Reacting To Joe Rogan Interviewing Steve Jobs' AI (#376/Clip)

Sam Parr

The thing we're talking about is Joe Rogan interviewing Steve Jobs. We'll set the background of how it works, but basically, it's both. It's all AI-generated, and fake Joe Rogan is interviewing fake Steve Jobs. I got a little emotional because I like Steve. I kind of like Steve Jobs, but I respect him a ton. Just hearing him talk about topics that seemed modern, I was like, "He's back from the dead." You know what I mean? I wouldn't exactly say he's one of my heroes, but he's someone I respect. I'm like, "Oh my God, the dead is alive again." And that was...

Shaan Puri

Let's pull it up. The way I think we should do this episode is by focusing on AI. I think we should show some of the stuff that has caught our attention. It's kind of a show and tell. So, if you're listening to the podcast, I think you're going to want to be on YouTube right now to actually see this stuff. When you're there, you're going to want to subscribe. And when you subscribe, you're going to want to share or tell your friend. No, okay, but you do want to go to YouTube and just, I don't know, search "My First Million" and then click the channel. This will be, you know, the AI episode will be up there. Ben is going to screen share here. Ben, do we have audio? Let's play a little bit of the intro.

Sam Parr

Well, let me give you the background really quick. It's a company called Play.ht, and one of their side projects is a thing called Podcast.ai. Basically, what they did was give their AI algorithm—or program, whatever you want to call it—Steve Jobs' biography. I think they actually provided one or two of his biographies because there are two major ones. Then, they gave the program every single Steve Jobs recording they could find on the internet, along with every Joe Rogan episode ever. They made Joe Rogan interview Steve Jobs, and the interview is about 25 minutes long. They talk about all types of stuff, but they say some amazing things. For example, Joe Rogan does the intro and teases out who the guest is, just like he does in real life. He goes, "What's up, freak bitches?" which I don't even think he says anymore, but he said that in all the early episodes. He goes, "What's up, freak bitches? Today's guest is someone who's incredibly smart, incredibly weird."

Shaan Puri

just play it right let let let let

Sam Parr

me hear it insufferable well he says insufferable which I thought was crazy so go ahead play

AI

This podcast is brought to you by Play.ht. All content is generated by artificial intelligence.

Shaan Puri

intelligence choice for this part

AI

listener discretion is advised

Joe Rogan

hello freak bitches welcome to another episode of the bro joggin' experience

Shaan Puri

bro joggin' experiences

Joe Rogan

And on this episode, I welcome my friend, who is difficult to describe. I'm fascinated by him, and I hope you will be too. He is weird, brilliant, and sometimes totally insufferable. My guest today has made some of the great technological products of our age, and he's always pushing the envelope in innovation. For example, with his next computer, he developed a new programming language and operating system. He then became even more famous for creating three applications for that computer: a word processor, a spreadsheet, and an image editor. That just showed me that this dude was brilliant and had amazing taste. I would just hope that I could be even like one-tenth of the genius that my friend today is. I can't even say his name! So, yeah, I'm super psyched about having him in the house today. It's the first time... or yeah, we've had you on before, but not for a long time. You're like Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in "Ghost"—you're a memory from the past. So, without further ado, my friend who is difficult to describe and wonderful, and I'm so grateful he came on the show.

Steve Jobs

How's it going? Good to see you, buddy! It's been a long time since I've been on the show. I've missed this; it's always fun.

Shaan Puri

Wow, like just pause there. Okay, so the things that... First, the voice quality. The voice quality is incredible! It sounds just like Joe Rogan; it sounds just like Steve Jobs. It has gotten so much better than how this used to be. I remember when you had the Garmin GPS in your car and you could choose the Morgan Freeman voice or whatever. Anytime you'd have this voice robot trying to say something new, it sounded totally computerized. This doesn't. So, the voice quality is one thing. The fact that it kind of makes more sense... It makes more sense than it should. Like, he's doing an intro; it understands that he's teasing, like, "This is my friend who's here today. This person's a genius," but not saying who it is right away. That's like a showmanship thing that I thought was really interesting. The back-and-forth banter is great. He gives that long intro, and then Steve Jobs just kind of laughs, like you would if you had sat down for this kind of interview with Joe Rogan. I just thought that was incredible—the way it felt like a real conversation. Obviously, there's some stuff that's like, you know, he's talking about word processors and documents a little too much. Nobody would do that, but, like, damn, if 80% of that is not amazing!

Sam Parr

And the reason I felt emotional listening to this was that I felt both in awe and scared. As I was listening, I was agreeing with what Steve says. What we'll do in a second is fast forward maybe 10 minutes in. Basically, Jobs goes on this long rant about LSD, saying, "You know, LSD changed my life. I don't think it's for everyone, but it changed my life." He explains how it opened his mind and allowed him to read all these books he never previously would have read. He mentions something like, "I wouldn't take LSD a bunch of times in a row because I only needed it once or twice, and it opened my mind." He goes in-depth, saying, "It introduced me to India," and he just talks about it.

Shaan Puri

About talking about God. He's discussing all kinds of things that you're like, it's not just like reading a Wikipedia page, you know what I mean? It's very philosophical. He's like, "When people think about God, they think about this, but to me, it's..." and it's like, well, that's a fully formed thought and philosophy. That sounds like something somebody would say when they're having an in-depth podcast, not just like, "I did this in 1979 in March when I was living in Albuquerque," and then in 1981, I once again... It wasn't that. It was like a very real-sounding thing.

Sam Parr

And he has this amazing... Did you hear this beautiful quote that he says? Basically, the way that this company operates—if you ever listen to a bunch of Steve Jobs interviews—you'll notice that at points, it almost sounds like they're just chopping up some of his clips and weaving them together. He has talked about this before, so I don't actually know if he's ever said this particular line before, but he starts talking about India and why he loves that part of the world. He basically says, "Well, it's so old and it influenced the rest of society." He goes on to mention that there's an Indian epic that's ten times as long as the Bible, the Quran, and all these other things.

Shaan Puri

the indian the odyssey yeah

Sam Parr

That's what he says. Yeah, he's like, "Basically, Indian history influenced the rest of the world." And there's an epic that's ten times as long as all these other books. I just thought that was such an interesting way to look at it.

Shaan Puri

He does so, and he doesn't say the name, so it kind of leaves you wanting there. But he is talking about the Gita, which I think is a 16-part series or whatever. It's like this really, really long thing. I would bet that it actually is multiple times longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey. So I...

Sam Parr

I don't think it was interesting that he said that. I waited, and this is the thing: when he said that, I thought, "I gotta find that book." He just sold me on this book. He influenced you? Yeah, the dead jobs influenced me. So, Ben, click play just for like 30 seconds.

Steve Jobs

But there is some kind of deeper meaning to life, and it can't just be something that somebody made up. Because if it was, it wouldn't be compelling; it would seem contrived, and everyone would see through it. So, I think that the meaning and the purpose is by the cosmos—the nature of the cosmos—which is pretty bold thinking. I mean, I don't know how else to put it, but it's not religious in the way people usually talk about. Taking LSD was a profound experience for me. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin. You can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it washes over you and tells you that everything is connected. You're not here by accident; you were put here for a purpose. If you can figure out what that is, then you'll learn more about yourself than anything else could. It's pretty intense.

Shaan Puri

So, that quote is a real quote of his. Taking LSD was a profound experience; it was one of the most important things in my life. It shows you that there's another side of the coin. You can't remember it when it wears off, but you know it. Okay, so that is like an actual quote of his, but it's weaved into the conversation. There's a part in the conversation where he says he's a fan of Joe Rogan. He's like, "It's nice to just sit back in the car and listen to you rant." It's like, okay, so the first one where he talks about LSD... they just took his good read section or his quotes and they're like, "Okay, cool, he says things like this." But where did it know to say to Joe Rogan that he loves to listen to his podcast in the car? Just, "I love to sit back and listen to your rant." Where would that have come from? How does that happen? There are little moments like that that I just don't understand this technology well enough to know how it could know to say something like that in that moment.

Sam Parr

So, the first half of the call, he talks all about India and these kind of platitude-like life advice type of things, which were pretty amazing. But then the second half, which Ben just started playing a little bit, talks about Google. They actually say "Yahoo," Ron; they call it "Yahoo." They put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. He says all these interesting quotes, which I actually think are things that he has said again in the past. He mentions, "You know, that's a problem I've always had with Microsoft. In many ways, they're smart people and they've done good work, but they've never had any taste. They've never had any aesthetic taste." Then he goes on and talks about Adobe. He criticizes Adobe's business model. Joe Rogan actually asks, "What would you do to fix Adobe?" Jobs responds, "Well, they've got 800 people working on Adobe's business model. That's just way too many people." He adds that the fact that they charge just a little bit of money for a small piece of the product is like buying a car but only getting part of the car and having to pay more money to get the rest of the engine. He expresses these criticisms about Adobe, which frankly, I have no idea if it's true, but it seems like he went on a rant about this in the past. Then he mentions, "I had a lunch recently with Bob [whatever] at Adobe," and he actually gives their full name. He leads up to this part about Adobe and mentions that Bob agreed with him that they need to fix it and that they're working on fixing it. So anyway, he actually gives almost more advice and his opinions on what I think are current events. I'm not well-versed enough with Adobe, but it seems like current events. It's pretty magical.

Shaan Puri

It's amazing! Yeah, this basically was like "bring back someone from the dead" technology. Ben, do you have anything to add? You're a history guy. What did this... like, do you have anything that you felt when you watched this?

Ben Wilson

I really agree with Sam. It made me oddly emotional listening to it. It also scared me a little bit just because I thought of the application of, like, "What if you did this to my grandpa?" and what emotions that would bring back. That frightened me, thinking, "Oh, I don't know if that's a good thing to be able to experience." As a representation of my grandpa, that would feel like the real thing but isn't. Right? Where are these thoughts coming from? So, it's equal parts really compelling and really cool. It's like a treat to be able to hear what I think is a pretty accurate representation of how Steve Jobs would approach some of these things that are happening today. But then, it's also just scary to realize that it's not really him. What is it really?

Shaan Puri

Well, it's like a video, right? Today, you could watch a home video and see their face, hear their voice. It's captured a moment in time. To me, this is an extension of that, which is somewhat interactive. You can kind of interact with these people or hear them talk about new things. You know that it's not like the real thing, but there's a "Black Mirror" episode that's a lot like this. In that episode, the woman uploads her boyfriend's consciousness to a robot. She's kind of still dating him even though he's gone, but there's the shadow of him that can simulate him. I think there's more good than bad. Sam, what do you want to say?

Sam Parr

Yeah, so let me add two points about why this is going to get even stranger. Well, the first is almost scary. Basically, in 1985, here is a quote from Steve Jobs: "My hope is someday when the next Aristotle is alive, we can capture the underlying worldview of that Aristotle in a computer. Someday, some student will not only be able to read the words Aristotle wrote but ask Aristotle a question and get an answer." Steve Jobs wrote that in '85, which is interesting. Now, here's where things get really interesting from that.

Shaan Puri

because that's that's what he is what he's what just hap what he just described is what just happened to him

Sam Parr

It's magical! Now, here's where things are going to get even more magical. So, Play Dot AI or Play.ht... I want to mention that part of their website allows you to actually vote for new episodes. Some of the top episodes that people have voted for include: - Elon Musk interviewing Nikola Tesla - Kanye West and Bob Marley talking about music - Jesus interviewing God - Einstein and Buddha having a conversation on science and spirituality

Shaan Puri

like that trump interviews himself

Sam Parr

Trump interviews himself. There's Lex Fridman interviewing Richard Feynman. Then there's Joe Rogan mediating peace between Russia and the U.S. That sounds like a joke, and it is a joke, but it's actually an interesting tool.

Steve Jobs

yeah

Sam Parr

Where you're like, "Well, let's hear Joe Rogan. Let's see if Joe Rogan can bring together these two different people and hear each other's perspective." We'll actually find out where one of them is coming from, even if it's make-believe. But it will still be like, "Maybe that is actually how they feel," and I could work through this argument. So that's why this stuff is actually really, really interesting and powerful.