Down Round

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an interesting little announcement this week: the company has mitigated mental health concerns on its platform... and it's ready to let its users generate erotica.

Now that might seem a little strange to you. Most of the internet had a similar response, actually. In this episode, we talk more about one of our favourite pet topics — weird parasocial relationships with the computer, and how the various AI labs are treating this problem. (Or should we say opportunity?)

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This week, Down Round is diving into the world of parenting and technology — everything from the various devices and gizmos targeted at parents, through to the algorithm that swamps your feed the moment you become a new parent. 

Joining us to help us understand the deep mysteries of the mumgorithm is Humyara Mahbub of the Baby Shoes podcast, who is a world-renowned expert in ads on Instagram for crap you don't need. 

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Vibes are up this week.

Alexandr Wang, the former Scale AI CEO who now runs Meta's new multi-billion dollar Superintelligence unit, has announced one of their first products: What if TikTok but only AI slop?

Vibes is a feed full of AI videos. That sounds like an idiotic thing to put the greatest and highest paid minds of our generation onto. Unless?

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We all know that Meta wants to replace the smartphone with smartglasses, and be the king of the AI device game. Well, they're one step closer to their sci-fi dream with the announcement of the Meta Rayban Display.

In this ep, we dive into the announcement, and how things are coming together on the device front for Zuckerberg and Co.

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Oracle. Unless you're a big database guy, it's probably not a company you're going to be all that interested in. But it is one of the biggest companies on Earth, and its stock just pumped 40% — not something you often see for an outfit which started in the 1970s.

Why? Because it just signed a $300 billion multiyear deal with OpenAI to provide compute. In this ep, we dive into the big question on literally eveeryone's lips: what the hell is up with Oracle?

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Apple have announced their new iPhones — and they sort of stink of desperation. But one of them is orange, which may or may not appeal to you. Plus, a notable absence of Apple Intelligence chat. 

The boys are back in the same room after a prolonged interregnum and break it all down for you.

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We're dipping into the world of streaming and East Asian cultural dominance today, talking about Netflix's smash hit movie K-Pop Demon Hunters.

We talk about the pandemic era deal struck between Sony and Netflix, what this means for the streaming landscape, and whether it would have been as much of a cultural phenomenon if it was a traditional cinematic release.

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A big topic of conversation Down Under over the past couple of weeks has been copyright — namely, whether we should loosen the rules to make it easier for AI companies to operate in Australia, and for data centre companies to build here. The Productivity Commission and Tech Council boss Scott Farquhar think we should. Creatives are less enthused.

We go into the dynamics of the conversation, the asymmetry between the parties, and answer the question once and for all: how much money do artists deserve??

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After many months of hype and news stories, OpenAI has released GPT-5, the next major numbered iteration of its large language model. There have been all sorts of models since it released GPT-4 in 2023, but this is supposed to be the big dog.

In this ep, we talk about the rocky launch — starting with the fact that most people aren't that impressed with it, and ending with the much weirder world of people who developed an emotional attachment to GPT-4o and became furious that their friend is gone.

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Today James is joined by previous Down Round guest Cam Wilson, who has written a new book with (another former Down Round guest) Ariel Bogle, Conspiracy Nation, which is about the Australian conspiracy community.

While Raph is living it up on the coastline of Croatia, James and Cam had a freewheeling chat about online conspiracy culture, how it has engaged with online platforms, and the future of going crazy on the computer in the age of AI. Also, we check in on Australia's teen social media ban.

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