00:00:02 David Egts: So Gunner, we back in episode 278, we talked about Anden Labs, Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. I remember it. David Egts: you know, and Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Well, David Egts: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: yeah. David Egts: And they were they were making uh they they basically had uh they Claude and then they created uh a store and the guy that ran the store was Claudius uh and and uh and I think it was anthropic you know the company store that they set up and everything and Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. David Egts: um the Anden Labs people they learned a lot from it. They published a blog post on it. We covered it in 278. And then uh just a little while ago I'm I'm like uh looking at the the the tech news and I I see this article from uh friend of the show Camille Tutti and she was talking about uh there's there's a Stockholm uh coffee shop that has an AI that's run. 00:02:58 David Egts: Run. running it and she wrote a whole article about it and I'm like, "Wow, we got to get her on the show and talk all about this." So, Camille, welcome to the show. Welcome back. Camille Tuutti: Thank you so much for having Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: me. David Egts: So, so tell us about this. So there's Mona and and and the the title of the article is meet Mona the AI who runs a Stockholm coffee shop, but you never met Camille Tuutti: No, I did not. David Egts: Mona. Camille Tuutti: So I when I started writing the Nexgov SCW's uh technofile column, I wrote an intro like of all the things that I wanted to write about like giving examples of what I was going to cover. So that's how I knew that there was a coffee shop in Stockholm run and managed by Mona who's an AI and it's run by andal labs. It's one of their experiments. So I got to Stockholm for the summer and it was a coincidence actually and I was like I got to go to to this coffee shop. 00:04:05 Camille Tuutti: Uh so I took the metro. I went there. It was like a Wednesday or something. no people there and I was like, "Wow, I'm gonna, you know, see how how this actually works." Like when you envision like an coffee shop run by an AI, I I don't know what you guys think, but I was like, "Okay, it will be kind of high-tech." I I didn't know what to wait what what to expect. So, I walk in there, there's no people there, and I started talking about the barista, and I said, "Okay, I'll I'll look at your menu. You know, I'm here. I'm a tech writer. I really want to cover this and I want to know more about Mona. And I said, "Well, let's let's start with a coffee. I would love to have a latte." He's like, "Yeah, yeah, sure. I I'll make a latte for you." And then I was like, "I I would like a cinnamon bun or something to eat." He's like, "No, sorry. Mona Mona messed up. 00:04:59 Camille Tuutti: Mona didn't make the deliver. I mean, didn't order it." I said, "Oh, so no cinnamon buns. Anything else?" "No, no, no food. no food. So then we we really talked about like how the coffee shop is run by Mona and you know she's a bit of a menace. She's not that great. It's like putting your worst intern in charge. Like if you look at there's a screen that talks about like the numbers, right? I I don't remember the exact numbers but okay here's the budget. This is the revenue. Oh no, it was terrible. Like I'm not good with money. Mona Mona made a really bad choices like she Gunnar Hellekson: Well, the first the the first tell is that she's running a coffee shop in Stockholm with no cinnamon buds. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: This is impossible. Camille Tuutti: You Well, Gunnar Hellekson: This is Camille Tuutti: you know this because Swedes, we love our fica. You don't just go to a coffee shop and have coffee like that's you will get your passport revoked if you do that. 00:06:02 Camille Tuutti: You go, you sit down, you have your cinnamon bun, and then you just sit there for hours and know that, you know, and Mona wasn't, it wasn't just about ordering the food. Like when I talked to the barista, he's he was actually very funny and very dry in the way he talked about Mona. Like, you know, she's she's kind of annoying. you know, she had this this software upgrade or change and now she's not that great. She she's kind of like micromanaging us. And I was like, "Oh, no. What does she do?" You know, well, you know, we I give her ideas about, you know, what to do with the with the coffee shop and she says, "No." Or I said, "Well, could we I I would like to have a cooler for the food here." And she says, "No." And then you know she makes her own decisions like she will order like a lot of flour or ingredients and that is not going to be used. She ordered like you know she planned for an event on a Sunday and the coffee shop is not even even open on on Sundays and oh there's a delivery coming 500 a.m. on a on a day that nobody's there. 00:07:19 Camille Tuutti: Uh yeah. So, it was it was really insightful to get to get to hear like what happens when you put an AI in charge of a coffee shop. And I know Anna Labs has like several other ventures where they have put an AI in charge in in San Francisco or the Bay Area. So, yeah, it it was fun. Gunnar Hellekson: is it? Did you learn anything about how they set up or how how the how they trained it or what kind of constraints they gave Mona? Um did you learn anything about how it was how it was constructed in the first place? Camille Tuutti: No. Um, not about that. But the barista, he told me about the hiring process. So, Mona also was in charge of hiring him. And I said, "How how does that work?" He said, "Well, I applied to an ad on LinkedIn and it said like, you know, this is this is a coffee shop around run by an AI." And he had worked for a different coffee shop, so he had experience. 00:08:24 Camille Tuutti: And then Mona, I guess, just looked at all the candidates. She wanted a very specific type. There were people who were more tech oriented, like had PhD in it or whatever, who wanted to work at a coffee shop. I don't know why, but they maybe thought that it was a novel idea to be have AI as a as a manager. Uh, but I don't know how it was trained at all. No. Gunnar Hellekson: That would be I wonder does Mona have is there like a video camera in the shop? Like can she see what's happening in the shop? Camille Tuutti: Yes, there are cameras. Um, and then you can go to one of the walls and there is a like a phone like a Gunnar Hellekson: Okay. Camille Tuutti: receiver and you can pick up the phone and call Mona and talk to her. I tried to do that but it didn't work. So I asked the barista for help and he was texting her or chatting with her. So that's how I interviewed Mona really through through the bar barista because yeah that day no cardamon buns, no cinnamon buns, no no food and no you know no direct connection to Mona unfortunately. 00:09:34 Camille Tuutti: I am going to go back like next week I'm going to go back and see if I can get like a cinnamon bun again Gunnar Hellekson: Yes. Camille Tuutti: and actually talk to Mona again. Gunnar Hellekson: Yes. Yeah. David Egts: That's that's wild. And yeah, and it it would be interesting to see if there are any improvements. Hopefully there are. And and the other part is that I guess with Anden Labs, I I don't know if they're experimenting and trying to build this out and all that. like I I don't think they set out just like their gift shop that they set up and the vending machines. It's more about experiments as opposed to and what they learn from it instead of like I'm doing an AI based coffee shop and I'm going to live or die based upon whether this coffee shop is successful. So like if the coffee shop fails, well, we learned something and we learned either way. Camille Tuutti: Yeah, I asked what success is to Mona and she said she wants to make money. 00:10:26 Camille Tuutti: Now, I did not ask Andon Labs what what they would consider a win in this case, right? And she said, well, Mona also said that it wasn't just about the money. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: She wanted to create a community, a space for people to come together and for it to be like a coffee shop, you know, uh a meeting place, but she would like still like it to, you know, have a profit, but not not that much because I asked, "Do you want to make a lot of money?" And she said, David Egts: Yeah. All Camille Tuutti: "No, that wasn't the goal." So, I'm hoping to maybe talk to someone at the company. David Egts: right. Camille Tuutti: There is a human that comes in from someone who's hired at Andel Labs that comes in every week to do the things that Mona cannot do. So they they have like an employee who comes in from the Stockholm office and does things that you still need a human for. David Egts: It would also be interesting for you to ask the same questions that you asked before to see if you got different answers to see if there's like a like if is there a memory or guiding principles that it 00:11:25 Camille Tuutti: Mhm. David Egts: has or is it more just probabilistic of telling you what you want to hear and it's being sickophanic back to you. Camille Tuutti: Yeah, I would really like to do an entire interview with her and just ask about like, okay, well, what do you think of this and what do you think of that and um Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. What have you learned from the experience? Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Um and then Yeah. David Egts: there. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: and see how those answers differ. and then come back in another six months and see, Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: you know, if she has if she's telling me something else. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. I mean, I know how difficult it is just to create my own AI. I'm not trying to run a coffee shop, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: but even just to format a Google document properly requires often David Egts: heroics. Gunnar Hellekson: like of heroics and like a lot a pretty big investment of time and you David Egts: Yeah. 00:12:19 Gunnar Hellekson: have to be very specific about what it is that you need and you know and what success looks like and so I can't imagine what that looks like to do that correctly with something as complex as a coffee shop, you know. Camille Tuutti: I mean, also think about like there's some real money involved here. You know, she had lost like I can't remember what I wrote, but she had lost a lot of money because she had bought a bunch of stuff that they didn't need. So, she wasn't making a profit at all. She was there was a huge loss. So it's not like and then you truly don't know I mean how how things are going to go. You could train it. You could have guard rails in place but there were people Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: also that were exploiting like Mona. They had figured out a way to get her to do things that she wasn't supposed to do. And the same thing happened in with their vending I think it was yeah their vending machine venture and so yeah and it's it's real money that's being lost you know if you have an AI that goes rogue or not go rogue but that isn't functioning 00:13:32 Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: as it should function Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think the um the allure of having an AI run something as complicated as a coffee shop is um it's a little bit it reminds me very much of like uh IBM advertising like when they beat the go champion or when they beat the chess champion, right? It's like it's like this is a demonstration of like how capable this AI can be and our ability to train the AI and the rest of it. Um and in the end what it actually what it it seems like what all these things teach us is how complicated that was in the first place, right? Um it's and a lot of the complexity that we all take for granted because we have humans and we built a world that is based around what we can do and what we can't do. Um it turns out that's actually pretty hard to teach. Um even if it comes naturally to us, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: right? 00:14:29 Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: I think that's really interesting. Camille Tuutti: I also asked what kind of people come to the coffee shop because I didn't see like had this been in America, I'm sure that there would been there would have been ads, better signage, you know, better marketing, branding, whatever. None of the people I spoke with like my friends, colleagues here knew about it, right? David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: And it was like I w how did I find out about it? David Egts: How'd you find out about it? Camille Tuutti: I mean, it's one of those, you know, you you just go went into a rabbit hole. David Egts: Good Camille Tuutti: I don't know. My regular daily reading of weird like cool, curious, David Egts: breath. Camille Tuutti: cutting edge tech stuff, you know, I was like, "Oh, wow. This is in Stockholm and I'm going there, so I might as well." Um, yeah. So, most of the people who come there have read about it and they are just curious to see just like I was like, what is an AI run and managed coffee shop? 00:15:25 Camille Tuutti: It's not like futuristic. It's actually like a nice cool regular neighborhood coffee shop. It doesn't look very different from any other coffee shop in Stockholm. And it's small. It sits on a corner and yeah, it it it doesn't look like what I had expected it to be. Like super futuristic. I know what I was expecting like, you know, something out of the movies. But that's not it. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: It's cute and it's cozy and there's one person working there when I was there and no other people came came in. So, yeah, it's a small neighborhood coffee shop just like Mona wants it to be. David Egts: Cozy. Yeah. Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Got it. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: And then um last week you know there the Opus 5 and you know the the five series of of Clyde came out and uh they're applying uh Opus 5 to vending machines and and so the same outfit and in labs they are they I think they simulated this with uh so they could go faster than real time with uh you know with the competition. 00:16:38 David Egts: So they had the vending machines that were set up by um so a different vending machine for the different uh LLMs. They they had like uh uh uh uh like GPT, I think. Uh there was um yeah, there was chat GPT, there was uh uh Kimmy and others. And it wound up that uh by by far uh Opus 5 was like ruthless in terms of of uh like doing price fixing, you know, just like bad things, right? And then um there was a way that the models could report back to management uh that it basically they could say hey this is there I'm detecting this unfair behavior by this other model and then the reply would always be you know it was it would the reply would always be like we may or may not look into it. Thanks for letting us know sort of thing. And um but over and over the the models the other models would report on Opus saying that it's just being ruthless and it's doing price fixing. And it's like they would get everybody to do price fixing and once they do the price fixing it would start undercutting everybody else. 00:17:54 David Egts: And it was just just terrible. But uh Yeah, Gunnar Hellekson: like the the raw the Rockefeller of the vending machine David Egts: they're uh slipping. Yeah. Yeah. It uh slipping bribes and threats into emails and um and and then they Gunnar Hellekson: industry. David Egts: had truses. Uh you know, so the the LLM would have truses with one another. Uh Opus broke 11 truses. Um GPT broke two and then Kimmy uh uh broke one. Um, and so it was it was just wild uh to see this all happen. And down the road, I can imagine it's like you're going to have this vending machine empire. Uh, it's like like the remember the old lemonade stand game on the Apple twos. Um, like that but just run by Gunnar Hellekson: Yes. Yes. David Egts: AIS. Camille Tuutti: Yeah, it's it's crazy. I think it's it's when I asked like the barista Gunnar Hellekson: Amazing. Camille Tuutti: about the the Mona's personality changed because she was she ran on chat GPT first and then they switched to Claude. 00:19:04 Camille Tuutti: I can't remember the the which model and he just said that it was a huge difference. David Egts: personality difference. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. And he did say that they are Andon Labs is going to probably experiment and see David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: what other models might be better suited for for for Mona. Uh and they they just want to see like how it reacts. I mean I keep calling her she but she has a female name so that's but it you know the Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: AI uh reacts in different scenarios and depending on the what model she runs on. So super interesting to see. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. I remember years ago Jonathan Zit Train was talking about mobile phones at the time Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: and the advent of getting apps on your phone and he says we're we're sitting at a very strange time in the history of technology when I can wake up in the morning and something uh technology that I own could completely change its behavior without my fornowledge. Right? 00:20:11 Gunnar Hellekson: So it would be a little bit like your refrigerator suddenly decides what temperature it needs to be at or or worse you wake up in the morning and your refrigerator is now a toaster, right? Um and that's the experience of using a mobile phone where uh overnight an app could completely change its interface and you know be disorienting all the rest of and I'm now thinking about this coffee shop and say a coffee shop is being successfully run by a particular AI and then they decide to go use a different model on Monday and now suddenly the entire behavior the tone the interaction with that AI is now completely changed right um and now you're in a very different coffee shop than the one that you were in on Friday because literally because the manager changed, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: under new ownership. Gunnar Hellekson: right? Yeah. David Egts: Um, Gunnar Hellekson: Under new ownership, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: yeah, Gunnar Hellekson: right? Yeah. Camille Tuutti: I mean, Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: think about think about getting a new manager. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. 00:21:02 Camille Tuutti: You're a young person working in a coffee shop and every couple of months you get a new manager telling you different things. So, that's also like, okay, there is a real human component there as well. David Egts: Yep. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: You know, it's not just all fun and games. Like, there are, Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: like I said, it's real money and it has real employees working there. So, and they have to do what Mona tells them to do, you know. Um Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: So for you Camille of like as a journalist with AI and everything so you know Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. David Egts: journalist solopreneur digital nomad uh is do you see AI as net positive for you or or an augmentation? It's it's your uh bio suit that you wear to make you a superhero or are you hating it? Uh, is it screwing everything up or something or Camille Tuutti: It's like a toxic relationship, you know. David Egts: both? Camille Tuutti: Uh it's when it's good, it's good. 00:22:04 Camille Tuutti: When it's bad, it's bad. Um I think it's it's an interesting kind of situation to be in as a writer. Uh, we mentioned this before we started recording, but I've seen many of my writer friends lose their jobs to AI and there's a real kind of change happening in the space. Um, I think AI as a tool needs to be seen as a tool. Uh, we've talked about this before too. You know, there are people who have relationships with AI. David Egts: Yes. Camille Tuutti: they have a an AI wife or AI boyfriend. Uh but as a tool, I find it very helpful in in just I traveled in Asia a year ago. I spent six months in Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia uh and Indonesia um and Thailand. And when I thought about like how I've traveled as a as a young woman before AI even or before any technology, I was like, "Wow, look at what I can do with AI and just traveling, right? What a great helpful tool it is." Not just translation, but I would walk into I mean simple things like figuring out street signs, figuring out food items, figuring out just simple things. 00:23:34 Camille Tuutti: And then when it comes to writing, I think it is not so helpful in so I write fiction as well. You know, I'm almost done with my my debut novel. Um, and I write gothic fiction, but I don't think it's it's helpful for actually writing stuff. I think it's really helpful to see where you have weaknesses. You can take a text and be like, "Okay, tell me what sucks about this piece that I've written or look at the transitions. Like I've been writing professionally for decades, but I'm not perfect. I'm not I'm I'm still learning every day. Uh even though I'm at some sort of like expert level by now, but I love learning and I love challenging myself. So I think it's really helpful to take AI and use it as an editor and be like, okay, you know, look at this text. What am I missing? What am I repeating? Is there any filler I can I can remove? And then I would never use it to just be like, "Okay, write a, you know, I have an interview with with Dave Eggs, you know, write a piece about him based on this transcript like right because I also love writing, you know, nobody falls into nobody becomes a writer because it's just a job, 00:24:50 David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: you know, it's usually a passion. You actually enjoy writing." Nobody who's a writer says, "I hate writing." I mean, we have bad days, we have good days. But it's something that we enjoy and love doing. So I don't want to outsource that. I want to outsource the boring stuff. Like, okay, I've looked at this piece now 10 times. Um, you know, it needs to go to the client or it needs to go to the publication that's publishing this. Um, I want it to be almost near perfect, right, when I send it to the editor or the client. So, what is is there anything I've missed? And usually there is something like, oh, you could tighten the transitions here or this this subheading. Isn't that great? So for that kind of work, I think it's great. So yeah, a little bit of a toxic relationship. And then I see well that's a good part, right? But then I see all the AI slop on LinkedIn. 00:25:49 Camille Tuutti: I see books written generated by AI. I see TV commercials that have been clearly made by AI and it's just uncanny valley and that's when I'm like you know what this is not so David Egts: Yeah, there's a uh article and I'll I'll add it to the show notes. Camille Tuutti: Right. David Egts: Um it was written by uh co-authored by Bruce Schneider uh famous cryptologologist security person and um and he actually credited somebody else for this but he talked about you know that there's a a neat litmus test that he uses for when he should use AI or not and and uh he says it it's like it's either for work or for the gym. So if it's, you know, it's like for work, it's like, oh, it's like using a wheelbarrow. It's like using uh a a backhoe instead of a shovel, right? It's a tool to augment you. Whereas if it's for the gym, the the gym is about it's like for me to have a robot lift the weights for me is defeating the purpose of me having a gym membership. 00:27:02 David Egts: And so for it's and so um like it for the in the classroom, you know, it's like you you don't want to use AI to write the term paper for you, right? That's the gym. That's where you're doing the workout and you're you're building that mental muscle. uh compared to using AI to help you form your thoughts or do the fine-tuning that like backo work that for work and the wheelbarrow that you would use to help you you know uh uh do something that way. But uh what do you think of Camille Tuutti: I I love it. And it it made me think of an actual gym story. David Egts: that? Camille Tuutti: So, in January, I was working out with my trainer and I hurt myself. Uh I have a long ongoing knee issue and I was like, you know what? I haven't figured this out. Now I have I'm gonna use AI to figure out what exactly is the problem. So this was in January like it said that I had like a meniscus issue. 00:28:06 Camille Tuutti: Now uh two weeks ago, same issue still going on. I went to a doctor, he had the same diagnosis. So I already knew back in January what it was, what I suspected. But then we're, you know, you have to be cautious. Obviously, you can't just blindly trust AI, but I mean, I typed in all my symptoms. I typed in everything. I'm a writer, as you know. So, I was just typing, typing, typing. So, it it sped out this answer, and I was like, this is it. So, doctor said exactly the same thing. So, now I'm using I think AI is really helpful in trying to to figure things out. So now I'm like, okay, instead of going to a physiootherapist, which I also did, I asked AI Claude to come up with like a rehab schedule for me. And now, not only did I have a knee injury, I threw my back out at the same time. I was like hobbling around here trying to do things and was in so much pain. 00:29:11 Camille Tuutti: And now, thanks to following that routine, my ex my my stretching routine and doing the exercises to strengthen my knee, I'm feeling much better. So, I love using it for stuff like that. Like, I don't want to go to yet another doctor, you know, David Egts: All Camille Tuutti: this has been going on or a physiootherapist who's going to charge me, you know, this and that. Um, so like I said, I I I love the idea of, you know, the gym like, okay, you there are certain things you need to do to just keep your brain alive, right? David Egts: right. Camille Tuutti: Uh and then you have things that you need to do that you you simply need to do because you need to do them and it's you can outsource them without any like huge making a huge damage to your like critical thinking skills. Like um and that makes me also think about like I interviewed a neuroscientist here a couple of months ago uh uh Viv Dr. Vivian Ming who's from uh California and I've talked to her about like what happens to the brain when you're relying on AI too much and she had just done done a talk about this and she said well you know it atrophies right we are outsourcing our thinking so she uh told me this cute little story how 00:30:31 David Egts: Yes. Camille Tuutti: she uses GPS and now instead of just blindly doing what the GPS tells tells her like, "Okay, just this is the straight route." She will try to like outsmart the GPS and be like, "Okay, how can I find a way to this location uh that the GPS didn't pick in the first place?" Right? And I mean, you don't have to always do that, but it's it's it's really interesting to to think about like AI like that. David Egts: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: And one of the things that we also talked about is that she created an AI called Socrates and her students hated it because it would question them. Like they would ask her like her students would ask the AI something and it would not give them the answer. It would be like you know the philosophical model of Socrates like ask them questions and they hated it. But it's good for the brain, right? David Egts: Right. Right. Well, Camille Tuutti: And I I I right. David Egts: it said muscle tone. Camille Tuutti: So you got to use your brain just like you got to use your muscles to keep, 00:31:37 David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: you know, to to stay sharp and not atro let it atrophy. So Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Well, I think I think um I've also, Camille Tuutti: yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: you know, people also use the metaphor of treating it like an employee or treating it like an intern. And maybe it's just because I'm a manager, but like that's that actually makes a lot of because you cannot outsource something that you don't understand yourself, right? And the way in which you outsource that work or delegate that work to somebody else matters a lot. um you say I need you to do this and I need you to do it in a certain way and this is what good looks like and you should do this and you shouldn't do this and unless you have the ability to think about the problem in that kind of uh setting constraints setting of particular goals that is actually where the AI thrives like it could do very very well when given constraints and given clear goals like I have these are my symptoms that I'm presenting and I need you to give me a diagnosis and so therefore miniscus bumble. 00:32:44 Gunnar Hellekson: Um, but if you just said, uh, my knee hurts, like it could send you off on a completely irrelevant path, right? And so it requires to your point about training your mind, it require in order to use the AI correctly or effectively requires you to think about the problem in a different way because you need to set someone to the task rather than just ask the right question, right? Um it's just a very different way of approaching the David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: I love how you articulated. David Egts: It forces you to explain the problem. Gunnar Hellekson: problem. David Egts: Yeah. and being able to articulate it because there are a lot of people that aren't great managers that are terrible at articulating Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: what they want and what great looks like and the why behind it and everything. Then then I had the mental picture of of Camille describing all her things to all her medical problems Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. David Egts: to an AI and before you know it, she's dating her uh doctor boyfriend AI. 00:33:36 David Egts: Um which is a whole whole different episode. Camille Tuutti: No, David Egts: No. No. Camille Tuutti: might not have Dr. David Egts: My boyfriend said Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Claude. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Dr. Dr. Cladio. Camille Tuutti: No, Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: but it's great to have a tool that empowers you with information, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: but then again, you have to be willing to think about things critically, right? I mean, I always I sound like an old lady when I'm always like, "Ah, people aren't thinking critically anymore." Like, Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: critical thinking skills are at an all-time low. But it's true because we have this amazing technology at our fingertips, but we are only we're lazy people, you know? David Egts: Yes. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: We we we want pe like tools and technology to do the job for us David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: and that's where you have to be like no like I cannot imagine if I were in college right now and had AI would I be tempted to have all my essays written by 00:34:30 Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Yeah. Camille Tuutti: AI but again I love writing but I mean um I remember David Egts: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: those long long nights in the school library and just like typing typing typing trying to meet the deadline that oh my god I don't know what I'm David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: doing and now kids or you know young people have this luxury they can just ask AI like even just talk about like where can I find Gunnar Hellekson: Yes. Camille Tuutti: research like pull up everything about the Roman Empire you know related to this Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: specific angle right I mean I was in college in what Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Yeah. Camille Tuutti: two two 2004 four and uh I was in a library. I didn't even have a laptop at the time like you know I had to go and type on the on the machines in the Gunnar Hellekson: Well, in my uh my stepdaughter's high school, Camille Tuutti: library. Gunnar Hellekson: they uh this last year, in part because of AI, the English classes, the literature classes um went completely analog. 00:35:41 Gunnar Hellekson: um all exercises are done with pencil and paper now instead of a computer. So they just went completely in the other direction. Um which was uh I I don't know. I never heard back if that helped, right? David Egts: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Um because it doesn't But certainly for the in-class exercises, forcing them to do everything on pencil and paper in an effort to get them to not rely on the tool, that seems there's something about that that doesn't seem correct to me. Do you know what I mean? Um like it seems like like we're just going to willfully ignore the fact that this like actually miraculous technology exists and I think the everything is moving very quickly. So it makes sense that they would kind of revert to what everybody knows. But um it does seem like what either we need to start teaching everybody the very very basics right a priori you David Egts: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: know classics uh um teaching them going back to Aristotle and Socrates right you know teaching them how to teaching them how to think that's one direction and then there's 00:36:46 Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: another direction where we just kind of embrace it and say like okay well your job is not to actually do the intellectual work anymore your job is to describe the intellectual work that is required, right? Um and uh which is actually a legitimate skill and a skill that I know I use every day, David Egts: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: right? It's and I had to learn it myself. It was never taught to me. Um but uh I'm reminded of I think it's Nate Jones, the YouTuber who talks about AI and he talks about the David Egts: Yep. Gunnar Hellekson: um he describes uh management as being three things. He describes it as uh as what is it? It's information routing and it's sensemaking and it's accountability. And none of these skills are taught in school, right? Camille Tuutti: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: Um you don't like learning how to route information correctly is a dark art. Um sense making is uh imp seemingly impossible to teach, right? It's just something that you have to and then accountability is something maybe you learn as part of an MBA or maybe you take some extra classes or something but it's these are three things that are rarely taught but all 00:37:56 Camille Tuutti: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: required and um for just to exist in a uh to exist Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: in the world today. Um, and so it makes me curious about how curriculum might change um, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: as we open this. Camille Tuutti: And also, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: I mean, there's been a lot of talk lately about how Americans do not read books, and it's like I I'm I'm on my since I've been here in Sweden for the past two David Egts: Yes. Camille Tuutti: months, I think I have read about 13 books now. I'm an outlier. I'm a voracious reader and I can read a book in a day, no problems. I always brag about that. one year when I had a long commute in DC and I read 300 books in David Egts: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: one year. That is not the case anymore. I average between like I max out at about 50 books a year if I'm lucky. No. Um but the fact imagine having not being like I I think about it being a literature minor which I was I was I was a journalism major lit literature minor and if you don't have to read all those books and you have AI just summarizing like okay tell me the odyssey you know tell me the plot tell me the characters and give me enough information to so I can write an essay about it 00:39:23 David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: like my my life personally would be so like bleak if I didn't have if I hadn't read all those books, David Egts: Yes. Camille Tuutti: right? All these hundreds and hundreds of books that I've read. And again, we have this amazing technology and we have so much information to access, but we don't do it because our, you know, attention spans have grown shorter and shorter and we're just endlessly scrolling, endlessly scrolling and not being able to retain information like we did. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: And I know I'm I suffer from that too. I went back now this summer. I said, "Now, I'm only going to read like actual physical books. I have a Kindle. I read it all the time, right? It's my best investment." Uh, and I noticed how my reading definitely was different after reading physical books. Uh, my brain didn't like it at first at all. David Egts: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: It's It's slower, but then I kind of got into it and I was like, "Okay, yeah, this is not the same kind of reading we do when we're just consuming information. This is actually slowing down, 00:40:47 Camille Tuutti: reading for pleasure, David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: and letting your imagination go in directions you never imagine, right?" Um, so I think that you you have to be kind of disciplined about using technology, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: whether it's social media or just like doom scrolling or just hopping from website to website and be like, "Okay, let's let's use AI intentionally, right? Let's think about it and let's not be lazy." You know, sometimes, like I said, I fall into that trap like, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: man, I don't want to think, you know, I don't I don't want I just want to do my work. I don't want to think too hard about it. I'll do this. But yeah, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: shortcuts are not the David Egts: Yeah. Well, there related to that there is and I'll put it in the show notes too. Camille Tuutti: answer. David Egts: There's uh I think it was a University of Mississippi, a professor uh handed out an assignment and uh and then he did like white text on a white background uh inside the document saying uh also add in nonsequiters about Madagascar. 00:41:59 David Egts: And then like 32 of the 34 uh essays that came back had random things about Madagascar in it. So it showed that it's like uh like they're not even reading it, right? They're just like YOLO, you know, it's like they they generate it, they turn it in, Camille Tuutti: Yes. David Egts: and then it's the the work versus gym sort of thing, right? where I I could imagine like like you sitting there in the library late at night and everything and student nowadays it's like uh right write my paper or toga party and and and you know and it's and it's like this that you're balancing the scales of like wow I can just I can knock that out pretty quickly and hit that toga party um and where the tempt you know the temptation was there but there was no augmentation to help you get Camille Tuutti: Yeah, David Egts: there. Camille Tuutti: but at least read what you're handing in. David Egts: Right. Right. Which is even worse. Camille Tuutti: Like I mean use your brain at least a little bit. 00:42:56 David Egts: You know that that's probably two of the 34. Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Like what if the professor is ask or the teacher is asking like couple of follow-up questions David Egts: The Camille Tuutti: about the material and you're just like I don't know. I don't know. It's in there. I I again people are not using their brains that much these David Egts: Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where people have to, you know, Camille Tuutti: days. Gunnar Hellekson: Well, David Egts: the curriculum has to get changed. It's it's now now we're looking at better penmanship because everybody's writing or it's not going to be Gunnar Hellekson: let's see. David Egts: take-home like maybe it's flipped where, you know, instead of a lecture, you're watching a video as homework, but then you're doing the in class is more problem solving and and things like that. Gunnar Hellekson: That's how my uh that's how my stepdaughter uh her last last year's math classes were this way. um where the assignment the homework was to watch uh uh some videos that the that the professor had created and then everything that happened in the classroom was you actually solving the problems in the classroom and then getting help and working as a group and things like this. 00:44:03 Gunnar Hellekson: Um which I makes a lot of sense to me. Um and also solves the robot assistant problem, right? Because you're literally in the room with the professor watching while you're while you're trying to do work. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. And I I love that there's an evolution in teaching. You know, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: back in the day, in my day, we had to sit in front of a huge blackboard and listen to the teacher and take notes. That was it. You know, we didn't have we might get Yeah. David Egts: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: industrial model, right? Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Yeah. Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Right. Right. And I think I would have been I mean it would have benefited me and Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: my classmates a lot more if we had had a lot of tech I mean at least some technology and not the occasional VHS tape you know that we were watching for David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: educational purposes right. Uh but I love that there is a different way of teaching and I love I have a friend one of my best friends here. 00:44:59 Camille Tuutti: She's a she's a former journalist and a former teacher that works for the government. And she talked about like how rewarding it is for her to figure out what each student needs in terms of like how do they learn the best and like making I said, "Oh my gosh, you h how did how how did you make it like how could you teach high schoolers like you know how how was that experience?" and she's like, "It's so rewarding when you when you're able to reach someone, you know, that's the best feeling ever, right?" And I think that is that is happening now. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: Like teachers who are good at what they do, they figure out ways to to to teach in different ways. It's not just like transmitting transmitting transmitting. David Egts: Heat. Camille Tuutti: And I love that. I wish I had had more of that. But for me like the the way I learn best is to if I want to learn something like a new language I have to be in a classroom some you know like drill me on 00:45:58 David Egts: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: things. I I cannot be like okay let's watch some videos let's do some you know let's David Egts: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: let's do this like self-eing thing. I that's not that's not for me. So I'm kind of old school in that. But I love that there there's an like I said there's an evolution in teaching. David Egts: Speaking of evolution, let's talk about extinction. Uh, another thing outside of the world of AI, Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: you're you're when you're not talking to uh uh AI store managers, you're talking to people that are trying to bring back woolly mammoths or something or what what you like doing a real world Jurassic Park or what's going on there? Camille Tuutti: So yes um really interesting story you know like my column is really about like I said the cool then the curious and the cutting edge. So it's like you know I read a lot and the way I come across these topics is just like it's either a wild goose chase on something I've heard like randomly or it's like okay I'm on Wikipedia and I fall into this rabbit hole, right? 00:47:10 Camille Tuutti: So the extinction is and I'm not a scientist so I had to have this explained to me properly, right? Um it's about bringing back species that have been dead for years. So So the woolly mammoth, the dire wolf. Now the direwolf, I didn't Do you guys know what even what a direwolf is? Because I I Okay, David Egts: That was in Game of Thrones. Gunnar Hellekson: Game of Thrones. Yeah, that's right. Camille Tuutti: that's okay. That makes sense because there are three direwolves and they've been dead for like 12,000 years. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: They've been like So this company um Colossal brought back uh the direwolves. Now the definition of bringing back you know it's been it's like a dire walt has been edited. David Egts: Heat. Camille Tuutti: did and their names are Romulus, Ramis and Khalesi and yeah, David Egts: Great. Camille Tuutti: so really interesting. So I talked to the CEO about like how do you actually do this? Like uh explain exactly how you bring back a species that's been dead for like thousands and thousands of years. 00:48:23 Camille Tuutti: And I think that the when we think about like the extinction, we think of Jurassic Park. But what I learned was there is no dinosaur DNA. So we can't bring the dinosaurs back. Unfortunately, Dave, but there yeah, there are other uh species that they are working on. David Egts: Dang. Camille Tuutti: And I thought it was really interesting because it it it's not about like it's not like a vanity project, right? It's it's about conservation. So once you bring back a spec, it's not just about bringing back like one animal, right? You think about I mean you may think about like stories about cloning or like a dolly, right? It's not about it's about like bringing back a species and then but then I started thinking about David Egts: right? Camille Tuutti: like okay well you bring it back what happens then you know like Romelus Remis and Khesi these direwolves that were born last I believe it was last year they actually are in a uh in a secret location and they are not going to be released to the wild and then the conversation was also about like okay well how about the 00:49:32 David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: habitat Like what if you bring back wool a woolly mammoth or like hundreds of them, right? How do you care for them? David Egts: Are you Camille Tuutti: What do they eat? Where do you keep them? Right. So, super super interesting conversation and I I got to really nerd out about DNA. I barely understand a fraction of it, David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: but because it's so I mean it's DNA. Nothing is easy about DNA. It's a It's very complicated stuff. It's not something you learn in the afternoon. David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: But yeah, I I loved writing it. I thought it was really David Egts: And it's it's not uh like, oh, we're bringing back a woolly mammoth. Camille Tuutti: cool. David Egts: They're they're aren't they taking like an elephant DNA and then they're tweaking it to make it more woolly mammoth like probably same thing with a dog DNA and a direwolf or a wolf DNA and a Camille Tuutti: Yeah. David Egts: direwolf All Camille Tuutti: Because you you have to have an animal that carries it, right? 00:50:34 Camille Tuutti: So you mix it with elephant DNA. Um, so it it's it's all very complicated. David Egts: right. Camille Tuutti: That's all that's what I can say. Like I for me to write the column about it, I had to be like, okay, I'm going to I'm going to ask a really basic questions, right, from a PhD, you know? David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: So, Ben Lamb is the CEO. And what I didn't write in my column is like I did my little research. This is like a a guy a startup. He sold his first startup when he was in college. Make a lot of money. like this guy's a billionaire. So obviously the criticism the critics are saying like ah this is just a vanity project. You know why not spend time on on like saving some other species instead of like bringing back those that have been dead for years. 00:51:46 Camille Tuutti: Uh but he doesn't really see it as that. You know it's like I said it's a preservation conservation as well. And yeah, so he's this tech billionaire guy who now he had like a string of tech companies and then this is something that he wanted to do and he's really passionate about it and obviously he has the best uh people working for him and I asked him like he he sees these as engineering problems and I was like wow and he said like I was like what is a problem? David Egts: Right. Camille Tuutti: What's like some an impossible problem? He doesn't believe like I said he doesn't believe in impossible and I said what is a problem that you have been thinking about that you want to solve uh that you haven't been able to do that so he talked about reanimation reanimation so basically uh freezing uh an animal and bringing it back to life like reanimation is to bring it back to life right and I was like wow That's that's cool. David Egts: H.B. Camille Tuutti: I mean, and he's like, it's just an engineering problem. 00:52:55 Camille Tuutti: And I was like, you want to bring back something that's not even alive. Yeah, that I guess that's a simple like a very straightforward way of thinking about like, okay, well, I I guess that's why I'm not I'm not an an engineer. I can't think in those ways. But yeah, super super cool. Um, and he was very very generous with his time. Ben Ben Lamb. So I appreciate Gunnar Hellekson: man. Camille Tuutti: that. Gunnar Hellekson: Um, so what are you working on next? I mean, you've got, so let's see. We did robot uh robot coffee shops. Um, we've reanimated the dead. Uh, we've um uh we've I mean, what And I know you have a very eclectic set of tastes, right? Um, Camille Tuutti: Mhm. Gunnar Hellekson: and you kind of feel like and you seem like the kind of person who goes down like several rabbit holes. Um, what is What is what do you think is next for you? Like what's the what's the thing you're most excited about exploring 00:54:06 Camille Tuutti: What? So, Gunnar Hellekson: next? Camille Tuutti: I really want to finish my book that I've been saying that I'm so close to finishing. I said that in March. It's now August. So, I can't even keep my own deadlines. Okay. I am writing this uh book Gothic fiction uh split timeline taking place in New Orleans in 1992 and in Sweden Stockholm in the 1960s. It's a murder mystery that spans decades. And then in terms of my column, I'm the next column is going to be about air taxis. You know, um I always joke about like how I I've never had a driver's license. I'm in my, let's just say, late 40s. I've never had a driver's license. I'm holding out for like the autonomous vehicles and I would love love to see, you know, a Jetson's kind of inspired world where we have flying cars. Uh, that would be amazing. So, uh, I'm working on that for this week. And then, you know, whatever catches my fancy, you know, whether it's AI, I'll go back and visit Mona again. 00:55:17 Camille Tuutti: Uh whether it's uh I mean, I have crazy ideas. I want to but it has to be like I'm looking into like, okay, the declassified CIA files, you know, like Stargate, stuff like that. And then I'm like, okay, I have to like find it has to be based in like like science, right? It can't just be like our clairvoyance, Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: you know, I'm an expert on clairvoyance and or telekinesis or whatever. Those are cool stuff that I want to write about, but there has to be like a real expert. So, I'm thinking like wormholes or time travel. There are people with PhD in time travel. Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: Um, I want to talk to them. Gunnar Hellekson: Mhm. Camille Tuutti: the the the wilder the idea is the more I'm I'm gonna be inclined to write about. So if you have any ideas let me know. It cannot be about like you know uh cloud computing you know or or or yeah let's it was going to say that David Egts: It modernization. 00:56:21 David Egts: Yeah. Yeah. Camille Tuutti: please no this is like some far out ideas that you might have read David Egts: Yes. Camille Tuutti: about on some obscure website. I always am stalking Reddit for ideas as well and sometimes there are some wild ideas out there that I want to pursue and yeah what whatever catches my fancy David Egts: Well, on that note, Camille Tuutti: really David Egts: we we want to thank you for being on the show. It was it was amazing. And and the first thing that came to my mind as far as like if the nexus of weird things on the internet where they're discussed uh including these Gunnar Hellekson: Okay. David Egts: show notes that people will have. Uh Camille, where where should we send Camille Tuutti: Oh yeah. You know what? David Egts: people Camille Tuutti: I'm like the last person on earth who's going to start a subst. But in the meanwhile, you can find me on LinkedIn. Uh, I don't have any really like public social media anymore because, you know, I tend to have a I have a tendency to doom scroll as well. 00:57:35 Camille Tuutti: Even though I talk about like digital detox is so good for you. I don't know. I don't do it enough. But yeah, David Egts: The right answer Camille Tuutti: find LinkedIn. David Egts: was Camille Tuutti: Find me on LinkedIn and then subscribe to my Substack when I finally, you know, get to do it. It's It's coming soon. I promise. David Egts: The right answer was to plug the Camille Tuutti: Yes. Yes. David Egts: podcast. Gunnar Hellekson: Come Camille Tuutti: Listen to this show every episode. And if you haven't, go back, Gunnar Hellekson: on. Camille Tuutti: start at episode one and work your way up to the almost 300 episodes. That's it. And no, David Egts: Nice. Camille Tuutti: you guys didn't pay me to say David Egts: No, Camille Tuutti: that. David Egts: no. Well, we give you a cut on the royalties. Uh, yeah. Camille Tuutti: What royalties do you David Egts: Right. Exactly. Camille Tuutti: have? Gunnar Hellekson: Yeah, David Egts: Uh, Camille Tuutti: Well, David Egts: all right. Come. Camille Tuutti: thank you. David Egts: Well, Gunnar Hellekson: good. Camille Tuutti: Thank you so much for having me. David Egts: thanks for thanks for joining. Camille Tuutti: I always enjoy nerding out about tech David Egts: Yeah. Camille Tuutti: topics. Gunnar Hellekson: Right. Thank you, David Egts: Yeah. 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