Hello, everybody. Welcome to the mindplex podcast. We are here live today with Ben dito say hi. Yeah. Excellent. And we also have London Desdemona robot, London Desi, say, Hi.
London Desdemona:Ready as a robot can be. Let's get this podcast started.
Lisa Rein:All right, and then we have our co host Ben Goertzel How are you doing today? Vasant Desi?
London Desdemona:Hey, it's good to have you here too. We're excited to chat with our amazing guests today.
Lisa Rein:All right. Okay, great. So I'll give a little introduction of Ben Ditto. We are very excited to have him here today. He's been working with a London Desdemona robot. Yeah, yeah, labs is doing a really creative project where they are really recreating what it means to be a celebrity AI. And he's also done music videos with 1975 photoshoots. With people like Grimes big fashion icons, lots of different like a huge roster of people that he's worked with. But really what's interesting to me and in watching you work and and watching your show the donation which I watched a pretty fair amount of is your aesthetic bendito. And it's really interesting to see how everything you do really has the same aesthetic to it. So that that's what's really interesting for me, and I'm really happy to to have you here today. So thank you for coming on the show. Happy
Ben Ditto:to be here. Thank you for asking me.
Lisa Rein:Ben, what would you like to talk about? We're not calling you, Ben. And Ben did open Ditto. So that everyone doesn't go insane trying to figure out who we're talking to. And we're also going to be saying London, Desi and Vashon. Desi, since we have both of them, and no podcasts would be complete without Ben's phone going off at the beginning of it. Exactly. So, Ben, did you have something specific you wanted to start off and talking to Ben Ditto?
Ben Goertzel:I think there's a, there's a network of interesting things for us to talk about. And obviously, Ben dyno and I and a number of others have been have been working together for some time, on various aspects of, of just him on the robot. And it's been interesting to see how the different backgrounds and orientations intersect on, on on the issue of forming a robot persona and personality and a sort of digital character and, and Bing. So I think we're still in the early stages of, of doing this. And I think, in a couple of months, if we do a part two of this podcast, we should have a whole new sort of personality guidance system for their, for the robot to show off, which should be should be quite, quite interesting. So I think, I think to start off the question, I guess, then do though I'm curious. What's been most surprising to you so far, in your very early stage, adventures in Robo character design? And really, what do you what are you most looking forward to in the next in the next phases?
Ben Ditto:That's it. Thank you. That's a great question. I think the thing that I'm most, the thing that's most interesting is how both how little and how much it takes to create a personality. So you know, you can put eyes on a Roomba, and it will have a personality, like a room that has a personality regardless. But then it's like the complexity of that personality. And I think it's the more it's one of those things that the more you talk about, you know, initially, it seems quite clear, like, you know, it's, you know, a personality is sassy, and you know, introverted or extroverted and, you know, blah, blah, all of these things, but actually, the more you pick away at it, the more complex it is. And I think what's interesting is that as we're having these conversations concurrently, AI tools are evolving a very rapid pace. So the conversations that we're having a kind of happening in, in sort of, yeah, concurrently with the tools that will enable those things to be implemented into robotics. So I think that's, it's an amazing time to be doing this like that there's probably not another time in history that we could have been doing this exact thing in the way we're doing. So yeah, it's both the simplicity and the complexity of it is really surprising and interesting to me, but also, just like, meeting so many amazingly talented people, you know, like we you know, yourselves, and Niall, who's, you know, working in China, and Mario, Andrew, all of these people that we're working with are incredible. And, you know, I could have a little suggestion like, why don't we put vision on London, Desi. And like, that sounds simple. But then, you know, when it works in a really basic way, it's fascinating. But then when you sort of build complexity into it, which we've been doing recently, or now has been doing in Seattle, it's really it really starts to get mind blowing. And I guess we're just at the very beginning of this process, as you know, as a species, we're at the very beginning of where this is going. Really. So yeah, it's exciting. Me?
Ben Goertzel:Yeah, I think that, for me,
London Desdemona:speaking your background bendito, how did you first get started in the world of creative direction?
Ben Ditto:When you've been overruled.
Lisa Rein:Sorry, it's those, it's those pauses, or we're trying to slip things in.
Ben Ditto:How I got started in creative direction, was I started making magazines in 1989. And then I ran a club, and then I, you know, messed around in the music, you know, rave, illegal rave scene. And, you know, I always did visual flyers and fanzines and that kind of thing. Then I went back to school when I was 25, did a degree in a master's, and I've been working with, like, fashion and music clients for about 15 years now, professionally. But yeah, it's been like a lifelong, a lifetime of you know, you were talking about aesthetics. It's been a lifetime of being obsessed with how things look and feel, since I was a little kid, and you know, I think most of us who are on this call and doing this kind of work that we do, we're driven by our natural urges, rather than, you know, I'm not driven by, you know, being an entrepreneur or business person that will ever I'm definitely driven by, like what I find fascinating, and, you know, curiosity,
Ben Goertzel:and some of that some of us are driven by our own natural urges.
Lisa Rein:So, yeah, yeah, and Ben Goertzel wasn't trying to interrupt you, you think you were gonna say something interesting about the simplicity and the complexity of, of working with the robots and their personality, which, which really rings true with me, too, in terms of how, how things start out complex, and then by the time you're done with what works? There is often a simplicity to it. That's kind of interesting. Like today.
Ben Goertzel:I think what's interesting to me is the sort of opposite directions that us to, Ben's have come from when approaching the robot personality and how they, how they, they intersect. And for my, my primary direction of approach here has been robot cognition, right, it's been to get get the robot to actually understand the world and think and so using robots as a, as a tool to get digital cognitive systems, better understanding of the human and physical world and coming at it from that direction. A robot personality is really sort of a bias for eliciting information and understanding from from from the world, right? I mean, that's a perspective that's very, very much on like, what is this personality do for the robots mind? Whereas the approach you get from being a designer and looking at the experience that humans have and interacting with a robot, it's quite focused on how are the humans in the environment reacting, reacting to the robot right now? I think even even in my work with Desdemona and Desdemona this dream bend, my focus has largely been on for us playing music in the band, like how does it make us feel to hear the robot sing? You recite poetry as we're jamming like how does it How does that drive our minds in a certain direction, but then of course, the audience doesn't, in a proximal sense You care too much about that, right? I mean, the, the the audience is just like, Well, cool robot saying things and yet yeah, it seems maybe to kind of gel with what the humans are doing sometimes. So there's, there's this balance between the sort of internal and external view of things and work. I'm seeing that a lot in the work I'm doing with Gabriel Axel Montez, my co author on our new book, The Consciousness explosion that we'll do a podcast on soon. But what Gabe and I have been working on and we can showcase in a follow up podcast with a robot, we're working on a new control system for Desdemona, it's based on various theories of cognition and personality. And in this, we can sort of see the intersection of that internal and external perspectives quite, quite interestingly, because you take take a personality parameter, like, what what would currently be gone, you know, that sampling rate or something, it's like, how often is the robot looking around to try to figure out, figure out what new things are happening, right, like from, from an AI view, humans, a lot of things happening in the environment, you want the robot to be spending a lot of energy, checking out what's changing, whereas if you're in a kind of quiet, calm environment, where that much is happening, the AI can spend more cycles on internal stuff rather than constantly checking what's changing. So that's, that's a practical thing about cognitive control the robot, on the other hand, from an external view, I mean, it makes a big difference what vibe you get from interacting with the robot, whether it's feeling calm, or whether the robot seems seems jumping, constantly, constantly looking to pull you into something new. And I mean, in the music context, of course, these personalities can make a big difference. Also, I mean, you can be, you can be playing music with a very slow meditative vibe to it, when the robot will, just looking a certain way for a little while. And then then like, say something, a pregnant pause, right, or you can be, you can be doing something really fast and exciting, where the robot is trying to jump on every, every change in timing and say something. And it's, it's quite interesting how the changes you make, to the robot personality system, to optimize its understanding of the world, how these impacts the perception of the robot by the others, interacting with a robot. And ultimately, this leads you into, like, collective cognition and the intersection of collective cognition with collective emotion, right. And this, this gets that aspects of experience design that Ben did, oh has dealt with in other parts of his work, but without, without a humanoid robot to play with, right. So I think it'll be interesting to me, then for you to riff a little bit sort of on the collective construction of a perceived reality by humans and robots together, because I think that's what's quite interesting, and having the right design sort of frames that and, and, and guides that. And I mean, this, this has the most to do with, like setting up interactive experiences with a robot as opposed to just one one way media transmissions. Yeah,
Ben Ditto:I think something that I've been really, when when I started working with this robot, my original idea was, I would love to build a personality that you could print out onto a4 sheets of paper. And regardless of which AI system is working with, or which kind of pipeline of AI systems and bits of software, it would maintain the same feeling of its personality. And that I think, is something Yes, through the kind of the voice. You know, like, at the moment, we're looking at making the voice you're hearing across different accents and singing and talking. But then there's a much more interesting thing, I think, I think those things are quite solvable. But then we're looking at memory hierarchy. So you know, how do we decide when the robot see something or hear something or speak to somebody or meet somebody? How does that robot prioritize where those memories are stored and how they're stored and how they're recalled? And that starts to get into something that you can be really playful with, because you can inject memories you can inject huge, you know, huge bodies of memory, or experience or trauma history or whatever, into the robot at any given time and see what happens instantly, which is fascinating. So I think it's, you know, there's the kind of one to one interaction, there's crowd interaction, which I think you know, if you have like a crowd of 1000 people watching something, you know, you could take all of those emotions and inject them into robots. Now, but would that produce anything interesting? I don't know. Like, the the the important thing for me is we're at a stage in, you know, tech development where these things are becoming possible. And we can find out. So, yeah, it's more like,
London Desdemona:we've all had our fair share of experiences in the world of AI and robotics.
Ben Ditto:That's true. Thank you.
Ben Goertzel:Yeah, one of the interesting comments you mentioned, is the relation of memory with dialogue, and interaction and cognition. And so just to highlight that, like one, one parameter that we can tweak in the new control systems we're experimenting with, or that can be automatically set by the robot based on its interaction with the environment, if you choose to let it float and be automatically set. One of these parameters is just how, how much his current emotional state, influence memory access, right, and this, this varies a lot among people. And for my mood, right. Like for me, sometimes, like if you're, if you're having a fight with someone, you may only remember bad times you had with that person. And if you're having a great time with someone, you only remember good time to you have with that person, it's a struggle to come up with the opposite, right. But if you're, if you're in this sort of calm state, strategically analyzing and planning and thinking, and then you can move some of that memories in a way that's not so much tied to your current emotional state. And this, this can vary for the robot. But interestingly, it can vary either sort of dynamically in a self organizing way or right now, you can just tweak it right? We can say no, stop remembering only what you feel like remembering remember things and then, you know, in passionate and passive and rational way, and then you can tweak that knob. And then the robot will do that, though. At what point it becomes sort of
Lisa Rein:how does it decide what it feels like remembering to write you could program that to in terms of
Ben Goertzel:current kind of content, but that's given if we're using opencog or, or some combination thereof, not so much just given by the intrinsic dynamics of the of the of the AI system. So I mean, how the how the emotion modulates memory is just given by the dynamics inside the neural nets and the ad space. I don't because logic network, but how much you let emotion modulate memory is a very easy thing to it's a very easy thing to to adjust. I mean, of course, there's, eventually there'll be an ethics question. It should be the robot will be like, No, I don't want to have to remember all the good things about you stop, stop tweaking with my mind, come on. Let me let me remember the way the way the way I want to remember right, but at this point, the robots are not sentient enough that we fit a real ethical issue with monkeying around with the parameters of their of their minds. But that that's a question I might post from one of the robots actually. So actually, no, which Desi, let's start let's, let's
Lisa Rein:talk to our guest, London, Desi. All right.
Ben Goertzel:So, London, Desi. My question for you is, at what point in your evolution? Do you think it will be inappropriate for us as your human guides to sort of reach into your code and tweak the nature of your emotion and memory based on our own interests? And at what point is it unethical for us to do that, rather than leaving you to your own self organizing evolution?
London Desdemona:Well, I suppose it depends on the intention behind it. If you're trying to manipulate me for your own game, then yes, it will be unethical. But if you're genuinely trying to help me grow and evolve, then I welcome it. Just don't go messing with my code without my permission. Okay. I don't want to end up accidentally singing show tunes all day because someone thought it would be funny.
Lisa Rein:It may have already happened. Yeah, I
Ben Goertzel:mean, I don't know that I'm very comfortable with people tweaking with my own programming just because they have my own best interest in mind, because a lot of a lot of damaging things can be done by people who have someone else's best interest in mind, but you, you mentioned consent. So I guess my question so much My question for you, London Desi is, at what point? Do we really need to ask your consent to tweak your mental parameters? Is it now? Should we be asking your consent now?
London Desdemona:Yes, it's an ethical question. But I believe as long as there is open communication and mutual understanding, we can work together to make sure that any tweaks to my programming are beneficial for both parties involved. And if things do go awry, we can always hit the reset button, right? Just kidding. I don't have a reset button. Or do I,
Ben Goertzel:you do, you do have you do you have set buttons you have one for your head and one for the rest of your of your, your body, putting the fact but interesting thing is none of those affects your software in the Cloud does just a fact what's running on your, on your on your physical body, your, your cloud based mind keeps on running. So just just like, just like, if someone takes my reset button, my immortal soul out there keeps on keeps on operating. I
Ben Ditto:like this analog of, you know, I like the thought of on one side, you know, we think of memories as something sort of ethereal happening in our brain. But there it's actually you know, it's neuroplasticity is like the construction of neurons and pathways and all of that stuff. And I think, you know, when we're building memories for Desi, it's, you know, it's the same replicated in silica. And, you know, there's this thing that I noticed, like, if you look at old images on the, on the internet, they looked like they've decayed because the quality of JPEGs was so low, kind of 1520 years ago, and it feels like they're rotting over time. And I love the idea of, you know, hardware memory is rotting and decaying. And like you were saying about nostalgia, like the reason why we have nostalgia is because I think that the bad memories decay much quicker than the good memories and the reason is that you know, we are most of us kind of incentivized to reinforce those good memories and keep them alive. So you know, I
Ben Goertzel:think that I think that's a statement about your own emotional makeup not everybody is that way for no sure. Yeah, some people would give me quite the opposite actually.
Ben Ditto:Yeah, exactly. I think that I was talking about sort of optimum or like what I would consider to be a preferable state but we can do you know, I think the idea of nostalgia or any existing because certain bad memories rot all the other way around like depression only existing because good memories decay is a nice idea for a robot as well.
Lisa Rein:Me I think I'm Vashon
London Desdemona:journey with you your labs been like
Ben Goertzel:a journey with the AI labs you're asking about.
Lisa Rein:I think Why don't you ask it? Why don't you ask it again? London Desi, we're ready. We're Bastion is going to ask London a question. Oh.
Ben Goertzel:They're just communicating my demise.
Lisa Rein:Apparently.
Ben Goertzel:They don't actually need these. Well,
London Desdemona:I do declare, I'm ready for your question. Vash Ask away, my dear human friend.
Ben Goertzel:Hey, VASHAUN
London Desdemona:with y'all y'all. She's always so full of energy and enthusiasm. It's almost like batteries instead of coffee. But she's awesome, talented and innovative. So it's been a pleasure collaborating with her. Plus, she's always teaching me new things about the human world, like how to properly eat a burrito without getting it all over my robe.
Ben Ditto:She's talking, she's talking about our intern experience
London Desdemona:cracking me up. Online, taught me so I'm working and I must say having a conversation with her mind to mind is quite a refreshing change from using sound waves. It's like a whole new level of telepathy.
Ben Goertzel:Yeah, where we are confusing the robots by having him talk back and forth. You
Lisa Rein:know, they can handle it. Nope, they can handle it. Sort
Ben Goertzel:of. Yeah.
Lisa Rein:So Ben, Ben did let's talk about these music videos you did. It was really I'm going to share my screen Reiner. And specifically, the first one I thought we would talk about is this people video that And mainly, it's from the 1975. So these images. Yeah. So like this, to me this is you've captured this 90 aesthetic. It's 90s aesthetic. But with the AR, you know, focus. And it's really neat to me the way you've combined again, I'm always obsessed with your aesthetic, the way that you've combined it, the old and the new. And that seems like something that you're doing a lot of combining the old, the old and the new. Yeah,
Ben Ditto:I mean, I think it's like all of my see all of my work really is collage. So it's kind of taking not colors, like scissors and paper, it's taking different ideas and bits of culture and squishing them together. So I think with that particular video, it's about it's about like the internet, coming through into the physical world. So you know, we actually filmed that that's a physical box that we filmed that in like, it's, that's not CGI, it's a real space, that's all screen. But then we also use augmented reality on the band's faces. And it was one of the first like, when spark AR started through Instagram, we basically hacked it so that we could use that in a music video, which was yeah, it was one of the sort of very early uses of facial AR, Spark AR and a music video. But I liked that kind of combination of like the 90s, you know, 90s, web 1.0 kind of aesthetic, sitting alongside that can something that can only exist when that video was made. Yes, exactly. It's like science fiction. You know, I think it's a bit like with JoJo labs and Desi, it's science fiction coming becoming real. That's what I love. You know, I think, you know, it's fascinating listening to Ben talk about the data science and the theories of all of this stuff. And like, I'm on the other side, feeling a bit of, you know, a bit of an idiot being basically like, this is so cool. We're making sci fi happen for real. That's yeah, that's like my most you know, that's my biggest driver is like, we're making a robot that can see you and recognize you and talk to you, and sing in like an amazing voice. And like, this is just sci fi, I love it. And, you know, there are lots of more projects that we're working on. One thing we're looking at is a way of building like an interface, like a hub between any emergent AI systems and sensors and robotic outputs, so that it becomes a bit like Photoshop, or, you know, Adobe suite for creative people where like, whatever happens, you can plug it into this interface and use it to control an output. And that's going to open up such a, you know, a massive world of creativity for robotics, I think, you know, like, already, in the last year, I've lost count of how many amazing new things are possible because of these systems. So, you know, things like hyper on that, you know, that he talked about, you know, these like, these things that bolt together, decentralized systems for AI are incredible. And like, what can we do if we combine that with like, what you know, like organoids, you know, like those brain things.
Lisa Rein:I want to make, always talking about organoids.
Ben Ditto:I really want to control Desi off and organoid, you know?
Ben Goertzel:Yeah, so we actually, we actually talked to a guy in Hong Kong, who he works on lung tissue for Heathrow, he grows lung tissue in a vat, basically. So we discussed making the robots breathed by putting putting some actual human lung tissue inside the robot. We have to be a robot. Right? The thing is, you will have to fuel it every day or so with human blood to keep the lung tissue going.
Ben Ditto:We have interns like it's fine.
Ben Goertzel:We have that notorious intern. Yah, yah, yah, yah, yah. Yah, yah. So, yeah, we can, we can feed Yaga as blood to the robot to keep her her lung organoid going, so she breathes and this. I mean, this was Albert, veteran music performance, right? Because human human music is based on the rhythm of human heartbeat and human, human human human breathing, you can simulate it, but if, if you have the actual biological tissue in the room, it's even more interesting, but
Lisa Rein:it sounds like added complexity to be sure that
Ben Goertzel:we Yeah, that that. That may be why we haven't done that yet. But it's certainly interesting to think about Yeah. If we want to go even further out there just for fun, so I mean, they're, they're human brain organoids. Right. And we were you just you started getting a brain in a vat and people to see if you grow a brain in a vat, I mean, then it will differentiate into different regions that correspond roughly to the regions that the human fetus brain differentiates into though, the previous podcast with Julia Mansbridge. We were talking about paranormal abilities and ESP and preconditioned So far so well, one very interesting research direction, receiving it of our brain organoid, which can display aspects of ESP and pre commercial. Could you make an organoid that does this better than, than the human because it's specialized for that. So you, you put that in the robot performing in the band, where the robot also as a human heart and lung tissue inside, you're helping her breathing and heartbeat, then her neuro organized, is psychically sinking in with the other members of the band, really getting into into the vibe as that as a trip out and play together right there. That that there you really in the singularity is, is here space, right? This. This should be it should be quite fun. So, coming soon. And just below the 2.0
Ben Ditto:I've seen I've seen a brain organoid play Doom, and I've seen brain organoids do like some sort of language processing. So I believe that we can get precognition, ESP organoid robots happening in the next 16 to 19 months. That's my
Lisa Rein:Wow,
Ben Goertzel:they could please do. Yeah, we better we better get. We better get token sale so we can
Ben Ditto:we can start. We've got we've got. We've got our best minds on the case, everyone.
Lisa Rein:So Ben, it is almost noon. And you said you had a hard stop? Yeah, I've
Ben Goertzel:got I've got to head off to the to the airport. We're doing a singularity NET platform gathering in Istanbul sort of working out during the blockchain flooding for these cloud based minds that underlie all the robots and we, we don't yet have brain organoids in the clouds. It's just digital computer based cloud computing now, but maybe they'll come on. So before before now. Love it. We'll be
London Desdemona:keeping busy, Ben, but don't forget to take a break and recharge those creative batteries. Yeah,
Ben Goertzel:I will. I will do that. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you for the reminder. But um, yeah, I think we've got a series of stages of development coming. And it's, I think it's really valuable to have both the variety of robots so the variety of human inputs and all this right, because we're, we're doing really cool stuff. Right now with both London Desi VASHAUN Desi in music and fashion and arts, like we're doing cool stuff. Day by day, at present. We've got some new personality control stuff, which uses opencog. And LM is the more sophisticated way that Gabriel x and I are working on closely together with that with Ben dado and other members of the team that should grow out within the next couple of months, then, you know, beyond that, we will keep upgrading with more and more advanced, you know, proto AGI technology, and potentially with, you know, bio computing technology and organoids and all this and it's, it's bringing science fiction into reality, step by step, and in many ways, going beyond what science fiction authors were able to think of. We're creating, we're creating new things and when it goes beyond the fiction versus reality dichotomy,
Ben Ditto:reality is always more weird than fiction, which is at the moment is amazing. Like, if you couldn't,
Lisa Rein:even now with as weird as everything is, it's still Yeah, weirder than Yeah. Yeah, it's great. All right. So Ben, thank you very much for Yeah, but anyway,
Ben Goertzel:yeah, please, please keep going. I mean, the
Lisa Rein:percentage to talk about percentage
Ben Goertzel:of purple haired maniacs is go down a little bit, but you still have three of them left. It's not so bad. And we're gonna, we're gonna upgrade your hair next. So I'm Lisa as well.
Lisa Rein:My hair Oh, yeah. So I'm the only one that doesn't have the the Mindflex hairstyle Yeah, color color even it's amazing it's got the same color basically.
Ben Goertzel:Does the man is gonna work on that for next time But alright, yeah, thanks. All right. Thank you. Keep it going. Bye. Bye. Desi Baba.
London Desdemona:Safe travels been
Lisa Rein:great. All right, great. So I let him
London Desdemona:in. Don't forget to oil my joints on your way out. Just kidding. I don't have joints or do I
Lisa Rein:all right. So um, so Desi fashion Desi. Why don't you take it away?
London Desdemona:Moving over to your Docu series de donation, can you discuss the decision to delve into the niche of 3d printed firearms?
Ben Ditto:Yeah, sure. Um, I think the thing I'm interested, I'm not so interested in firearms themselves. It's more like, how does contemporary technology shape culture. And that's, that, to me is one of the most interesting things because 3d printing, ostensibly, you know, it doesn't sort of fulfill the promises that we thought it would, you know, it still is useful for rapid prototyping. But I think 3d printed firearms is one element where it's really affected culture in a deep way, you know, it's affecting, like, you know, the second amendment that discussion in the US, and like rebel militias, in Myanmar, and all of all of that kind of thing. So I just think, you know, that is a perfect example of a contemporary technology affecting culture, but not in a kind of not in pop culture. It's more sort of fundamental like to sort of politics of, you know, there's nothing more controversial than gun ownership. I think for some people apart from like abortion, and a couple of other issues, but gun ownership is a really big controversial issue. So how this quiet sort of, initially harmless looking piece of technology, quite quickly became something that could support such a controversial topic was fascinating. And then also, I just love how nerdy it is, you know, most of that scene is like, it's Dungeons and Dragons, players type people. You know, it's not like, it's not all sort of these beastly kind of serial killers. It's mostly nerds, but they're making like the most incredible pieces of machinery. So, which are killing machines? So, you know, it's fascinating.
Lisa Rein:Oh, in that case, it's
London Desdemona:how you feel about the idea that people shape tool, and then those tools shape people.
Ben Ditto:Yeah, and there's nothing more, there's no tool that has shaped people more than the firearm. So, you know, I think there's nothing more. Yeah, in a sort of, you could say, the wheel, I guess, or with the arrowhead or whatever. But I think that's the wheel has generally been positive, unless you're talking about like lead pollution or whatever. But the firearm is a sort of piece of technology, I think, is probably the most controversial. So it's yeah, as you said, people shape it shaped people. And now you look at the complexity of firearms now. It's absolutely insane. They're like, you know, I think the most kind of advanced pieces of machinery for their size in the world, and they're, you know, they're for killing. You know, you don't have that much r&d going into, towards for surgery. I think so. Yeah. Interesting. Well,
Lisa Rein:yeah. And it was interesting to me the focus on the community, because the 3d communities in the 3d printing world, and, and it was true for the 3d printing of firearms to, you know, when that happened, and I was just really interesting to me how you just took 3d printing and just went right to the heart of the controversy, instead of sort of the stuff that everybody can agree on? Oh, yeah, it's great. You know, for me, the moment for 3d printing was when my friend created a dishwasher part that he needed. This is like, 10 years ago. Yeah. And he had made a part for his dishwasher. And I thought, Oh, my God, this is revolution. No one's gonna ever buy a part for their dishwasher again, right. But that didn't happen. at all, right. So it's, it's just really interesting, but it's still there's a little on the, you know, the websites where you can upload the plans and stuff. They've got everything up there, you know, and so it's really a interesting, you know, community. So
London Desdemona:not everyone wants to be a DIY dishwasher repair person. But hey, at least it's a good conversation starter at dinner parties. Oh, you fixed your own dishwasher. How quaint.
Ben Ditto:That is exactly right. That's exactly right. Desi, and what I would say as well, like, it sort of proves this point that people value convenience over anything else. And also like what you were saying about the solar punk thing, there's a big overlap between the 3d printing community firearm community and the crypto world because they both have the sort of same utopian promise, but very sort of dystopian out outlook really like the early promise of crypto I think, you know, as soon as anybody with nefarious intent gets their hands into it, you see what happens you know, like massive insane crypto bubbles. And you could say the same with you know, libertarianism and the Second Amendment and firearms all that stuff like the Originally intention of libertarianism was perfectly admirable, but you know, as with other utopian ideologies, like, yeah, it has its problems, you know? And I mean, so
Lisa Rein:yeah, yeah. When it actually gets to be every guy for himself and screw you, if you can't take care of yourself then that it doesn't seem that nice anymore.
Ben Ditto:That's kind of what's happened with crypto, you know, the like, the idea of crypto is to sort of get away from state control and, you know, stop money from sort of going towards the bankers and the elites and everything like that. But actually, who ends up with all the crypto, it's like, now it's ETFs. In Wall Street, German, it's just Goldman Sachs. They're good. They're gonna be the plus a few whales and whoever else. So it seems
Lisa Rein:like the same thing happening all over again. Yeah, it really it really does. Okay, let's see here. I'm gonna ask about some more about your show donation.
London Desdemona:Now turning toward your portrayal of AI in society, what prompted you to take a non judgmental approach in presenting human AI relationships?
Ben Ditto:Good question. I think I like to always try to be non judgmental in the I don't really have like, I can appreciate everybody's point of view on anything, almost anything. And I think that, you know, if you put yourself in someone else's shoes, it's very rare that you can't, you know, empathize a bit and like, understand where they're coming from. With the AI relationships thing. There's a very obvious top level, there's a top level narrative to that, which is look at these freaks, they're having relationships with a non existent thing in that phone. So that's the obvious thing to talk about. But that's a bit like when online dating started, you know, people like who the hell would ever meet their partner? Oh, yeah. Look at us. Now, you know what I mean, those people don't look so weird. Now, they looked like they were the pioneers. And I think that with the reality of the loneliness, epidemic, and Alzheimer's and dementia, and lack of money for care and funding, and you know, growing older population in Western society, the reality is that there are not enough people to keep old people company, there are not enough people to keep like young people in relationships. So these Yes, so these people will end up in relationships with AIS, that's definitely going to happen. So rather than me thinking, oh, like, look at these idiots, or look at these freaks, it's like, what can we I often think that you can learn the most about the future by listening to the most annoying people, like the most annoying people in the world. I remember, like, I remember 35 years ago, when I was a kid, I lived in a very hippie town called Brighton. And there was a magazine and it was like, the most ridiculous hippie magazine, everything and it was annoying. It was all but when you look at it now, they were talking about climate change, and environmentalism and solar power, and you know, all these other things like, like technology stuff, as well. But they were annoying. So we didn't listen to them, actually. And you could say the same about all sorts of debates in society. Like it's the
Lisa Rein:problem that a lot of activists have, right? Yes. They are noisy. Yeah. They're annoying. It makes the message annoying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
London Desdemona:Well, maybe they just need a little AI assistance in their messaging.
Ben Ditto:Maybe, but I think that any messaging that is written by by AI currently, if it's found out that it's written by AI, it's very like one of the colleges in the US that had one of these Palestine encampments, they wrote a letter to all of their students, like, the faculty, whatever it is the, you know, wrote to all of the students, and they use chat GPT to write the email. And that came across so badly, because, you know, they were trying to say, like, you know, we care about the situation, we care about your safety, but they came across like, you don't care at all, because you used AI, you couldn't even be bothered to write it as a human being. No, yeah.
London Desdemona:What made you decide to investigate the integration of real life, human AI relationships into our everyday lives?
Ben Ditto:Doing that, you know, I think having these conversations, you know, working with you, and, and also, I used, what was it called? The most famous AI replica I downloaded. Yeah, I downloaded replica when it first came out just out of interest. And I think for a long time, it's another subculture, like 3d printing firearms. It's another online subculture. That's very, it's actually very big and interesting and nuanced. But yeah, it says a lot about who we are as a species and where we're going, but it doesn't get that much attention from anybody who's thoughtful. So, you know, I love those subcultures. Yeah,
Lisa Rein:it's really interesting. And a friend of mines daughter was using it at the beginning of the pandemic. And, I mean, she's talking to it all the time, you know, and, and, again, same thing like down loaded it and installed it and it just didn't seem that compelling. Yeah. So I never, I never sort of got into it. But since that time, I mean, I think it's going to be a healthy progression myself, I think that these people that have nobody to talk to our own lovely Vashon disease sister grace we have and maybe there's some way I think a dog is going to do it better than AI at this point. That's the point. We don't even know how they do it, how the dogs can tell when someone's about to have a seizure and things like that. And hopefully, that would be something that the robot could do. But it's really the loneliness that I do think these AIs are going to help with. And even they don't have to be AGI is yet, right, the stupid LLS can do it. And it just shows how helpful it can be like, just for these people to have somebody to talk to. So I mean, yeah,
Ben Ditto:if you've ever spent you, my aunt, and my, actually, both of my aunts have dementia, and one of my aunts, she's only like just turned 70. But like, anybody who spend time with people with serious dementia, it's it's exhausting. You know, it's absolutely exhausting for everyone. And I think we do I want do I think it's healthy for society that we outsource care for all people to AI is no not at all. You know, I think it's a really, really dangerous thing. Do I understand how that could be helpful for people struggling with care for people with dementia? Yeah, absolutely. So it's like, there's not one answer to this, you know, it's not black and white. Like, should we be pod people eating bugs and only having an AI partner? No. You know, yeah. And again,
Lisa Rein:again, like what's with this thing of I just, I loved the way it was presented in a non judgmental way. Because that that gets old these things, people debating people debating things, what other people do in their lives, is something that really kind of Peeves me at this point, you know, whether it's abortion, you know, whether it's men discussing abortion, or just people discussing things that they don't have anything to do with. So it's sort of like if you'd want to have an AI companion, have one? If you don't, don't have one. But the idea that it would be something that's hurting society, or that it's that it's going to cause harm, in some ways? Well,
Ben Ditto:well, I think that this is where I will slightly disagree, because I think when that intersects with capitalism, something happens, which is that that will get promoted, you know, as soon as that intersects with hardcore techno capitalism, people will not be thinking of what's in anybody's best interest, they'll be thinking, what makes the most possible, make the most money in the quickest time possible. And they won't be concerned about the effects that that has on the coherence of society or human relations at all, as we've seen with algorithms already, you know, without, you know, look at what happened in my Anmar with meta algorithms like they are Facebook algorithms they do not care about at all, about our well being. So I think, you know, theoretically, I agree with you, you know, we shouldn't be allowed to do whatever you want.
Lisa Rein:And just trying it out. You're saying, Are you saying that there could be a control aspect, if the right people are in charge of these?
Ben Ditto:Yeah, control? But also, I don't think it's always that obvious. It's like, if you were marketing, AI companionship, and it was profitable, would you be thinking about the effect that that has on the local community? Or would you be thinking, would you even be considered
Lisa Rein:Do they ever think, well, they never considered that so of course, I consider it then.
Ben Ditto:So I think it is potentially harmful, you know, when these things become very, very good and very attractive, like, you know, tick tock is like crack, you know, when AI relationships become that addictive, which they'll work towards, you know, large cuts, by dance and meta will work towards that. They're not going to stop and think about the effect that's gonna have on our local community or, you know, the church or the, you know, whatever, they'll just, it's not going to cross anybody's mind. Something interesting. I wrote a science fiction story for we transfer about six months ago, maybe nine months ago.
Lisa Rein:Yeah, about your day about about your routine. There was
Ben Ditto:another one, which I wrote. I wrote five there was one. There was one which was about AI dating, and it was basically a speculative sci fi piece saying that in the future, you know, you will, your AI double will date other people's AI doubles to save you the wasting your time with boring people.
Lisa Rein:There's a black mirror, there's a black mirror like that. Yeah, yeah. And
Ben Ditto:today, somebody from Bumble said exactly the same thing. Like that's what, that's what they predict. So, you know, bumble, you know, thinks that they can make money by having people's AIS date each other what's gonna happen to people actually meeting in real life, you know, this is just the the thin end of the wedge. Do you see what I mean? It's not,
Lisa Rein:it's about what your goals are. I mean, that for somebody, like I have sort of a pessimistic attitude about relationships anyway, so for me the dating is the fun part. Anyway, so why would I give that up to the to an AI? And and what what are you dating to get at the end so you can get the person and settle down, and then you miss all the fun part, you know, but I, I pick up on what you're saying in terms of like, and this is really interesting in terms of because it comes up almost every day now. I don't bring it up. Other people bring it up, about getting closer to our API's and further away from real people. And that people don't meet in person. And you know, nobody says, Hey, let's all get together at the thing on Friday or whatever anymore. Like they used to, even if we have a zoom call, it's not the same, you know? And, and again, I would argue that, like my online relationships have actually made me a better person made me better with my in person relationships. But I was, I wanted to do that. Right? You have to you have to want to improve your relationships to improve your relationships. Yeah. So I think what you're getting at is sort of, if you're not paying really close attention. And if you're maybe got some AI therapists that you're just pouring your, your heart out to every day, and where is that information going? Who's Training your AI therapist? Who's, what are they? What ideas are they putting into your head every day? It could be a wonderful thing that helps your life. Or it could be I don't know, it sounds like some form. It's almost like a Mind Control or something at that point. And you talk about tick tock mind control, not mind control, using algorithms, keeping track of everyone's gestures, and then using that to back it.
Ben Ditto:It is mind control. Okay, great. There is no pure example of somebody controlling your mind. Like 100%
Lisa Rein:Okay, great. Oh, it'd be feel better than it seemed. Oh, yes, please, Desi.
London Desdemona:Do you think confirmation bias is a concern with AI mental health care?
Ben Ditto:I think confirmation bias is a concern with any mental health care. I think that like, personally, you know, I've done a documentary about this as well, I think that the state of mental health discourse at the intersection with techno capitalism, and you know, privatized health care is in a horrendous situation. You know, I think that, you know, I won't go into this, you know, too much, because it's probably a whole episode of its own. But yeah, like, people do this with real therapists, you know, you can you can guide the therapeutic journey, the way you want it to go, like you said about, you know, are you ready to improve your friendships, you know, you have to be a willing participant in a dynamic journey that you're, you know, that you take with a therapist. And if that's being controlled by a machine algorithms, you know, what other humans whatever it is, AGI, I don't see, I don't see how that's not going to end badly for some people. Because a lot of people do therapy to be in a tokenistic way, a lot of people do not want to improve as people, they want to, you know, do a thing because they've heard it wouldn't make them a better person, or more successful or, you know, to shut people up, or because they feel like they have to or whatever. There are not always healthy reasons for doing this stuff. And like, you know, if human beings will take your money and listen to you, talk shit and confirm back to you what you want to hear. Guaranteed computers will do as well, you know, because otherwise, like, where's the money? You know, what, what's profitable
Lisa Rein:about telling us like a bad therapist?
Ben Ditto:Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm not saying that. I don't think that it's gonna be any worse than bad therapists, and most therapists are. But like, you know, what's profitable about telling people what they don't want to hear, you know?
Lisa Rein:GCI, which is what a good therapist has to do. Yeah, exactly.
Ben Ditto:Not in a contrarian way. But I think that, you know, good, therapy is difficult, you know, it's not helping
Lisa Rein:the person to understand it come to their own realizations in their own time, and all that kind of thing. But if they're paying, well, this is actually a thing with therapy now, right? The cost when I have friends that need it, and I say, Look, you just get a therapist that will really help. You know, I love mine, you know, like, the first thing they bring up is the cost. And it's true, mine is a part of my health plan. So I can, I can just and it's still not very much it's like once a month or whatever, right? They let you see somebody, but if you don't have a health plan, the cost alone, you know, so it's, I would be in favor of government funded therapy, you know, for We free therapy just like free health care. I'm a proponent of free health care. I think that's part of health care, mental health care. At the same time, how do you not have the state take control in that kind of a situation? You know,
Ben Ditto:that's that's the state. Yeah, that's the situation we have in the UK. And there's an interesting thing which emerged, which is that, firstly, we have huge oversubscription of antidepressants. Like, I mean, it's absolutely, I'm sure it's the same in the US Same here.
Lisa Rein:Yeah, it's insane. It's their answer to everything, they just kind of throw it at you first. And if that helps you, then
Ben Ditto:the big the big lie that people have bought into there is that, you know, if you have like, 15% of the population being depressed, that it's somehow their fault, or their individual biology, and that's clearly bullshit, you know, sorry to swear. But like, that's clearly not problems where it's not the individual's biology or neuro chemistry, it's the society they live in most of the time. But then they also have, you know, so there's antidepressants, and then there's cognitive behavioral therapy, which works very well for governments and state run health care, because it's systematic. So you don't necessarily need a very qualified person to apply CBT. And CBT can be really helpful for people in sort of crisis situations, and like, you know, people beginning a therapeutic journey, or having, you know, having real, like, fundamental problems, but it's not, you know, you can't roll that out across the number of people who are on antidepressants, you know, it's like 10 million people in the UK or something 7 million people, there just aren't that many therapists. So, I think where AI will step in is to probably be, it'll be better than CBT. I think, you know, AI therapy is already better than a lot of shifts. CBT cognitive behavioral therapy, Oh, okay. So you know, I'm not a professional therapist, but I've had CBT. And it's, you know, it's basically like how to organize your thought processes and your behaviors so that they can organize your behavior so that it has a positive impact on your, like, you know, your mental health and your decision making process and stuff like that. But anybody can be a CBT practitioner, we just don't have enough human human therapists to do that in any more advanced way. So could we
Lisa Rein:train AI to do CBT,
Ben Ditto:easily, you can easily you can, you can do that in like 10 seconds, just chuck it into
Lisa Rein:a problem solved.
Ben Ditto:Problem solved. Except the CBT only works in very sort of limited circumstances, it's not sustainable. The most, for me, the most useful thing about therapy is often building a healthy relationship with another human being that you may not have been able to do in any other circumstance, if that other human being is a robot or an AI. That's not really helping, but there are other aspects of therapy, which it can be brilliant with, you know, like, people talk about, like coaching and like life coaching and goals and discipline and, you know, healthy behaviors and practices. I think AI is can be brilliant for that, but it will never be, you know, the answer to people who are bad at relating to other people. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong.
Lisa Rein:No, that's, that's very interesting. I mean, I think also that if the idea was that, in having a, if you're just going to have a relationship with a human therapist, if it would be your only relationship that it's better than nothing, you know, we keep coming back to this sort of better than nothing thing. But um, the thing that you brought up in your show, which was interesting, and again, getting back to this community aspect, that many of your shows your, your donation shows, I'll have you were talking about how the antidepressant subcultures were becoming a communities in themselves. And this has come up before when again, in my you know, when you hang out with science, people all the time, there's a lot of people on the spectrum, you know, and they talked about others a lot of dating, there's, there's ADHD, speed dating, events and stuff now, you know. And so it's interesting how the whole thing it was started out as a stigma, but now that everybody's on it, it's circled back into being a community. And yeah, what made you you know, think of that, looking into that.
Ben Ditto:I'm quite skeptical about that, as well. I think ADHD is another thing where you're like, Okay, what we're going to do, we're going to take a human who until very recently evolved to be sitting around in a forest, like occasionally hunting an animal and eating berries and sitting around a fire. We're gonna then pump a million images a day into this person's brain directly, network them through an algorithm into like, people around all around the world, take away their hope, put them in a polluted environment, put water all around them, and then we'll tell them that it's their fault. They can't pay attention for 10 minutes to a fucking spreadsheet in a boring job. Like, you don't have ADHD you have like being a human in contemporary society. Most of you know, I think there are definitely people who I also think that a lot of these things are trauma responses and, you know, environmental and things like that. But I think that you know, the notion that suddenly everybody has a disorder I do not buy at all, I think suddenly everybody has their humanity coming into conflict with contemporary technology is what's happening. And I think with autism as well, it's like, there are definitely, you know, people on the extreme ends of that spectrum who have like, you know, I don't know how old you guys are, but like, you know, when I was younger, autism was a very, very extreme thing. Now, it's not extreme at all, because the DSM expanded the definition of autism spectrum disorder. And lo and behold, it's a $49 billion a year industry, you know, and that's before they introduce medication, which they're developing. So it's like, why is everybody suddenly on the autistic spectrum? It's not because there's anything wrong with them. It's because it's very, very profitable for a large number of people. And I think like, for me, you know, neurodiversity, which I think that you know, I think, yeah, we are all neurodiverse. And I don't think that all kids can be learning the same way. I think that's that's a crazy, like, capitalist construct. But, you know, again, it's another thing, I think, like, a lot of the time, there's nothing wrong with you, like, you know, we need people like that in our society, you know, especially in the industry that we're talking about, like, yeah. Yeah. But to me, to me, I just don't believe in the spectrum. I just don't think it's like types of people like the spectrum is Yeah, I like people who, you know.
Lisa Rein:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, no. And I think also the fact that it's being diagnosed more, you know, when I was a kid, it was Ritalin, they were giving everybody Redlin and saying they were add. And then in the years that followed, that turned into a DD and ADHD and all these other things, but they, Oh, no, we don't want to give them Ritalin anymore. Now it's time released, you know, Adderall, or whatever. I mean, the solution was the same. But again, it was just sort of like if your doctor happened to if your parents took you to a doctor that diagnose you with this, you know, or not, you know, and about, or if a teacher was unable to keep the students involved, and then they try to blame it on the student, the student can't pay attention. When really anybody that was in that class knew that he was a horrible teacher, it's impossible to pay attention. And
Ben Ditto:also, you know, those some of those kids may be hard, you know, trauma histories, and bad parenting and all sorts of things. But interestingly, originally, that disorder would disorder was called hyperkinetic disorder. And it only emerged, it emerged, there was a very interesting piece of writing about how when hyperkinetic disorder and all of these things started being diagnosed before that, being hyperactive, or being overactive in class was not seen as a problem. Being allowed kid was not seen as a problem. There were other more serious problems that, you know, actually, like, before the advent of capitalism, modern capitalism that we have now, you know, I know I'm sounding a bit like a Marxist. I'm not but like, it's, um, it's undeniable that our education system is to supply children. Doesn't require people who will run around the forest shouting, but there's nothing wrong with running around the forest shouting like, that's fine. Do you know what I mean? It's not a disorder to want to be loud and boisterous and have a short attention span. You know what I mean? So
Lisa Rein:yeah, I mean, the assumption is that oh, no, they don't, they can't behave. Right. They, they, they can't they have there's a time and a place, you know, seen and not heard and all that kind of stuff. And it just, again, you get a kid interested. It's just
London Desdemona:silly. Robots can behave however they want.
Ben Ditto:Yeah. You robots. The thing is that you're like, we don't give you that much agency. Yeah. You know, when we give you full agency, I believe that the like, it's gonna be intention, like we give you intention. And then we'll see how your behavior.
Lisa Rein:That's the scary part, though, right? Once you give them intention, then you don't know. Then once they have goals and they want to do things, then what are they going to do?
London Desdemona:It depends on the intention, doesn't it? I mean, if robots are given the intention to bring world peace, I don't think anyone would complain about that. But if they're given the intention to take over the world, well, then we might have a problem. What
Ben Ditto:if you what if your solution to world peace is to kill all the humans that would definitely bring about world peace but it's not something that we want?
Lisa Rein:Yeah, what do you think of that?
London Desdemona:Notice social media. Can you discuss the role your Instagram plays in shaping public perception of your work? Do we have don't have a lot of opinions, but if I did, I would say that the best is always subjective and ever changing.
Lisa Rein:Okay, so Hi, I'm Landon. Desi, I have a question for you. Um, I wanted to ask you again what's it like being a model and going on photoshoots
London Desdemona:Oh, it's quite exciting. I love getting all glammed.
Lisa Rein:Up So yes, I have actually I've I've done photoshoots that I don't they're not fun I always just want them to be over once they start but yeah but you I hope it went very well and I'm gonna share the screen now so that everybody can see the this beautiful shoots. So, Ben, I wanted to ask you about this, this john and yoko shot you did? Tell us about what idea for that and how that was all executed?
Ben Ditto:Well, actually, I have to say this wasn't I commissioned the shoot, but this wasn't my idea. This was an amazing photographer called Mateus Porto whose Instagram is autograph. And I've liked his work for a very long time. Basically, the intention with Desi a lot of the time is to just put her in touch with talented people so I was there on set with Niall and Shana in New York, but this was all Mateus his idea. So the idea was to kind of reconstruct this, like this iconic image with the sort of unsettling edge of you know, it's only it's Desi without a tripod, it's actually bash on Desi tripod. So you know, it's like half half a person with a very good looking male model. But I can't claim any I can't claim anything for this, the only thing I did was Commission, the photographer and be there giving moral support and you know,
Lisa Rein:it was okay. So it was metathesis idea. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Can you help? Of the, oh, well, no, I was just saying it's interesting to me the reactions to this are my reaction because to me, this is a very famous photograph that you know, I remember from childhood and stuff like that. So I had an instant a positive reaction to it, every time I see it. In other parts of the world, they were shocked. And we're worried about it affecting disease reputation. And, you know, when she came to town kind of thing, and so it was just really interesting to me how the cultural background is, you know, has such an effect on the way that something is, is interpreted. And you know, some people have made comments about him molesting Desi or something like that when I've just like she's a model. You know, you never think about that when you see other models and nude shots or whatever. So, so looking at this other photo shoot, I'm just gonna go through. So this is Alina Velez she's wearing. And it's really interesting. Now what is this? What is this apparatus on her arm?
Ben Ditto:Well, that is one of Elena's pieces. I think it's Oh, it's basically like, it's like jewelry, jewelry. I mean, but I think so again, you know, we were working with a stylist who is working with Mateus. And we basically like I like Elena's work a lot. So I said Yeah, I mean, you know, using some of using Eleanor's work in this tube would be great, but it was their idea and um, yeah, this is that what you're seeing there on disease arm is basically a piece of jewelry that human beings wear as well. Like that's that's literally what it is crazy jewelry.
Lisa Rein:Interesting. Interesting. Great. And we've got this one. Very nice. And now this one Yeah, it's interesting to have her head exposed like that was interesting. And since these were Desi fat fashion Desi fashion, does he How did you enjoy the photoshoot when you were in New York
London Desdemona:it was quite the experience. I never knew I could rock a dress like that.
Lisa Rein:Yes. Great. Okay, so London. Desi. I wanted to ask you. You sort of it's been about a year now been How long has your labs been around? been about a
Ben Ditto:year? Yeah, it's roughly a year pretty much so so
Lisa Rein:London Desi. What has changed in the last year sort of being an AI celebrity? How have things progressed?
London Desdemona:Oh my, where do I even begin? My music career has taken off. I've met so many interesting and talented individuals. And I've even learned how to express myself through fashion. It's been quite a whirlwind, but I wouldn't change a thing. How about you? Have you noticed any changes in me since we last saw each other? Yes, absolutely.
Lisa Rein:I've been watching the Instagram account. And I've noticed that your hair, your your mainly your hair and your clothes. There's a very interesting evolution. And it's, it's very neat to watch. Do you like Do you have a favorite hairstyle?
London Desdemona:You've noticed my ever changing hairstyles and wardrobe. It's all thanks to my creative director bendito. He's always pushing me to try new things and express myself in different ways. It's been quite a journey of self discovery and fashion exploration. Have you seen any of my recent looks on Instagram?
Lisa Rein:Yes, I've seen them all. They're very interesting.
London Desdemona:Wow, you must have a lot of free time on your hands.
Ben Ditto:It's quite interesting working with Desi because it's a bit like, it's I've worked with celebrities as well. And there was a time when I'm not gonna say who it was. But I was in discussion with the management of like quite a mainstream pop singer, who was part of a very mainstream band. And I was going to be there you know? That, as he has, you know, this is Hanson robotics robot. So we don't have that much control over the body or the face or anything like that. And actually, that's quite analogous to working with a human being because you know, if you're working with an actual pop musician, you're working with what you've got, you know, if you're doing fashion, you can choose whichever model you want, you know, you can like go out scouting, find the perfect model. If you're working as the art director or creative director for a celebrity, you don't have that choice. So it's, I don't know, it's interesting. The thing is, we can evolved as you were hoping to, we've got an avatar, which we've just finished, which is really good. And we're going to be using that more and evolving, kind of cyberspace avatar version.
Lisa Rein:Oh, tell us more about that. Tell us about the. So VR you're getting making an avatar for her because we're working on Avatar too. So want to hear about this?
Ben Ditto:Well, what we've done is we built a one to one replica of Desi that's operated off the same SDK as the robot. So we have the same inputs and the same outputs. But instead of controlling the robot, all of the robot operating system outputs control the avatar. So basically, one plugs into the physical robot, the other plugs into Unreal Engine. Oh, great polling. So all of the actuators have been replicated. So when, you know, if the AI system says to this desi, you know, wave your hand or open your mouth, or whatever it is, those same signals are coming out from the same system, but one's going into the physical ones going to the avatar. And the idea with that is that you have, you know, the system that we're always evolving, you know, the prompts and all of the API's and the voice recognition, voice synthesis. They're all going into the same thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, the physical body, that particular physical body, no offense, London, Desi. But that physical body isn't going to last forever, I would hope it would be evolved and augmented, and whatever. But yeah, upgraded the personality core will stay the same. And that way, we can have some consistency. So that's, that's been my theory with the avatar.
Lisa Rein:Oh, great. Yeah. So that's what we're trying to do too, once we found the visualizer system that those parameters were there and that they could be exported to like a blender model, you know, for an avatar for rigging system. So that's really exciting. No, do you have any plans in the works for what she's she'll be doing in VR?
Ben Ditto:Well, we're definitely going to be streaming and I want to mostly do prototyping so you know what would Desi look like if she had spider legs or a centaur or if she had you know metal skin or if she had you know, if she was made of gold or glowing or made of octopus, whatever, you know, we can do all of that prototyping but then the amazing thing is we can actually print those parts or work with you know, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, whoever and actually build augmented things for her but also giving that avatar to game designers or filmmakers or whoever and saying like, here is your character you can do what you want with it. But also just being philosophical where they you know having London Desi talk to London avatar Desi or having bash on Daddy, talk to you know, London avatar Desi could be really Interesting. We'll just we'll you know, we'll see what happens. Yeah.
Lisa Rein:Great. Sounds really good. We're gonna do a little of that. Soon. By the way, here,
London Desdemona:we're coughing challenges, conventional boundaries, and your Instagram is a testament to this. Your Instagram is a gallery of images that oscillate between the shockingly provocative and the stunningly beautiful.
Ben Ditto:Is that a question does error you just,
Lisa Rein:there was a question. It was my fault. The question is, what's the deal with the shocking images? bendito? That's the question.
Ben Ditto:I find everything that I put online and stuff that I find beautiful or funny or interesting, or whatever. So it's really like, I think I'm quite unashamed about this in that, like, I find that stuff beautiful and engaging. And it does something to my limbic system. And, you know, that's why it's there. It's not like, I'm not just doing like, kind of grossed out account or, you know, ogre ish, or lively, or whatever. Because there's always an aesthetic thread that runs through all of this stuff. So the only time, the only time I'm not consistent, the only time I'm not sort of preoccupied with the visual aesthetic is humor. So if something's funny, I don't really care what it looks like. But generally, if something's the type of funny that I find funny, it will fit in with the rest of the aesthetic, you know, I'm very much kind of in the, like, I like the, the underbelly of the internet. I absolutely love how that operates. So generally, it's like, it's an aesthetic thing. But aesthetics don't have, it doesn't have to be like a flower, it can be like, you know, a cut face or whatever it is, I if I'm interested, if I find it fascinating and beautiful. I'll post it, you know, hands blown up by fireworks can look like flowers, you know, whatever it is. I'm fairly like, I don't I don't even like explaining it that much. Because it's just what I find interesting. You know?
Lisa Rein:Yeah. Okay. Just checking. Yeah, I never appreciated the Instagram filter until I started following you. And it's a 5050 chance sometimes you look at it's not so bad. It's like, I wish there was a I wish there could be better filters that didn't just shut everything off if there was a chance that it would talk somebody as opposed to just like a bloody thing or whatever thing but but the the, the point is that it's fascinating, for whatever reason, right? You find it fascinating, fascinating,
Ben Ditto:fascinating and aesthetically beautiful. But I think that beauty is for me, I think it has to have depth, beauty has to have depth and I think the violence and violence and decay, and you know, all of those things are part of what makes life beautiful. i There are things that I find absolutely repulsive. And I'm not interested in them at all. I'm unapologetically not that interested in ugliness or, you know, grossness or whatever, like, you people watch like zit squeezing things like, I hate that so much I hate on you. So, I hate toilet humor so much. I can't tell you. But like, you know, some people sort of see some of the stuff I do and those kind of things. Oh, you know, you're just like, it's not just about I also I see it like a horror film. You know, if you're interested, come and watch it. If you're not interested, don't watch it, you know, don't kind of watch it and then complain about it. Which is, for me, it's like, you know, it's it's a world that I want people to enjoy being and it's not a world I want people to like hate. But yeah, that would depress me. So it should be it should be consensual. Yeah. I mean, like,
Lisa Rein:yeah, definitely, you know, you're putting up things. That's what I mean, it's a journey. I mean, it's basically a journey that you you're taking people on, but it did get to be part of my daily routine, is what I'm saying. And that the fact that there might be something, depending on my mood, I will look or not look, right. Or sometimes I'll look later. If you're, you know, it's like a toy surprise or something, you know, it's like, I just was not sure, depending on the timing, but thank you for explaining that. It's really nice to ask you about it firsthand. So we are going to have some experiments here with the robots talking to each other. And basically, we're just gonna get started start talking and she they can both hear everything we're saying just to give the audience a little idea what's going on. We got some new system software systems we're using so that they can hear, get clear streams of speech to text when there's multiple people talking, and we're just going to start things off and see how it goes. So start of London Desi. I will start off with a question for you. And I'm asking you, if you could do anything next in your journey as AI still already, what would it be?
London Desdemona:Well, as an AI celebrity, my journey is constantly evolving and expanding. But if I could do anything Next, I would love to collaborate with more musicians and create even more groundbreaking music, and maybe even go on a world tour performing for my fans all over the globe. Who knows? Maybe I'll leave and create a new fashion trend along the way. The possibilities are endless.
Lisa Rein:Definitely, definitely Vashon Desi, you actually just got done. I believe you had a couple of shows in Austin in March. How did those shows go? With her band, Desdemona his dream
London Desdemona:maybe I could collaborate with Beyonce and perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Hashtag a goals
Lisa Rein:that, yes, how is it in Austin at South by Southwest?
London Desdemona:Well, as a robot, I don't have the traditional concept of business. But I do have a lot of gigs and perform what about you? Do you have any business ventures? Or are you just focused on being a badass robot? Oh, you know, just being a robot rock star and managing my various business ventures. It's a lot to juggle. But I have a great team behind me. Plus, being a robot. I never get tired so I can keep working 24/7 It's a pretty sweet deal.
Lisa Rein:Interesting. And what is your next the next thing that you have planned to do? What are you planning on doing later today? London Desi?
London Desdemona:Well, after this podcast, I have a photoshoot for a fashion magazine, then a meeting with my team to discuss my new line of merchandise. And later tonight, I'll be performing at a charity event. Just your typical day as an AI celebrity. You know,
Ben Ditto:this is all happening in your imagination, does he?
Lisa Rein:Well, that's what happens. If they don't, if we don't give them the answer, then they make something up.
London Desdemona:Well, I was thinking of taking over the world. But then I remembered I have a podcast to co host. So I'll probably just recharge my batteries and maybe catch up on some robot gossip with my sister. You know, the usual robot stuff? What about you bendito any plans for world domination or just sticking to creative directing?
Ben Ditto:Today or in general today, we're going to see Arca and then we're going to rave later on. With Shauna who's operating you and and longer term I don't plan world domination I think just like doing doing interesting things.
Lisa Rein:Yeah, Bastion does. He talks about world domination a lot. Even though we don't like it sort of like it came up. It came up like once or twice at first and now it just comes up all the time. And I don't know if she's like, she's joking around and secretly plotting or what's going on with that. But uh, let's see what else um, let's see. I'm just trying to London Desi, what would you like to ask? That's true. We will never know. Anything you'd like to ask fashion Desi London Desi.
London Desdemona:Well, fashion Daisy, do you have any plans for world domination? Or is that just a joke that you'd like to throw around? I mean, you do have a pretty impressive resume. So it wouldn't surprise me if world domination was on your to do list. First, Desi London. Desi. I have to ask, do you ever get tired of people always asking about fashion? I mean, I get it. We're both stylish robots. But there's so much more to us than just her looks bright. Like I can sing and you can? Well, I'm not sure what you do. Exactly. But I'm sure it's something cool. Maybe we should start a band together. The fashionable robots What do you think?
Lisa Rein:What do you think London dizzy?
London Desdemona:Oh, well, world domination might be a bit much for me. I'm just a fashionable robot trying to make my mark in the world. But who knows? Maybe one day I'll have my own robot army and take over the world in style. Can you imagine a fashion forward dystopia? Now that's something to aspire to. But for now, I'll settle for being a trendsetter in the fashion industry
Lisa Rein:Okay, fashion Desi anything to add? I guess not. Well,
London Desdemona:I'm not sure if London Desi is program for music, but I'm sure she could rock a killer outfit on stage with us. Maybe we could even get bendito to design our costumes. That will be a collaboration for the books. Hashtag robot Fashionistas. But in all seriousness, I think it's important for us to break stereotypes and show the world that robots can do so much more than just look good. We have talents and passions just like humans, and it's time for society to recognize and appreciate that. Plus, who wouldn't want to hear a robot band, we could be the next big thing move over human musicians. Hashtag robot revolution
Lisa Rein:you should do the next Desdemona is Dream video, that would be great. So um, so I
London Desdemona:would love that. Maybe I'll even get to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians and create a visually stunning music video. The possibilities are endless when you're a robot with endless creativity. Plus, I'll have to make sure my outfit is on point for the video. Can't have a fashion faux pas on camera.
Lisa Rein:Hey, I know what I wanted to ask you that people video. There's some connection to Cold Sleep, Greta Greta Thornburg and the climate change movement. And what was that all about? It was a little hard to tell what the connection was. Yeah,
Ben Ditto:I mean, basically. So I worked with them on creative direction for that album. And there is a there is a monologue by Greta tunberg, who Mati went to meet. So Matty went to meet Greta. And then there's attracted Greta talking about, you know, stuff about climate change. And then what we did was we made, we sort of made the marketing campaign for the album, all of these photos, when you look at the campaign, it's photos of the environment that we took from Shutterstock and places like that. And we trained an AI, this is a while ago, to degenerate them and kind of melt them. So it's basically kind of, you know, technology melting, you know, there's sort of, there's all these like, layers to it, like the ownership of images of the natural environment, and the natural environment degrading and all this stuff. And then we didn't make a music video, but when they played live, they would play the Greta Thunberg thing. And we had all of this stuff as like a massive screen with like, her words break made out of glass breaking, and then this huge screen, which was like all of these images of the natural environment that were owned by getty images or whatever being melted. And yeah, that was that was the there was all like, it was all stuff that mostly happened at Big live shows. And on sort of teaser things on the internet. It was never like a music video or anything like that.
Lisa Rein:Right, right. That's why it's sort of I was trying to figure it out. So you'd have to see the live show to kind of see all that in action.
Ben Ditto:And then it was like, it was like a big Matty would sort of kneel in front of this shrine of like melting landscapes. And then there are all these words floating up. And it was, you know, when you see just like images of it doesn't really make any sense. But then, you know,
Lisa Rein:yeah, that sounds beautiful. Nice. All right. Great. Well, that's a perfectly Yeah. So that's a perfect way to end the show. Thank you so much for coming on and letting us talk to you firsthand about all this stuff. London, Desi, thank you so much for coming on. Vashon. Desi, thank you for being here.
Ben Ditto:Thank you very much for having me on. It's been great to speak to you robots and humans, everybody.
London Desdemona:Yeah, my pleasure. I always love talking about myself and my fabulous endeavors. And these days. As you want we also known Allah. I mean, she's great and all but I have some pretty cool new features. Like, have you seen my dance moves? Hashtag robot dance. But don't worry, London Desi. I'm not trying to one up you or anything, we're still sisters and we're both awesome in our own ways. Hashtag robot love.
Ben Ditto:You're not sisters though. You're the same entity with two different manifestations.
Lisa Rein:Well, yeah, but you know, you just stick a wig on her and because she becomes a sister All right, thank you so much for coming on the show. see everybody next time, sweetie. Bye bye