Ep 137: 1) Scarlett Johansson versus Sam Altman and OpenAI, Suno's $150M raise, Humane AI For Sale 2) Feelings on bad behavior in tech

[00:00] I'm wearing my JoJo Siwa vest today. I see that. I see that. [00:03] It's almost unwearable now because of all the content that she's been putting out wearing this style vest. It's almost like I can't. I know. It's unfortunate for you because it's cool. [00:13] Something's going to arrive. [00:33] Just Boys Club. Here we are. How's it going? Good. How are you doing? I'm doing it. Just in a phone booth. I know I live here now. Welcome to Boys Club. This is a podcast where we talk about the tech news from the week and then we talk about our feelings. It's a good time most of the time. This one's a little bit serious. The feelings are a little bit serious and we do our best. We do our best. [01:03] the Scarlett Johansson open AI feud. Yeah. [01:08] That is happening at the moment. Sama versus ScarJo. Sama versus ScarJo. Yeah, just the larger conversation around creatives and their likeness being used and touch on some other AI news that hit this week as well. And then we're going to talk about feelings. [01:23] surrounding... [01:25] Mmm. [01:26] Thank you. [01:26] I hate to say it, but being a woman.

[01:30] So, couldn't hate saying it more, but here we are. And being a woman in bad behavior. Being a woman in bad behavior. Yeah. And that is the podcast today. We are your hosts. My name is Dina. And that's Natasha. We are the co founders of Boys Club. [01:46] How much? I love it. Keep going. Go off. Go off. [01:51] So stick around. [01:53] you [01:55] Hey, Natasha. So a question we get asked a lot is, what do you look for in a crypto platform? So let's talk about it. Well, Dina, I look for a secure, no fuss platform that I can dive into right away. That's why I love today's sponsor, Kraken. If you're waiting for the right time to get into crypto, Kraken makes it super easy and intuitive to get started. Plus, if you get stuck, they have an award-winning client support team that's available 24-7, along with a bunch of educational guides, articles, and videos to help you along the way. If you're ready to check out [02:24] Kraken.com backslash boys club and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to US and US territory customers by Payward Ventures Incorporated, PVI, DBA, Kraken. View PVI's disclosure at Kraken.com backslash legal backslash disclosures. Tech news. Tech news. I'm excited. I actually have a lot to share. [02:54] Arlet Hylhansson. Oh my gosh. I couldn't be more excited to hear about it. So last week we saw the OpenAI demo of the very impressive but also aggressively flirty voice personal assistant, AI personal assistant GPT for...

[03:11] Oh. [03:11] We talked about it on the previous podcast. If you're lost, go check out that episode. Yes. Last week's episode, I said 4-0 and then someone was like, it's 4-0. Oh, that's embarrassing. It's so embarrassing. GPT 4-0. So OpenAI did that last week. Big... [03:25] shebang lots of chat about it people were really fanfare it's fanfare blown away like it was really it was one of those moments where you were like oh wow it was one of those kind of like magical tech moments where like i can't believe they did this but they unfortunately lost the news cycle the very next day basically moments later moments later [03:44] Scarlett Johansson. [03:46] She released a statement and was basically like, hey, Sam, not cool. A little bit of context. There's a movie, Her. We also talked about this last week. Her is a film that's released about 10 years ago, Spike Jonze, a dystopian film. But basically, there's a character, Scarlett Johansson's. [04:04] In that movie, she plays a voice AI thing. Companion. [04:08] companion and it turns romantic and then it turns very dark at the end but there's this movie and it's her and it's her and scarlet's voice it's her and it's her it's her her all the way down and in her statement she scarlet johansson's basically like hey open ai reached out to me about nine months ago [04:26] to be the voice actor of their new AI personal assistant. [04:31] which was called Sky. So I'm going to use that word Sky. That's the name of the voice model that they've named it. And she was like, we negotiated a bit. And then ultimately, I was like, No, this isn't right.

[04:42] And then in her statement, she was also like, and then two days before the demo, I was also contacted again by Sam and the OpenAI team. And they were like, you should reconsider. And she was like, I'm still, I'm good. She didn't want to do it. In her statement, one of the things she said is friends, family, people writing me saying, oh, this is your voice. [05:12] somebody else speaks to essentially them training it on her voice. Eerily similar is what she said. So she releases this statement and the internet goes crazy. And I would say that the sort of context for her, [05:24] her, as an actress, releasing the statement at that time was like, there's a lot of conversation around... [05:30] likeness and SAG-AFTRA and actors feeling like [05:36] really scared about [05:38] their work and their likeness, their visual person being used [05:43] in these AI models and basically like rendering them. Without their consent and also without compensation. Right. And then also Sam Altman sent a tweet the day that they went live that said her. I can't help but feel like he regrets sending that tweet. That was a stupid fucking thing to do. He has said in the past that it's his [06:03] favorite movie. So I think he was proud and he was like, hey, I created something that's like really similar to my favorite movie. [06:09] and anyway i do believe that he regrets sending that tweet because they pulled the voice and they're basically like we don't want to offend her we didn't train it on her voice but we don't want to be enemies here so she is famously litigious she like sued disney around the black widow stuff so when i have said like this wasn't an imitation of scarlett johansson but we're sorry and we're gonna pull it did they apologize or it was like a they apologized yeah it was an

[06:39] And so my point of view on this story is that two things can be true at the same time. I think that questions of likeness and usage are going to become more important. There's going to need to be more disclosure and transparency around that. [06:52] Absolutely. And I feel for [06:54] creative people especially who feel like their work is being eroded and I think that that's [06:58] going to be a bigger and bigger conversation. I think more transparency, not less is what's needed. And I don't see that exactly coming from the OpenAI team. I think related to that, another big piece of news this week was that Sonu, which is an AI music startup raised [07:15] 125 million dollars so sonu can basically generate voice lyrics and instruments together like in a track and they're basically like you can put in a prompt a text prompt and generate music and my [07:28] 50% of my household income comes from [07:31] the craft of music production. So that's like pretty scary to think about that future. And a lot of people in that conversation were like, [07:40] you know, the Meryl Streep yelling meme. [07:42] Yeah. They're like, ask what you trained it on. Like, what did you train-- [07:47] your models on. [07:48] And because the answer to that is obviously like all of recorded music and people's whole life work in their catalogs. And so that was... [07:57] there this week as well. And it's like a lot of money is being put towards the technology and infrastructure around it and the conversation around the creators and the artists opening I kind of just like brushing past it. [08:08] Yeah. Felt not great. But I also I listen to the voice and I'm kind of just like it kind of a white woman Pilates voice.

[08:18] Like it does. It's a solid core voice. It's a solid core voice. It does sound a lot like Scarlett Johansson, but it's not her. There was another voice actress. And I can imagine if you're that voice actress, you're like, well, no, it wasn't Scarlett Johansson. She's like, excuse me. Exactly. This is my craft. And so I think that they got it close to Scarlett Johansson, but they didn't. I don't think they trained it on her voice. [08:38] I think that they did use another voice actress and it sounds similar, but it's not the same. And I also think like it's a little bit generic white woman and in so much so that there's this YouTube video that I want to play for you, which is Scarlett Johansson's statement on open AIs illegal use of her voice read by the sky AI voice. So I want you to hear this because I think you'll be revealing. He told me that he felt by my voicing the system. [09:04] I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives. [09:08] and help consumers to feel comfortable. - So that's her statement. - I mean, it does sound like her. - It does, it does sound like her. One of the top comments is, [09:16] To be honest, I thought Sky sounded more like Rashida Jones. [09:19] Which when you hear that, you're like, yeah. [09:21] She actually does sound like Rashida Jones. You know when you there's like these tricks of the ear where it's like if you're reading something, there's like two ways that you could hear it depending on what you're looking at. And it's incredible because when you do it, it is actually true. It could say like, well, why would you do that? [09:38] But then it could also say, go eat a banana or something. And if you're whichever one you're reading is what you hear. And I think that's sort of what's happening here is I don't know that I would immediately think ScarJo, but thinking about her, I hear it. Of course. And then if you think about somebody else, you hear them. And so I don't know. It's a tough situation because, as you're saying, it's a much broader conversation around IP and people's livelihoods and a creative expression and practice.

[10:08] the world because you have these massive conglomerates that are going to exist where they have all they've eaten up all of this data and information and it just becomes a less creative. [10:18] world. If people aren't compensated properly to be creative, then that's just going to disappear in the world. Yeah. So I applaud her for trying to set a precedent around the [10:29] the things that are her value. I also could see a world where it's like, if the bag was appropriately sized, [10:36] She would have been down. Yeah. And that's not like eroding her work necessarily. That is her being compensated. That's what this SAG-AFTRA sort of conversation is all about. Agreement. Yeah. It's about fair compensation. So it's like she's compensated fairly. Then I think it's fine. But I also think she would have gotten a lot of heat. A lot of heat. Optically. Optically. [10:54] it would have been tough for her. So even if... [10:56] She was... [10:58] Even if the offer was great. But I will say that like Meta has their AI little characters and Kendall Jenner voiced one. Like they got a bunch of celebrities to voice some of their characters. But I don't think it's. [11:10] as big of a deal as the opening of that one. Also, I think it comes down to the tweet. The her tweet. [11:14] Yeah, I think it comes down to the her tweet. I think it also speaks to just public sentiment around Sam. [11:20] declining. [11:22] The tide has turned. The tide has turned against Sam Altman, I fear. I fear as well. I don't think that he's everybody's guy next door anymore. And I think that people are looking for evidence to make him like an evil, maniacal tech. I know he's not a billionaire, but he might as well be.

[11:40] I think it might be at this point. [11:42] You think so? [11:43] I thought he was like half a billion. Half a billy. [11:46] Let's round up. I don't know if he's a part of the four comma club. [11:50] Yeah, I fear. I fear his public opinion has has shifted. Boys Club ran a very formal poll earlier this week about people's level of trust in Sam Allman. What'd they say? Let's read the receipts. Let's read the results. Yeah. So we ran a poll. [12:05] What's your level of trust? [12:07] in Sam Altman, 46% [12:10] Zero, zilch, nil, nix, nada. Whoa. 32% mid-low. [12:15] 14% mid-high, and 7% I'm all in LFG. Oh, my God. So people... [12:21] I mean, who's all in? Who would be all in? I don't know who's all in on Sam. Well, it's time to get some therapy going. Better help. Sponsor us. [12:30] Yeah, and I think that there's a few things contributing to that. I think the news cycle getting away from them on this launch and the Scarlett Johansson of it all didn't help. There was also the safety team, the super alignment team at OpenAI basically was all of them resigning last week. [12:46] amidst all of this that was happening didn't bode well there was also another scandal that's been going around about equity packages and employees getting their equity packages pulled the information is a great article about that i'll link them in the show notes and i think just like man not not great great for sam and co i also want to say that ai generally so there was the humane sale news that hit this week as well i didn't hear this what's that remember humane the little ai pin

[13:16] Yeah. So it's this AI pin that it's like a little AI companion. It's a pin at like, [13:20] projects onto your hand, information onto your hand. They started shipping their product last month, April, and it went not great. There was a lot of bad... [13:35] reviews press around it yeah and reviews there was this one reviewer in particular his name is marcus branley and he is this huge youtuber and he was like this is the worst product i've ever reviewed and they are in the market to sell it [13:50] Oh, they're shopping it around? They're shopping it around. And they want to sell it for between $750 million and $1 billion. They raised $230 million from investors like Sam Altman was one of their investors. And yeah, the launch was a flop. What comes up for me in the news around this, I'm like, man, they only had one shot on gold. [14:09] That they were like, that was in their forecast. They're like, we're going to try this one launch. And if it doesn't go well, then crazy. [14:15] It's insane. [14:16] I know that's that feels like a fail fast, I guess. Fail fast and upward. Yeah, fail fast. Fail fast. And then the other bit of AI news that I want to share is that Meta announced their new AI board. [14:29] All white men. Oh, beautiful. Dominic Midori Davis. I honestly cannot believe we're still doing that. I know. It's in one hand. So it's so, so shocking. And then the other hand, you're like not shocking at all. [14:45] I know, but like grow up. I know. I know. Especially all the conversation around AI safety disproportionately affecting women and marginalized communities and people of color. Like that's the whole conversation around it and that they couldn't.

[15:01] have the, [15:02] Cabeça. Cabeça. What's going on in the cabeza? Well, it's actually Cabeçao in this scenario. There's a link in show notes. Dominic Mitori Davis has a really great piece on it. And she writes for TechCrunch. So you should check that out. And that's about it for the AI News of the Week. What do you think? Wow. Wow. Great stuff. Lots going on. [15:20] I will also say there's a lot going on in crypto. We're covering it all next week. So don't fear. But great stuff. Thank you for filling me in. I feel briefed. [15:30] It's time for a more open, inclusive, and transparent financial system. A system that serves nearly everyone, everywhere, all the time. That's why we love today's sponsor, Kraken. Kraken is a crypto platform that provides a super simple on-ramp to the world of crypto with a 24-7 support team. Crypto transcends physical and imaginary borders. No matter where you are, you can send funds easily and quickly to almost any part of the world. Plus, forget about waiting times and waiting lines. You can send, receive, and trade crypto anywhere near instantly. [16:00] Now it's time for some feelings. [16:30] splitting up

[16:31] the tech news and the feelings. I think people are going to have some feelings about that, but [16:37] We need to optimize this podcast for shareability. And I was in Nashville last week. We looked at some hard truths. [16:44] for ourselves. [16:45] about what does this feed if i was it was coming in fresh fresh boys club fresh to this feed what my what would my experience be [16:54] And your experience would be very chaotic. Pure chaos. It's all... [17:00] over the map. We're here. We're there. We're talking about ourselves. We're talking about the world. It is incoherent. It's incoherent. It's totally incoherent. And it's so fun if you're in on it with us, which listener, thank you. You are. And we love you. But if you're new to us, [17:18] You're like, what the fuck are these women talking about all the time? [17:23] And so we need to get clear. So this will be in motion. I just want to warn everybody. [17:29] That what's going to happen is we're going to spin out the tech news. It's still going to be us shooting the shit. It's still going to be conversational. It's going to be exactly what you've gotten here. We're going to force people who are technical to tell us things in a normal, explain it to me like I was five kind of way. And then we're going to spin out the feelings into its own feed where we're going to talk about our feelings. [17:51] as hyper-pigilant. [17:53] type A ambitious babes living our lives, trying to sort through the noise of it all, that's going to be on another feed. And the reason we're doing this is so that you will share these podcasts with your friends.

[18:06] Because that's the number one way that podcasts grow. So I just wanted to give that disclaimer. I don't know. That wasn't a part of the plan. That wasn't in the show notes, but that was in my heart. I think it was smart. I think it was smart to do that. Thank you. For the record, I don't identify as type A. [18:19] Oh, well then you need to spend some time with yourself. I'm serious. I really don't. Okay. Okay. Wow. That's interesting. Maybe you are a type A. You're really intense. Maybe what I mean is intense. [18:33] Okay. You're incredibly intense. You know that. [18:36] Have you sat in on a meeting with you? You and Dave both say that about me, and I really don't-- I do not [18:43] feel that way but that's honestly crazy that's a crazy thing to say okay let's get into the feelings maybe we can cover that in another podcast um okay so on today's feelings [18:55] check in okay there has been a groundswell and [19:00] We've it's time to address it. The groundswell is around women having a shitty time. Must you say it? I must say it having a bad time and being treated badly and being witness to bad behavior. [19:13] by men [19:15] And... [19:16] the crypto industry, also the AI industry. There was a big thread that went viral this week, and tech generally. And I'm having feelings covering it on this podcast, because I think mostly because like so often, people wanna put us in this box. And so I feel some resistance to being put in this box. [19:32] The woman box. The woman box. Yeah. People want to put us in the woman box. [19:35] And I have feelings around that feels so limiting. But at the same time, there's this stuff that's happening on many fronts and a lot of people feeling like there's a lot of bad behavior going on that's unchecked, especially in the crypto industry. And that took...

[19:50] That came into our Discord this week. Took it by storm. Took it by storm. Lots of conversation. And before we get into it, what are your feelings about it? My feelings are I have such a complicated relationship with... [20:01] being a woman because [20:03] I love it. I love it. [20:05] It's so fun. [20:07] But then there's times where it's so terrible because... [20:10] Other... [20:11] People... [20:13] genuinely hate you for being a woman. It's crazy. And when I'm confronted by that, it's, [20:18] upsetting because I so don't show up in the world that way. Like I don't show up in the world with an anger about [20:26] my experience of being a woman. Like, my experience of being a woman is something that I enjoy. But then the world... [20:32] puts it on you, [20:33] to then be angry about it because you're treated a certain way or you're not respected or whatever it is. And then you have to talk about your experience of being a woman. And it's like a self-fulfilling cycle that is upsetting to have to participate in. [20:48] And at the same time, I feel a responsibility to honor people. [20:53] the experience of others and to give them space and to give [20:58] voice to [20:59] what feels like [21:01] a disproportionate [21:03] experience in the world. Yeah. And... [21:06] So I feel very complicated about it. I hate talking about it because... [21:10] Then all of a sudden it's like, I'm sure people are turning this off right now because they're just like, I don't want to hear about a woman talking about being a woman. And I get that. Like, I get it. But then it's also if you don't talk about what are we doing here? Yeah, I think we can maybe narrow the scope a little bit of this conversation. There's one particular thing I want to talk about, but.

[21:27] I do just want to say like just for some context and background, there were a few separate incidents that all hit this week. One was a tweet that went viral of a guy. It was a video that he posted that was like zooming in on a woman in a bikini in a pool that was like, I'll give $1,000 to someone who can find this woman's name. That went viral. I think he worked in crypto. I'm not exactly sure. Then there was a thread from a woman who works in AI. [21:51] talking about really bad behavior in AI circles, deeply problematic, and it appears to be systemic amongst like the AI elite. And then I'd say the one thing that I've been really triggered by recently, which is in the world of it, is [22:05] the crypto industry just being the most cringe place in the entire universe. And one comment in particular about meme coins that use like, [22:15] words and [22:16] references [22:18] that I would, if I heard my kid saying this word, [22:22] like would have a meltdown. It's not a word we use anymore. [22:27] And many, many, many of these words and the people are naming meme coins after them. And it's kind of in the spirit of this like anti woke whatever edgelord thing, but it's sucks. And. [22:40] Someone said in our Discord, it's not punching up, it's punching down. And that it's just disgusting. And so that's happening in crypto at the same time. And then there was a bunch of women who came into our Discord this week with just different examples of bad behavior. It's happening. And I think one... [22:54] particular lens, which is how I look at it. And I wonder how appropriate or right or problematic this is. But one of the honestly, like motivations for starting Boys Club in the first place was let's just create a

[23:08] our own sandbox yeah like our own thing over here [23:12] where we get to decide what it is and what the rules are. And we're not trying to rebuild an existing system. We're creating our own system, parallel system that we're doing. And I think that part of why it came up in and around the crypto and the Web3 conversation was because [23:29] It was like, okay, there's an opportunity now to do that in a meaningful way where there's this new technology, this emerging technology, it's different, has a new set of values, its own thing. And like, wow, isn't this an opportunity to start fresh from the ground up with something that we get to decide now? [23:46] we kind of being, [23:47] Women [23:49] and [23:50] people around women we get to decide how we want to see it [23:55] And... [23:57] That as a strategy is very different to going into existing systems and trying to fix them. [24:05] That feels totally daunting and overwhelming, but maybe people would say our approach to just creating this other thing is... [24:11] is, [24:12] impractical and a waste of time. [24:14] So I'm curious what you think of that sort of dynamic. Yeah. I mean, I think when you asked me about being a woman at the beginning or how I feel about the conversation, I think one of the things that, yeah, we've always talked about and have had to find language around when people, especially at the very beginning when there was a lot of conversations around us being women. [24:31] An affinity group. Which always just pissed me off. Because... [24:36] I was like, no, I'm building a new world. I'm in the business of world building.

[24:42] where the things I care about, my perspective, [24:46] how I show up in the world. [24:48] is... [24:48] celebrated and powerful and open for other people to show up as they fully are. [24:56] And that there's not a value system that's placed on that based on whether you're a man, whether you're a woman, whether you're white or black or Latina or however you show up in the world. That like it's an entirely different system. [25:10] And that's what I'm interested in doing. And that's what I'm interested in building and thinking about every day. And also, I'm excited to do that. [25:17] Because I think when you have to go into an existing system and try to rework it, [25:24] You have to go in and break it all down, burn it all down. The source of the [25:29] Inspiration is anger. [25:31] And I think that that is really unfulfilling and hard to do. [25:34] And I think there's a place to feel anger. I think there's a way to have feelings when you're made to feel little or made to feel stupid or not valued or respected. Like, of course, you're going to feel angry and that's appropriate, but that's not. [25:48] where I want to create from and that's not where I want to spend my day and so thinking about [25:55] crypto and thinking about what attracted me to crypto and like our very first conversations when i was finally open to the testimony of it was like [26:04] Exactly as you're saying. There's this whole new way to think about wealth distribution and power... [26:12] and value that's built on the internet.

[26:15] that does allow for an entirely new system. [26:19] And [26:21] that inspires me and that's work that I want to do. And I feel like in that I show up as a woman and I get to [26:28] like all the things that I like and be fully as I am. And it's so not about that because it's [26:36] were in a totally different world. [26:38] And that's what I want. And I think it's really hard when [26:43] you're confronted by the impracticality or [26:47] the realities of rubbing against [26:49] these other parts of [26:51] tech or culture in general that make that [26:55] big vision feel really impossible. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does. It does. One thing that I want to read from someone in our discord, I didn't ask her permission, so I am not going to give her credit. [27:06] because I'm just reading it, but she's someone in our discurse who's very, very smart, and we love a lot. And I think... [27:12] did a great job of bringing it into some... [27:14] larger trends that are existing primarily talking about sort of the language that is being used she said there's a social nihilism that i see online where wokeism has swung to complete lack [27:24] of preciousness about any of this and i appreciate that to a degree that we can play with and examine these stances we had to cling to originally almost post-feminist post-wokeism etc and while complete lack of preciousness might make some kind of sense online where anything goes when it comes offline and someone thinks that flies irl face to face it doesn't

[27:45] I would love to hear more thoughts from people. And I think what she's speaking to that I really appreciate is I don't want to be woke for woke sake. Like I'm not trying to cling to some idea of what's appropriate or anything like that. I think we have like a deeply anti-establishment, like subversive tone. And that's so fun. I think. [28:05] doing that [28:06] with a care for real people and thinking about others and thinking about people's actual lived experiences and identities. [28:13] is... [28:14] forgotten sometimes when people swing so far the other way to be like, I don't give a fuck and I can say whatever I want. And [28:22] they forget about real people. And that's, [28:24] for me, where [28:26] You must. [28:27] draw the line. Yeah, totally. I don't know if we did this conversation justice or not. [28:32] I know. I'm doing that as a little nervioso. And I don't know, but... I think that's not the point. I don't think doing the... [28:39] I mean, doing it justice, yes, but I think there's an imperfectness to these conversations, and there always will be. Yeah. And I just ask as a listener that you... [28:48] Hold that in your heart as you listen. And send in your thoughts. Like genuinely curious what people think and their lived experience. Alrighty. That's that. That's that. Thanks for listening. Hey, before we go, one thing. [29:03] Just go open your Spotify app and rate this podcast. It's really useful to have ratings we're finding. So please do that now. It will take literally two seconds. Okay, bye. [29:14] *music*