414: ‘Annoying Friendliness’, With Joanna Stern

Joanna Stern returns to the show to talk about our new best friends, AI chatbots, and I chime in with how the Voight-Kampff test got it all wrong.

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Links:

• Joanna on YouTube: “I Spent 24 Hours in the Woods With Talking AI Chatbots (youtube.com/watch?v=hUyj3d-BSh8)”.

• Joanna’s excellent interview with Craig Federighi on Apple Intelligence (wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/apple-intelligence-…), which is also on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=fr8ALcEiYAk).
• My commentary (daringfireball.net/linked/2024/10/22/stern-fed…) linking to it.

• Ann-Marie Alcántara’s Wall Street Journal piece: “When Did Apple’s Notes App Become an Extension of Our Brains? (wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/when-did-apples-not…)” (also on News+ (apple.news/A_8Qrh5-4RIGzOJsJPuQ7dA))

• Larry David on Siri (daringfireball.net/linked/2024/02/29/larry-dav…).

• Voight-Kampff Test (bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/Voight-Kampff_test).

• There’s a social media thing where people are posting ChatGPT’s illustrations from the prompt “Based on what you know about me, draw a picture of what you think my current life looks like.”
• Here’s mine (bsky.app/profile/gruber.foo/post/3lbbfihh3nc2e): I’m all alone in a nice study with lots of books, a leather couch, and a manual typewriter.

• Here’s Joanna’s (bsky.app/profile/joannastern.bsky.social/post/…): Boy Scouts, basketball, cameras, computers, and lots of bagels.

• Here’s an alternate from Joanna (daringfireball.net/misc/2024/11/chat-gpt-imagi…).

• The Gruber and Coudal families, leaving Barack Obama’s election night rally in Grant Park in Chicago in 2008 (daringfireball.net/misc/2008/11/grant-park-oba…).

This episode of The Talk Show was edited by Caleb Sexton.