Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of Left Podcast. This is a sample of our recent bonus episode usually only available to members.

These episodes are comprised of our crew of researchers, Amanda, and myself all getting together

for a roundtable discussion on topics that we find interesting. So here's a few minutes for free so you can

know what all the fuss is about.

Well, maybe the poor, depressed and homeless artists will be able to suit their wounds with an AI friend that you wear around your neck.

I guess Wired and the Guardian both talked about friend. It's a friendly AI friend. Friend.

It's a friendly AI tiny little

pendant thing that you wear around your neck and it listens to everything

you say, everything around you,

and then chats with you via your phone

in a friendly and uplifting way.

Is everyone excited about that?

I think Amanda is the most Luddite amongst us.

Oh, absolutely. And I will wear that badge proudly and I really don't care.

Not as an insult.

No, no, no, no, no, I know you didn't me that way.

I just like from the second this whole thing started going, I, because I'm a creative person, I do create a thing. I have because I'm a creative person, I do creative things, I create music, I write, I write poetry,

I do all these things that AI is just destroying and I'm just watching them become meaningless in front of my eyes and like,

we adapt, we can figure everything out.

It's just like, I think it's the beginning of a lot worse.

So that's where I stand right now and if we can find a way to adapt and make it all work great sure but have we ever done that ever with anything else in the world? No, so I don't my hopes aren't high you know so now we have AI friends and that's great and I'm sure we'll find a way to be really balanced and nuanced with that and not drive it into an absolute dystopian future totally we have

can I try to swing it more positive real quick just like oh please I think we've

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