As someone who travels a lot for all purposes, the only thing more consistent than pretzels on an airplane is the need for usable Internet Access. Today we bring reviews and information from our favorite podcasts, playlists, and audiobooks. Anything downloaded before the flight took off is fair game.

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A much-loved podcast in large part due to the personalities and relationship of the co-hosts, the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway highlights tech, business, and the people in the news for both. Some of the conversation today was on AI, as were many today, this week, and this year. The CEO of Open AI (ChatGPT), Sam Altman, testified this week before Congress – Swisher and Galloway had thoughts about AI and regulations.

Galloway is a tech company founder, investor, and communications professor; writing is a large part of the job; he has also written several books. Swisher is a journalist and podcaster; she writes for a living. I set this up to emphasize that they are both exceptional writers, but it's different from what makes the podcast great. Most of the show is the two discussing a topic and bouncing off each other as they go through it. It's the exchange, the insight, and the humor of listening to people who give the listener the sense of being at a dinner party with the two of them bantering back and forth on the day's topics. They like and respect each other, and it shows in the conversation. Both of them took shortcuts to get to the top of the media sphere they currently sit on, and it is also a reminder that AI will not replace this type of Infor-tainment anytime soon. 

Toward the end of the podcast, Galloway discussed how social media and AI were replacing the need to go out and meet people in real life. Galloway is writing a book, relationships, the Epidemic of Loneliness, especially in young men, and he brought up an interesting point. Putting yourself out there, asking another person on a date, taking a chance, and working on relationships with others are part of the human race. The more social media distracts us and AI allows us to create synthetic relationships without risk, the less human we are. Rejection, embarrassment, and socially awkward situations can be challenging, but without them, we can't grow and find the people we need to find. We all have people, they give us energy and strength, but you can only find your people if you go outside and look for them.

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Kevin Roose, a reporter from the New York Times, and Casey Newton, the founder of Platformer, host a podcast on Fridays called Hard Fork - focused on tech, startups, and innovation. Today they are talking about regulation in the AI space. The comparison discussed is how long it took for the government to discuss regulating social media versus AI. Social media is coming up in 20 years, and regulations are still being discussed; the first large-scale AI tools are only now online. We've decided social media as the extension of the party phone lines from the 90s isn't as scary as The Terminator. 

Roose and Newton shared a few clips of previous hearings with new tech CEOs talking about regulations. In one of the clips, a congressman asked why an ad popped up on an iPhone the CEO from Google, and another asked Mark Zuckerberg how Facebook could make any money showing videos of his grandkids; Zuck tried to explain how advertising worked. Last but not least, the CEO of TikToc was asked why TikToc needed a user to log on to WiFi to use it? As funny as all the clips were, it shows where some of our representatives are in overall digital revolution awareness.

In both the Hard Fork and Pivot podcasts today, Sam Altman's testimony in front of Congress was impressive. Unlike hearings on privacy and data security during the social media hearings, people in this hearing wanted to know more about AI, and Altman delivered. Open AI is technically a non-profit created to expand on technology that will improve the world. It already has, and the advancements in the next few years will move us so far forward sci-fi movies won't be able to keep up. All the fears and anxieties are warranted and need to be addressed; the same goes for regulatory and safety. Altman recommended a safety and security certification that should be enforced for any company building AI tools beyond a specific level. A nuclear regulatory commission for AI, if you will.

The world can be dangerous and beautiful; we haven't blown the planet up since discovering how to do it 75+ years ago says a lot. Modern transportation has facilitated extraordinary growth, and you can now go anywhere in the world relatively quickly. Most Americans jump into cars multiple times daily; this is transformational technology but comes with significant risks. All big things do.

Karen Morgan does a quick 10 minutes on the generations. From the Silent Generation up through Gen Z, but it's her take on her own generation, which happens to be my generation, that is the best. Gen X, "We are never going out of business.”  Best quotes about Gen Z; can't read cursive, a map, or write on paper. Morgan says if Gen Z is going to take over the world, it will be easy to take it back.

We raised ourselves, latched keys, rubbed dirt on them, and played dodgeball with rubber balls, drinking out of scorching hot garden hoses. We went outside until the streetlights came on and tried to kill each other in dirt-clod fights with bottle rockets, and nobody cared. It was wonderful!

Boomerang.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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