[upbeat music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I am your co-host, Francis Zehrer. [laughs] I almost said, "I'm Francis Zehrer." [laughs] It's, it's, it's a rare episode hosted by me, and then I came...
I left silences, came back in, and, uh, recorded a second take. Um- Just kidding. I'm actually Daisy Aioto. Mm-hmm. Um, and today- And I do have a cough drop in... today we're, we have a, a really fun double feature.
We do. We were guests on another podcast, and then they came on ours, which is Future Commerce by Brian Lange and Philip Jackson, um, who co-founded Future Commerce, I think, around eight years ago now.
It's this really great media company. They do newsletters, podcasts, events. Um- [laughs]... I would say that they have an amazing brand, Sillage- [laughs]... which you can learn more about that- I-...
if you go listen to our appearance [laughs] on their podcast. Yeah, this was, like, such a meta episode. I almost felt like it was, like, the Being John Malkovich of podcast episodes- Mm...
where it's like, you know, we're telling the story, but th- simultaneously we all have, like, a clay puppet of ourselves that we're, like- [laughs] Mm... you know, we're, like, narrating. You'll see. But it, it was...
I mean, this is, this was really fun. There's levels. Both episodes, both the, the one that you're listening to now and then our appearance on theirs, which if you, if you like this one, go and listen to that.
It's also already out. Yeah. Um, you know, they've been podcasting for, like, eight times as long as us, so [laughs] I don't know. They're very... They're pros. Yeah.
At one point we said, "Let humans do what humans are good at and let machines do what machines are good at," and I feel like that was the overarching, uh, theme of this double feature. Mm-hmm.
And maybe, I think one sort of errs on the machine side and the other on the human side, so they're very complementary conversations. Mm-hmm.
Um, before we get into the episode, I did wanna ask about your launch party last week for Blank. Oh, it was so fun. Um, I know. I keep looking at the pictures like, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." The pictures looked- Um-...
so good. I was like, "Damn, this is luxe." Well, this is the funny thing about running your own events.
When I was freelance and covering culture stuff, I would go to these parties that, you know, a, a brand put on and put a lot of money into. Mm-hmm.
And, you know, you would check, like, BFA the morning after and hope there was a good picture of you. And there are some good pictures of me on BFA. I also- But this time you get to make sure. Well, I had to...
Only once did I ask BFA to take something out. I don't even know how I got this person's email address. I don't know if it was, like, general support. But I was like, "You have to take this down.
I look like Danny DeVito." Mm-hmm. And they literally responded like, "Lol- [laughs]... it's gone." They were like, "Lol, it's gone." Uh-huh. Um, we did not use BFA.
We used this wonderful photographer named Kelsey Cherry. But the other thing is, like, if you're press, what they do is... This would happen to me when I went to openings. They would, they put you in a Facebook.
So if you've seen that, like, scene in Devil Wears Prada where she's, like, whispering who each person is- Mm...
it's a literal Facebook that ahead of time you're like, "These are the people that need to be photographed- Oh... and talked to." And I got to see what the Facebook was this time. That's so sick. But it's so funny.
Like, my first instinct when we got the photo- Here we go, Mark Zuckerberg. [laughs] My first instinct when we got the photos the next day was like, "Oh, I hope there's, like, a good picture of me in here."
And then I'm like, "Daisy, like, it's your event." [laughs] Like, she took a lot of photos of you. Like, she went out of her way to take photos of you. You were in the Facebook. You made the Facebook. Yeah, I know.
It was only you in the Facebook. [laughs] Honestly, major, major vibe shift for me. [laughs] But, um... And also, like, a lot of wonderful photos of people I care about that are friends and also, um, in my world, VIPs.
Mm-hmm. So it was really, like, such a wonderful combination of each of the brands involved.
Like, the Future Perfect was the environment, but the design and beautiful objects and furniture in every corner of this townhouse that people can interact with.
I forgot to, like, warn some of the people that were coming, like, "This isn't gonna look like a gallery," 'cause it's literally just, like, a townhouse door on this- Yeah... street in the West Village.
So people were coming up and being like, "This can't be the place." And then they would walk in and be like, "Daisy, what is this?" Like, "Who lives here?" "This is not my beautiful event."
"This is not my beautiful house." "This can't be the place." And I'd be like- Mm... "Do you want the tour?" And we would just, like, go from floor to floor and be like, "Look at this. Look at this."
Even in the bathroom there's, like- Uh-huh... amazing contemporary sculptures and objects, design objects. So it was fun to see people just, like, take that in.
Also, we were able to intersperse, like, the lingerie product- Mm... and imagery from the Something More campaign in a way that, like, looked super organic and not forced at all. And, um,
Taylor, who works with the communications team that was helping Chantal, um, called Basil, uh, they... I think Basil. I haven't said it out loud. They were so fun to work with too. Is it spelled with an I and E? I know.
But Taylor, who works with them, found this company called Amazing Graze that built an on-site grazing table with flowers. I mean, it was like an artwork in and of itself. Amazing Graze? Amazing Graze. Isn't that great?
That's good. Yeah, that's good. Um, and just, like, sculptural flower arrangement, and that was, like, a whole other thing to...
I mean, I'm looking at pictures of the food, 'cause you know I didn't eat any of it- [laughs]... 'cause I was busy greeting people. Flitting around. Yeah. I ate one cheese cube. Oh. Um, [laughs] I ate one cheese cube.
Anyway, um, so every element of it was stunning. People had a really good time. And, and Beth, who works with Basil, and she pointed out after, she was like, "There's no phones in these pictures." Mm.
People did not have their phones out. Living in the moment. They were talking to each other. I was like, I was like, "You did it, guy- we did it, guys. We escaped the algorithm."
That's actually a, that's, that's a good, that's a good, um, [laughs] that's... For any people who run events out there, I'd say that's a great metric of success. You know, you go through the pho- Yeah...
go through the photos, what's the people per, what's the phones per people ratio in your photos? Yeah. Yeah. So I really...
I mean, I was exhausted when I woke up the next day, but I also felt very, very happy that we had been able to combine these three worlds so effectively and give people just, like, this really beautiful night.
Like- You were blank, but in a state of contentmentI, like, wouldn't say a comp- ton- Yeah, no, I, I hadn't worn heels for that long in a while, and I didn't drink anything, and I woke up, and I felt like I was hungover and hit by a truck Mm-hmm...
and it was literally just, like, um, from wearing heels. So [laughs] I, uh... Okay, the last thing I'll say and then we should transition to the episode.
I think that your comment about, um, everyone there, the people in the Facebook, were, were VIPs to you- Yeah... I think is a really good thread to our conversation about the OpenAI Studio Ghibli, Ghibli. Right.
Tell us, okay- The scene and the anti-scene of it all. The scene and the anti-scene. All right, well, we will end you for the episode, which we've already recorded.
Go check out the, um, episode on the Future Commerce feed as well if you enjoy it. [upbeat music] So I, I'm honestly not sure if it is Studio Ghibli or Studio Ghibli, but we are [laughs] going to...
I'm gonna say Ghibli. We, we'll have different, you know, different... There's different ways of saying- If we all say it differently, then it's all the bases are covered. Yes.
[laughs] What if I say it multiple ways throughout the conversation? That's worse. That's likely to happen. [laughs] Then we'll just cut that. We'll just cut that. This lives like Jeffrego, basically. Um- It is...
okay, Studio Ghibli, the memes, the spike, the moment is over. It was over very quickly.
Uh, I think it, it started on, like, Thursday, maybe Wednesday, and then by the time that the White House was posting horrific, uh, deportation- Oh, my gosh... Ghibli-fied- Right... memes, I think it was over. Um,
I have a take on, on this moment, but- Speak on, speak on Lay it on... I'll let you say a good way first. Okay, what is it? Okay, I'll, okay, I'll start.
Um, this one, I kind of got this from Mike Pepe, who is my favorite AI skeptic thinker- [laughs]... um, that we've had on this podcast. And former Tyson guest. Former Tyson guest. Um- Mm-hmm...
read his book, Against Platforms. It's really good. But hi- hi- his take I think is the most, is the most coherent, which is like this Ghibli moment isn't about, like,
you know, oh, wow, OpenAI is so powerful, it's gonna take the rest jobs, like, et cetera.
It's just, it's just a top-of-funnel marketing for Ghibli, where I think, uh, Sam Altman posted, maybe this was earlier today, that in the past hour they'd got a million new users- Yeah... which, um, they hit.
They were like one of the- It broke-... fastest companies ever to hit that. It broke the, the... them, and then they, they s- announced they raised a ton more money. It's like, how about you- Yeah...
actually serve the base that you already have? Well, but yeah, but that's all... To me, like, that's, it's, it do- it's not like a hard no or- Go- no future, but maybe serve- Yeah... your base et cetera. It's, it's...
That's the main, that's the main thing. That's the main takeaway for me- Mm... is this was a great marketing moment for them. Mm. Um, you know, everyone who changed their profile pictures- Did they use-...
that won't last forever... the word Ghibli anywhere? Because if they did, or did they just allow people to make the association? Because if they used that word anywhere, they absolutely owe him money.
I don't think they did. I don't think they did, no way. I don't think they did in the official marketing. [laughs] Yeah, I think it was- But do you... I mean, you, you guys are probably more up on the laws around- Mm...
commerce and sort of, like- Yes... implied affiliation, but, like, what do you think? Do you think there's a case here? So there's, there's actually... There- there's, there's two things that happened.
One was they showed a Ghibli-style meme on the live stream. Mm. Uh, the, like, 13-minute video, um, that was, like, quasi-live, uh, on their YouTube that announced the feature.
And the, the actual, like, X post that kicked the thing off was a post that said, "There's tremendous alpha in," you know, sending a Studio, a Studio Ghibli-style m- meme of your, you know, to your wife, like of you- Ah...
and your family. So, like, those two things that happened, like, basically within an hour of each other kind of put those... Like, they were of the same moment because it was, like, a tacit endorsement of, of...
as if OpenAI had posted it themselves, but they didn't say explicitly Studio Ghibli. So did Sam Altman use the word in a tweet later maybe?
He may have said it later, um, but it was- But that's more- It, it was more- Yeah... commenting on the moment. Mm. Yes.
And, uh, I think he might have said it in the moment actually as, "And here's, like, a Ghibli-style, you know, version of you as a twink," which I think was also a funny sort of a sendup of, you know, him commenting on the moment, which- Mm-hmm...
um, you would think he'd learn his lessons over a lot of things, you know, a la Scarlett Johansson. Um, and I'll- I think their legal defense fund is probably quite large too at this point. Yeah.
So they- It is quite large. Uh. But I also think nobody is... I mean, it sounds crazy to say in this moment, but, like, I don't think anyone's untouchable. That's true. That's true.
Uh, consequence- consequences come in, like, a lot of different forms. Sometimes you just, like, rot from the inside out. Um- Well, there, there was a good, there was a good piece- [laughs]...
in The Media Operator this morning- Not fast enough... with Donnelly about, um, like, about the big media companies licensing their content to- Mm...
OpenAI and to other AI companies, and how, like, maybe it looks like a good deal upfront, and it's, like, 90%-plus margins, et cetera, you know, especially if you have multiple of these deals with multiple companies.
But his major point was that, like, what they're doing is, like, admit- is saying, "Actually, it's okay that you stole our content, um, if, if you are already using it." Like, "We're admitting that it's okay.
We're not gonna, like, pursue legal defense." Uh, but also that the big mistake there is that they are... it, that doesn't price in the lifetime value of a customer- Correct...
um, o- off of their content, which I thought was a really, a really cogent point.
The thing is, like, going after that- I mean, the lifetime value of a customer becomes zero, though, the second you acknowledge your c- your content is something that can be replicated. Right.
I think the lifetime value of a, uh, you know, of a, uh, Studio Ghibli, like, customer has been quite low to begin with. So this is the thing I w- I, I... is been my critique, is most people don't con- Like, I, I...
I'm gonna get a lot of hate about this, and this is gonna get a lot of clicks for you guys. Most people don't consume anime generally. I, I know that it's hugeOkay?
But most people don't cons- Like, just go look at the list of Miyazaki films. Um, they don't rank in the top 100 films that gross of all time. So, like aesthetically- Is that domestic or global?
I mean- 'Cause like, I mean, the anime, the global anime market is like- Global anime market is, is large... huge... I mean, if, if you, if you, if you rank it as far as, like manga and you rank it as far as- Yeah...
uh, especially like, uh, TV, streamers, yeah, sure. But I'm talking about Ghibli's market share. Right, these are not Marvel films.
These are n- Right, these aren't, they're, like they are culturally important, but they're not commercially the most important things that have ever existed, right? Mm-hmm.
Um, Spirited Away, one of the most like beautiful, most important films in my household, okay? But, you know, like Ponyo, like real... Like is this, this the, this is the... I don't know.
I, I understand that this is, um, this is like a participatory economy Henry Jenkins sort of a moment, where like when the barrier to entry is sufficiently low, anybody and everybody will participate.
And this is something that's been theorized for a long time. This is what's happened in commerce, right?
We dropped the barrier to participation for commerce to the floor, and Shopify made it so accessible for anybody to participate in commerce, and you know what we have? We have a sea of homogeneity.
Every website looks the same. Every website functions the same. Not mine. We have drop shippers that have overrun the universe with like Chinese flood goods all over the planet. We have courseware all over TikTok.
We have, you know, Ali- AliExpress, you know, products getting, getting jacked up two, three times X. We have influencers all over the...
This is what happens, is when the, the, when, you know, Henry Jenkins talked about this 20 years ago, when the bar for p- participation is sufficiently low, everybody participates.
And so, um, you know, I wrote a piece about this for Future Commerce on Friday about this phenomenon and, you know, Walter Benjamin, um, talked about this and, uh, Walter Benjamin said, um, that, "That with which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art."
And I think that's sort of where we are right now, is like we're, we're left with nothing left but the aura. Like the, we're, we're,
the only thing that will be remembered, uh, left is the aura because everybody's participating in just the, the mechanical reproduction. But the aura relies on the original.
It's the sillage, to steal Francis' term, of the original. [laughs] Like I wasn't gonna wade into this or have a take, and I didn't, I was actually really busy.
I think it was Thursday, because I remember I was really busy and I think I was running around before my blank launch party. But, um, so I mean, look, I w- I'm not above like generating one of those.
Like, if I had had more time that day, I 100% would have done one of Ben and I. But like- I am, but okay. [laughs] Whatever. Uh,
I ended up accidentally going viral for having a take by just like reposting something I wrote over the winter- Mm... which was like about attention
being what makes us human, being the actual scarce resource, being something that you cannot replicate with a computer. A computer could not... A computer can develop taste in a sort of predictive way- Mm...
and preferences even, autonomous preferences. But it cannot consume art and culture the same way human beings do, because art- Mm... and culture is something we consume with our whole body.
Um, and this is like supported obviously, uh, by science and neuroscience, which takes into account that the endocrine system has a really big role in how we perceive beauty and art.
And actually, it's not settled how many parts of the human body contribute to that perception. Mm. Anyway, like I was basically saying like
everyone's responding to this because everything looks so good in this style, but why? It's because, like that style already existed. Every association that you have with it already existed.
The aura and the prestige around what Miyazaki created for the culture exists, and so your response to any image in that style is going to respond to your feelings towards the original.
Um, it's not just that it looks cool. You can't just say that it's, is that it looks cool. And so I think that that was like, that's like a really important point, because we...
And I, and I was thinking last night going back to a conversation I had with W. David Marx, friend of Dirt- Mm-hmm... um, and friend of Future Commerce, I assume- Yeah... about his book Status and Culture.
God, it's been so long. I've got, have it right there. Yeah. It's right there. [laughs] It, I mean, incredible book.
But the thing that he has talked about that really stuck with me, because it's not something that I totally...
I think I probably intuitively understood it in the way most of us do, but I couldn't articulate it until he articulated it for me, was like, um, the way that counterculture,
uh, and culture operates in just a cyclical way of like really challenging fringe things being developed and then integrated. So like Morgan Wallen, who thinks he's too good for SNL and New York City- [laughs]...
sings in a genre that only exists because of the fringe underground, you know, primarily Black music that was developed, uh, earlier in the history of the United States, that eventually got integrated into, you know,
country top 100 or whatever. Mm. Country top 10. So
if you don't support though that fringe, like if you're not willing to have things like drag shows or starving artists or housing programs for people that aren't making money off their art yet, you cut off that cycle at its legs, but you cannot have a cycle of normie thing to normie thing-The normie things just get worse.
They degrade in quality.
The, the cycle is meant to be challenge, encounter culture thing that nobody likes John Cage, that nobody understands, eventually trickling down sort of like that Devil Wears Prada cerulean sweater moment into something that becomes monocultural until it's challenged by the new fringe thing.
And what we have right now is not just political fascism, we have a certain amount of people that have fascism of their aesthetic taste and their sense of their values of what is culturally normative.
They consume things that started off as incredibly weird, and they can't acknowledge it. That, yeah. And they realize- Yes...
that there's not gonna be a next wave of things for them to consume because there's nowhere for culture to go. Um- Right... and so- That's part of the stagnation. Yeah, that's part of the stagnation.
So long way of saying, like, there is still room for the original. Mm-hmm.
The r- the, the, the AI referent is going to play off of and become popular off of, but there's no support in our culture right now for the next Miyazaki that millions of people could crash open an AI mimicking.
Like, we're not producing things that will be mimicable by AI. That's the bigger problem. Right. Um, people who do break through and continue to create original stuff that actually has aura
in this, quote, taste economy, if, if you wanna call it that, like, will have so much power, but it's an absolutely a financial, cultural, and political uphill battle right now to even get to that point.
Um- Right, 'cause you have to- So-... hit critical mass in order for it to have effect. Yeah. I actually covered this back in 2019 in my piece on replica sneakers and the value of art. Mm. Mm.
Um, and because there was a huge problem with replica sneakers, and people were kind of, like, freaking out, and then they kinda took on a, an aura of their own eventually.
Uh, but I think that I, I, I've thought about this problem, uh, I kid you not, since I was young [laughs] because I was like, copies are everywhere.
I mean, this conversation was happening back when, like, Thomas Kinkade was popular. It was like, how, how, how is this worth the money that people are paying for it?
Did you see his Trope drawings that they released, and they look like George Bush drawings? [laughs] Exactly. This is ridiculous. I roasted, I roasted him on Twitter. They're not- I saw that...
uh, the Disney ones- They've gone... are better. He, he made the right choice. But my, my, my...
I think where I landed was I actually think that it's actually the creator, uh, him or herself, that actually, like, brings the value to the art. It's getting to know that creator.
There's inherent things that are infused into to pieces of art that are worthwhile, that are either developed or just, like, inherent in that artist.
And the closer we get to that artist and understand that person, the more we're going to ascribe to that piece of art.
And so in fact, I would contend this Ghibli business as us wanting to be closer to that art, like, taking part in it is actually getting us- Mm... closer to the artist because we can be a, a part of the style.
And I also think- Yeah... it's, it's a flash in the pan in, in many ways. Like, it, it's something that we got to do for fun on the internet for, like, a week. But- Yeah... the- That's generous...
the- I think that's generous... it's... The, the, the end game is, like, um, I guess my son is an artist. He is incredible, and I don't see that- No, he, he really is. This is like- Yeah... this is not a proud dad thing.
His, his son's a genius. Um- Um- Yeah... and I think about his first painting and what it means to me.
Um, and, like, I know him, and I love him, and I care about him more than anyone else does, you know, aside from his mom. [laughs] Um, and
so for me, that painting has the deepest amount of value, um, because he is by nature an artist.
And so, like, for, and I, my other kids have other things where I'm like, "I deeply value that thing," but it's because I know them and love them. Mm.
And so I think about all of this other art and all these things that are sort of swirling around. I actually think that people have lost track of what gives art value in general- Mm... and that is its creator.
I'll say, okay, so, uh, so o- one thing, the, the way you're talking about how, you know, th- this, the phenomenon here is that people wanna be close to the art. They wanna feel more rela- relating to it.
It reminds me of, like, when I was in third grade, and I had a dream that I was in Lord of the Rings because I'd just seen the, the movie, right? Oh, yeah. That's, that's when one of them came out, and it's...
This is like that. Like, the, the AI thing is allowing you to, like, see, "Well, what if I was in the movie?" Um, and I think- Yes... we're ta- okay, we're talking about all this. We're using the word art a lot.
I don't think, and I don't think- Mm... either of you would, any of you would argue with me, these aren't art. They are Snapchat filters.
You know, if I take just a photo with my iPhone of, like, my friend walking down the street, it's not art. It's, it's a photo. Because it's a photo doesn't mean it's art.
You can make art maybe with, like, you know, using the, the specificities of AI as a medium, like you finding flaws in a model. Maybe you could curate, like, this massive grid of these Ghibli photos, whatever.
I don't know. Um, but I think it's, it, I don't think it's controversial to say that, like, these things aren't art. The, uh, I like to use, [clicks tongue] when I see something that,
you know, it's, it looks like, it looks like, it looks like it was fun to make. You know what I mean? Um, and maybe not much more than that.
Um, the last thing I'll say here is, uh, art and, like, when you see, there's, like, that meme of, like, I think it's, like, a Clyfford Still painting or whatever, and it's, like, the Chad like, "This is art because it has real emotion."
And then there's below it, there's, like, this AI-generated kind of abstract image of a woman's face, and it's like, "This was fun to make, and, and it's art."
And the, you know, the, the vir- like, the, the Chad virgin meme. The virgin guy's like, "Oh, it's not art because it's..." You know, whatever. I forget. But, um,
the point is, like-The Clyfford Still thing is a painting that's, like, 10 feet by six feet tall, and then this other image is an image that has no size.
It's just a PNG that's, like, maybe an inch wide on your screen, and I think that's another big difference here. Uh, there's [laughs] sorry, there's a lot of different threads there, but- No, I, uh- No, it's good...
uh, the first time, Daisy, you and I met in, in real life we were, uh, uh, at the taping of one of our Vision Summit, um- Mm-hmm...
uh, content pools and, um, at MoMA a couple years ago, and we were exploring, um, [lips smack] uh, John Berger's Ways of Seeing, right?
And, uh, you know, part of that was, you know, how do we explore that in a, in a commerce context, right?
So one of the things we do at Future Commerce is we sort of take these elements of, like, cultural exploration, um, or, you know, uh, cultural commentary, and we sort of bring it to the commerce world, which is something that literally nobody has asked us to do.
Um, [laughs] but, but we do it anyway.
Um, and, and so we take these, you know, these ideas and we sort of find this overlay and, like, how does that apply to the world of commerce or the trade of commerce, um, often the trade. Um,
and that, to your, to your point, you know, John Berger in, in the first, uh, in the original BBC broadcast and in the first few chapters of the, of the book, um, sort of explores that, is that you have no sense of context of a painting that's been reproduced in a book.
You know, his, his thing was the book and then, and, and then the television image.
Um, you know, the, the Mona Lisa was meant to be, you know, controlled in a, in a very specific room with specific lighting, you know, with, like, roped off barriers and a number of people in a, in a...
Like, it's a controlled environment. But no longer do we have control, right? And, um, we actually had a, a... W- when we talk about that in, in our salons, right, we have, uh, we have a lot of control over our salons.
We have no more than 20 people. Um, we, we very specifically curate the room. Um, and we have, you know, these are three or four-hour affairs.
Brian, you know, has, you know, wines older than God himself, you know, in this room. Um, but we, you know, we'll have, uh, this conversation, and at one of these, um,
uh, one of these salons we had a, a about a year and a half ago in Boston, we had Fred Reichheld, uh, and Fred is the creator of the Net Promoter Score, NPS.
Um, I don't know if you've heard of that, um, some people have, but NPS is this, like, measure of, uh, you know, who is a promoter of your brand, product, or service.
And a lot of brands use this as, like, a one-click way of saying whether you had a great experience or not, right? Um, and Fred, uh, he's a Bain Fellow. Um, he's also a very rich fellow these days.
Uh, but he's a, he's a Bain Fellow and, uh, he's saying in, in, uh, you know, in the modern day, he's telling us in the salon, in the modern day, NPS doesn't really hold up,
um, because you can't control the context in which someone buys something, in which they receive the package, in which they receive the survey. So think about that.
Like, the, the, the context in which somebody receives the survey is as important as anything else.
You ask somebody when they're, you know, the, the, the pot of pasta's boiling over and their kid's crying and the dog's puking on the carpet, how their experience was, there's a very different perspective to how, you know, how they rate that experience than, you know, if everything's going splendidly in their life.
Well, that's... I mean, and for the same reason AI cannot perceive art. Yeah. Because the attention, the variation in your attention to the survey is the same in the variation in your attention to Monet's Water Lilies.
And you could go to the museum and your kid could have a meltdown and you could say, "This was my least favorite room." But AI will always have a consistent experience. Um- Not all attention is created equal. Yeah.
I think that's really important right now, it being in the attention economy, like, understanding that attention can be very diverted in different contexts. And, like,
I sometimes have to read something, like, five times before I understand it or, like, get it because I've, like, can't wrap my mind around it for whatever reason and, you know. Uh,
I, I think there's a difference between, like, weak attention and strong attention as well. When people aren't paying for something, they haven't given it, like, actually their full attention. Um, and so- Say that again.
I wasn't paying attention. No, I actually- No, I'm just kidding. [laughs] This is... I was on a call yesterday with a, a producer and I was like, "I got an email from my accountant, and I made the mistake of reading it.
I missed, like, what they said to me," you know, the end of a sentence or something, and I just said, like, point-blank, "Hey, can you repeat that? I zoned out."
And they sort of laughed, like, "That's, like, really funny that she's just saying, like, explicitly, 'I zoned out.'" But I'm like- [laughs]... "Well, that's what happened."
So anyway, um- Gosh, we all need to be a little more, uh, like, uh, real. I think that's- Uh-... that's, that's just the world we live in now. Yeah. I mean,
the other thing I was gonna say was, uh, we have an ongoing bit on this podcast about, like, me bullying ChatGPT.
[laughs] Trying to get to the psychological source of, like, why I can be so patient with other people, but I really, like... ChatGPT getting something wrong actually sends me into a primitive rage. Mm.
Similar to, like, when I go to the grocery store, you know, those, like, little things that, like, just roll around. They don't even look like humans. I don't really know what they're doing. Yeah. I...
Like, there's something about, like, the Neanderthal part of my brain that's like, "Kick it over." [laughs] And I'm not a violent person.
[laughs] And I realize, like, I think I'm starting to have some more revelations about what my issue with ChatGPT is psychologically. Yeah.
And I realize it's because I want it to feel shame.When I get things wrong, when I'm dishonest, I feel shame, and I believe that- Mm...
ChatGPT should feel shame when it gets something wrong, and it doesn't, and that enrages me. Mm.
And I think that says something very interesting about myself and my psychology, that there are parts of my personality that are shame driven, but it's another way in which, like,
these models, um, you know, they can talk to you in a human way, but, like, if I say, "Why did you lie to me?" It'll say, "I made a mistake," but it doesn't feel shame. [laughs] Uh, and that's really interesting.
Um, the other thing I was gonna say i- in terms of, like, what's art and what's not art is I've been meaning to tell Francis, I was gonna tell you earlier over the weekend when I finished it, but I figured I'll wait for the grand reveal, which is I finished my poem about The Polo Bar- Mm...
that is made up entirely of sentences of reviews of The Polo Bar. [laughs] And I read 500 TripAdvisor reviews of The Polo Bar to write this poem, and I think it actually came out pretty good. It's called The Polo Bar.
I'm excited. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] It's a great name. Is one of them your own review? No, I've never been. Oh. [laughs] It's actually really hard to get a reservation, so I was like, "This is a better use of my time."
I thought about hosting an event there. It's actually on my list. It's a private house- Well, if you do, I will come It was.
[laughs] I, I, I would've expected something less, like, uh, more on the, the line of, like, Balthazar from you. Uh, Balthazar is, like... It's easy. Uh- Yeah, that's, that's-... The Polo Bar is harder.
[laughs] That was... Yeah, that was, uh, that's Daisy's thing, isn't it? Um- I'm fascinated by The Polo Bar because I think it came... It was at the peak of popularity when I first started paying attention to- Mm...
restaurants as an indicator of somebody's taste because it was around the time where I started making enough money in New York to actually go out to eat. Ah.
Um, and also around the time I think that I was freelancing for GQ and they were writing about The Polo Bar. So I think I just imprinted on it like a baby duck. [laughs] Um, nice. Oh, go ahead. We had a, a...
Y- y- you covered a number of topics, um, that was something that we did in our, um, uh, research and trends report in 2022. Um, and so, uh, w- we could, like, send it over to link up.
Uh, but it was, uh, a piece that we covered in our modernity section called Our Shitty Robot Future. Um, so this came out in June of '22, which was, um,
I think two months after DALL·E 2 or DALL·E 1.5 that had been released, and it was about three and a half months before ChatGPT. So just to give you a timeframe on, like, where we were in, in, in the grand timeline.
Um, so we were sort of, like, pre-LLM. Um, when this report landed, it was also three days, I remember very distinctly, Brian, it was three days before Blake Lemoine ran to, um- Yeah...
uh, uh, the US senators and said, uh, uh... Blake Lemoine was the whistleblower at Google who said, "They have God in there." Um- [laughs] And, uh, he was, he was the guy who- Mm...
who was convinced that, uh, he was speaking to God, um, uh, i- inside of Google. God of the machine. Um, uh, but he, uh, he... You know, w- we had, uh, you know, put together this, uh, report because it, it...
You know, you were talking about, you know, the, the inventory robots at, uh, in, in, like, the stores, um, and how we sort of anthropomorphize them to make them a little more tolerable. Um, the...
There was a Michael Corkery piece in New York Times and, uh, that we cite in this piece from back in 2020 about... I think the, the title is Should Robots Have a Face?
And, um, you know, in the five years hence, um, there's... It's not... I don't think we- we've evolved past the question of should robots have a face. I think we- we're... we've anthropomorphized everything.
Um, we're into full-on parasocial relationships, um, with all sorts of robots. There's robots for everything. We're into agentic, um, relationships now. Uh, we have, you know... W- we're deep in e-commerce.
In, in the commerce industry, we're deep into a conversation now about, like, personal shopping robots and, like, making your site easier to navigate for personal shoppers, and, like, how do we deal with, like, the advertising industry having to deal with personal shoppers, and, like, how do you advertise for, you know, agents that are shopping?
Um, and so where we once were, it's like the physical world was, like, the trial run for where we're heading, um, into, like, the virtual world. Or was it? Yeah. I don't know.
So there's the whole thing about Norbert Wiener's, like... uh, who's the father of cybernetics. [laughs] Uh, sorry. Yep. [laughs] Gotcha. Brian's just gonna, like, a little something. Lost it. Yep. Who's that? Uh, yeah.
[laughs] Great name. Uh, it's, it's always funny to me when I go to one of my- Is it Gibly? Is it Gibly? Is it Wiener? Is it Viner? [laughs] Look, no. We'll never know.
As we were talking, I realized, look, these things are called Claude and DALL·E for a reason. Yeah, for a reason. [laughs] It's like, it's not called Sam Altman. Mm.
It's like in Succession where they're like, "It sure as shit doesn't say Shiv." Oh. It's like, if you... It's like, you know nobody would care about your product if you named it after yourself.
You have to name it after somebody who actually achieved something. So let's hear about Norbert Wiener. True. Yeah, let's roll tape, Norbert Wiener.
[laughs] Whenever, whenever I end up doing my salons, I always, like, read something ahead of time, and it's either... This is for real, actually. Yeah. Uh, it's either Balzac or Wiener that I end up reading. Yeah.
That's for real. [laughs] That's okay. Um- De Balzac, but- We don't have time to unpack that right now, but... Oh, okay. Fine. We- we'll do that later. [laughs] Uh, off-cam. Off-mic.
Uh, so- He's a very, he's a very good orator. He's, he's, he's a wonderful... I love your reading selections, Brian. Well, thank you, Philip. Um, Norbert Wiener was the, uh, father of cybernetics.
He influenced, like, uh, AI development as we know it. He wrote a book called The Human Use of Human Beings. He also wrote a, a book called God & Golem, Inc. Um, super interesting. Highly worth a read, both of those.
They're short, easy reads. Um, and he perfectly predicts the rise of AI, exactly how it would... Uh, like-Be- it started as a closed system. Eventually, it would defeat humans in the game Go.
I don't rem- know if you all remember when, like, AI was- AlphaGo... yeah, AlphaGo, whatever. Yeah. So yeah. The, uh, the, um... Then he said it w- A machine could defeat me in literally any game. [laughs] Like, that...
You know what I mean? I'm just like, "Wow, of course." Like... Yeah. And there- And you were the best of us, Daisy. Yeah, not at games, though. Yeah. I, I love a good game. Uh, we'll have to play a game at some point.
And s- uh, I guess I'll defeat you. Um, but the...
He says that there are some things that should be human-to-human interactions, some things that should be human-to-machine interactions, and some things that should be machine-to-machine interactions, and our job is actually to categorize and pursue what those things are.
And so a lot of the frustration that we feel often has to do with inputs that should be human-to-human or maybe just directly machine-to-machine that we end up putting in the human-to-machine bucket.
And so I think that as we, like, pursue things, like actually the entire internet, and this gets into, like, McLuhan, and I brought him up 'cause, uh, we can all, like, chat about that when that would be best.
I mean, I said it first, so we have a drinking game on, on McLuhan. Yeah. Yeah, we have a new one on Future Commerce. I was just in a study group on... Um, with Andrew. Oh, I love that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Were you guys in that? We're... No, we weren't. Not in that one. No, we should have been. I was just like, "Camera's off." I started scrolling through the Zoom. I was like, "Oh, this is really a who's who situation."
Yeah, talking about a scene. Andrew's the best. Uh, yeah. He just wrote for Lore, uh, our book. Yeah. Yeah. And Andrew is Marshall McLuhan's grandson. That's right. Yes. Yeah. For the uninitiated. Yes.
I just read my novella on his radio show a few weeks back. Um, it was fun. Uh, the, the thing is, like, all information's washing over us continuously.
I, I would posit that potentially we're not even supposed to interact with the internet as it exists today. Like, that is not- That's a great point... a human-to-machine interaction that we should have going on.
It's too much, and that's why we're, like, overwhelmed and our attention's over the top and, like, we are on... We're working all the time. And, like, we, we need proxies, and we need an OSHA for the minds.
Like, we are, we are at the point now where, like, we are in a, an industrial revolution for the minds, and e- that's actually Norbert Wiener as well.
He said that all decision-making is c- like being outs- or, like, low-level decision-making is being outsourced to machines, and that's part of this new industrial revolution that's happening in our minds.
And I think that we are, we are interacting with machines in a way that is making us less human. And, like, I think that's what a lot of the stuff that we're all chatting about and, like- Mm-hmm...
figuring out in terms of, like, culture and good taste and bad taste, a lot of that has to do with being conformed to machines because we have to for efficiency. Um- Okay, here...
Wait, here's an angle on this I wanna get into. Okay. So on- online shopping, commerce if you will, e-commerce if you will, uh, what's that app, Doji? Philip, I've been seeing you playing with it or- Yeah, Doji, yeah.
Yeah, where you can, um- Oh, careful what you say, because I'm might be trying this later. Where you can, like, uh, set up- I'm just kidding.
[laughs] Well, okay, but where you, where you can, like, you know- I know what Doji is, though. Yeah... digital avatar, and you can, like, try on clothes in it.
I haven't used that because what I'm a- about right now is trying to move away from buying clothes on the internet, unless it's something I've tried on online and it was too expensive in a shop and now it's, like, three months later and it's on sale.
I have wasted hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars over the past decade plus on, like, you know, bought a thing and it was... It looked really cool on the internet. I could imagine how it would look on me so good.
Wow, I look awesome. I get it. It doesn't really fit me.
Uh, maybe I return it, and, like, you know, it's caused me some, like, hours then of, like, kind of m- [laughs] mental suffering in, like, thinking how cool it would be and, like, wasting my time thinking about this object that I wanna buy- Mm...
and then buying it. [lip smacks] Uh, anyways, rambling a bit here. I think with Doji, though, I'm like, I don't... Like, I can already...
I'm already agonizing about how something would look on me when I won't actually know until I have it on my body and I can see if, like, am I even between sizes. Does, does this even fit me? Mm.
Um, so I think, yeah, the... I'm, I'm very bullish on, uh, in-person shopping, at least when it comes to clothes. I, I'm trying to, like, detox from online clothing shopping because it has made my life worse. I, um...
So we had a launch party for Blank last Thursday at this beautiful shoppable design gallery in a five-story townhouse in the West Village called The Future Perfect. Um, it also has, uh, locations in San Francisco and LA.
Um, and we did this with Chantal, which is, uh, if you listen to the first half of th- or the other half of this, uh, conversation, um- Over on Future Commerce feed...
Chantal is a lingerie brand, a French lingerie brand, family-owned, that's been around since the late 1800s. They are the launch sponsor for Blank, our new books newsletter.
And we activated their global campaign of Something More by, like, doing something more and basically gathering all these people in this beautiful place. Um, [clears throat]
and I was like, "What am I going to wear to this," right? Like, and I ended up... Okay, I really try to steer away from fast fashion.
Um, but I had this vision of, like, what I wanted to wear, and there was this pr- particular neckline that I wanted, which was, like, this reverse halter, which, you know, we're all... We're men.
But basically, instead of, like, the strap coming up the front and going around the back of your neck, it comes from the back and goes around the front of your neck. So I thought that looked pretty cool.
And then I was like... So I ordered it from Amazon, like $15, right? I'm like, "I'm wearing... Am I really wearing an Amazon top to this, like, you know, fancy party?"
But then I was like, I had another vision, which was I was going to modify the top so that in the back, sort of playing off this idea of, like, what's in the front and what's in the back, I pinned two strands of pearls with two pearl necklaces I have, I think one of them is fake and one of them is real, into the back straps, basically creating, like, a, a double pearl necklace in the back of the top.And I was like, "This looks awesome."
And I do not DIY my clothes that much. Mm. I grew up sort of doing it. My mom sews.
And I really don't know what inspired me to do this because I really frankly don't shop that much these days either for all the reasons Francis listed. It's the decision fatigue.
It's the negative experience of online shopping. But this, like, weird, like, fast fashion DIY thing came together so well. I, I got so many compliments on it.
And, like, halfway through the night I was like, "Oh, you know, this top's from Amazon," and, like, I pinned that in the back. Um, but it really, like, inspired me to be more creative.
I'm like, "Why don't I do this more?" I know why I don't do it more. It's because I- I... like, thinking about what I'm wearing- Mm...
um, on a day-to-day basis has, like, a diminishing return unless it's, like, a special event like this. But I do think, like, I, I miss that creativity.
And even people who are very creative in what they are wearing, I think online shopping takes some of the creativity out of it for them because there's something really special about putting together things that you already have.
And that is where style really shines beyond fashion. Um, and we really don't have a culture of, like, putting together the things that you already have right now. We have a culture of consumption.
This is a taste conversation. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. It does- [laughs] Everything comes back to taste, right? So wait, r- real quick. One, one more...
one thing I wanna add to this, um, and then I'll, I'll hand it over to you guys.
There's this store I've been to a few times recently in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn called Ven Space, and the guy, I think his name is Chris, who started it, he used to be at Need Supply, which I think was down in Virginia.
Oh, sick. It was a physical store- Yeah... and then they did a lot of e-com, then they shut down. It's an amazing store. I buy, uh, leather jackets from there. I was wearing it this morning. Very nice. Yeah.
So i- amazing store. Um, I did, I did buy something there, um, but you know, it was expensive. It's the type of store I can only go once or twice a year to buy something.
But the way they hang things, their hangers are, like, covered in cloth such that you can't see the label of, of the item unless you're really like, "Oh, let me take this off," like, "Okay, what, what is this?"
Um, and it's... That to me is so, like, the opposite of an e-commerce experience where I have to go- Mm... and I have to physically engage with it, and I'm actually forced to be like, "Well, do I like this fabric?
Do, uh, does the cut of this look nice?" And then obviously, you know, you take it off and you try it on, you can see what the brand is.
But it's kind of forcing you to use your senses and, like, make decisions about, "Well, am I gonna go take this and try this on?" Bas- based on your taste. That's a... Wow. So, so that's... I'm really into that.
So we- [clears throat] You use Doji. I saw you. I use Doji a lot. [laughs] Um, yeah. But, but I think that- No, no judgment there. I... to me- Yeah... it's just, yeah, the Doji thing is just like- That looks cool...
I've to- I like- That looks really cool, actually. I have tortured myself. I, I draw the line. I'm like, I'll use Doji, but don't, don't catch me with a Studio Ghibli meme. I'm- [laughs]... I'm, I'm, I'm not, I'm not...
That's where I draw the line. And so here's- You leveled up. You leveled up with Doji a little bit. So yeah. So I, I, I guess... So I've had a, I've had a...
Just I might wander into weird personal territory, so, like, decide if you wanna keep this or not. But, like, um, uh, it... This was my... Well, last week was my eighth, uh, eight, eight years? Where are we? 2017.
We're at 2025. Eight-year running anniversary. That's eight years. Um, uh, eight years ago, I was 334 pounds. Um, and so I, you know, I had a big life change.
Um, and I, you know, for me, uh, I was one way for a good portion of my life. I grew up in a bakery. My mom was a baker. Had a lot of different habits. Um, and so I didn't...
Like, fashion wasn't a thing for me, and, uh, my life was very different at one point. So I'm kinda like just discovering a lot of things. By the way, couldn't shop online no matter where. Mm. Like, I...
Like, a lot of these things were inaccessible to me, um, generally, and I didn't really have a style. When I lost a lot of weight,
um, most of my style was, like, capsule wardrobe stuff that I just, like, I bought a ton of stuff, and then it was, like, the pandemic. So, like, I didn't really have a style, just to be honest with you.
Um, Doji has been interesting. I don't know that I see Doji as, like, a virtual try-on app necessarily. It's been quite limited. Um, Doji, I think is, like, this secret third thing. It's not like...
It's, like, virtual avatar solution that, like, is almost like virtual clothing.
It's almost like a digital avatar, but it's becoming a, like, a third-party pl- It looks like they're trying to become a third-party platform for, uh, brand collaborations.
That seems like to be what they're doing right now so that they can, you know, partner with brands like Essence, um, even though I think that maybe they've stolen a lot of Essence's catalog to train their content.
[laughs] I don't know how they've, how they're pulling that off. That's gonna be a coup. Um, but what, what's really interesting about Doji is, um, just having played around with it, is, uh,
it's interesting because it feels like it's slowed down the pace of my immediacy and my expectation of getting- Oops... immediate feedback from AI. It feels like it's, it's actually caused me to become more patient.
All of these image generation tools become... made me more patient with AI feedback.
Um, and it feels like the, the pace of immediacy, uh, especially in all of our consumption habits in e-commerce, um, require, like, immediate feedback and demand, and, like, our, our customer expectation cycles require, like, this immediate feedback loop.
Like, all of our expectations have been on this exponential curve.
But image generation for some reason have really reset that expectation level for us to, like, hit a button and walk away.And I think that's really healthy for us.
Like, we need to get back to a place where we have lower expectations and, like, asynchronous expectations of our relationship with computing, where we do something and we go away. And Doji did that.
Doji said, "Hey, we're gonna style you. You go away for f- five, 10, 15 minutes, and we'll let you know when it's- when you're styled, and then you come back." Mm. And you know what?
It's funny, ChatGPT has done the same thing. The image generation is not instant. It's five, six, seven minutes sometimes for an image to come through, but it's a high-quality image when it comes back.
And Doji does the same thing too. I think people are willing to wait when it's a higher quality outcome. And that's what I've seen, uh, with this. Uh, you know, with, with this.
I, I, I've, I've used it a little bit with, like, I like that jacket. So I take that jacket link, and I shove it into Doji.
Sometimes, you know, I wrote a piece for Future Commerce, every now and then it'll turn me into a Black man. I don't know what that's about. So I don't... I, I don't know...
There's some problems inherent in the system, but, uh, generally I've had a pretty good experience with it. Um, so- I do like... I didn't know that it took time to generate. I really...
That's a very desktop, um, computer. We've, you know, there's just a desk, and that's where you go on the internet era. Yeah. Desktop is a place. [laughs] True. It is a place you go to.
Two things, two things that I think, uh, out of that conversation, uh, Francis, that you hit on there. I really believe in embodiment as a trend. Uh, I think that the ecology of the internet is disembodiment.
Uh, and so, like, the... And that was an Andrew McLuhan thing. I think that, um- Of course it is... he just tweeted about that the other day. But that I,
I think that the future of the internet, actually Doji is an extension of the future digital experience that we don't have yet. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Like, I believe that there is a future, like, internet world, digital world where we're going to interact with people and each other.
There's gonna be a verified and an unverified component to it, and I think that that's something that we're coming up against right now, and that's why LinkedIn is hitting for a lot of people because it is one of the most verified social platforms.
But I believe that there's gonna be like- Oh, it's, it's hitting something for me. [laughs] It's hitting something. Oh, no, trust me. I hate LinkedIn so much. I can't say if it's hitting anything good.
But Francis has- Yes... about this too, yeah. No, but it, but it, like, oddly, people are exiting Twitter for LinkedIn. And like, it, I guess it makes sense people use Twitter to try to advance their careers.
Like- [laughs]... the, the answer for the internet- Or, or escape Elon, uh, or whatever. I don't, you know, there's something. Yeah, uh, maybe it is. Uh, Blue Sky, whatever.
Like, but I do think the thing is like- I don't know. Blue Sky... if body has I, I just can't. I'm not gonna say the word skeet out loud. Sorry. About to. Uh- We also have Norbert Wiener, so- Yeah, we're-... keep going.
[laughs] We're, we're deep, deep in. Yeah. [laughs] Sorry, Brian, go on. No, no, no, no.
Future internet is th- Doji is an extension of it, and I think it's this disembodiment idea, and that we haven't fully wrapped our heads around what disembodiment means. Controversial thought, though.
If we pre-develop things for the future internet, does that get in the way of us actually achieving that future internet? Yes, I would... I think so. I do. I don't know. Actually, I don't know.
I feel like we're in the mid-curve version of the future right now. I don't know. Where everything's- We're so early... kind of shitty Remember that? Um- We were supposed to have flying cars.
We were supposed to have flying cars. I think we'll... Okay, this, this reminds me of one of my favorite things about the Cybertruck. Uh- Oh, God...
so I read, I did read- A Cybertruck was parked in my spot outside of my townhouse. Listen, okay, so last year I read that- [laughs]...
um, quite questionable Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson, or Walter whatever his name is. Um, anyways, there's a detail.
The one detail that really sticks with me is he's talking about designing the Cybertruck, and he says that his, like, then eight-year-old son or whatever was like, "Why don't cars look like the future?" Yeah.
And so he said, "Oh, well, then we'll make a car that looks like the future." But it's like, to me it's this anachronistic vision of the future that is what he's, like, he's...
Elon Musk is, like, 40-something, 50, I don't know.
So it's like when he was a kid, when he was like 12 in, like, 1982 or whatever, that's what he would have thought cars would look like 'cause that's the configured- Right, and it just happens to look like an armored car in South Africa- Yeah...
in his childhood. [laughs] So this is that. So this is, this is what we were just talking about, where it's like if you're...
Like, that is making something for this future that was imagined 50 years ago that doesn't represent the present or any actual future. It's this refusal to, like, actually engage with a possible future.
Francis, stop me if I've said this before, but, like, why does Waymo have to look like a car?
Like, I know the car shape has been tested before, and, like, crash test dummies and the way that things are tested is with a car shape, so it makes sense.
But, like, I wanna ride around in an apple, like the Busy Town worm. [laughs] That's, that's canon. And I believe that I should be allowed to. I think you will in the future, actually.
Uh, my, my hot take is the future of mobility is actually, like, closer to, like, inflatables than it is- Oh... the current car section we have right now.
Like, I'm writing a short story called Cushioned, and it's about [laughs] how the future is, like, textiles. That's the future. Like- Send it to me. [laughs] I will. TM, trademark that. Yeah.
You could have written that 150 years ago when they invented rubber shoes. Oh, have you guys- Let's go... seen a Play-Doh cookbook? Who haven't? No. [laughs] Do you know about it? No. No.
[laughs] Oh, my God, I'm about to put you onto something. So this is, like, almost like The Anarchist Cookbook, but instead of for making bombs, it's for making inflatable environments, like inflatable geodesic dome.
Oh, I'm so on this. [laughs] And this actually ended up in, almost ended up in a short story that I did.
When I was at, um, summer camp, the director of the boys camp was a teacher during the year, and he did something with his students that was an inflatable whale that he had built that was to the dimensions, I believe, of, like, a blue whale.
And- That's so cool... he set it up for us at camp to go in, and it was like, you know, you put the fan in it, almost like when you do the thing with the parachute and you sit under it.
But it was, uh, the body of a whale that he had made out of plastic, and you could go inside of the inflatable whale. And, um-Anyway, I will send the inflatable cookbook to you. It's, like, on Wayback Archive.
It's a PDF around the internet, but I am super [laughs] I'm super- How exciting... inspired by it. [laughs] And it, it is a... Even inflatables are a past vision of the future. Mm.
But I would 100% rather ride around in a clear, clear inflatable car that looks like something I- Mm... bought at, in the Limited Too catalog- Yes... in- Yes... 2003- Yeah... than, um, a, a Volvo. Mm-hmm.
I was- Right, okay, wait. I, uh, uh, this is... I'm changing the topic actually, so finish your thought. Go off. Well, I, I was gonna- Yes, you're right... I was, I was gonna...
Well, it's your show, so you can do what you want. I, I was gonna- This sucks... uh, loop back around to, to, to put a bow on this idea of, like, are we building a new future?
Are we, like, fulfilling the, the prophetic, you know, vision of the past? Um, I do think a new vision of the future, because, uh, the old vision of the future of all desktop comput- computing, right, was to be, um,
you know, somewhat skeuomorphic. Like, we had to, uh, recreate old paradigms and old analog ideas in digital space so that we had, you know, some, like, on-ramps.
Like, teaching people how to have metaphors in a digital space, and then we evolved past that, so now we have, like, purely, uh, digital metaphors that had no analogs in the real world. So what comes after that?
And we've been theorizing that for about five years at Future Commerce. So, like, around 2019, uh, we wrote a couple pieces, uh, that talked about what's next.
Like, what is the next consumer in a purely, like, uh, in a purely, um, uh, you know, post, uh, you know, post-skeuomorphic environment? Um, and then what is the, the next web interface post that as well?
Um, because we've optimized all the life out of the web. Um, there's... You know, we are, we are absolutely as optimized as you can get. You can't get more optimized, especially in commerce.
The, like, we- Amazon's figured that out. Like, you can't make people buy more. Um, we've, we've found the platonic ideal.
In fact, uh, you know, uh, Ruby, um, Taylo, and, and Reggie, uh, James had a panel at Visions, um, Summit. Uh, shout-out, uh, we have another Visions Summit at MoMA June 10th. Um, check it out.
Uh, that's, that's my plug. Um, but, you know, they held up their phones and they're like, "This is the platonic ideal. We're never gonna- Is that your Notes app?... evolve past this." What's that?
Are you holding up your Notes app right now? It's a... No, it's not. This is my Android 'cause I'm, I'm that guy. Um- [laughs] But this is, uh- Naturally. What does it say? It says the time. It's 12:05. Oh, okay.
It's just black on this. You don't have, like, a cool background? [laughs] Well, I can, I can turn it on, and then it's just a green screen. [laughs] Oh, mine is my husband. Um. [laughs] Uh,
well, I guess I'll, I could have your- Okay, so that is the platonic ideal... I could have your, I could have your husband on my background too if you like. That would be a good bit. [laughs] Maybe- This-...
are you the person who keeps googling Daisy Alioto husband? Yeah, I am that guy. [laughs] We got him, folks. We got him. Yeah. This is, like... It's, it's, uh, it's just weird. Stop doing that, Philip.
Um, but, but- Docs. Geez... w- websites, websites haven't really evolved, right? Phones aren't really going to evolve. Um, everything has sort of reached, like, a, uh, it... I don't even know if it's a local maxima.
Like, we've reached almost, like, a universal maxima. They... We can't evolve past it because we've, we've reached a platonic ideal. Like, this is the- Yeah... ultimate form. We can't break out of the form.
The, the automobile is another great example. We are in a 125-year-long platonic ideal of the form of the automobile.
You know- So- Okay, another example here, uh, this I th- and I think, because I think this is political, uh, is, what was it?
A couple months ago, that guy Jerry Connolly was elected to be the head of some committee, and I think it was, like, AOC running against him or something. Mm.
And, and they elected him, and I forget if it was him saying it or somebody else, but they were saying it was his turn. But this is this old man who- [laughs]...
looks in poor shape, and, like, you know, probably a younger person should be, should be in power here.
And I think of the average age of members of, of Congress, uh, i- today, it's much higher, decades higher than it was, like, 50, 60 years ago. Mm.
So I don't know if this is some, like, end of history thing, but I think this is all connected to what you're talking about. Skeuomorphism is design gerontocracy. It, it is. It is.
[laughs] And, and, and the phone, and, like, and being stuck in car world. And what this is though too is, like, is- I hate car world... uh, it has to be at a level of, like- I wanna be in this world...
these businesses, these companies- I wanna be in this world...
these corporations, people who, uh, you know, it, it's very lucrative for these things not to change, and to not engage with, like, maybe more, like, social issues that could actually progress things.
And maybe that's part of why we're stuck in these forms. I, I, I agree. I also think that maybe things aren't... Like, okay, we can intellectual... You know, we can, we can do the intellectual thing. This is too risky.
This is capital- Yeah. But I, but I, but-... commercial stuff... but, but, but if we just talk about, like, you know, it's also really difficult to get everybody to, like, coordinate on big change. So, like- Mm-hmm...
sometimes it takes calamity to, like, make things change on big scale. Like, sometimes things just have to happen to breaks the system, and breaking the system has to come at co- at a cost. Yeah.
So for instance, you know, um, ADA compliance, um, is one of the things, uh, in, uh, that broke, uh, was, was a big, uh, shift in 1990 that changed a lot of physical infrastructure.
So there's a law that came out in 1990, um, that was, uh, in the United States that changed a lot of physical infrastructure, made a lot of retrofit of a lot of physical access for a lot of buildings.
Government buildings first, and then retail establishments. And now ADA has been interpretated, interpreted for, uh, website access, but it's not a law. It's being tried as case law. So you have- Right...
uh, millions of websites now are all having to be retrofit to be accessibly, uh, accessed. Why?
Because there's a lot of professional plaintiffs that are going around suing websites, mom and pop websites, individual proprietors, that are just being sued-For, to the tunes of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a pop and settling out of court because they're not accessible, they're not compliant.
But it was never the spirit of the law, right? Mm-hmm. So we're reinforcing this, like, best practice environment.
We're reinforcing and putting more, like, constraints on our ability to be creative in the web, where, like, we're re- we're further entrenching ourself in this boring sea of sameness and homogenization of the current boring environment that we have, and we're, like, locking ourselves into for the next 50 years of the platonic ideal of the website because of the system that we have.
The only thing that will undo this is, I think, the ability for users to have ultimate control of their own experience, which I think the AI, you know, design systems can give us. Multiplayer web. Yeah.
They can bring it, them, br- BYO, you know, C. Bring your own creative- So, okay, there's a quote, there's a quote I wanna read from you in this commerce, on the Commerce Tools website interview you did recently.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. The idea, 'cause I'm very... I, I love the idea that, um, we've gone too far with frictionless. Yeah. Frictionlessism. Uh, you say, "The idea of removing friction has been over-hyped.
We've optimized e-commerce sites to the point where they all look the same.
In our 2022 research study, we removed branding from major retailers' sites, like Target and Crate & Barrel, and consumers couldn't tell them apart. That's because we've A/B tested everything into uniformity.
We're so afraid of friction. However, friction can be good. It creates discovery, engagement, and even emotional attachment." Yeah. I love that. I mean, tires need a little bit of friction.
[laughs] Sex needs a little bit of friction. Like some, you need a little friction, right? Um, too much friction, it's bad. Food needs texture. I mean- Mm-hmm...
going back to what we were talking about before with the natural cycle of culture being counterculture integrated into culture, and then sort of like re-troubled by the fringe,
I feel like technologists have had to reinvent, come up with this idea of accelerationism as almost like a first principles reinvention of what naturally happens during culture.
Because technology, like, interrupted- [laughs] First principles reinvention friction... that natural cultural reset. [laughs] It's like, you know, it's like how you have to do, like, controlled burns for- Mm. Mm...
you know, um, developed- To stop forest fires... like semi-developed ex-urban spaces because the sort of, like, natural burn cycle has been disrupted by development.
It's like accelerationism has become this sort of, like, controlled burn idea that technology is, technologists are trying to impose on the cultural and political environment as something that you have to, like, create.
But the whole idea around accelerationism is, like, you don't have to create it. Cycles of change happen naturally. If you disrupt it,
then whatever accelerationism that you then try to impose is basically, like, inorganic shock doctrine.
Like this idea that the e- economy has to be, uh, that you have to, like, impose a p- a program of pain onto the economy to refresh what's happening in employment and manufacturing, like you wouldn't need to do that if you hadn't, like, broken
the welfare system, and both the welfare system and the free market to begin with. Acceleration shouldn't even be a principle or an ideology. It's like it's a lack of ideology.
It's like saying that entropy is your political system. Entropy is something that happens naturally on the unfolding of time. Um- You don't- But now we have people who are like- I'm a gravitational deist...
they're basically inventing, like- [laughs]...
fake solutions to problems that they created, rather than having the humility to say, "Hey, maybe, like, we should let culture unfold the way that it's always unfolded," because these big changes and inflection points, like the saturation point around the ADA, like the saturation point around the civil rights movement, like the saturation point that will happen I, I'm very sure in the next 10 years around healthcare,
will happen whether you impose shock doctrine or not. Um, and you are really, the thing that you are changing is basically, like, how violent and uncivilized it's going to be.
That's the only thing that you have control over, because it's going to happen no matter what. There's a... And, and, and I'm, I'm saying, like, it's totally...
Th- these are good things that have done a lot of good things for people. Like, the Americans with Disabilities Act is wonderful. I'm, I'm not, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have it, right?
But, uh, there's secondary and tertiary effects that come 30, 40 years down the line that you can never foresee, especially when technology shifts happen.
And I have to wonder, you know, we're, we're also on the precipice of I lived through the early internet.
I remember what the life, what life was like before the internet, 'cause I grew up without the internet, and things were really rosy in the beginning, and then we had, uh,
we had computer viruses, and we had, you know, ransomware, and we had... Like, we have not seen any of that sort of thing happen yet with AI either.
And so there, we have a whole wave of disillusionment that needs to happen still too, um, where there's, there's still lots of things to come.
Um, and so, you know, uh, I think when I talk about calamity that has to enter the system for massive things that need to change is, like, there's, that's, that's where, that's where I think there's an opportunity for us to have a reset button, especially with regard to, you know, uh, giant shifts in, uh, cultural acceptance of, like, normative design.
Um, and that's where I think there will be an opportunity. I'm not saying that, like, that's a, it's not necessarily a good thing, and it'll be painful.
Um, uh, uh, it almost, you could even say, like, I'm almost advocating for that.
I'm not saying I am advocating for it, but as f- at Future Commerce-Like, that's sort of what we do, is we're sort of predicting that, like, things kinda get to a breaking point, and
we're sort of saying, we've been saying for a few years that, like, how long can the system persist as is with, you know, everybody sort of expecting ever, ever-persistent growth out of a system that can no longer sustain an ever-growing number of brands with an ever-present boring state of affairs?
So we're... That's, you know, so that's kind of where we are. Um, but that does, that's a really boring and, and, uh, depressing place to end, so [laughs]
For me, it's all this fuss over something, you know, that for me, like, I think pretty much everything that we talk about in this space is superseded by a campfire with friends and a cigar.
Like, I think that it- [laughs]...
there's, there are primitive things that humans love that people don't even realize how much they would enjoy or how much they do love that are life-giving, that are going to come back and are necessary.
To your point, Francis, like the embodiment of shopping, I think that there's more embodiment necessary for, for the future to be human-friendly. And so- Mm-hmm...
my hope is that we can use technology to do the things that technology does, and get into the, what, you know, what Norbert Wiener talked about, like letting machines do what they're good at, and letting humans do what they're good at.
And so, um, as we get into, like, a discussion of taste, like, I think there's a push... Like, I, I think taste requires all, all the senses, to our point earlier.
Like, it, w- we need to be more human, and that's, that's where I would leave this. [laughs] Mm. 100%. I saw a meme yesterday that was, like, two visions of longevity. On one side it's, like, Bryan Johnson- Yeah...
and a blood bag. Yeah. On the other side it's, like, an old shirtless Italian man and an espresso. [laughs] Totally. And it's like, me and old Italian men just have an understanding. We inherently understand each other.
Like, I know which side I'm falling on. And I think increasingly people... It's, yeah, it's the campfire cigar thing. That is what humans are good at. Totally. I think that's a great place to end it.
Uh, guys, thank you for coming on. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, this was a pleasure.
Um, and if you have listened all the way to the end here, then there is no way you would not enjoy our appearance on Bryan and Philip's podcast that is also out right now. So go listen to it. See you next week.
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