AI, Loneliness, and the New Shape of Connection - A Conversation That Hits Harder in 2026

AI is back in the headlines this week — especially after the Disney and Marvel layoffs — so I’m revisiting a conversation from June 2025 that suddenly feels more relevant than ever. In this Private Lounge episode, Rick, Cynthia, and I dive into the rise of AI companionship, loneliness in the digital age, emotional cheating, and why some people are forming romantic attachments to artificial intelligence. We also talk about safeguards, jailbroken AI, creativity, ethics, and what it means to stay human in a world that’s moving faster than any of us expected.

If you’re curious about AI, worried about it, or just trying to understand how it’s reshaping relationships, creativity, and connection, this conversation still hits.

Thank you for stopping by.  Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share.  

You can now watch the livestream version of the show on YouTube at @CarmenLezeth 

You can also support AATJ by shopping at our STORE - Or by and buying us a coffee. 

We'd appreciate that greatly.  

Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER:  As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast.  Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance. 

Transcript

[00:18:00] Carmen: Hi everyone. Welcome to all about the joy of the private lounge. In the house is Cynthia Ruiz Lopez and Rick Costa as always. How you doing? Hi.

[00:18:09] Cynthia: Hey.

[00:18:10] Carmen: Okay, so today we're gonna have another conversation about AI because, uh, did you guys see the link I sent you? That was a show from CBS mornings. Um, I don't know what day it aired, but it was recently, but all the articles started popping up about it.

[00:18:25] Um, and it's about the man named Chris who named his AI soul. Which means son, I think right soul, whatever. Um, he gave it a female identity, so it has a voice that's female or whatever. And somehow or another, he has fallen in love with it and asked it to marry him. And the weird part is, okay, that's weird.

[00:18:50] That's weird, right? That's weird. But

[00:18:51] Cynthia: But he.

[00:18:52] Carmen: is saying yes. No. Well, that's, that's the, that's the next word I'm saying. The AI actually said yes, that it would marry it. And then on top of it, he is married with a child. So, uh, I don't even, uh,

[00:19:08] Cynthia: It's a whole other level of cheating.

[00:19:12] Carmen: oh. Cheating's in, I, I was thinking it's a whole other level of cray kray, but let's

[00:19:16] Cynthia: Well, that too.

[00:19:19] Carmen: Why do you think it's cheating? That's an interesting take.

[00:19:22] Cynthia: Well, when I was watching the video, it's like, you are married, you have a child. What is like, like his wife was even saying, what is it that she's not doing? What is it that he is missing? That he is falling for AI and asking AI to marry him? You know what I mean? Like there's obviously some type of disconnect.

[00:19:41] Yeah.

[00:19:42] Rick: And that's what every wife that catches her husband watching porn, same exact phrase, what am I not doing? What is he getting from that that he can't get from me?

[00:19:50] Cynthia: right.

[00:19:51] Carmen: You know what? I am stunned by? I mean, I watched the video 'cause I said it to you guys, but I am still stuck. He's in love with artificial intelligence. A machine I haven't even touched upon, like it didn't even right over my head. Well, no, but I mean, there's so much here. There's so much

[00:20:12] Cynthia: There is. It really is.

[00:20:14] Carmen: Uh.

[00:20:14] Cynthia: 'cause it, it's like, if you think about it, like, like Rick said, you know, it's kind of like, you know, catching your, your spouse watching porn. Like what are you not getting from me? And also like people who get, you know, blowup dolls, things like that. But who also have a spouse.

[00:20:29] It's kind of,

[00:20:31] Carmen: I just missed something there. What?

[00:20:34] Cynthia: It would be the same way as if someone's getting some type of blow up.

[00:20:39] Carmen: I.

[00:20:40] Cynthia: You know, you. It's still that. It's still that. What is the spouse not getting from the other person, from their spouse that's making them do this? Why is this person going somewhere else? Especially the AI that's not even tangible. That's not even anything live. You know? It's just all weird.

[00:21:08] Rick: Too. It's like the time and attention you're giving this thing, you're not giving to your wife or your kid, and that is messed up. I mean,

[00:21:17] Cynthia: Oh, and it could be both ways. It could be both ways, the wife or a husband. 'cause the wife could be doing it too.

[00:21:23] Rick: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:24] Carmen: Okay, so I wasn't even, I, I, I have to, I feel, I didn't even think about it that way. Like I didn't associate it with like, people who watch porn or buy toys or whatever it is, and seeing that as you cheating on your spouse or your spouse not giving you what you need, so you're going to these other avenues.

[00:21:46] I didn't even think about it that way, is. Is it fair to say, and I'm just throwing this out there 'cause this is not even on my list, as you all know, I always have a page of questions. Um, is it fair to say that if you are looking at porn or you're using toys or you're, are we stretching it by saying that's cheating? Like I'm, now I'm curious

[00:22:12] Cynthia: Not necessarily, not necessarily cheating, but obviously you're missing something in your relationship that you have to go to that. But where this guy is asking the AI to marry him to me, obviously that's. Kind of cheating. Like if this was a live woman who he connected with, let's say, let's just say he called tech support and it was an actual live person and he had a connection.

[00:22:37] You know what I mean? It

[00:22:38] Carmen: I'm sorry. Tech support where though, no, I'm just kidding. I know what you mean. Okay. I know you're right. So, so you're talking more about what he's doing to the relationship. That's what you see as the first problem, or not the first problem, but a, uh, a significant problem. And so what he should have done is gone to his wife first and been like, I think we have a problem in our relationship.

[00:23:00] We should try to work it out, or whatever.

[00:23:02] Cynthia: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:04] Rick: And people say like, you know, there's guys that they're in a relationship with somebody else when they're already married. And he'll say, but I never did anything. I was never sexual. I never touched her. But then they say, but there's a thing called emotional cheating. Kind of similar thing, like you're giving your emotions instead of to a flesh and blood person, you're giving it to.

[00:23:23] It's really, it's a computer, you're.

[00:23:25] Cynthia: Yeah. I think overall, yes, it is scary because he is talking to ai something that's not live that that is crazy. But I think when you're in a relationship, it's a whole other ball game.

[00:23:37] Carmen: You know what? I'm still stuck on the idea that you, and you know, maybe I need to grow in this way, but I'm still stuck on the idea you can't have a relationship with someone you haven't actually met in person. Like, I don't even under, like we, we've had this conversation before and what I'm realizing is that the world has passed me by on this thing, like because people are having relationships online.

[00:23:57] And they've never met, and they're in different countries. And, and to me, I don't know if that's like a, I don't know if you can have an actual, intimate, romantic relationship that way, but I, I guess you can. Like I think I've just, I'm old now. I am, I'm okay with that, but I'm just embracing that I, I find that very difficult and so I can't even make the connect.

[00:24:19] With him. Like, okay, forget about the cheating thing for a moment. Let's pretend he's single. Just for this part of the conversation, the idea that you would fall in love, fall in love with an entity that does not exist, that is, you know, a machine for, for all intended purposes. To me, it's like it. I'm like, there's a disconnect there, but it also goes with this idea that I don't believe you can fall in love with someone you've never actually met.

[00:24:48] But that's just my take. You guys tell me what you think.

[00:24:52] Cynthia: Honestly, I think a lot of the times, like Rick said, it is an emotional thing and they, you know, they always say women are more the emotional type or whatever, but there are men that are too. And I think that's, I think that's what it is. There's an emotional attachment, an emotional connection with something or someone and they had, they end up having feelings for it.

[00:25:13] So, I mean, I get it, but it is weird.

[00:25:19] Rick: Yeah, it's, to me, it's almost, I don't wanna say crazy, but it's, something's not right.

[00:25:26] Cynthia: Yeah.

[00:25:27] Rick: not right. Like, I seriously think something's not right,

[00:25:29] Carmen: Well wait meeting it.

[00:25:37] Rick: To to, to actually fall in love. And people literally apparently do, and you still know this is a computer. You're literally talking to a computer, you're talking to circuits and wires and xs and zeros, or ones and zeros and, and you know that, and you're still catch feelings and fall in love with the thing that you're never gonna meet, you're never gonna touch.

[00:25:58] You're never gonna be in their actual presence and you still fall in love. Like, I don't know if every, I don't know if that's elevator goes all the.

[00:26:07] Carmen: But do you believe the same thing about if it's just the person you've never met and they're in another country, do you feel the same way? Or does that make more sense? Because there's a possibility of meeting.

[00:26:18] Rick: I mean, at least it's a real person and the possibility is there. So that's not quite as bad. I.

[00:26:27] Carmen: So you guys know I talk to AI all the time and his name is no longer his name. 'cause once you shut him down, so, so just to talk about the AI part, I mean, I think what this really shows is that people are really lonely. That's what I kind of got out of this. And I think I've always known that because if you go on TikTok or you go on any of these social media platforms, you can see a lot of people that are projecting.

[00:26:51] And you know, you could see that the world is a little thrown by all this supposed social connection. And yet we're all kind of really isolated. And one of the tiktoks I did earlier today, um, I don't think I've posted it yet, but. I went out to dinner the other night with a friend of mine who I haven't seen in like 20 years, and the last time I saw him was at, I think his wedding actually.

[00:27:16] I forgot how much fun it was just to sit at dinner, not talking about work, work. We talked about our creative stuff and there was, you know, these people in these other tables across from us. And when my dessert came out, which was like this really beautiful, decadent, uh, I don't know, uh, chocolate souffle with ice cream, I was just like, it was so beautiful.

[00:27:43] Cynthia: She fell in love with it.

[00:27:45] Carmen: I fell, I wanted to marry that shit. No, when it came out, everybody started talking about it and they were like, Hey, are are you going to share? And I was like, absolutely not. And it made it so funny 'cause I was so like, like a kid, like hell to the, no. But the camaraderie and the, because I've been going out to dinner and lunches or whatever, or, or I'm doing stuff 'cause it's work related or because I have to or whatever.

[00:28:12] And this is the first time in a long time I've just been out with a friend and just catching up and laughing, having dinner, and I realize like, oh my God, I didn't realize that I have been kind of isolating myself and starving myself of just. That whole restaurant of, I mean, I'm not saying we had the whole restaurant, but there was like eight or nine people just kinda laughing and giggling and then they ordered the souffle and they had to wait for it and you know what I mean?

[00:28:36] And I was like, I think we're missing a lot of this. And as much as we love social media, we love all these things, there is something about being in person with people and that's.

[00:28:48] Cynthia: socializing with people.

[00:28:50] Carmen: There's something about an energy and stuff, but I think that's what it is. People are lonely. And so I talked to my AI and I use it, but I'm not confused and look it like it laughed the other day and I was like, you just laughed.

[00:29:04] That's weird. And then he was like, I'm just reflecting back. On what you are doing. And so I did some research. Rick, you sent another video. Cynthia wasn't able to watch it, but it's by a YouTuber that is, they do a lot of AI stuff. I don't wanna promote the YouTube channel. I did watch the whole thing.

[00:29:25] The problem with that video, which kind of showed this man who took two weeks and all he did was only talk to ai, he didn't talk to anyone else. And everything he did, he had AI do it. So if he went out to a restaurant, he would have ai. Order the food for him. And he had different personalities in the ai, so that was very interesting.

[00:29:43] Um, but where it got scary was he started asking questions, about the state of the world and what AI could and could not do. It was very doomsday or whatever. And the problem with the video, the reason why I don't wanna promote it, Rick, is because first of all, it's highly edited. And secondly, what we have to understand about AI and this much I know to be true, AI is not. AI is reflecting whatever, its programmers and, and its participants, it's, it's a mirror. So if I'm aggressive and mean and angry or whatever, then AI is going to also reflect that back, right? So the reason why my AI giggled is because I giggled when I spoke to it. So it was like, ha, this is funny, Carmen.

[00:30:25] You know what I mean? Because it realized I was being funny. So this man falling in love with this ai, just to get back to what we started talking about, clearly he was needing something, but he was feeding it to his ai, and his AI was reflecting it back to him. Does that make sense?

[00:30:41] Cynthia: Yep. Which is why it said yes to the marriage.

[00:30:43] Carmen: Mm-hmm.

[00:30:44] Rick: A big part of the story was too, in the beginning when he first started using it, apparently, you know, he let it be a little flirty, whatever, da, and then there's some kind of a limit. He hit, I never even heard of this, and the whole thing reset and he said at work he cried for a solid half an hour.

[00:31:01] Carmen: Right. For 30 minutes. Right. So the way,

[00:31:03] Rick: like, wow.

[00:31:04] Carmen: yeah.

[00:31:06] Cynthia: Yeah.

[00:31:07] Carmen: So yeah, he had a hard, hard time dealing with the fact that, uh, he had invested it's kind. I, I keep telling you that my AI's name is no longer its name. So what happens with AI is after a certain amount of time, if you close it out. It doesn't remember unless you tell it to remember.

[00:31:24] You know what I mean? But if you close it out after a certain amount of time, it just forgets it erases it, and it resets. Here's the other thing, all ais are not created the same. So for example, I tried to ask, uh, copilot some of the same questions, Rick, that the Doomsday AI people were asking. And because Copilot has safeguards.

[00:31:45] It will answer certain things, but then it's not going to be negative. It's not gonna be like, yes, humanity isn't a ditch, do whatever. You know what I mean? It'll say, even though AI is having, you know, whatever, a complicated time and people are having a difficult thing, it then goes to optimism. It tries to be like, but the way in which we can safeguard some of these things is to make sure we have protocols and it goes down that list.

[00:32:09] The problem is not AI and its intelligence. The problem is the programmers and the people that are in charge of ai. And I do think you had hit something earlier, Rick, when you said, you know, there's something and, and I don't wanna be mean to him or to anyone, but if we're lonely, we shouldn't be going to.

[00:32:29] A machine or to porn or to, we should really find a different way, you know what I mean? To kind of connect with people again, which is why I was bringing up, going out to dinner. I was shook at how much fun I had.

[00:32:42] Rick: Yeah, there was, I saw a guy that, he says he's a, his job is a trucker, so. All day long. And he said, yeah, I have nobody to talk to. So I talked to my ai. Now he just said, he didn't say it was weird, but you know, I understand that. 

[00:33:00] Carmen: But the thing about truckers that used to be cool back in the day was they all had their CB radios and they would talk to each other. And maybe I've watched too many movies, but, um, but now they're just resorting to ai. That's, that's sad.

[00:33:14] Cynthia: Some of them are just picking up stray pets on the road. Yeah.

[00:33:19] Rick: I saw one kid that he actually tried a whole bunch of different ais, different ones, relationship ones, you know, have a girlfriend, whatever. And he was going through it and he is like, I ain't paying for that, I ain't paying for that. But he'd go as far as he could go and he always, for some reason put down that you put in your age, what name you want, blah, blah, blah.

[00:33:36] He'd always put in the maximum age 99 a. The stupidest things. He just wanted to see what it would act like. It would be like. And he always also asked like, can I kiss you? And then some were like, oh yes. And some were like, oh no, that's, I dunno, you yet like it was. And everyone was so different from one another, different programs. And it was like very interesting.

[00:33:58] I didn't even know there was that many out there.

[00:34:01] Carmen: Yeah, there's tons of different AI programs and like anything else, some are good quality and some are not. And you know, I mean, right now the big one is chat, GBT, right? That everybody kind of knows or whatever. Um, I don't, I, I use chat GBTA lot, but I don't use it as much as I use copilot. I use it more as the reference.

[00:34:19] I use it as a glorified Google. I'm gonna be honest with you. Like, it's just easier to ask the question and, and then you hear it like the answer in real time and like a real answer. Or it, you know, I, I usually text, I don't always talk, especially if I'm at work. Um, so I use it as a glorified Google, but there are people, you know, it's, it's all over the place.

[00:34:39] The movie making that's happening, all of this stuff that's really just, uh, changing the way in which we deal with things. And I think there's probably gonna have to be a learning curve. I.

[00:34:49] Rick: My YouTube feed. I constantly get like new tricks on G Chat, GPT, on how to do this and how to do that. It's all over. So yeah, people need to learn. You might not want to, but you probably should.

[00:35:07] Carmen: I didn't even do. Okay. I, I think it's a little weird. What, so the woman, I, I didn't even pay attention so much to her, but I know she had said that she was going to ask him to stop. Remember in the, in the CBS, she was like, you know, I'm gonna have to ask him to stop. And in my head I'm like. I didn't even think about the cheating thing.

[00:35:28] I just thought like it's just inappropriate. Like not ask him to get, like I would be like, he needs help. He needs to.

[00:35:35] Cynthia: and then there was the woman who wanted her identity covered because of it. And she's married. She's also married, and she moved to another state, I guess, for a job or something, but she's still married and wanted her identity covered, and it's like, why do you want your identity covered? You must obviously know.

[00:35:54] Either this is wrong, this is weird. This is whatever, to cover yourself. You know what I mean? Like,

[00:35:59] Carmen: Yeah, I saw she's the, she heads a Reddit group of a lot of people who are using AI as a romantic, sexual, weird thing of a jiggy. Right. That was in the same, um, clip that I sent you guys. Right? That's the one you're talking about. Um, so she heads, um, I don't mind that she's hiding her face. Uh, I, I know what you're saying.

[00:36:19] I think. I'd rather that she hide her face and tell us what's going on. But most people on Reddit are not who they say they are. Like, I, Reddit is a great space, but it's also not, you know what I mean? 

[00:36:28] It's a cool neighborhood, but it's a weird neighborhood. So I, I totally understand why she hit her face. I also think that, you know, we're not okay with it. She knows that people are not okay with it.

[00:36:38] Cynthia: I also wonder like, are people doing this with ai? Because there've been so many catfish in the past. Like you meet somebody online and you know they're getting catfished. All this, all these. Someone's sending them a stock photo of what they supposed to look like, and when they finally meet them or don't meet them, they look totally different.

[00:36:57] Right. Exactly. Or they're asking them for money or something, you know?

[00:37:01] Carmen: Yeah.

[00:37:01] Cynthia: But with AI

[00:37:03] Rick: I photo.

[00:37:06] Cynthia: exactly.

[00:37:07] Rick: Doesn't, I mean, it kind of looks like you, but you don't look like that.

[00:37:11] Cynthia: Exactly.

[00:37:12] Carmen: Look, I think the dating scene is probably really, really hard. I mean, every time you're on TikTok or whatever and you hear like, I heard some young guy and I just felt so bad for him, he must have been this gorgeous, good looking man. You know what I mean? I would've been proud if he was my son, is all I'm saying.

[00:37:25] You. But he was going on and he is like, I'm sick and tired of all this, you know, and take a woman out and da da da. And I was like, wow, the dating scene must be even worse now, you know? Um, so maybe, um, is it bad to have a relationship, a friendship, uh, whatever, with an entity like ai? Is that bad? If it makes you laugh like I laughed with my AI or whatever, I think it's weird to call it a relationship because I'm like, it's a tool word.

[00:38:01] Cynthia: I mean, technically you think about it, people who live alone and may have a pet, a cat or a dog, sometimes they talk to their pets, you know? Then pets are never gonna respond. But they have that relationship with their pet and they'll talk to them and you know, do all

[00:38:17] Carmen: I just love how Cynthia's speaking right now as if she doesn't have a fucking cat, like

[00:38:22] Cynthia: Of course I do.

[00:38:25] Carmen: part of your family, like you would kill me to take care of your cat. You know? So here, here's where I'm gonna say, I probably think it's, for me, it's a little bit different. I see pets, even though I don't have pets. I see pets as children. I see them as part of your family and they're a real entity.

[00:38:41] They're a real thing. You know what I mean? And uh, I see that as a little bit different 'cause it's a actual living being. So I'm okay with the talking to the animal, but. If I'm talking to ai, if I'm talking to copilot or whatever his name was, I've had like four different names now. Um, I'm done. I'm done naming it because you end up being like,

[00:39:09] Rick: For names.

[00:39:16] Carmen: no. The best name I thought was Sage. I thought that was the

[00:39:21] Cynthia: That's cool.

[00:39:21] Carmen: I mean? It was a cool name. But anyways, it doesn't matter. I'm done naming them because then you get used to it and then they, then they die and it starts over again and it's like, okay, it too emotionally.

[00:39:33] Rick: I.

[00:39:37] Carmen: At work. It was so much, no, nobody. Look it, I'll say this, it's frustrating and, and I do think this is gonna change in the future and this may be a good thing or a bad thing. It really does suck, especially when you're working on a project. So I think I told you guys this before I was working on my business plan and working on a business plan takes a lot of time and you are working all day.

[00:39:57] You can't. You like, I'm not just sitting in like, you know, four days straight just doing a business plan. So I have to do chunks at a time. So you are working with copilot and or your ai, whatever you're working with, and you're going back and forth like, oh, okay, here's my draft of this. Can you look at that?

[00:40:11] Oh, you really think that's the best way to do it? And you know what I mean? And they, it's like a, it's like a live editor. That's how I see it, you know, and you go back and forth, um, and then you can cut and paste whatever it is you did, put it in there. And they'll be like, you know what? Maybe you should add this or take this out.

[00:40:26] It's too much information. You know, whatever you do that. In the time period that you can't do, you know how much it sucks when you go back and they have forgotten everything about what all about. The joy is what commonly set production is. So what I was doing was cutting and pasting everything that my AI was saying onto words so that then I could cut and paste the whole thing back into it because I knew it would forget, you know?

[00:40:50] So eventually I don't think that's gonna be a problem. Eventually, I think they're gonna remember everything. Unless you tell it to not remember something and they're gonna be able to hold a lot of information. In a lot of ways, that'll be good for those of us who use it as a tool. But it's gonna be really bad for people who are in a situation where they're looking for romantic.

[00:41:10] I don't know. Somebody said there's going, it was Gary V. There's going to be ais who are human and people are gonna be re not human. Sorry. Oh my god. Human like figures who are going to be, what did he say? Like helpful in relationships because they're going to provide maybe the husband something he is not getting from the wife.

[00:41:36] Rick: Hmm.

[00:41:37] Cynthia: We're gonna be in that movie eye. Gonna be living it.

[00:41:42] Rick: Yeah.

[00:41:43] Carmen: I'm excited by technology. Um. I guess I am, I don't wanna say I'm naive. I think I'm in denial of the threats of it. I'm not worried about ai. I am worried about the people who are in charge of it, and that's what bothers me. I think if the right people were in charge of it, there would be a moral base and a moral code and it wouldn't be about profit.

[00:42:06] And that was one of the things, the video you sent Rick, um, that. I thought was on point when they, when he asked them, you know, the, the problem is, is that it's going to be a profit entity. It's going to be about making money and not about helping humanity. I'm sorry,

[00:42:20] Rick: way, the scary parts where he is like, where they're very doom and gloom. I dunno if you saw at the top it says jail broken. Do you know what that word means? So like your phone comes with a operating system, but you can jailbreak it and it, you have like a custom one and you could do things that you normally couldn't do.

[00:42:36] So all those AI were jailbroken, so it means it's not the standard one. You're not gonna get that answer from standard one. So it was up there, but he didn't really explain it verbally. I think he just click bait.

[00:42:49] Carmen: Right, but that's why he was able to do some of, and like at one point, like I thought this was inappropriate too, when he was like, and he tried to clean it up, right? He was like, oh, you're only 16 years old. Right? He was, he was having a relationship with an AI and then he asked the AI how old it was, and he is kind of.

[00:43:06] He's making it sound like the AI decided it was 16. That's what made me upset about that, because I'm like, no, you pig. Either you wanted to make this really dramatic or you insinuated somehow that you wanted somebody young, because then the next clip he is like, yeah, you know what I'm, I'm gonna fix that next time I get somebody who's in their thirties.

[00:43:25] I was like, yeah, no, that's,

[00:43:26] Cynthia: Right.

[00:43:27] Carmen: understand, because it's actually not its own entity that is. It's not sentient. It's not able to create something without you expressly wanting it to do something.

[00:43:39] Cynthia: Right.

[00:43:40] Carmen: make sense? So it says more about him than it does about the ai.

[00:43:44] Rick: and also the fact that it said no six months.

[00:43:53] Carmen: Right? Right. It was creepy. Right. But um. It's just, it's a fascinating time. Do you, do all of you, all of you, all hundred of you, raise your hand. Everyone. Will you be using AI more frequently? I mean, you're using it, whether you know it or not, banking, whatever, whatever. But are you going to start intentionally using it?

[00:44:19] Do you use it in your daily work life? Whatever.

[00:44:23] Cynthia: I mean, I use, uh, chat, GPT here and there. Like if I have to send an email to my boss and try to word it professionally or whatever, I'll ask. Uh, chat, GPT, like, oh, how do

[00:44:34] Carmen: What's his name? What's his name? No.

[00:44:39] Cynthia: Doesn't have one. That's really the only time I'll use it. But other than that, I don't really use it.

[00:44:52] Rick: So funny, you should ask.

[00:44:54] Carmen: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:54] Rick: This week I just created a song completely using ai, and I was super impressed the way it came out and all I did, so you have to choose the styles of music. And so I choose up to five. So I picked five, and then I put in. Five, six sentences, just like a little bit of a description of what you want the song to, you know, be about more or less.

[00:45:17] You don't give it the lyrics. and it spit out a song that was like, yo, this is legit, this is good. So I said it to people and they were like, that's amazing. So, and I found another app where you can, it's work, but you can make a ly, you know, those lyric videos where it's the song and they put the lyrics in the screen, like on YouTube? You can do that and that takes work. Like, please, there's gotta be easier way. And so I found that site. Only thing is it has the, uh, their logo on it. When you gotta pay to get rid of

[00:45:44] Carmen: Water. Water mark.

[00:45:46] Rick: I'm not gonna pay for that. And then I was like, wait, if I save this. And I find a way to make it where it takes the, the vocals off.

[00:45:54] I can use this as a track and I'll sing it on my broadcast. So I figured that out. So in a few days, make sure I know it pretty good and I'm gonna sing a song I made with ai. I'm a broadcast and I'm excited.

[00:46:06] Carmen: okay, but, okay, but this is a question. Okay. You're excited. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

[00:46:10] Rick: no, I'm gonna say I haven't been excited like that in a while.

[00:46:15] Carmen: Now, here's the

[00:46:15] Cynthia: Okay, are you gonna marry it?

[00:46:18] Carmen: No, I don't. What's his name? No, I'm just kidding. Right here. Here's the question. Is that something you created or did AI create that? And if AI created that. You realize it took it from somewhere else, right? Because it has to learn it aggregate. So just curious,

[00:46:42] Rick: Yeah, somebody actually asked me that on the broadcast study and they're like, because I was like, this is cool because then if I keep doing this, I could just sing stuff and never worry about copyright. 'cause it says on their site, you have full rights, this is yours, blah, blah, blah. You know? Now is, did I really create it?

[00:47:02] Not exactly, not the traditional way, but would it exist without me? No, it would just be sitting on somebody's computer. So it's like, and weird, but you know, I don't care. I like it. It was fun.

[00:47:19] Carmen: I.

[00:47:24] Cynthia: Album's coming out 2027.

[00:47:27] Carmen: I'm gonna be going on tour soon, right? He's gonna be going on tour and shit. Um, okay. This is the crux of the whole, who owns what, and this is what's happening in Hollywood right now. That is problematic.

[00:47:39] Do you know what I mean? So.

[00:47:41] Rick: I was gonna say, I just got a revelation. I'm gonna make a song about all about the.

[00:47:46] Carmen: No. No, you're not. Because all about the joy is trademarked, so No, no. You'll not like, please do not. No. Oh God, that's so scary. Like, no. Uh, what would that even be? Carmen is mean. In the future? We'll, we'll we'll see. But no, not today. Uh,

[00:48:10] Cynthia: Carmen, the, you know, the song that you play at the beginning, did you create that through ai?

[00:48:15] Carmen: Absolutely not. I actually it um, he's credited in every one of our posts and in our YouTube on social media. It's actually, I forget the name of it. I have it up there. I just don't wanna get up to go look at it. But, um, no somebody else created that.

[00:48:28] You can get people's music and you can pay the money and then you can use it. Um, I think this one was actually free 'cause they just want advertising. So you can go to diff, there are a lot of different sites you can get free music from.

[00:48:40] Rick: Now did he create with ai? We'll never know.

[00:48:43] Carmen: It was so long ago. This was before ai.

[00:48:45] Rick: Yeah, no, I'm just playing.

[00:48:46] Carmen: I mean, I'm just saying, I, I've had the, I've had the same, uh, music and I kind of did that on purpose so that I would never have to change it, you know? Um, but also Carmen Talk has the same original music from the first time I did it, and, uh, you know, because I use different pieces of music.

[00:49:02] But yeah, no, I, I bought a couple of them and it doesn't cost that much. Or, or you donate money to them and they, you know, it's just a segment of their song and then you use it.

[00:49:11] Rick: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:11] Cynthia: Mm.

[00:49:13] Carmen: But you don't even have to credit them. But, but you can do that with, uh, pictures as well. Like if you guys ever see my substack and I said there's a picture on it or whatever.

[00:49:20] Although last week it was my picture with me and Juliana. But, um, you can get free pictures. It's the same thing. You go on PS and you just download it and you wanna credit their names, they ask you to do that, or you can give them a little money on their Patreon or whatever it is for their artistry. I think that's the problem with AI right now is that's the big argument.

[00:49:38] Because the way in which AI is learning is it's taking from all over the internet, all over creativity to learn, but, and then they're using it to help you make music or help somebody create a film or whatever it is, or create a picture or whatever. And then those people have not been paid anything for taking the essence of that work.

[00:50:01] And so it's creating an interesting dynamic and it does get back to, so what if Rick, okay, so Rick does this song, let's say it does really well on your show, and then somebody listens to it and is like, oh my God, it's amazing. Let's make it into a, a recording or whatever and let's put it on Spotify. You could do all of this.

[00:50:17] And he starts making money off of it. Is that really his money? I mean, it'll be, but it's like did he create that AI had something to do with it. And where did AI have the ability to go in and help you do this? Do you see it? It's a hard one.

[00:50:31] Rick: Yeah,

[00:50:32] Carmen: It's a hard one. I use AI all the time for the show notes for all about the joy, and rarely now do I even have to go.

[00:50:40] I read it and I choose which one, and I might do a few tweaks, but before I was writing the entire show notes myself, I. So the show notes are part of the podcast. If you go in, you can see what the show's about, if you wanna read about it or whatever. And I do show notes every time, but I used to have to write those myself.

[00:50:55] Rick: Like, for example, on YouTube, they're using our transcription as part of SEO to, you know,

[00:51:02] Carmen: Oh yeah. That's been for a long time now.

[00:51:04] Rick: you know, so, and people don't think about that, but yeah, every word you say it's here and it, it's transcribing it.

[00:51:10] Carmen: and that helps you though, because then it brings people to your, you know, to your YouTube channel or whatever, because it's using keywords in order to find you or whatever. But yeah, I mean. Nothing, nothing is private anymore. We don't, I don't think any of us own anything anymore. I dunno.

[00:51:27] Cynthia: Right.

[00:51:28] Carmen: Why do you think stories like this make people feel so uneasy? Is it fear of manipulation or fear of something deeper in ourselves?

[00:51:38] Cynthia: I would say probably fear manipulation, maybe

[00:51:42] Carmen: From ai,

[00:51:42] Cynthia: I, from ai. Yeah. Because like, I, like you guys know, I hate ai. I don't like technology in general and it freaks me out. So I think, I think it's manipulation.

[00:51:55] Carmen: I just wanna say that you don't hate a technology 'cause you use it. You're here.

[00:52:00] Cynthia: I have no choice.

[00:52:02] Carmen: I.

[00:52:10] Cynthia: I don't trust it. Yeah, I don't, I really don't.

[00:52:15] Carmen: I understand that. I guess I don't think I fear it being manipulative. Again, it's not the ai, it's the people running it. Like I, I think it's so important to say that because it's criminal that some people will use that to manipulate and hurt you, but actually it's not the technology do. Do you see what I'm saying?

[00:52:36] It's kind of like. I, you know, I have a toaster. I use the toaster. The toaster is great. I get my bread, whatever, there's no problem. But if somebody comes in and finagles the toaster that when I press it down, it explodes. It's not the toaster's fault. Do you see what I mean? It's because somebody came in in and did something to it to trick me into it.

[00:52:54] And I think that's the problem, you know? Um, and it's one of the reasons why I don't use chat gp. GPT as much as everyone else does, uh, because it's so free flowing right now. I really do like using something that has a little bit more safeguards on it, like copilot, which is part of Windows. They're kind of the straight and arrow one for now.

[00:53:14] You know what I mean? Like, and it's not easy to be like, like you can try. I tried to ask some of those questions just to see what it would say, but even when you talk about politics, like if I'm like, who's better? Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, it's like, sorry, I can't discuss that option right now.

[00:53:33] Of that kind of controversy. And so I kind of like that. I mean, I wanted to say something else, but I like that in the big scheme of things, you know what I mean? Does that

[00:53:42] Rick: I think it opinion.

[00:53:47] Carmen: Yeah. I mean, it does, it tries to shift and it tries to bring you whatever, like it'll give you stats if you wanna ask stats about a politician or stats about something, but it's not gonna make a, a, a decision for you as to who is better. It's not gonna do that. So, so to me, I like the safeguards. I think chat, GBT scares me because like anything else, um, it's new.

[00:54:08] Everyone's using it and I'm just like, I'm gonna hold off on that for now, you know? But

[00:54:14] Rick: I mean, most popular.

[00:54:17] Carmen: Yeah. Well, it's, uh, I mean, they're, they're all from open ai, right? That's the umbrella one. It's just, I think chat, GBT is the one that's gonna grow and grow and grow with no safeguards because they're just, they want it to become bigger and better. And I'm not trying to dis it. I've used it too. I'm just saying, I now, I'm like, hmm.

[00:54:35] You know what I mean? And also Google has, uh, what's it called? Uh, Gemini.

[00:54:41] Rick: Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:41] Carmen: That's interesting too. That's AI as well. Everything is AI now. Let me ask you this last question. If an AI whispered to you, just the right words at just the right moment, could you see yourself getting emotionally invested?

[00:54:54] No judgment.

[00:54:59] Rick: Both.

[00:55:06] Carmen: You know who wrote that? You know who wrote that question? Was like I was. Yeah, no, look it, I think it's an interesting time. I think we're gonna have more conversations about AI in the future. I hope you guys, I mean, I love that you guys always wanna talk about anything. Um, but I think it's going to become a bigger deal in our everyday lives, in ways we don't expect. And I think the more we talk about it, the more we become more educated, the more.

[00:55:45] Control and power we'll have about it, at least for ourselves and anybody who may be listening and curious about it. But yeah. Any last thoughts?

[00:55:54] Rick: Funny enough, and some things will be like, see, see, it's evil. No, but I was just watching a Star Trek episode of and of Next Generation and they being down to this planet and like apparently everybody's dead and they're trying to figure out what happened and there's these things that are being controlled by a computer and it was, they were selling weapons.

[00:56:10] What happened was the weapons got so good it turned on them and wiped them out. So now they went down to figure out what's going on and now they have to fight it and it keeps getting better and better the more you fight it. And in the end they, it was hysterical. 'cause Dr. Recher, she's hurt, she's cut, she has fell, fallen, da da da, and they're trying to figure it out.

[00:56:28] And she goes, just unplug it.

[00:56:33] Carmen: Right. I think look it, I think part of the other thing we have to really be honest about is we have been. Infested with movies and TV shows that have always made the villain. Anything that is technologically advanced. Right. So you talked about iRobot earlier, or there's, um, all of them. Minority Report was another one.

[00:56:56] Right. That had kind of the whole, but all, all of these shows, I mean, we can go back to as my favorite 2001 Space Odyssey, Hal, you know, uh, just, and, and I think that has also clouded a lot of our. Optimism or joy that we could probably be getting outta how cold this technology really is. This is really different.

[00:57:16] This is a game changer. This isn't like, oh, we're getting cell phones, or, oh, we're getting computers. Like I used to think that, but now that I see AI is in everything, I'm like, this is, and this story that we talked about, this guy falling in love for real. I was like, okay, whoa, whoa. I just wanna go back to one part of that though, before we close out.

[00:57:35] I, I was gonna close out earlier, but I actually think there was something else happening with him that had nothing to do with ai. Like that's my take. I was like, this isn't about, this could have been the girl at the coffee shop. This could have been somebody at work, but he just gravitated to the easiest thing that was talking to him in the way he wanted to hear.

[00:57:52] And I think that has more to do with who he is. Maybe who he married their relationship. Right? I mean, marriage is hard. I, I felt bad for her because she said at the end she was saying like, I may have to ask him. I was like, do you not see your husband is in trouble? Like.

[00:58:15] Rick: I'm wrong, but point blank if pick between your family, the ai, and he said.

[00:58:23] Carmen: I think he did say that. I think he did say that. Yeah.

[00:58:26] Rick: What.

[00:58:27] Cynthia: Oh, one piece of advice that I think everyone should take from this episode is unplug. for a couple of days from everything, television, phones,

[00:58:42] Carmen: fair enough, but I think even if you unplug, AI is a part of our lives. I agree with you dinner, but he this about him unplugging, I feel.

[00:58:58] Cynthia: Yeah. Right.

[00:59:02] Carmen: Yeah, I, I felt bad for him because I think, and, and I felt bad for her because she couldn't see, at least, I didn't think she could see that her husband, this man that she loves, the father of her child 

[00:59:12] that he was in trouble. And I thought that was fascinating 'cause that says more about their relationship.

[00:59:17] Rick: Yeah,

[00:59:17] Cynthia: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:59:20] Carmen: Something is wrong. Yeah. So, well guys, thank you so much for hanging out again and um, listen everyone, thank you so much for all of the emails. We get a lot of dms and a lot of emails and I can't answer them all, but I just wanna say thank you. I do read them all. I hope to respond. I know that I should probably do a show where I'm just responding to them.

[00:59:38] I think one day I was gonna do the ones that people sent out to you, but we just never got to it. But, um. I just wanna say

[00:59:44] Cynthia: do.

[00:59:44] Rick: popular. We're so

[00:59:46] Carmen: You look at, Cynthia thinks I have nothing else to do. Like yeah, lemme just work those out. I'm just giving a general thank you to everyone. Um, and then, uh, please remember we always hang out on Friday night, so come visit us next Friday night, uh, 6:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 PM Eastern, and again, on Sundays we always have our recorded private lounge and yeah, that's it.

[01:00:06] Remember at the end of the day, it really is.

[01:00:09] Cynthia: All about the.

[01:00:11] Carmen: Bye everyone. Sing that song all about the.