, but yeah, so that's a big one and I don't really know. Of course, like I mentioned off the top here, we want to keep running through these processes around these topics as well, but still that's going to be an interesting one to watch and stay on top of. But I do think that in my opinion and I hate to say this stuff because I do like Microsoft, I like the company, I like what they've done for work and computing ever since I was a kid, you know, yeah, but I cannot lie and say that this doesn't come off as a seems like it's a subtle plan to take over the whole technology for themselves. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Denison: 23:20

Yeah, I mean I can, I can see that. I can see that it's a great way for Microsoft essentially becoming to become the leader in AI research and development and in some ways depending on how things go, you know setting themselves up to get a monopoly in that space.

John: 23:46

Yeah.

Denison: 23:46

Because that is one thing to think about too. Like, just let's just say, I'm sure you know we're pretty, I'm sure we're far off from this happening, but because there is this, still this weird relationship that open AI and Microsoft still have, even though this whole blow up happened, I wouldn't be too surprised of, you know, they're becoming some weird issues when it comes to like APIs that are out there that people can use for open AI, like if they start having like financial issues and they have to shut down how that would work right and how Microsoft would try to integrate that into their stuff. So, and then you know there may be a Microsoft loves creating licenses and subscriptions and all sorts of other things, and so I could see something similar or like a model like that. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there's a, there's a lot of it.

Denison: 24:59

I mean, think about it right, if you, if you can migrate all of the users that are already using chat GPT fully over to co-pilot not saying that co-pilot is bad, I think the problem is that co-pilot is still being shadowed or is still in the shadow of chat GPT, even though they're using the exact same thing.

Denison: 25:27

That was the whole purpose of Microsoft really saying like, oh, you know, being AI at the time, like I said, now it's branded as co-pilot being AI at the time saying, oh, you know, it's using chat GPT for, like you know, that's a big deal. Where on, if you're using, if you're using chat GPT, you're just using you know 3.5 until they allowed you to pay for a chapter to be T4. So I think a lot of that was trying to pull from the market share that open AI had already built up. So I really could see this kind of becoming a move where Microsoft, you know, swoops in, grabs all their people and then can better market to people and say, hey, if you really want the best AI, come to over to us, start migrating some of those users that are already in open AI and, you know, now you've got a huge new amount of revenue that's just coming in.

John: 26:39

Right, Well, and that you know. I think with co-pilot Microsoft co-pilot you know their goal of how they're trying to serve. With AI, the services are different, right, Because the thing about chat GPT is that it can answer and do so many things, right, and just the fact that, if I remember right, it's taught itself with 12,000 different scientific research papers, right, Yep, and that's amazing. That makes it very versatile and very informative. And this is a thing I will say in favor of tech like chat GPT is the fact that it's not something that I would hop on and be like, hey, how would I upgrade these lyrics to make a song more popular? Right, I wouldn't do that. But what I would do is say, ask more of the higher brain questions, whether it is scientific, whether it's medical, those type of things, because it will go through that information and make it understandable. I think that to me and this is based off of my experience, but I think that is what makes chat GPT so special, not a conversational version of Google. You know what I mean yeah.

John: 28:20

You're right. So, and with that said too, I do like Bard, which I guess you could say is a conversational version of Google, but it is something that the focus of it is different, the purpose of it is different, and it can help you find what you would need on the internet a lot more effectively. But yeah, again, I think Bard is or, I'm sorry, I think chat GPT is so impactful. You know what I mean.

Denison: 28:52

Yeah, I'm right there with you.

John: 28:56

Yeah, yeah. So I hate to see this going on with this drama. It seems very unsettled. I think I would like to see chat GPT if they're again. This is us assuming that there is some subtle push for Microsoft to take it over. I would like to see OpenAI stay its own course with the leadership it's had, and continue to develop and benefit everyone, not just Microsoft, right.

Denison: 29:31

Yeah, exactly, I'm with you. One other thing I wanted to note too, just to kind of also give a little bit more scale of why this is such a big deal of Altman Sam Altman not being in OpenAI is that the other co-founder or another one of the co-founders of OpenAI also left.

John: 30:01

You got pushed out Same thing.

Denison: 30:04

Well, he didn't get pushed out. He quit Insolidarity for Altman because he was apparently from what was. There were some leaked documents, but apparently it seemed to be a very, a very just, quick experience, like there wasn't. It didn't sound like he had a lot of information at first, like, while it sounded like essentially like they told him, hey, come into this meeting and, boom, you know, you're fine, essentially so it wasn't there was. So I think that was the other reason why Greg was it Bachman left. Yes, I think that's another reason why he left is because he didn't really enjoy that type of an ousting, because that's just kind of bizarre and a little crazy.

John: 31:16

Yeah, yeah, well, and you know what too? Now, granted, we don't know these people and with the tech, we only know what happens on our end of things, right. So I can't fully say these people are good people, because we don't know. But what I would say is it does seem like they're genuinely passionate about what they were doing, right, mm-hmm, and to the point where they didn't want anything to be impacted with their work. You know, yeah, and so I think that that is kind of one of the biggest things that you've seen with this. The is odd that so many people would be convinced to follow and go to Microsoft because of this, right, mm-hmm. But you know, for 700 people to be working on this technology and other related technologies, they seem, and with how consumer friendly and beneficial it has been, that to me kind of gives the result, if you will, that these people are passionate and confident and want the best to come out from this technology. That's just my opinion could be completely wrong, because we don't know. You know, yeah, but that is how it appears anyway. So this has been good. I'm glad we jumped in on this one.

John: 32:55

Let's move on to that second topic, which is Meta's mind-reading AI, right. So here's the thing. So it's an AI, brain-computer interface technology. Very interesting. Now, this is in partnership with the University of Texas and scientists that are there, which is cool. Us having talked about Meta, it does kind of concern me that they're involved. They don't want to be involved with this, you know Mm-hmm, but they claim to have developed a system that can scan a human brain and replicate the images a person is thinking about, using what's called magneto-sophilography. It's a very big word. Magneto-sophilography, I think, is how? Or philography, sorry, philography. Or Meg, yeah, or Meg for short. So Meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, meg 3, Meg.

John: 34:01

3, Meg 3, Meg 3, Meg 3, Meg 4, Meg 3, Meg 4. So Meg 3 will be about this technology and AI. While the technology has just gained started, its potential applications for those with neurological issues are immense. But of course there's some ethical and privacy concerns as well. Let's jump into that a little bit more. What would you say are the benefits of this technology On this as well?

Denison: 34:34

So, and for clarification, I think it's actually, I think it's kind of like a twofer. The University of Texas at Austin also created, using AI, this decoder technology, meta's, similar tech, right, yeah, yeah. So the University of Texas at Austin created a decoder to read brainwaves and turn that into text text that you can read essentially. So, essentially, you're thinking something. It'll say like boom, this is now you were thinking about purple and it wrote down purple, so, bam, purple.

Denison: 35:19

It's something similar to that, right, where Meta's is more, theirs is interesting because it's not just that it's reading the brainwaves, but in this case, in the experiment that they did, they were showing a person, while they were in the machine, pictures, right, and it was Meta's AI essentially. Well, ai decoder type deal thing was able to read those brainwaves, those live interpreted brainwaves, and say, okay, this is a picture, this is what that picture is. So think of like Dolly and ChatGPT kind of working together really quickly, right, sure, because this is all happening live. I think that was kind of the bigger part with Meta's is that it was a live translation. So if someone saw a plane, it would essentially replicate. It would say, like well, this looks like a plane, so plane.

Denison: 36:24

And it could replicate it almost identically without actually knowing the image sets in this training data, right? So that's the biggest thing, because, yeah, sure, you could say, well, these are the set of images that it has the potential to you know out of what these brainwaves are. You can do that, but it didn't have any of that. It was just essentially on the fly, just reading it and going through there. So that's what's kind of really really interesting about this is that you have one side from the University of Texas at Austin's side, which is just decoder type. So you have one side from the University of Austin, the University of Texas at Austin's side, which is just decoding brainwaves and saying and kind of essentially reading out thoughts. And then you have another side which is reading out images, which is another, a whole nother ball game, right? Sure, one also was doing it in live time, where one was more along the lines of studying brainwaves over time and saying, cool, they're also using. Meta was doing it live. Sorry, was it Meta? Yeah, meta was doing it live the.

Denison: 37:38

Also the interesting part about, if I'm not mistaken, the Meta's one is that it was using the way that they had it created is that it was essentially a neural network right, using a neural network to copy essentially brainwaves right, because the neural networks, the way that those are kind of designed, is it's a way to try to copy or replicate the human brain.

Denison: 38:06

Sure, sure, and so it was in their model they have it to where it's using these neural networks to be able to decipher what actual brainwaves are doing, to essentially mimic what a brain is doing and saying well, okay, so if I'm doing this and this brain is doing this, we're similar-ish, so that means we're probably thinking the same thing. And here's what we're saying. That's kind of how Meta's worked. And so again, two slightly two different technologies, but they're using similar patterns, the one at University of Texas, at Austin. What's really interesting about that is that they were using chat GP, or not even chat GPT, but GPT-1, which is the base, earliest version of the GPT models that we know today, which we're at chat GPT or we're at GPT-4 now. So it's a very big. It's pretty crazy how far they were able to get with using such an older version, and it makes you wonder where they can get to if they were to say use GPT-4 for the same process, yeah.

John: 39:26

Yeah, that's a good point too. If it were more advanced, what would that look like? Of course they're using just the most basic version to kind of build what the technology would be like, right?

Denison: 39:37

Correct.

John: 39:38

But with that said which, I have a follow-up question to this. But what were the biggest goals of UT's? Well, really both One of the biggest goals of their interactions why were they using this? We kind of mentioned earlier how some of this technology could be used to help people who have mental issues, whether it was something unfortunately they were born with or what have you use this interaction? But I'd be interested to know how that is. And then, of course, what other goals are by them making this and testing these technologies.

Denison: 40:23

Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I think what you said is true. You know, of course, people who have mental issues or mental blocks or something similar to that. There's a potential of essentially being able to read someone's brain waves live and then being able to spit that out onto I don't know, a text-to-speech something and then essentially, that person can speak through their thoughts or speak outside or whatever like that. Give them ability to speak again without having to actually like I don't know, help without some of the other stuff.

Denison: 41:06

So there's that possibility. But I think one of the biggest things for both of these is just a better way to understand how the brain works. I think that is probably one of the biggest points of this type of research is to better understand how the brain works, because if we understand that, we can create not just a way of I don't know telepathy. I don't think we'll ever get to that point, because both of these methods were passive, essentially right. So there weren't ones where you had an electrode stick directly into your brain and saying, all right, now we've got it. These were taking scans, right.

Denison: 41:53

Someone was in an MRI machine or something similar to that, and then another person was well, another one. It was a past MRI machine and they were grabbing the information and then feeding it in that way. So it's a little bit different, but I could see it being a big help in research of how we communicate and how our thoughts are created and all sorts of other stuff like that, and also maybe even creating ways to, if there are mental illness blocks, to see how those brains compare and see if maybe it's something wrong with these networks and maybe try to figure out what can be fixed and how you can kind of go around that right Sure Creating, like I was talking about with Metas, since they created kind of like a mimic or semi-brain or whatever like that neural network brain. There's a higher probability of being able to use this information to create more realistic versions of brains essentially virtual brains that AIs can utilize and be able to develop a lot faster too. So there's a lot of really cool stuff that can come out of this research.

John: 43:22

With that now, and I definitely get where you're coming from too. You know I will say I want to know if you agree with me on this, with UT being a part of this and using this technology. I could see how that would, because, before I say what I'm about to say, the average knowledge of the human brain is so small compared to what we understand the human brain being capable of doing right.

John: 43:57

There's so many different things that even people don't know I'm saying scientists as to what functions the brain to act this way, right, and those type of things, and so I could see how integration at a place like UT would benefit that knowledge, which would lead to treatment options or just scientific understanding, and how we could grow our own brain and that kind of thing, right.

John: 44:35

Whereas with Metta I'm not a hater, I know we're live streaming on Facebook right now, but with that it does concern me that Metta, a company that is based on consumership, is trying to learn more about the brain, right, and they have an artificial world that you can put your headphones on and interact with, but then you watch a movie like Ready Player One, right, and then Metta is studying the brain. They're trying to build that AI across the board. It really just I hate to kind of jump on a ledge, but I do want to know what your thoughts are. What I mean is I hate to kind of be bold with this opinion, this level of bold, but it does seem like it could be an effort on their end to expand their AI technology to where it's fully integrating you know what I mean.

Denison: 45:50

Yeah yeah, I think that that is a possibility.

Denison: 45:57

I also wouldn't be surprised to if I mean sorry, oh, I also wouldn't be too surprised if and maybe this is a longer term thing, but Just thinking about the, thinking about being able to use this brain activity to, as well as the Personalized or not personalized, but the star, fake, star influence or things that they're creating, which are AIs, right, utilizing both of these together, I could easily see something as a way to again like we talked about that, that previous episode, which was a way to create A more full version of what a person is right, of what this customer is, and so being able to sell who that person is to an advertiser becomes insanely lucrative.

Denison: 47:15

So, sure, and on the high end spectrum, I could easily see something similar to that happening Now. Do I think that's a little far fetch? Yes, but I can. I can easily see that I can connect the dots to say that maybe a possibility of what their end goal could be. Right, sure, because Neta or Meta has never really been a great company when it came to our privacy. Right, you know, they're not afraid to sell our data at all.

John: 47:51

They're not. They're not, and that goes back to something we've talked about multiple times Tiktok became a problem for the government because it's from China, but equally privacy invading is meta Yep, if not even more so. So that's an interesting take that you have on that. Again, meta, please let us do well with this live stream. We want to thank you for everything you do.

Denison: 48:19

Yeah, please don't suppress us.

John: 48:23

But with that said too, I want to know your thoughts on what you were mentioning If they began to use this like chat GPT for right, for example, the most, the most consumer advanced available version of chat GPT and by they I'm mainly meaning University of Texas, university of Texas, you know but with those with the research and with the investment in that, what would be the goal of using the more advanced chat GPT In a situation like this? What do you think their goal is for that?

Denison: 49:07

Um, I think, in this kind of scenario, I think I think if you could get it to where you have these, you know this higher version of chat GPT being able to interpret, not just because we already know how good Chat GPT is in general just analyzing texts, right, when we feed in prompts of our own that we create, as well as prompts of articles and stuff like that. Now, again, I have to always iterate this that chat GPT is a chat GPT. I iterate this that chat GPT is a transformer model of AI and what that does is the biggest thing about it is that its core functionality is akin to Guessing Right, guessing what you're, what the next word or sequence of words needs to be to form whatever, right, mm. Hmm, that's true, that's the biggest thing. And, in short, some ways you could say that that's kind of what we already are doing, but it's a lot more nuanced than that. Um, but that is what it is being used or that is what it's doing.

Denison: 50:32

So, going back to what I was trying to say is, I could see it as as the University of Austin, austin, being able to one be able to, at a much higher degree, decode someone's brain waves into, you know full text that makes sense. But not just that, but also images as well, being able to ingest those images, that someone is looking at, these brain waves and saying, ok, maybe this isn't a word per se, but this is an image. And so now let's add more context to what an image would look like. And again, these are things that can be used for medical. They can be used for other advancements when it comes to you know, I don't know AR.

Denison: 51:23

How AR works, interacts with our brain. It can do a lot of stuff. I could even see it as a way of diagnosing people with certain brain disorders or something similar to that. I guess I should really say like mental illnesses and stuff like that, without actually having to I don't know go through so many tests or whatever like that. So there's the possibilities in this. I think, really, they're going to push it to a lot of these technologies, to as much as to the highest degree, to get a better idea of what they want to do.

John: 51:58

Well, I agree, and I hear what you're saying too, because One thing that I do think would be beneficial is using a more advanced you know again chat GPT for, for example.

John: 52:15

I think would be beneficial in a way of not like the movie upgrade or have you where an AI is trying to converse with you and your brain and take it over, but rather using the foundation to analyze just how the brain works, because, again, there's so much unknown. If I'm not mistaken, we really only understand 10 to 15% of how our brain functions. You know, it might be a little more than that, but I do remember there's a large percentage that isn't known, you know, isn't fully understood. And so being able to analyze that and understand, just for health purposes, right? Yep, yeah, I think that's a good point. Actually, you know what? Let me look that up real quick. What is? Let me ask chat GPT for why not? Yeah, might as well.

John: 53:26

What is the percentage of our brain's function that we understand. It's kind of a weird way to phrase that. We'll see what it says. Yeah, we'll see how it does. The exact percentage of our brain's function that we understand is subject of debate and ongoing research in the field of neuroscience. I was right, dude. Traditionally, it's been said that humans use only a small fraction of their brain's potential, often quoted as 10%. However, this is a myth. In reality, we see virtually every part of our brain.

Denison: 54:04

Right.

John: 54:06

And most of the brain is active all the time, for sure. Yeah, so modern neuroscience has shown that the brain is highly complex and interconnected organ, with each part having a specific function. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and other brain scanning technologies have allowed scientists to observe brain activity and have shown that even simple tasks require the coordination of multiple areas of the brain. However, understanding how the brain functions in its entirety is still a significant challenge. Estimates of how much we understand about the brain very widely, very widely, v-a-r-y. There are many, and it's difficult to quantify this understanding in a precise percentage. There are many aspects of brain functions, such as the exact mechanisms of consciousness, memory and the intricate workings of neurotransmitters, are not fully understood. So I think the latter, especially, would be where the research funnels the most right. Yeah.

John: 55:10

So, yeah, I think that's good information.

Denison: 55:13

Yeah, I think so. Imagine with me that in the far future or maybe not know, not to distant future, we're able to use this technology you know, when it's matured to an X, to a high amount, to be able to remember our dreams. Wouldn't that be kind of neat, right? You put like a headset on your head and you sleep and then you wake up and then you get like a playback of your dream. That'd be weird, it would be. It'd be pretty neat, though I mean, you know, if you're into that.

John: 55:57

I don't like living that way, bro. I'm not against dreaming, but reliving dreams kind of freaks me out.

Denison: 56:04

You just get to see it. It'd be like a YouTube video, yeah that's true, like a YouTube video of your brain or of your dream stream live on YouTube with that for sure.

John: 56:16

No, I'm not against dreams or anything like that. I just think the idea of rewatching it would kind of be weird to me. But I'm not against that fight. Totally get what you're saying, brooke. Also thank you for jumping in the comments. We love you being on the stream with us and thank you as well. But yeah, so that's a. That's an interesting one, but that gives, I think, a lot of good information on this. And honestly, man, I say we slam into this last one real quick. What do you think? Of course, of course.

Denison: 56:50

Yeah, we can run through this one. This one's a little bit quicker I can, I can take it away on this one.

John: 56:57

Yeah.

Denison: 56:58

So so Apple right in a move that shocked everyone, apple is going to open up RCS, which is rich. What does it stand for? It says rich, rich something text or something similar to that. It's essentially a much more encrypted version of a regular standard text message Most phones, most Android phones, have moved over to rich communication services.

John: 57:36

That's what I'm seeing.

Denison: 57:37

I knew it was rich something. There it is, God I'm buying an iPhone.

Denison: 57:44

Yeah, but it so beforehand, right, let me set the scene here right In the United States, because I have to preface it by in the United States, because this is completely different around the world. Sure, sure, sure In the United States. Someone in the United States majority of people will use who, if they have a iPhone, they use the default Not even just an iPhone is really, in general, most phones they're going to use the default messaging app that is on their phone. So for iPhone users, that's I message, which most iPhone users don't understand. That technically, the way that I message is it's just a glorified web client, because essentially, all of your texts and all that other good stuff is up in the cloud and then it's just reading that data off of a server.

Denison: 58:46

Essentially, that's the reason why you can do certain things that are a little bit different, right, but the nice thing about I message is that you get encrypted. You get encrypted messaging. You get higher quality videos and higher quality like custom images and stuff like that. Right, sure, all sent out. And then, of course, there's other kind of cool things that you can do, like stickers and all sorts of other cool stuff like that, right that you can do inside of I message.

Denison: 59:26

Apple has done a great job of being able to integrate that and make it feel like something that you really just can't live with that. So on the other side of the spectrum, oh, and I guess I should also preface it by saying whenever you are texting another iPhone user who is also using I message, they will send off a blue bubble. Right, you get a blue bubble, that's this whole. And then, of course, when you are not a user and you are texting someone who is using an Android phone, that text message becomes a SMS, which is just a regular old, plain old text text green text yes, you then, and the other person because you yes, yes, you get a green bubble.

Denison: 1:00:19

Exactly yes, you must shame them for having a green bubble because it yes, it messes with all of your fun Apple stuff.

John: 1:00:28

This is why I only talk on the phone.

Denison: 1:00:35

But anyway, so most of so. Moving over to the Android side, or the Android side right, for years they have been using just regular old SMS, which is, like I said, your regular old, regular, regular, no encryption, just plain text being sent over cellular data. Well, a few years ago, google invested a lot of money in creating not in creating, but co-working with another service or whatever like that to create RCS, which is that rich communication service that adds in a lot of cool functionality that a lot of the iPhone users are getting in their iMessage, so that is higher quality video, higher quality photos, encrypted messages, as well as those typing indicators, which are cool, a couple of other things that kids sent through and that kind of work a little bit better. They started to implement that into most of their Android phones and Google has been pushing for years at this point to try to get Apple to just add that standard in, because what that will do is now you have this ability for both iPhone and Android users to be able to send encrypted messages, to have those typing indicators, as you can normally get, also those red received kind of deals that you normally get to on iMessage and stuff like that, as well as RCS. Whenever you're talking with someone else who also has RCS, you get an opportunity to be able to send better videos, all sorts of other stuff.

Denison: 1:02:38

Google has been hounding Apple to truly push this as much as possible, because it's a better experience, not just for their users, but for all users, right? Sure, no more green bubble versus blue bubble, which is interesting, yeah. So Apple announced a few days ago that they are opening this up or they are going to add RCS to iMessage in 2024. So then that way, everybody gets the blue bubble goodness. But it's probably not going to be true. Honestly, they're probably either going to keep it green just because they want to again, it's another thing that Apple can use to keep people in their world garden, but maybe it'll stay green or maybe it'll change to a different color. But big thing about it is just that we are now moving on to a better standard, and it should make messaging people a lot better. Again, this is a United States problem, because in other countries they actually use most countries use like WhatsApp to communicate.

John: 1:04:01

Right, which is weird, but that's a whole other conversation.

Denison: 1:04:05

It's only weird to us. For them they're just like well, why would I use the default messaging client? I can use WhatsApp, which communicates perfectly, which is really good communication across the board, right? You don't have any weird incompatibility issues and it's encrypted, and you get high resolution photos and you get breed right Receipts. You get all the cool stuff.

John: 1:04:30

Yeah, well, I get that sympathy on that for sure. I just feel like it gets weird with how well at least the way they promote it to us is how hidden they are all the messages can be. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, for like how WhatsApp can be, or at least it was. I know that I don't know if it's quite to that level now, but you could message people without sharing who. You are right.

Denison: 1:05:03

No, I mean you have to have a phone number and all sorts of other stuff like that. There may be certain parts of it, but I mean, whatsapp was supposed to always be a. One of the biggest things that's nice about it is that it's great for international travel because it doesn't require that cellular service. It just requires like a file or something similar to that.

John: 1:05:28

Okay, well, you know, try and think of what I what. I don't know if it was an early version of that or if I'm just misremembering that I very much could be. Oh, you know what I bet it's Telegram.

Denison: 1:05:45

Yeah, that might have been what you were thinking of.

John: 1:05:47

Yeah, I think so, and Telegram was trying to present itself as a competitor to WhatsApp, so that's probably what I thought of that. But yeah, so regardless of that and all that stuff, I do think it's interesting because this integration right would be just for Google, like Google Pixel kind of phones, for example.

Denison: 1:06:12

No, no, at this point, most Android manufacturers have added the Google messaging application, which is one of the big ones that is pushing the RCS. But most Android phones nowadays are actually pushing that, that messaging client, so it doesn't just benefit them. I know, like Samsung, they've made that their default messaging app. I believe you know. Of course Google has. I believe some of the other manufacturers Android manufacturers have as well, so it's not all that surprising.

John: 1:07:00

You have a frozen Denison.

Denison: 1:07:05

Yeah, we do Give me one more. I'll be back there it is. I should be back now. Yep, yep, yep, yep, you are back and we got the audio.

John: 1:07:17

Yeah, I guess.

Denison: 1:07:18

Yeah, I got some weird stuff going on, but anyway, yeah, most Android phones now have moved over to a messenger that has RCS on it.

John: 1:07:35

Okay, well, I think that's interesting, and I will say too, as someone who, within the last few days, upgraded my laptop to Windows 11. Again, this is my personal laptop and I found that Microsoft has an app called Phone Link, where you can link to your Android or you can link your iPhone. Yep, I do, I'm a better. I will admit this, you know, is situational, but I am a better text messenger a lot of times as far as typing it out on a keyboard rather than hold my phone and go like this right, I'm just more of a consistent replyer through that. With that said, if I open the app right now, it won't show any of my messages. In fact, it gives me a random list of suggested contacts.

Denison: 1:08:38

Strange.

John: 1:08:39

Yeah, yeah. So, with that said, if I were to create new message and the message you I mean, I could pick right up where we had left off last, not a problem, but won't show me anything until you reply, and only then does it start building a thread, right? But that only lasts until I reset the computer or shut the app off, right, and then you have to start from square one again. So I have a dozen on red text messages right now. I apologize.

John: 1:09:16

I apologize to all involved, but it won't show me any of them on that app. So I do wonder. I hope for them that that means they'll integrate with other apps like that. Obviously that one's more self serving me, but I just wonder how big of a growth we would see from this technology being integrated and how much it would integrate with other stuff.

Denison: 1:09:43

Yeah, I mean I think it'll be interesting as well as strange that you're getting that. I honestly have not had that issue with me doing it on my computer, because I've done it a couple of times have you. I have. It's a phone link app. It works great yeah.

John: 1:10:05

You do it with your Android phone, right? Correct? Yeah, yeah, it's all right, but I do imagine that that is completely different, you know? I mean because even I'll give you this example right now, it doesn't show those messages unless I just started typing one, and it says your recent messages will appear here. This is from messages, obviously, and it gives me every other notification on the side too that I could just look at but not interact with Mm-hmm. And then if I went from which being like, you know, like Facebook, youtube, upwork, all that kind of stuff, but then if I hit calls, it says we cannot connect your device. Please reset phone link, which would just remove my device and I'd have to reconnect it, which is interesting.

John: 1:11:00

Yeah, and it's not factual because it reconnects every time I shut and turn the app back on, so it's just not it's not the best integration. It does make me wonder if that kind of stuff will improve for people as well.

Denison: 1:11:15

You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, hopefully it does, hopefully it does. Yeah, because, yeah, that's sort of strange it is.

John: 1:11:24

I'm glad it's free, but at least it's free coming with Windows 11. But if I remember right too, that app was already available on Windows 10, if I remember right. Correct.

Denison: 1:11:41

Correct, but I'm currently using it on Windows 10.

John: 1:11:44

Gotcha.

Denison: 1:11:45

Okay.

John: 1:11:46

Yeah, but it wouldn't connect iPhone unless it was the Windows 11 version, correct? So all these people are moving this technology more integrated with iPhone, even just as simple as something. We talked a little while back about the new iPhones charged with USB C's. Now, right, I think this is a national and an international level to make it more like the other phones as far as those things that block it from being used by other technology, right.

Denison: 1:12:21

Yes, and I do want to also say this is that Apple didn't do this on purpose. They didn't. If it was up to Apple, they wouldn't have done this. They were forced to do this by an EU regulation that essentially a EU bill or whatever like that that passed that requires this essentially thing, and so USB C right. Yes, usb C and RCS.

John: 1:12:56

Oh, okay, I didn't know it was a ladder as well.

Denison: 1:12:58

Yes, Exactly, Exactly. Apple is not someone to integrate any of this. Again, a lot of this stuff is to make it easier for all users to be able to communicate on devices and stuff like that, not just for one manufacturer to have a monopoly on certain things. So that is something that I wanted to pop out there, because I think some people would read it and say like, oh man, Apple is really doing a good job, but it's more of a regulation thing that they're being forced to do this.

John: 1:13:41

Sure, that's interesting and it's wild. It took this long for it to start transpiring. But as someone who was always, has always has been Team iPhone, I'm not in the way of, yeah, make it your own thing and everybody else has to adjust accordingly. No, make it integrate with stuff like that, just like all other related technology does. I completely agree. So well, look, we touched on a lot. It is a late night. I think we covered a lot and it was great, and thank you, guys for jumping on the live stream as well. Thank you for watching with us, thank you for having the comments as well. This is what we do every single week and, of course, this one. We knocked out early, but also went late because it is staying in week. And I just want to say too even though the audio version of this goes live on, technically, cyber Monday, if you, if you're looking for something to buy on Cyber Monday, hit the link. We got some really cool merch that you can check out.

John: 1:14:50

We sure think you're going to love it. So, with that said, though, just real quick, man. What would you say that you're thankful for? What's the one thing you would mention?

Denison: 1:15:05

I think just you know family and friends. Honestly, I think that is probably one of the biggest things I felt more this year that I've been really thankful for.

John: 1:15:19

Yeah, well, it's interesting because, for those who don't know us personally, it's not presses like those that make us literally the same person, just brothers. You know what I mean, because I have the exact same feeling and very thankful for those who surround us and care for us genuinely. But not just that. I'm very thankful for you, bro, because you are among the pinnacle of that, and very, very thankful.

Denison: 1:15:52

So oh, thank you, bro. I'm incredibly thankful for you. Man Like, yeah, this year's been crazy and you know, I don't know what I would do with that.

John: 1:16:05

Well, thank you, and the feeling is absolutely mutual, and with all of that, too, we're thankful for all of you listeners and watchers as well. Thank you for being a part of this podcast in some capacity all the time, and thank you for jumping on, whether it's a live stream or whether it's the audio. We really, really appreciate it, and just to be able to do this and grow this and have fun doing it, that it's an awesome blessing. So, thank you guys. Yeah, exactly.

Denison: 1:16:34

Yeah, thank you. For what? Four years of support. Five, five years. Sorry, I'm off, I'm off. Yeah, five years of support. You know, it's been a long journey, it's been great and it's super fun. We're continuously, you know, trying to innovate and you know, thank you for being along for the ride. And, yes, right.

John: 1:17:02

And I think to continue this. Yeah, absolutely, and we will, and I think we have some really exciting things that are around the corner with that as well, which, of course, once they start developing, we'll be sure to talk more and more about. So yeah, thank you guys. So much for listening, thank you for watching. Have a happy Thanksgiving, if you're listening on the audio. Have a happy weekend of shopping, and we'll catch up with you guys next week.