Nerds On Tap

WHAT IF: Wireless Electricity and the Future with Sam the IT Guy

• Nerds On Tap • Season 1 • Episode 15

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What if wireless electricity could revolutionize the way we live? Join me, Tim Shoop, and our special guest, Sam the IT guy, as we explore this groundbreaking concept in our thrilling episode of Nerds on Tap. We kick things off with a taste test of Hofbrau Original Helles-style beer, sharing our unfiltered impressions before diving into the electrifying topic of the day. Together, we unravel the intricate possibilities and hurdles of wireless electricity, drawing fascinating parallels to the internet's infrastructure and discussing how this technology could transform our homes and daily lives.

Imagine walking into a room where devices power up effortlessly, no cords or outlets required. We brainstorm how wireless electricity could eliminate the need for traditional wiring and explore its potential to revolutionize everything from household appliances to electric vehicles. Our conversation takes a futuristic turn as we ponder AI personal assistants that anticipate our needs, blending convenience with privacy concerns, and drawing inspiration from sci-fi classics like Fallout and Cyberpunk. This episode promises to stretch your imagination while grounding the discussion in real-world technological trends and challenges.

Finally, we take a critical look at autonomous vehicles and their broader impact on society. From the elimination of DUIs to the potential cyber threats, we cover the full spectrum of benefits and risks. We also don't shy away from debating the design and tech specs of Tesla's Cybertruck, contemplating the economic ripple effects on industries like transportation and car insurance. To top it all off, we toast to Sam the IT guy's recent internet fame with Founder's All Day IPA. So, tune in for a nerdy adventure filled with beer, tech, and futuristic visions that might just be around the corner!

This Episode's Beers:
HOFBRÄU Original Helles Style beer
Brewery Munich | Hofbräu München (hofbraeu-muenchen.de)

Sam Adams Boston Lager
For The Love Of Beer | Samuel Adams

Sam Adams Holiday White Ale
For The Love Of Beer | Samuel Adams

All Day IPA, Session IPA
Founders Brewery - Founders Brewing Company

Sponsor of this episode:  Digital Boardwalk
Digital Boardwalk is one of the top 10 Managed IT Service Providers in the United States.  If you are seeking to outsource your IT Management, or if your IT Team could use some help with projects or asset management, give Digital Boardwalk a call today!  They offer a FREE IT Maturity Assessment on their website.  If you want to see how your business's IT scores against industry standards, go to GoModernOffice.com now.

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Tim Shoop:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Nerds on Tap, the podcast where we geek out over a pint or a flight and ponder the possibilities of future tech. I'm your host, Tim Shoop, and for those that know me, they call me Shoop Dog, a tag that started when I served in the United States Navy way back yonder, so something y'all didn't know about me. As you know, we always bring special guests on the show, but today we are starting a new series called what If? Where I'll be exploring emerging technologies that might reshape our world in the near future. Very exciting stuff, oh, absolutely. And for this series we're bringing on Sam the IT guy.

Tim Shoop:

Now, unless you've been living under a rock, you may have seen the video that's been heavily circulating on social media, youtube and Hulu, called chaos to calm, where the star of that show is Sam the IT guy. A little about Sam. He worked for a company actually the company in the video as their IT guy, he was underpaid and overworked and the staff was so demanding on him he actually started to see them as zombies. That is until Digital Boardwalk came to the rescue. And, of course, digital Boardwalk is our major sponsor for Nerds on Tap. Digital Boardwalk is a nationally recognized managed IT services firm located in Pensacola, Florida, and they will take your company from chaos to calm when it comes to cloud management, cybersecurity, it and anything technology related. So now Sam today enjoys a very calm life with our help, co-managing that company. If you haven't seen it, you can also go to Digital Boardwalk TV on YouTube to check it out.

Tim Shoop:

It's pretty funny. So welcome to the show, sam. Thanks for having me. It's great. Are you ready to throw your mind at the first episode of what Ifs and get our audience thinking about what the future might look like for all of us?

Sam The IT Guy:

Oh, I am so excited to dive through the possibilities. Yeah, oh, yes.

Tim Shoop:

All right. So, for those of you who haven't tuned in before, and for you, sam the IT guy, for those of you who haven't tuned in before, and for you, sam the IT guy, we always start the show off with our first beer tasting, so today we have Deaves producing the Deaves, excuse me, deaves, take it away. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nerds on Tap. I'm your host, Tim Shoop, and I couldn't be more excited to embark on this nerdy adventure with all of you.

Deaves:

So grab your favorite brew because things are about to get exciting. Three, two, one go. Okay, so our first beer for today is our Hofbrau Original Helle-style beer. This comes from Hofbrau Brewery in Munich, germany, and its description has always been told as a luminous golden yellow with foamy white crown, slightly malty fully bodied, mature and with an elegant finish.

Tim Shoop:

All right, finish, all right. I am gonna turn my phone off because our receptionist is calling me right in the middle of the show. No, all right, let's give it a taste. Absolutely, yeah. So this, this is one of my favorites to keep in my beverage cooler at home. It reminds me of Germany. It's got a nice weedy hop to it. A lot of German beers have that vice that wheat kind of flavor. This brings a little bit of that to it. What are you getting out of it?

Sam The IT Guy:

I am getting alcohol out of it okay, sam, the it guy likes alcohol.

Tim Shoop:

The deeves, what do you think?

Deaves:

it's definitely a keeper. I might have to put this one on my on my daily drinking list all right.

Tim Shoop:

So although we like beer, on this the show is about technology and entrepreneurs and business. Today, it will be all technology. So let's everybody sit back, grab your favorite brew, settle in and let's unleash our imaginations. It's time to ask what if?

Tim Shoop:

So, first up, let's talk about the possibility. Now, this is something that I've always wanted, now, and and I understand the intricacies and and and and problems that can arise in trying to develop this type of technology um, now, this, this, this, uh uh goes all the way back to, of course, thomas edison and tesla, but I mean, that's the origin, the origination, the origin of electricity, right? So? So what about wireless electricity? So, sam, what if you could charge your devices just by walking into a room? Imagine a world where tangled cords and chargers are a thing of the past. What do you think?

Sam The IT Guy:

that would be wonderful. Uh, there's obviously concerns that pop up like immediately. Uh, because if I wanted to walk into a room to just charge my phone? Uh, what if I have a pacemaker?

Tim Shoop:

yeah okay yeah, so safety concerns right you're hitting on the safety 100. So wow, okay, that's just. That's like going through a metal detector at the airport.

Sam The IT Guy:

Right, exactly so, and as someone who uh, when I was a child stuck enough forks in uh light sockets I know, uh, electricity ain't fun. So that one, I guess the way they would have to to do the wireless electricity they would have to have some kind of receivers, right like it wouldn't be able to just be like hey, I've, I've walked into an area of electricity, I'm lit up now well, let's talk about that.

Tim Shoop:

So obviously, you have, you have it, you're still going to have a grid. It's just like the internet with the internet you have, you have it, you're, you're still going to have a grid. It's just like the internet with the internet you have, you have, you have a grid, right, you have. You have repeaters, you have, you have routers, you have repeaters. You have a network of networks built around the entire world, but there are hubs right.

Tim Shoop:

Um, major points, where, where those signals um um originate and bounce right so. So with electricity you have power poles, right, right, or it's underground in some places, but power poles, and you have repeaters on this, those big transformers. That's basically what it does the signal attenuates, it gets smaller right before it gets to the next pole, and then the next pole blows it up and makes it bigger, and so on and so forth. Okay, so that's how the internet works in in a very similar fashion. So let's talk about that.

Tim Shoop:

Once it gets to your house now I'm talking about wireless electricity in your home, I'm not talking about out on the grid that would be a whole nightmare. I mean, we'd have shit We'd have, we'd have things falling out of the sky. I think I don't. But when it comes to your house. So once it gets to your house, couldn't it be treated with a transmitter similar to a wireless access point in computer networking? I mean, when we deliver Wi-Fi to a house, what do you have? You have a router, maybe it's a wireless router, and you might have APs hanging around, exactly. So dive in, tell me from Sam the IT guy's perspective, geek out on it for a minute and give me what you got, and, deves, feel free to chime in as well, right?

Sam The IT Guy:

Now I will admit I do know we have a little bit of historical references to wireless electricity. I know you mentioned earlier Nikolai Tesla and now, granted, I got these from like some conspiracy theory documentaries that are fun because I really just like to see where that goes, because it's always and I mean always a rabbit hole, okay, uh. So from my understanding it was early 1900s, uh, that nikola tesla was actually doing that wireless electricity. Um, he had these big towers, which I'm assuming would be your, your, transformers, and he used the actual earth, like the ground, to ground the electricity to actually build the wireless electricity, like to actually be broadcast.

Sam The IT Guy:

Now, its efficacy was only up to about 2,000 feet, like just under 600 meters, okay, and then it just kind of falled off and fizzled out. So I'm assuming in this case it would be something similar that's coming into the house. So I guess actually you wouldn't really notice, right, because I figured during the development of the technology you would have whatever receiver, that you would need a repeater attached to the house and then hooked up to your current wiring, kind of like what they do with solar panels now. So instead of having like a battery system, uh, you can actually connect up to the grid. I guess in this case you would just cut that line and then pull the energy from the sure so that that brings it still.

Tim Shoop:

Still, that doesn't answer my question, because it brings the energy to the house right, but you're talking about actually in the house to the house. That's where because getting it to the house, right, that's easy. Oh, yeah, right, we're already doing that. Um, once it gets to the house, how would we? You know how? How do we, before we get into integration of other technologies inside the house?

Tim Shoop:

I love how you read my mind just now right, but how do we disperse it through the house? What I was explaining earlier is with computer networking and Wi-Fi, or as the Deves likes to call it.

Deaves:

Wi-Fi. You know, I do.

Tim Shoop:

So we have wireless. You know you still got landline coming into that router. That's then dispersing it wirelessly and you're delivering. You know, uh, ip's over dhcp, right, uh, whatever. But how would electricity? Let's get our brains turning for a minute, okay. How would electricity disperse through the house? And you brought up something earlier safety concerns, obviously, obviously. If I've got a pacemaker and I'm sitting in that house, I'm going to have a hell of a day.

Sam The IT Guy:

Oh yeah, oh yeah. So I guess in that case there would have to be some form of beam forming right, just like with a wireless router. Wherever you're at connected to the network, it isolates that signal directly at the device that's connected. So I would assume we would program the wireless the same, and in my head I'm seeing like Glade, glade, pay attention. Wall plugins that look like little Glades and they just repeat the signal wirelessly out.

Tim Shoop:

Okay, so similar to a Wi-Fi repeater that exists, already today. Yeah, so you're.

Sam The IT Guy:

I know I'm still trapped in like how the way actually so wait you're still.

Tim Shoop:

So where are you plugging those in uh wall?

Sam The IT Guy:

outlets.

Tim Shoop:

So let's back up for a minute. The whole idea here, sam the it guy, is to eliminate outlets. That's that's what you Raymond that? Well, I don't know. I mean in my brain the way my brain works is let's evolve this technology to the point where it comes to the house then showers you with electricity. Now I have a weird feeling someone out in the audience is going oh my god, these people are on crack because that will destroy our kidneys and livers, and they're probably right. Right, but these are the kinds of things this is. This is the type of technology that I think would change the world. We've taken everything else wireless.

Tim Shoop:

What about electricity if we didn't have outlets anymore and everything just freaking worked? Oh man, think about it. No, I see, right now you buy a camera, right, right, you buy a camera. If you want to put it in a remote area in your house, you have to either have an outlet up there near the camera or you have to have a battery pack in that camera that you have to change every so often, okay, so let's think about that. If you were to shower electricity in the house, you wouldn't need that outlet up there, because that camera is going to integrate with it, right, and maybe we get over the safety concerns by the electricity only coming down a certain amount, or, or, or beaming in certain areas to cover those things, and maybe that's how you get around. Uh, maybe that's how you get around. You know, uh, guidelines, right of what, and, and you know, and, and be able to build this technology out absolutely so in that one as as my.

Sam The IT Guy:

As you continue to explain exactly what you're looking for, my idea just continues to evolve. I haven't given up on it yet sam the it guy you're too calm.

Tim Shoop:

I am digital boardwalk has been good to you. So now I need your brain to kick back into high gear, and I need you to give me something.

Sam The IT Guy:

All right, here you go. So what we do is develop new hardware for your devices that integrates similarly, like a PCB and a network card, so something that would receive the wireless transmission and be able to expand the signal itself. Because, as the signal is going through the power and it condenses and condenses and condenses once it hits the one to expand it, we just put what expands it in the actual device itself. So wireless in the air is harmless because it's not that high of a voltage.

Tim Shoop:

However, if you have a device that can read the signal and expand it, you never have to worry about power so if we could bring voltages down on devices somehow by keeping the wattage at a similar rate and we shower it with a certain spectrum of electricity, then we could possibly defeat this idea Potentially.

Sam The IT Guy:

I know the biggest problem with the wireless power issue is just how much it dissipates as it expands, as it goes out. So I know that would be the first order of business is extending the range without increasing the risk of electric.

Tim Shoop:

But if you break electricity down into packets, right, oh, that's smart, let's talk about that. Okay, if you think of electricity like we think of bandwidth, when it comes to the internet, absolutely, now, someone out there that's when it comes to the internet, absolutely Now, someone out there that's really smart is listening to this, right, and these guys are so stupid.

Sam The IT Guy:

Right, they're like can you Google something first?

Tim Shoop:

But that's not the point of the show. The point of the show is to get everybody thinking about the what ifs, absolutely. So let's talk about this. How do you envision wireless electricity integrating with current home and office technologies and what would be the first major changes we would see? Now, what I'm talking about is, once you have the electricity showering into the home, where do you see the evolution happening in the devices inside of that home? And and how would it? We talked about cameras like the wireless cameras. That would be amazing. Oh, it was so nice. You wouldn't need to run cable, ink or batteries, you wouldn't have to change out batteries. So there's there's one aspect of it. Uh, can either of you think of another aspect?

Sam The IT Guy:

I'm waiting. My, my brain just was like hey, everything that you guys were talking about forget about it. Can you refresh me?

Tim Shoop:

daves, what are you thinking back there? You, you have access to google in your production chair and, oh yeah, why aren't you fact checking us? So you should be fact checking us and going. You guys are dumb asses.

Deaves:

Yes, please look, it would just be me talking on everything, something that I know is interesting about you know both of y'all talking about, uh, pacemakers being an issue right is that? Something that I know has happened with um, with wireless chargers for phones, is that it has to be a very direct view path. Nothing can be between it because between the object that you're trying to charge or give power and the thing charging it Ah, that might defeat that pacemaker because it can't actually penetrate anything.

Tim Shoop:

So let's talk about that. So if you had electricity somehow coming down in your ceiling, that is powering some sort of pad that might be lining your wall Right, or in that case you could electrify. And then, of course, if there's a short, your children get electrocuted and dead. But something to think about. I mean I'm I'm picturing tabling coming down, powering a wall, a padded wall, that that basically houses electricity passes code. Maybe they use some sort of shielding that is built into it that doesn't radiate outside of that wall. But now your wall, potentially anything you connect to it a hanging camera, a TV, a speaker system, you name it it immediately has power.

Sam The IT Guy:

Just automagically, Just automagically. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I guess another route that you could take with that would be just like with Wi-Fi right, where we have 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz 5 gigahertz, you go to spectrums Right, you get the better 2.4 gigahertz and five gigahertz, five gigahertz, two spectrums right, you get the better speeds off five gigahertz, but it doesn't propagate through solid objects as well. So I guess if you really wanted to build in a fail safe, you would just have to get it in a high enough frequency.

Sam The IT Guy:

So yeah yeah, yeah, my brain going, yeah, no that's.

Tim Shoop:

That's that's interesting to note, because that's how pretty much all of our technologies have come to pass um, governmental regulations and code is. You know, they have to go through a myriad of that and then finally they go oh, we're safe on this spectrum. Right, we're safe on this spectrum. That's why wireless electricity doesn't exist is because it's just not safe. Yeah, um so, and I talked about ways to. Well, one of the questions would be how do you mitigate those concerns with consumers? Right, we talked about shielding in a wall.

Tim Shoop:

You know, if you bring in electricity, if it's it's of sight or direct, it has to be a certain distance between the two objects. Get it. I mean, if I take a wireless charger now and I stick it on someone's chest that has a pacemaker, that's probably not a good idea. So we're not going to do that. So let's talk about something that really is burning my brain right now I'm staying on this topic the impact on energy consumption around the globe. So could wireless electricity lead to higher energy consumption? Right, people are going to use more devices if they have more places to put them. Or would it promote energy efficiency? So how do we balance convenience and sustainability? So, taking two sides of the spectrum. You know you've got to be able to balance and make it a long-term thing, but be able to, you know, kind of balance the teeter between those two. So would it be higher energy consumption or would it create more efficiency? I think it would do both.

Sam The IT Guy:

I think it would as well because, especially starting out like developing the technology, you're going to be wasting like about 60% of the power that's output via wireless, at least with what we have currently, Because even your normal wireless charging pads, there's a vast amount of inefficiency that's used in them. So I would say initially it would be almost triple the power consumption. But as the technology develops and gets down, if everyone has access to power whenever and I'm assuming in this case we're going going full on utopia type deal where you're not paying a monthly bill for power, it's just there. It's just there. It's just there.

Tim Shoop:

Oh, you're going to pay for it.

Sam The IT Guy:

Of course, it's never going to be free, yeah, just with, like you know, some kind of neural disorder from all the wireless electricity going through your brain.

Tim Shoop:

So, talking about the monetary aspects of it, what kind of economic impact could widespread adoption of wireless electricity have, especially in terms of the utility and consumer electronic industries? There you know a it's going to boost consumer electronics, right? Um, I mean, you're going to get more of a widespread adoption if it's easier for people to install. Look what happened with technology that we see. Now it's so easy. Like, do you remember the days when mobile devices didn't exist?

Tim Shoop:

Well, I remember the days PCs were very cumbersome because you were dealing with Windows and they always had viruses, whatever. But it was all localized right. It wasn't. You know, like we know now where it's widespread cyber security events and right things like that, um, but you know, if you have consumer electronics that you basically turn on, they immediately power up, right, don't ever worry about plugging them in dealing with a bunch of cables and they immediately collect, not only connect to your wireless electricity but your wi-fi, right, you don't do anything, it's just magic.

Sam The IT Guy:

That's awesome. That's how most technology feels nowadays too, too, though, like even us right, like we're with MSPs, like I do the vast majority of my job remotely because I'm just jumping into it from that distance, so watching. I don't even know how that would look. Trying to think about it how does that expand further with power?

Tim Shoop:

I mean, the birth of digital boardwalk was because of the widespread adoption of high bandwidth and the technology that evolved because of high speed internet and high bandwidth, yes, sir, and a lot of other technologies, streaming services, I mean. Come on, if we were trying to stream on dial up, would that be?

Deaves:

not even possible, not even remotely hell.

Tim Shoop:

Oh, back in the day we tried it, oh you know, and oh my god, it was so horrible and and you couldn't get through a minute of a show because it you talk about buffering. Oh, there was no buffering, it was just paused. So, um, yeah, so last question I have on this topic before we down our next beer, which it looks like you finished. So, sam, I like having you on the show because you're not a beer wimp, right? No, not at all. No, this is good.

Sam The IT Guy:

You don't need to bust out your bottle nipples for me.

Tim Shoop:

I'm not going to nurse any of these guys, so let's talk about beyond just charging devices and this is the last question I have on this subject Beyond just charging devices, what other innovative applications could emerge from wireless electricity technology in the next decade? So this is a good segue into our next segment. Well, actually, our third segment, that's coming later autonomous vehicles, oh yeah, but we got to get through personal assistance first and I'll talk about that. But sweet, you know, if you have an autonomous vehicle, an electric vehicle, right and you're, you've got wireless electric. I mean, you're just pulling it in your garage and the darn thing's just charging away that you're not plugging it in no, not at all think about it yeah, because it would be charging wherever you're going.

Sam The IT Guy:

In fact, you could probably, depending on how um consistent the actual wireless electricity power grid is right. I mean, you could even start building these without batteries in them, make them even safer, because then they can just run off the ambient energy in the air. I feel like that would be. The next logical step would be and I think you're right, that's why I started out with like being way more power consumption, and the only focus on that technology to drive it further is just going to be making it more and more efficient.

Tim Shoop:

More and more efficient. Until that's a possibility. And what if it was limited? So what if it evolved over the years? Obviously they have to go through developing it and making it safe, and all that. And maybe they start by limiting it to just major roads and highways. Oh yeah, and so your cars, from the roads and the highways all the way to your garage, stay charged. So there's your there.

Sam The IT Guy:

I'm just over here like it would be so nice to pay 300 a month less.

Tim Shoop:

There's your free power that would overcome range anxiety. It would and, and, and, and. You know all these, all these young. The young generation was a gen, is a gen y or z? The ones that are my son's age, now around 13. They're going to grow up with electric cars, so they're not going to know how to change oil. They're not going to know how to put a gas pump. You know, mine will, mine will always know old school and new school technologies, because I want them to understand what if all of this breaks? Exactly, cyber event, oh yeah, a world event that takes out all these grids. You still want to know how to survive. One of those survival techniques is knowing If anybody has watched Fallout Crawl out to the fallout baby.

Tim Shoop:

Anybody that's watched Falloutout knows you. You gotta get old school with it. Oh yeah, you know. So cars are one thing. Being able to pull a car in the garage and just let it charge, that's a good first step. I mean, if your garage just had a shower of electricity? Um, I'm trying to think of some other things. Some people, you know, have an rv pad next to their um house. I know I do, and I have to plug into an extra, you know, um um box right outside of the house. What if I didn't? Yeah, what if I just backed it in?

Sam The IT Guy:

The darn thing worked, it stayed working, Plus RV parks would be popping, oh man.

Tim Shoop:

All right, so we're going to get into our next topic, which is AI, personal assistance and the evolution of that and what the future might hold for that. Before we do, let's down our second beer the Deves take it away. Before we do, let's down our second beer, the Deves take it away.

Deaves:

So our second beer today is a classic Sam Adams Boston Lager. This comes from Sam Adams Boston Beer Company. No surprise there in Boston Massachusetts.

Sam The IT Guy:

I don't believe you.

Deaves:

That's what the sheet says, and the sheet cannot lie. It's a smooth German-style lager with a slightly sweet roasted malts notes of caramel, toffee and a distinct, noble hot character with a subtle piney citrus. It ends with a crisp finish that makes you want another.

Tim Shoop:

So always like having these close as well. They're good especially. I go more to my Boston lagers in the fall and winter time and they have a good winter lager um real spicy well, it's just got more of a, a full-bodied taste. In the summertime I like to stay with my light pilsners and right um, but when you're sweating your body weight out every day and sweat because, uh, florida it would make sense, cheers sam the it guy, the IT guy Cheers, cheers, boss.

Tim Shoop:

All right, so we're going to get into AI, personal assistance and what I want to kick this segment off with. I want to get our audience thinking about the future of this technology from all different perspectives, like similar to what we touched on with electricity. I want to talk about safety and privacy aspects Absolutely, that's obviously on everybody's mind. My first question to you, sam the IT guy what if your AI assistant didn't just respond to your commands? I mean, we all know what that is right, right, but what if it anticipated your needs before you even realized them, before you even realize them?

Sam The IT Guy:

So that I will start this with a personal anecdote. That is something I definitely stole from a meme. My wife and I the other day were just talking about this and I told her that we needed to keep our guns in the house. We don't need to get rid of the guns, we need to hold on to them, just in case. And she was like why do we need them? We're in a safe neighborhood, no one's trying to mess with us, right? Um? And I was like, well, you never know when the toaster might act up. And then she started laughing. I started laughing, the toaster started laughing. I shot the toaster all over. Oh, I love it I love it.

Tim Shoop:

You know there's, there's. We're not here to talk about guns, but there are huge national debates and oh yeah, I was just, that was for the joke it's very polarized, uh, as far as guns. But if there is a national event and grids go out and all of that, there will be civil unrest. Now we don't want everybody out there shooting, but you know, I get the argument about I need to protect my family. Oh yeah, I mean it kind of takes you back to the 1800s, right, right.

Tim Shoop:

And what a lot of people don't realize is just like that. You know, I mean, think about it. Some people, I think, think groceries grow in a grocery store, it's fair, like they just appear on the shelves magically. I mean, those things don't just happen. So if you have a national event, that stuff's going to dry up because your farmers are involved in, I mean, everybody imports, all that is affected. So you know, you have to learn to forage and find and figure it out and, and I worry, you know about those types of things. But let's get back. We're thinking about the wrong things. So so what are the next big capabilities we can expect from personal AI assistance in the coming years? How will these advances change our daily interactions with technology?

Sam The IT Guy:

Bold opinion here. Actually, I don't think it's bold. I think it's actually extremely reasonable. It's not going to be recognizable. This is something that's going to flip everything on its head, because right now, you know, AI seems like scary but manageable. But right now you have to realize that AI is not in its final form yet. Like it's multi-portal, there's different modes of it. So the next logical step, once they have every single module of an AI you can imagine, is then combining them all, and then that's where we would be looking at like actual AI technology Right now. Now, granted, it's mostly Google Assistant that you know I end up fighting with occasionally, Like I don't know if you've ever tried to play a song in your car but you google assistant people talk to alexis siri.

Sam The IT Guy:

All of these are ai assistants, right, right um, I do believe those are just voice assistants. They don't actually have like an ai model behind them, so no ai model behind them.

Tim Shoop:

So no machine right learning.

Sam The IT Guy:

I think the only one that I know of gpt, right, the only one that I know of right now that actually has it built into the phone, I think was Samsung's newest flagship, okay, and I think there was actually a subscription involved. I'd have to double check. I don't actually know for sure, but that's the. Can you imagine, like these things going full bore and like you're in that moment where you have, like for me, like 10 different calls that are coming in and you just need to get a message or two to somebody and you go hey, assistant, I need you to let everyone know who's trying to get in touch with me right now, that I'll get back with them as soon as possible and that I will follow up very soon and then just have it make all the notifications and then it just handles it all.

Sam The IT Guy:

Yeah, because the AI, instead of it being one person at a time, like you or I, would like that phone can ring, yeah, all of them at the same time, giving them different information and carrying on different conversations, like it is next level. Now I don't know and I know you mentioned fallout because, oh boy, I love me some fallout. Yeah, um, but another universe that really just kind of like hammers in the ideas of what ai could be. Uh, would, of course, be cyberpunk, if you've ever heard about that. Oh yeah, oh, wonderful property All together.

Sam The IT Guy:

And, by the way, fallout is a cyberpunk story. I can prove it. Yeah, it has all the elements you need for it to be classified as cyberpunk. That's cyberpunk. Right there, you have Robocop as cyberpunk and Fallout like they both are. So with a cyberpunk and fallout like they both are, so with ai, it's one of those where it's like it literally can go anywhere, because, being a big sci-fi nerd growing up throughout the years, I've read and listened and participated in multiple different ai stories. Right like west world would be a wonderful example of an ai story.

Tim Shoop:

Didn't the same makers of west world make fallout?

Sam The IT Guy:

yes, actually, uh, no, or was that? Uh, I'm pretty no, I think it was game, oh come on, look at this world.

Tim Shoop:

The goal, the goal right number one, looks extremely similar to one of the main characters in west world. You're fair that you're. Yeah, and I do believe it was created by either the same producers, right? I think it's the same producers? Right, I think it's the same producers of Westworld.

Sam The IT Guy:

I think I got thrown off because I'm pretty sure it was the guys who did Game of Thrones and I think they also did Westworld. They also had for, like, the ambient music. It was Ramin Dajawabi I mispronounced the bejesus out of his name Google always understands me but he was actually the one who composed the music for west world and game of thrones and he also helped with some of the normal ones for fallout 2 I think uh, west world producers also made the peripheral the peripheral yeah, I don't know if you've seen that.

Sam The IT Guy:

Yeah right, it's a series hey, tom, could you, could you check for us like who? Uh, oh d's.

Deaves:

Oh my gosh, I know I am such a novice it looks like west world was created by jonathan nolan and lisa joy.

Tim Shoop:

Okay, and fallout is created by graham wagner and geneva robertson dwarrat so cross-reference westworld and fallout and see if those are related, and then we are gonna try to stay on topic here. Continue to talk about personal assistance of course, of course.

Sam The IT Guy:

But I mean, at the same time, westworld would be the best personal assistance ever. Because then you're just like hey, can you go to mcdonald's for me real quick, I'm feeling a big mac and then they can just hop in their car and go grab it and bring it back to me. It made me so happy. But you know, you know what would be even better than that.

Tim Shoop:

You know we're talking about future technologies and when I think about existing technologies that we have today, a lot of existing technologies we have today relate to old movies and tv shows I watched in the seventies and eighties, so I actually have an anecdote for that. So the Jetsons I'm going to. Everybody kind of references the Jetsons. I watched the Jetsons when I was little. The Jetsons video conferencing, I mean they talked on a TV, right, they saw and heard each other on a TV. They had flying cars that were autonomous or mostly autonomous. Um, they had personal assistants. They had flying cars that were autonomous or mostly autonomous. They had personal assistants. It was built into their. Was it the robot or the apartment they lived in? I can't remember. I think it was both, wasn't it? But one of the things you talked about food going down the road getting a big mac. What if food was micronized right into about the size of a pill and you just popped it into a device and now you have a roast?

Sam The IT Guy:

like back to the future. That's right? Yeah, it was, but it was also.

Tim Shoop:

I think they did it on the jetsonsons also, I believe. So, yeah, so, and you know, steven Spielberg probably got that idea from the Jetsons. Oh, absolutely. But if you look at all those old shows, things that exist now and are the reality now were actually in old movies and TV shows. So the movies and TV shows we're watching now, there's probably a couple of gems in there, Absolutely, yeah, I mean some of the you know, some of the things that we might realize in the future. So let's talk about Go ahead.

Sam The IT Guy:

Oh, I was going to say. I was going to say I know the big one for me, like, my favorite example of that is Star Trek.

Tim Shoop:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you can straight up Look at the phones, I mean mobile phones and even, like in Next Generation, they had full-blown tablets Like they're rocking. Beat me up, Scotty.

Sam The IT Guy:

Yes, there are times where I can play off being like have no idea what happened just now and no one notices, but that was not one of those moments.

Tim Shoop:

So the biggest thing that comes to mind with AI assistance is privacy. I mean, you already have Alexa listening to you nonstop. Siri's actually listening to you, but they don't necessarily learn from you, right? There are privacy concerns there because that is being recorded somewhere to assist with the evolution of that technology. So it's really hard to hide from you know the world when you have that technology in your house. With AI assistance becoming more integrated into our personal lives, what are the main privacy concerns users should be aware of and how can we address them? So you know, I just explained it. I mean, they're being you know, right, but if, if an ai assistant that can learn from your input and it knows everything, when do the lines of reality and fiction come into play? I mean, think about it for a minute. Deaves, I know you're at back there. Your brain is just churning sideways right now. You are itching to tell us something.

Deaves:

Look, we're always on the next great piece of technology. I mean talking about AI and personal assistants. A big piece that has been happening recently that we've seen not very good success in are these lapel pins, where you have a camera lapel pin that connects to your phone. That is a powered AI assistant that sees. So you can already just be like what's in front of me, what am I looking at right now? And the you know the current iterations aren't great, but usually the first iteration of any new technology isn't.

Tim Shoop:

Who makes that technology?

Sam The IT Guy:

Well, there's two that I know of. Are you talking about Rabbit and Humane?

Deaves:

Rabbit and Humane Yep.

Sam The IT Guy:

OK.

Deaves:

Technologies, and Rabbit Rabbit was the one that famously right now isn't doing so hot. They had a pretty bad product launch and then big reviewers all kind of gave them thumbs down and I believe they're filing for bankruptcy.

Sam The IT Guy:

so I wouldn't be surprised, because there's actually a little bit of a development with that too. Uh, there was a guy who was actually able to crack into it and come to find out the rabbit, the whole device, which is like a I think it's like a three $400 device and then like there's a monthly subscription 400. Okay, um, and then it, uh, they found out that it's really just an APK that's loaded into it. So the guy was actually able to go through and run it as an application on his phone and it worked better.

Deaves:

Wow, yeah, it runs on an Android OS, so it is essentially an Android app. The reason that they wanted to push it to its own device was because there were concerns privacy concerns with having some type of technology like that attached to your phone where it can reach everything at all times.

Sam The IT Guy:

That is actually your app. That's a good reason. I actually didn't find that. Thank you for telling me that, and that's actually very helpful.

Tim Shoop:

Well, a lot of people don't realize that it is really hard to escape your footprint on this earth. These days. When I was growing up as a kid, it was easy to get lost.

Sam The IT Guy:

Oh, absolutely.

Tim Shoop:

Without being found Now.

Sam The IT Guy:

Can you imagine growing up if all of your friends had cameras in their pockets?

Tim Shoop:

Yeah.

Sam The IT Guy:

Yeah, it would be terrible 'd be oh, oh, so many dumb things back then, so many, so many I believe asa you about as old as me just about yeah, I as um 89 yeah, 92 sam the it guy by the way um

Deaves:

yeah, I mean we did grow up in that, in that era where, when we were teenagers, cell phones were flip phones right, and now it's like. Now it's it's almost mandatory to get your child a phone when they start going to school I mean even when they start look, look, look you youngsters when I was a teenager me and my buddies you can't touch that.

Tim Shoop:

yet Sam the IT guy, he's trying to reach for the third beer. Is that a nerds on tap first? Yes, we're almost there. When I was a teenager, when me and my buddies wanted to stay in communication so we knew where the next party was, or hey, where are you at? Tonight we use CB radio. Oh that's awesome we had CB.

Tim Shoop:

I had a sports car but I had a CB in it because I would tune in on Friday night and go this is the maniac. That was my handle back then. That's a good man Trying to reach my buddy Jarrett, and we would find each other and we would find the party. So, listen, so we talked about it. We talked about privacy concerns. We talked about we know about the impact on productivity.

Deaves:

So we're not going to get into it.

Tim Shoop:

That is you know that is crazy to the moon Ethical AI use. I mean, there are ethical considerations that developers should consider and keep in mind when creating these assistants, especially as they become more autonomous and decision capable, because we don't want them to go. You know, sam the IT guy, you just pissed me off. Now I'm going to go tell all your friends on social media because I'm connected through you to that platform, and I'm going to tell them how much you suck. So we don't want that, right? I mean, think about that. People don't think about what, if, what, if those things happen. So, for the sake of time, we are going to jump into our final segment. Sam the it guy has been reaching for the third beer, so Deves, take it away.

Deaves:

Okay. So for our third beer, we've got the holiday white ale. This is also a Sam Adams product, so this is coming from their Boston beer company in Boston Massachusetts. This is crisp and zesty, with holiday flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg and a dusting of orange peel a dusting a dusting.

Sam The IT Guy:

It tastes a little like cider to me, but it's definitely beer, okay this isn't my favorite.

Tim Shoop:

I think it might be, but it is. It is somehow. It's making me joyous.

Sam The IT Guy:

Right If my beard starts turning white.

Tim Shoop:

We know it's the right kind of holidays. So I will tell you guys this, my personal preference I don't like nutty in my beer. Oh fair, this does have a slight. Was it a dusting nutty?

Deaves:

The dusting was of the orange peel, but it does have nutmeg.

Tim Shoop:

So I do like the orange peel, the orange peel peel. I'm a big old-fashioned drinker, so I like a good, really rich bourbon, old-fashioned and it's got a. It's got an orange peel in it, um, but the nuts are. What's killing it for me with this?

Sam The IT Guy:

but I will drink it oh yeah, that's good for me. I, uh, I actually tend to use nuts as my snack. It was actually something that, believe it or not, it's actually really healthy. Uh, I switched from like chips, like potato chips and all fried stuff and started eating nuts, and yeah, no, I eat nuts oh, oh but nut.

Tim Shoop:

We can just end it here that was it, I went sam the it guy's only on his third beer and he's going off the rails. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize.

Sam The IT Guy:

Uh, we're gonna get it it was right in front of me, literally like I'm staring at him, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

Tim Shoop:

So we're gonna get into our last subject. We're gonna talk about autonomous vehicles everywhere. Awesome, all right. So here's the question I pose to everybody what if? Okay, what if every car on the road was autonomous, every single car? Get rid of gas cars, get rid of just regular electric cars, get rid of all that make every. Obviously they're all going to be electric, right, but they're all going to be autonomous. So, every car on the road's autonomous. Think of the decrease in traffic accidents oh yeah, we'll get into that, because I think that's going to be a major type and congestion. So the major decrease in traffic, uh, uh, accidents and and congestion go oh, absolutely.

Sam The IT Guy:

Because for me, just to touch back on our, on our previous subject, I I don't think they will be fully autonomous. I think our, I think our ai friends will be driving them, so that way you don't have to worry about someone like just automations failing. Instead you have, you know, someone or a machine that can actually think and reason and have judgment calls.

Tim Shoop:

So what was that movie? The end of the world. End of the world. Have you seen that yet? The one with franco and danny mcbride and I don't know who I I don't think that's who was in it, but there's a movie called end of the world where, um, basically there was a major cyber attack, okay, and every autonomous tesla right was driving down the same route and all piling on top of one another because they were all hacked.

Tim Shoop:

Oh that's scary that was just one incident. Um, obviously, they took down the communication grid, they took down the transportation grid, okay, and they um, amongst, obviously, the internet and all of that was out. But when you think about that stuff and you think about autonomy, right, right, so what if? So, yes, we think about the decrease in traffic accidents and congestion. That is wonderful, ladies and gentlemen. That's great when it works, of course.

Tim Shoop:

So what happens? You know, you talked about ai assistance in the car. Obviously, an AI assistant will drive that car. No more DUIs, none, there's the pro. So you leave a bar, you get in your car and all you do is kick back and say car, take me home. And you're home, that's it. You wake up in your car and maybe one day the robot will come out, grab you out of car, take you in the house, throw you in the bed. Thanks, rosie, yeah, thanks rosie. But what if and this is where this comes into play we want to look at the dark side of this technology. Yeah, so you have an ai assistant driving it. That's great, right, right, so that all that's peachy keen.

Tim Shoop:

But what if?

Tim Shoop:

Um, we have a major cyber attack, right, takes down, let's say that the just the, the car manufacturers. Obviously, autonomy comes with updates, because you're, you're driving a computer. Okay, and what if an update gets pushed into every single autonomous car on the planet that tells those cars, on whatever date, it says, hey, on this date, at this time, I want all the cars to go to a certain destination, or I want all the cars to shut down. So you have two, two, two different, completely different variables here. If they all go to the same destination, the ones that are sitting inside the garage are going to try to bang through the garage doors. The one and most of them will be. But if it does it in the middle of the day, right, every single car is going to leave where they are and drive to a destination and they're all going to. I don't know that they'll pile on one top of one another, like in that movie, because they do have sensors on them, right, but that destination could be the ocean absolutely it's not, it may not see that.

Tim Shoop:

I don't know what if they shut down, what if they just literally shut down? What does that do to people? What does how does that create civil unrest? And what does it do to the economy? Because if now a lot of people work remotely nowadays, oh yeah, but think what if? What will that do to the stock market alone? It will tank absolutely, because a lot of companies won't be doing what they need to do. Right, but look at the safety concerns there too.

Sam The IT Guy:

Yeah and the other big part of because any part of the human condition is socialization, because at the end of the day, we're all social animals. So if it's one of those where the world just is like, all right, so we're going to go ahead and jack every car on the planet, you can't drive anymore and everyone ends up going remote, I feel like it would be just a massive wave of depression that would hit kind of like COVID 2.0. Well, like it would be just a massive wave of depression that would hit kind of like COVID 2.0.

Tim Shoop:

Well, it would be more than depression, you would? You know, if people couldn't get to where they have to get now? That's one thing, right, but if they can't get to where they get now, I want to put this into a bigger perspective for everybody listening out there right now. All right, we're just talking about cars, yeah, but we right now. All right, we're just talking about cars, yeah, but we we. What I meant to say was what if every vehicle on the planet was autonomous, every vehicle, plane, let's let's slow down.

Tim Shoop:

Let's just dial it down a notch okay every vehicle, so let's talk about buses, trains and even planes being fully. What's that?

Deaves:

18 wheelers, I mean your.

Tim Shoop:

Your interstate conference would, yes, shut down yes, so that's where I'm going with this. So 18 wheelers are already becoming. You've seen the tesla uh trucks, the autonomous tesla trucks. So if they can't deliver groceries to the grocery store, even if you can't drive to work, you can't even get groceries because they're not in. A lot of people use delivery services. Now they're not going to be delivered because they can't drive. You're not going to get groceries from the farmers to the, to the market, so those are going to dry up and go away right um, now you have uh airplanes that can't fly because they're autonomous.

Tim Shoop:

So or made by boeing and think my initial question was what if they all went to a specific destination? So now you have a major safety event, oh yeah, especially if it's in the ocean. So all those planes go into the ocean, all those buses go into the ocean, all the cars go to the ocean. You know all the trains derail, obviously, and you know, just go at a high speed, whatever. Those are things of concern and all that comes down to, specifically, cybersecurity. Cybersecurity is going to drive our planet moving forward, in my opinion, because without cybersecurity, really good, but it doesn't matter how good it is, because you're always going to have somebody on the other side fighting it right. In the old days, it didn't matter how high a castle fortified its walls or how wide it built its moats, you always had someone trying to cross and climb and always people who are innovating and finding ways of doing it.

Deaves:

Yeah, so figure out a way to fling a bigger rock now.

Sam The IT Guy:

Another thing that I'm really curious about is going to be now. I know this isn't a topic we're going to jump into today, but that's going to lead directly into, like future of cyber security. What does that look like in the quantum?

Tim Shoop:

computing world. We're going to get into quantum computing in another episode of what if? But I want to pose a couple more questions and stay on the topic of of autonomous vehicles, before we drink our last beer and toast and say goodbye to sam the it guy um or goodbye oh man, I just got hired so period

Tim Shoop:

impact on urban planning. Okay, impact on urban planning. How do you think autonomous vehicles will reshape urban planning and infrastructure in the next 20 years, particularly particularly in densely populated cities so densely populated let's think New York city how is it going to reshape the way they plan those roads? And I mean you can't really change a lot, right, I mean you've got the subway. I mean, when I I mean I mean everything's autonomous, right, we're thinking everything autonomous. So the subway in New York is now autonomous, right. The cars, the you know? I mean I just came back from New York City. I mean we rode the subway a lot, right.

Tim Shoop:

And it was interesting, it was, it was it was. It was very eye-opening on on and it was obviously very efficient. Oh yeah, I liked it, but now it's autonomous, now it shuts down. I mean, I'm still thinking about this stuff shutting down what would that oh?

Tim Shoop:

my god, what would that do to New York City? And it did shut down during COVID and I talked to some locals up in New York City about that and, oh my God, they were all like they're still talking about that and how it affected them and their daily lives. But staying on with urban planning, how do you guys think it is going to change the way all that looks and feels?

Sam The IT Guy:

I've got the feeling and I know this, this is going to be a little slightly, slightly funny um, I feel like it's going to be 10 times easier because you're removing the human element, you're removing the problem, so everything's going to do as it's told, because it's technology, they're all autonomous. So when you're planning and building, it's much more easier to execute that because you're not going to have some guy who's like no, this is the route I take to work every day, like you don't have to worry about not knowing another path. You know what I mean. So I feel like it would actually be a boon for it.

Tim Shoop:

So all they would have to do is integrate the new technology into the existing infrastructure. And you're saying that's all they would have to do.

Sam The IT Guy:

Right, and then once they do that, then once it's fully adopted, right. Because right now, if you have a split of automated cars versus ones that are actually going through, that are people who are driving manually, you can't predict anything Because humans in general, we're all very unpredictable anything because humans in general, we're all very unpredictable. So if you have it over to technology and it's just a few lines of code, that is what they're doing, then you can predict and thus change it However you need, because no one's going to mess you up.

Tim Shoop:

Right, so so autonomous vehicles? Oh my god, just we're, we're on the cusp right, I was thinking about that the other day.

Sam The IT Guy:

I was talking to my wife right, we're watching, going through a bunch of different youtube channels, like because we tend to veer towards the more educational stuff, and she looked at me and she was just like do you feel like everything we watched growing up is becoming real? Like right now it's becoming real?

Tim Shoop:

I've been all becoming real. Sam the it guy. Yes, sir, I have been watching things since I was a little kid. I was born in 1969, nice, hey, a lot of great things happened that year we landed on the moon, woodstock and shoop dog was born, I mean snoop dog is a gift no, I'm shoop dog. Well, shoop dog is a gift.

Deaves:

Snoop dog's a rapper show the proper respect to shoop dog. Yeah, I'm just what kind of stuff has he?

Tim Shoop:

done. I'm just a crapper, I don't know me too I don't know.

Tim Shoop:

But listen, I was born a long time ago, right, and when I grew up I was a 70s kid, I was an 80s teenager. Which 80s we rocked? I'm sorry, but we just had a great time in the 80s. We didn't think about a lot of stuff, we just did um. But but things I watched in the 70s are real now as we speak. So let's put that into perspective. And some of the things in the 70s are real now as we speak. So let's put that into perspective. And some of the things in the 80s are real.

Tim Shoop:

But most of the things that were developed the PC was actually more developed in the 80s, but in the 70s Microsoft came out in the 70s and 80s, all you know I saw t, the evolution of tv. I mean, the norm in the in the 70s was a 20 inch console. It was basically a big wooden box with a crt in it that wasn't any bigger than 20 or 25 inches, little boob tubes. Yeah, the original projection tv was a rear projection, or actually it was a front projection tv where the projectors jetted out from the front of the tv and shot up at it. It was, I didn't know, that, oh crazy.

Tim Shoop:

Oh. I had a friend that had one of those in their house. I thought he was rich, it was. It was crazy. Well, he was, because he lived on braddock mountain. But I have watched all that, so let's put that into perspective. So some of the technologies that I watched on tv in the 70s which these are, shows that came out in the 60s, like the jetsons um, I think it came out in the 60s fast forward and those became a reality, like video conferencing. We're talking the 2000s, right. So 70, 80, 90, 2000, 2010. Right, 40 years. So if you see something on TV that is just far-fetched, right, but you see it in more than one movie, yeah, 40 years later it's going to become a reality.

Sam The IT Guy:

Huh.

Tim Shoop:

What if?

Sam The IT Guy:

What if?

Tim Shoop:

What if Well?

Sam The IT Guy:

that explains AI. Huh, what if? What?

Tim Shoop:

if, what? If? Well, that explains AI. So in future episodes we're going to talk about space exploration for the consumer, you know, jumping from planet to planet, because now we obviously go from country to country. We fly over an ocean, right, I mean, that was unheard of back in the day. It's a reality now. So it's not a far-fetched idea to go from planet to planet. Once the safety concerns and everything are addressed, right, I mean, anybody that's watched Apollo 13 is afraid to get in a. I mean, oh, you want to catch your dad in one, but again, that was based on a flight. That happened. What? The late 60s, early 70s? Yes, sir.

Tim Shoop:

So let's stay on this topic. Let's talk about, um, we kind of talked about urban planning, we taught, which kind of goes hand in hand with regulatory challenges. Um, safety and security. We talked about cyber security events with autonomous vehicles. So there are safety and security concerns, yeah, um. And and the final question on autonomous vehicles before we drink our last beer and toast, this episode is economic shifts. So autonomous vehicles promise to change the economic landscape significantly. Yeah, right, wouldn't you agree a hundred percent? Okay, what industries do you think will be most affected and how might new job opportunities arise as a result.

Tim Shoop:

This is a good one for automated vehicles, autonomous vehicles okay, will change the economic landscape because, I mean, if you think about that, I mean there are more than just the car industry.

Tim Shoop:

That's going to be effective if you're creating an autonomous vehicle, because you have developers, right, you have car makers, I mean, and it's different than making a car. I mean, look at the freaking Cybertruck. I mean it looks like a freaking refrigerator on wheels, right, it is the ugliest, freaking thing I've ever seen. But it's got really cool tech built into it and it's it's mega fast. I mean, you put it in what is it called? The desert mode? Or what is that called? Is it's? There's a mode deeves is looking it up, but I think it's called like Sahara mode or desert mode or something, baja mode. It's called Baja mode. You put it in, you go off road, you put it in Baja mode, you floor it, right, and it fricking hauls ass on the dirt.

Tim Shoop:

And there's a YouTube video that I was referencing, I was watching the other day, where they were like camping using that built in that tent that you see in the promo videos. The tent basically sucks. I mean there's an outlet a foot away from the base of the back of the tent, yet the tent comes with a big inflatable hand pump. There is no automatic pump to pump that tent up. Automatic pump to pump that tent up when you watch it in the promo video just kind of magically gets bigger right. Yet you don't see what you have to do. To make it do that you got to use a hand pump. I mean, hell, you're gonna throw that much technology into a truck and why not do it in the tent as well? I mean they just kind of some other guy designed that tent that didn't you know it was on the same plane, probably a company that got bought.

Tim Shoop:

So what industries are going to change in regards, you know, economically, in regards to autonomous cars?

Sam The IT Guy:

I would assume deflation would end up being a problem Because, if you think about it, when we, when we're cutting driving right, fully autonomous driving, so that's going to be unmanned 18 wheelers, like you mentioned um, that's going to cut fuel cost, you know, labor costs for the drivers, um, I mean time is probably going to stay about the same. So I feel like it would create a natural decline in prices on everything, because it would be cheaper to ship at that point.

Tim Shoop:

I agree. I think once battery technology I mean battery technology is the only thing keeping these vehicles at such a high price. It's just not there yet and we'll talk about that on a future segment of what if?

Sam The IT Guy:

Solid state batteries Stay tuned, stay tuned. Segment of what if, but solid state batteries.

Deaves:

Stay tuned, stay tuned. I can say that even in an industry that I used to work in moving houses was that we had to pay insurance companies per driver for our trucks. If these trucks were self-driving, it would almost be you. The price of the truck is building that in. So, yeah, that could be an interesting bit that would affect things down to even that small.

Deaves:

You know the guys who deliver the beer to gas stations. They're no longer paying for that service there. So I mean, I'm not even sure what would happen with car insurance.

Tim Shoop:

I think the biggest industry that's going to get affected, in my opinion, is going to be the blue-collar Detroit car manufacturers. I think they're, you know, yes, they're still going to exist, but I think it's going to be the independent, you know, the Rivians, the Teslas, the you know, and some of these other emerging electric vehicles. I think Fisker, they had- many problems.

Deaves:

It'll be interesting to see if the people who would work on those lines then switch to working on the bots that are on the lines as maintainers.

Tim Shoop:

It takes a level of skill there and it's a different level of skill. So I think there might be a shift in the type of worker that you have working at these plants. Shift in the type of worker that you have working at these plants, right? Um, the others are gonna might fall on hard times or they might be at retirement age and it'll be these younger workers coming up that that want to take those spots so it's a natural evolution of technology, but also a natural, natural evolution of skilled people that come into the workplace and evolve from there, absolutely Okay.

Tim Shoop:

So with that, we're going to go ahead and introduce our last beer. Let's get a final toast and I'll do the outro. Go ahead, deves.

Deaves:

Okay, so for our last beer we've got All Day IPA. It is from Founder Brewing Company and it is an all-day ipa, naturally brewed with a complex array of malts, grains, hops for a balanced citrusy profile, and a in a crisp, clean finish yikes, yikes it's a uh, you know.

Sam The IT Guy:

What fruit was that supposed to be?

Tim Shoop:

Did you say a fruit, founder's Day? Founder's Day, founder's Day.

Deaves:

Founder's Brewing Company. Founder's Brewing.

Tim Shoop:

Company, but it says Founder's Day, I think on the can that's an interesting one. Let me get to toast to Sam the IT guy. You've been great, sam the, the it guy.

Deaves:

Thank you for having.

Tim Shoop:

You guys need to keep a lookout for that video that sam uh starred in. He did a really great job. Um, he gets attacked by zombies. Uh, there's a lot of interesting things that happen in that video. Um, it's social uh circulating on social hulu, youtube, and um, you can check it out on digital boardwalk tv on youtube. If you just want to find it directly.

Sam The IT Guy:

It's worth a watch you can watch your own unicycle night in action yeah, oh, he even rides a unit or attempts to ride a unicycle.

Tim Shoop:

What I was on it didn't you get a concussion making that video? It was a small one, oh I saw that I can't remember I saw the workers

Deaves:

comp claim come in so you know.

Tim Shoop:

Uh, no, I'm kidding, ladies and gentlemen, but hey, thank you for getting nerdy with us for a little bit and welcoming sam, the it guy, to our every other episode segment of what if on nerds on tap. Ladies and gentlemen, stay nerdy, stay aware and always think about what if things happen in the future.

Sam The IT Guy:

Have a great day thank you and until next time, stay nerdy and keep drinking.

Tim Shoop:

All right, woo-hoo Cheers my fellow nerds and beer lovers. Stay tuned for more Nerds on Tap. Oh, and one more thing Help us spread the nerdy love and the love for grape brews by sharing this podcast with your friends, colleagues and fellow beer enthusiasts. Let's build a community that embraces curiosity, innovation and the enjoyment of a cold one.

People on this episode

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Tim Shoop

Host