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This is lazy. If you are doing this, I'm not coming to your party. I'm not coming to your function. I'm not coming to your business. No matter what your event is, no matter what your business is, your poster looks the same.

Hello, and welcome to the four zero four Media Podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds both online and IRL. Four zero four Media is a journalist, found the company, and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404media.co. As well as bonus content every single week, subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. Gain access to that content at 404media.co.

Also, do remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes and video. Subscribe at youtube.com/@404mediaco. I'm your host, Joseph, and with me are all of the four zero four Media co founders. The first being Sam Cole.

Hello.

Emmanuel Mayberg.

Hello.

And Jason Kepler.

Hey. What's up?

Alright. Good to be back. We're gonna jump straight into a story that I think everyone has seen in some sort of way. I was just on break and I saw examples myself and I was gonna send them to you, then I actually had my phone off. That was the entire point, but they were absolutely everywhere.

Of course, I'm talking about ChatGPT or AI generated posters of businesses being absolutely everywhere. The headline of this piece is, We are living in a ChatGPT Flyer Pandemic. Jason, you wrote this. We'll get into what these posters are for those people who don't really know. But like, when did you actually start noticing this was a thing?

Because surely you'd seen them a ton, but then something clicked and you really started noticing all of these AI generated posters.

Yeah. I think shamefully, didn't notice them for a while, but I was walking around my house and I saw like one of these easels that, you know, like a sidewalk sign that businesses put out like on the sidewalk in front of their restaurant. And it was for surf lessons. And I could tell that, like, the ocean was AI generated and everything was like really generic. And then I realized at the bottom of the poster, there were, like, all these, like, generic icons that was, like, fun waves, fun times, family, hang 10.

And for some reason, that just, like, clicked for me. This wasn't even that egregious. We'll talk about sort of some of the examples of ChatGPT posters that we've seen over the last few weeks that readers and listeners have sent us. But this one was like quite inoffensive as far as these things go. But for some reason, I was just like, that's AI.

I know that's AI. And that was in the morning of someday that I was walking around, and I feel like by lunchtime, I had seen similar AI generated posters like everywhere, just in my own neighborhood. And I was like, oh, my eyes are open to this now. I see them everywhere.

Yeah. Once it clicks, you're like, oh god. I can't stop seeing them everywhere. Sam, are you the same? Are you seeing them everywhere as well?

Yeah. I am now. I saw it was like a local ice cream shop posted on on Instagram, an AI flyer, like, this weekend. I was like, how are we still doing this? It is something that I started noticing about a year ago where people were using like, stores were using that cartoony, like, comic strip sort of illustration style in their advertising.

And I saw one I think I texted you guys about it, like, when I saw it a year ago in Brooklyn, and it was, like, a guy in a oven, and it was in front of, like, an appliance store, and it said, get AC and stop cooking yourself. But he has, like, no it's just, like, shoulders up. He's in a in a tiny oven, or he's huge. No legs. No anything.

He's just, like, sticking out of the oven, like, cooking. I was like, this is bizarre and freaky, and I don't like it. But you do have to keep seeing it over and over to clock it because you just see one instance of that and you're like, that's a weird illustration. And then you see the same exact style over and over, and you're like, oh, that's AI.

Yeah. It was similar with the Studio Ghibli stuff when that was big for a bit and then businesses started doing that as well. And that wasn't as sort of didn't have as long a tail as this. It seems like everybody's doing these posters, but the comments strip stuff as well. And manually are you seeing sort of these flyers everywhere as well?

Yeah. It's one of those things where I wasn't thinking about it at all. And as soon as Jason pitched the headline, I was like, oh my god. He's so right. I have been seeing them everywhere.

And I would say there's, like, two places where you see them. One is actually online. Like, it's businesses. I assume they also print them out, but I see them on Facebook. Right?

It's like a local store or a class or, like, a studio or something will share a flyer as a digital image on Facebook, which maybe is printed out or not. I don't know. I also see them around the city. It's a it's a certain type of business that does it. I think understandably, most of the time when we cover AI, we kind of look at big corporations and how they're using it.

I've looked at, like, Panera ads before and wondered if they're using AI and stuff like that, but it is actually kind of smaller mom and pop shops that are using this stuff. It's like not high end places, but kind of mid tier low end places that that that are just filling a niche that they, I don't know, used to draw by hand on a chalkboard or something.

Yeah. I mean, like, they're the ones that are going to get the most, I guess, financial benefit out of it, you know, they may not have the money for a graphic designer even to outsource it or Fiverr or something like that. I don't know, they realize, oh, we can just use AI to quickly generate this flyer. That's going be great for business. But people don't like it, obviously.

Jason, reaction been not just from sort of our readers and listeners who sent in examples, but like people are talking about this online, right, where they're saying this sucks, please don't do this.

Yeah. I mean, this is one of those things where I I did notice this on my own. I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. And then I started seeing it. And then I was like, are other people talking about this?

And one place that people are talking about this a lot is like in the artists and graphic design community, obviously, because I think one, you know, it's an example of their jobs being taken away. A lot of these people are freelancers or do gig work and, like, they're maybe not getting as many commissions. And then the other thing is, like, it's offensive to them. Like, just the the the style of it is, like, so in your face. It's like, if you've seen these, there's almost no white space or, like, design sensibility on any of them.

It just, like, almost all of these posters just, like, assault your eyes with with just like stuff. And then another thing that's a dead giveaway, I think, and and a big one is the font where it has like really jagged edges. There's usually like a a back brush stroke across them and it's like there's little like firework type things coming out of the text and it's just like really aggressive. And and it reminds me a lot of like Papyrus and Impact and Comic Sans and these other like design memes that we've seen over, you know, the course of various decades. But basically, like, there there's been a lot of designers on Instagram being like, don't do this, and and sort of saying, like, we are living in, you know, a ChatGPT poster pandemic.

That's like actually not my framing. That was like the framing of several different viral Instagrams that I linked to and show in the in the article. And it's become like a major topic of conversation there just being like, this is lazy. If you are doing this, like, I'm not coming to your party. I'm not coming to your function.

I'm not coming to your business. And then there's been examples of bars and music venues and things like this that take flyers from the community where they might have like a bulletin board or maybe they like post events on their Instagram or their Facebook or something like that. And a lot of these places have stopped taking flyers that are clearly AI generated. One, because it kind of demonstrates like a lack of effort in what what it is that you're gonna be doing. And I think some places are scared of having a like Willy Wonka choc chocolate factory experience, which was like this party, I believe it was in Scotland or maybe Ireland.

It was like a year and a half ago. And all of the all of the like promotional materials were AI generated promising this like really crazy like willy wonka experience for kids. And then you show up and it's like a few plastic folding tables and it's just like the saddest thing you've ever seen. And it's very similar like Fire Fest, although the scale of it was like much less. But I think that venues and and people are like scared of getting into a situation like that because with AI, you can promise this like ridiculous magical experience at your event or your restaurant or whatever, and then the actual, like, party is going to just be, like, shit.

You know?

Yeah. It was in it was in Glasgow in February 2024. Sam sent an example of one of the posters to our group chat, and, yeah, it's everything you said. There is no white space. It's like it's almost like looking more at like a menu than a poster.

You know what mean? Like a really horrible laminated menu inside like a crappy restaurant or something, and it feels more like that. And I I don't like, do you know what prompts they're using? Like, are they are they doing like an elaborate prompt where like, well, I need to give it the dates and stuff, like presumably. Right?

Like, I'm just wondering how he's making so much fucking information on this poster in response to a in response to a prompt, you know?

Yeah. It's really interesting because at first, I thought like this was Canva, which is, you know, like a online graphic design program that, you know, be used for some things and has become really popular. And I didn't actually realize it was ChatGPT for a while. You know, there may be other AI tools like, I'm not saying every single example is definitely ChatGPT, but the vast majority of them are ChatGPT from what I can tell, because ChatGPT, like, makes the same type of poster over and over and over again. And I, like, tested this out a bit.

I haven't seen so many videos or guides that are like, here's how to make a ChatGPT poster. But I think what's happening is literally, like, people who are experimenting with ChatGPT, it's the most popular AI tool out there, are saying, I need to make an advertisement for my business or I need to make a flyer for my business or I wanna make a poster or a sign for my business. And then if you ask ChatGPT that, it will it will like say, yes, of course, like, give me the following information. And then it will ask you like, what's the name of your business? Like, what is you what do you want the logo to look like?

You know, what, day is your party? If it's a party, what time is your party? Like, all of this. And so I did that a few times just for fake parties where I was like, I'm gonna have a fourth of July party at Jason's house.

And you put your real address into ChatGPT. Of course. Yes.

Yes. Good. And I did that and it what it spit out on the other side was like exactly one of these posters. And so I think what's happening basically is ChatGPT will guide you through the process where the, you know, so that's why it's ending up looking so similar is because you'll say like, I want a professional poster for my business. And it will say it will give you like a a prompt back and it'll say, know, answer the following questions.

And and that's what's happening, I think.

Yeah. How many so so you've seen your own examples, we've seen them as well, but then people, readers and listeners were sending them to you as well. Did you like put a call out on Blue Sky or or an email or something or

Yeah. I did a few things. So one, for the last few weeks, I've been asking all of you guys to send me, examples that you see, and I find it, like, way more interesting when these are out in the real world versus, like, posted on Facebook. Although, seen some really, like, wild ones on Facebook. But, like, I like the my own spotting, interests are, like, really big versions of it.

So, like, on billboards, on, like, the facades of buildings, you know, physical signs. I just find it to be it's like they went through the extra effort to actually print them out and stuff like that. So in the email when we published this article, I said like, if you've seen these, send me examples. And then when I posted it on Blue Sky and on X, I said, you know, this is gonna be a threat of the worst ChatGPT posters you've seen. And I got so many responses.

I got, like, hundreds of responses. And a lot of them are, like, I wouldn't say inoffensive, but they're just kind of all samey where it's like, here's, you know, we're doing like a fourth of July event. There's tons of fourth of July ones done by either like local bars. There was tons of like World Cup ones.

World Cup were the ones I saw. Yeah. I

saw

all of

but the ones that I like really loved were when it was something like offbeat or odd. Maybe we can show some of them, on on YouTube. We can like flip through them. But like, my favorite one is one called Belt to Ass energy drink. That was outside of a New York City bodega.

And it's like, I don't know what the fuck this energy drink is, but it's like insane. On the Venice Beach Boardwalk, I saw one that's just like viral snacks, exotic snacks by TikTok, And then it's just like so clearly AI generated. You know, there was one for like endangered fish, done by like a local government. There was this Arby's takeover one that I don't know if this one may have been a joke, like, but I did see it going around a lot. But it's just like a mountain of meat and, like, Pikachu is on it.

It's just like it's a it's an assault on your senses. We'll we'll show it. There's like a sushi taco one that's just like has a cat holding a bunch of sushi tacos, that are clearly fake. There's one for like a gay bear meetup in South Africa that has a quote from Paul McCarthy, which I think they meant Paul McCartney.

Right.

Unclear. Yeah. Just like a lot of this type of thing.

Paul is also not a bear.

No. There's a lot there's a lot of confusion.

Let's fact check this.

Right. A lot of confusion going on there. I mean, you touched on this given the blowback in sort of the creative space and the artist communities and that sort of thing. But you did actually speak to someone at a creative design studio for some perspective, Jason, like what did they say? It was a place in Toronto.

Right?

Yeah. I thought that that what they had to say was was quite interesting and not something I had thought about where they were basically like shitty graphic design has existed forever, which I knew, you know, of course. It's like you've seen really busy, poorly done graphic design all the time. I'm guilty of making it myself. But they saw this as kind of like the YouTube thumbnail fication of real world where everything sort of starts looking the same and is trying to grab your attention in this very specific same way.

And I think that I think that small businesses and businesses in general have been trying to find out how to cut costs, like, since forever. And if you're not an artistically inclined person, that has probably been through like skimping on your graphic design and your flyers and things like that. So I mentioned earlier, like templatized signs and graphic design is something that's been around forever where like, I'm just gonna dump this into like, you know, either Canva or MS Paint or whatever. And that resulted in like tons and tons of like really weird, posters and flyers. The difference is that when you had people doing that, it it usually resulted in things that were like uniquely bad, like they were bad in an interesting way.

You know, that said there were memes I mentioned earlier. It's like there was a long time where businesses were using Comic Sans for everything or they were using papyrus font, like yoga studios were using papyrus font or like, I feel like a lot of like Thai and Japanese restaurants were using like papyrus font to like imply that they were fancy in some way.

And clip art. Clip art was like a aesthetic. Oh, yeah.

For sure.

Yeah. And then of course, like impact font from memes and stuff. And it's just like, you associate these design elements with either different types of businesses or different types of, like, graphic design, like, eras, I guess. But to me, I like long for those days. I don't know if I'm just like a boomer about this, but I I enjoy when things are bad in a unique and interesting way.

And what we're seeing with these ChatGPT posters is that no matter what your event is, no matter what your business is, your poster looks the same because it's run being run through the same software using, like, similar prompts and that sort of thing. So regardless of whether you're throwing, a dance party or you have like a restaurant or you're doing a a an ocean cleanup event, like the the graphic design ends up looking the same and it's kinda sucks.

Exactly to this point, I'm sharing a tweet that I saw in Slack. And basically, it is cycling through, I don't know, dozens, hundreds of these posters. And this person whose name on Twitter is Manny four four, he's an artist. I've I've talked to him for a previous story when we were at Vice a long time ago. But he says, counterpoint, ChatGPT Flyers are the first original aesthetic I've seen in years, and they will be looked upon nostalgically in ten years.

I thought that was a pretty interesting point. I wonder what you think. I don't, like, necessarily agree or like it, but I will concede. And I think, Jason, this is kind of exactly what you were just saying, where nostalgia has a way of transforming, like, the stinkiest herd into something you love. So I can imagine that being the case.

Yeah. I mean, I I I I saw that post as well and I think it's interesting. If this is people have said this about AI slop as well, where they're like, AI slop is actually very creative and it's creative in, like, the following ways for the following reasons. And, like, one of those reasons is because it creates something that's, like, surreal or weird because of, like, because of the disconnect between what a human is asking for and what the AI is interpreting it as and, you know, for some other reasons as well, such as, like, you can make anything very quickly. And I guess I, like, I understand the argument, like, I do.

And I think it's a position that someone could hold, but I don't really think I don't think that we'll look back on this and be like, wow, that was like the dawn of a boom of new advertising. And, you know, it was like really good for small businesses and all of that. And I think one of the reasons for that, and I guess we should be very explicit here, it's like a lot of small businesses can't afford a graphic designer or don't have time to. It's like they're running really small margins. So it's like harder it's harder than ever for like a small restaurant to succeed and

And that's where we're seeing most of these. Like that's where most of these are coming from.

Yeah. And so like, I don't want to I'm not trying to like specifically shit on any like specific small business that doesn't understand the like conversation that's happening on Blue Sky or Instagram or whatever. Like a lot of these are very kind of like offline businesses that are doing this. I think one, I wanted to write about it because I just started seeing them everywhere. And also I should note, this is not like an American phenomenon.

This is happening all over the world. People sent me examples from South Africa, from Japan, from The Middle East, like I saw them in Europe when I was just in Europe, like everywhere in all sorts of different languages. Like this is happening everywhere. But what's happening is people are having this, like, visceral rejection of this sort of thing. And I think it's something where maybe small businesses are not going to know that unless they're quite online.

It's hard to say like how at scale the rejection of this is, but like it is a big conversation that's happening and people are upset by it. And I think it's just worth acknowledging that as well. And then there's also been a move to like, just do it in MS Paint. Like, do it on like, do a handwritten sign. Like, if you do a handwritten sign with chicken scratch, like, that is more interesting and notable than a lot of the things that we're seeing now.

Yeah. Do you you think some businesses will realize it's potentially bad for them? But that said, you know, like, what, is somebody gonna go in to one of these stores and be like, hey, I'm not giving you my business because your flyer is ChatGPT generated? I mean, some people might, but like, I don't know whether that divide's ever going to be crossed. You know what I mean?

I guess we just have to wait and see if people actually, I don't know, take their business elsewhere or something.

Yeah. I mean, the theory that I've seen is that it will it won't hurt you so much in the short run, but maybe in the long term, you'll start to like annoy your customers or customers will think like this is really lazy. Or maybe, I mean, maybe it is something where it's just like, well, I'll accept it. Posters will get better. Like, it will things like this will get integrated into things like Canva and other graphic design tools that where maybe there is more human, like, involvement with some AI elements.

I mean, AI is being shoved into, like, every Adobe product, for example, and sort of where AI begins and human where where, like, human, development and art starts and, like, you know, if you apply a filter to things like, is that AI? Like, blah blah blah. Like, that's an open question. I think maybe that's just like where this will eventually go. And this is like the early days of people just typing this into ChatGPT and just using whatever pops out on the other side.

Like, maybe it will get better over time. I don't I don't really know. But right now, they just like look terrible, I think.

I will note, if you're looking for optimism, injury and accident lawyers, I think, have not picked up generative AI yet in their ads, and they're like the vanguard of beautiful, shitty art. So maybe maybe they know something, you know, Morgan and Morgan, Top Dog, shout out, shout out to Top Dog.

Call Jacob, ask Jacob.

Yeah, they're not doing it. They're still doing bespoke, you know, shitty ads and maybe maybe that's a good sign.

That's beautiful. You know, one font that will never ever go out of style? Copperplate Gothic Bold. See that everywhere. Whenever literally whenever I see that font, I like nudge my friend and be like, that's Copperplate Gothic Bold, you know, we'll go past it.

Great font. That's never gonna go down the papyrus or Comic Sans, route.

Oh, I didn't know this and now I'm looking at it and then you're right. I see this everywhere. It's classic.

Don't like it. I don't like it.

It's the it's the font from Hitman, Emmanuel, from the early Hitman games. That's how

I That's not him for me.

We gotta go back to Times New Roman. Used to say same as gotta go back to that.

Return to tradition.

Feel I feel should try to do that. Yeah. Exactly. Alright. We'll leave that there when we come back after the break.

Waymo is snitching. We'll be right back after this. Alright. And we are back, Sam. This is one you wrote, I believe.

Cops say Waymo snitched on teens for allegedly drinking and shooting a toy gun. Straight off, there's like a lot of unanswered questions I would say right now, but like what we do know is already crazy in and of itself. Let's just start with what did the police say? Like, what was the statement that

Yeah.

The police put out?

Yeah. Mean, just as a caveat, I guess this entire story is based on police statements. So take that as you will.

Famously reliable.

Famously reliable. Famously always accurate. Waymo hasn't replied to, as far as I can tell, anyone's request for comment, mine or any other news outlets, and a lot of people covered this. So they are staying quiet about it. So what we have is what the cops said.

So on July 6, the San Mateo Police Department, which is in the Bay Area, posted on Facebook. Parents, do you know where your teens are? Waymo does. Great. I love that we're getting cute right off the jump.

So it says two 15 year olds up to trouble in a Waymo this afternoon were detained after Waymo reported they were drinking and shooting from the vehicle. I won't read the whole thing, but the too long didn't read is they, they say that Waymo told the police, called the police, alerted the police to these 15 year olds who were shooting an Orbeez gun, which if you're not familiar with Orbeez, god bless you. It's like a little gel bead, like a little water bead, which I assume can probably hurt. Probably feels like a BB gun or something if you get shot

with one. So less than a BB gun. Like, I know a BB gun, but it's

like It's not metal.

Level below that. Okay.

Right. It's not like an airsoft gun. It's it's like a little water pellet gun. But they say that they were shooting Orbeez gun from the car as they sipped on afternoon libations while being show chauffeured around town in the driver's vehicle. Again, wish they would be more specific about what exactly they were drinking because later in other outlets, they tell reporters that they were drinking alcohol.

Again, we don't really know for sure. It's all allegedly, but, basically, Waymo called the cops is what the police said at that point. And we know a little bit more now based on other news outlets reporting on this, but, that's where we were at on July 6.

Yeah. So the key bit of the statement there is Waymo reported. Right? That's what the the cop said. So do we know if it was like an automated system?

Do we know if it was an employee? And if we don't, there are cameras cameras inside Waymo's, right, that people may not fully

Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of the conversation is, like, people don't fully realize that there are, like, 29 cameras inside of a Waymo. So we know now from a story that k r o n, Kron, I guess, is maybe how you would say it, the local news outlet in Bay Area, talked more to the cops. And they said a couple days after this happened that a Waymo employee was remotely monitoring the car and basically lied to the kids in the car and said, because if you're in a Waymo, if you're not familiar, an employee, like a support person can get on there, like, get in the the speakers of the car basically and be like, hey. Or, you know, get on the screen, the touch screens and stuff and make an announcement.

So it's like, hey. This is what's happening. But the employees told the kids that the Waymo was having mechanical issues and had to stop. And then at that point, the cops say that Waymo then directed it directed the car to a spot where the police were waiting. So they, like, they a sting.

Yeah. Right. And then the cops were there waiting with, like they the cops didn't know because the way most support person was like, there's someone in the in the car with something that looks like a gun because it was like a toy gun that was, like, painted over. And these these toy guns look like I mean, they're they're, like, kinda big. They don't look like little, water guns, but, they didn't know for sure what it was that they had in the car.

So there were the there were a bunch of cops waiting for them. It was, like, five cops were waiting at the spot, and they got out of the car with their guns. And there's video of this, and then opened up the Waymo doors and found these two kids in there shooting Orbeez and, I guess, drinking. They the police said that they're, reviewing the situation for underage drinking charges. But, yeah, it's it's super interesting because I think people don't realize that if you're in a waymo, you're there's always a potential they say that they're not continually monitoring what's going on inside of the car, but I do think there is some kind of passive monitoring happening because how would they know that these kids were messing around in a car with a waving a gun around, you know, drinking.

So Yeah.

There must be some sort of thing which is monitoring the audio, monitoring the visuals because you're not gonna just live monitor every single Waymo that's on the road at once. Right? It needs to be surfaced in some capacity. Yeah.

Yeah. And like Waymo is transparent about this on their support pages. Like, they say that a support team may review video under certain circumstances, including after an issue is brought to our attention and may access live video during a trip in more urgent circumstances, but it's not very clear when those circumstances are brought to Waymo's attention, if not from you pushing a button that says, like, I need help, which you can do inside of Waymo. You can say, like, I need to talk to a support person immediately. I assume these 15 year olds didn't ask Waymo to take a look.

Right. I don't know. Maybe they did. Maybe they were like, check this shit out, but I doubt it. You know?

It's like yeah. We've seen instances before where people claim that Waymo has chimed in. A support person has said, like, you need to get inside the car because they're, like, hanging out the car, like, with their phone or, you need to get get seated or something like that. So, there's been, like, more minor cases of this, but I think this is the first time that a Waymo has actually, like, delivered someone to the police. Yeah.

Which is literally a plot of a cyberpunk side quest. By the way. Yeah. Yeah.

I think

that's Right.

When you get into a Waymo, it tells you or at least, like, maybe on the app, it tells you that the cameras are always on, but the microphones are not. But they have microphones and that they can, like, enable the microphones at any point if they think like something bad is happening. And it it's not clear how they determine, like, something bad is happening, whether that is done by a human, whether that's done by, like, image recognition, whatever. It seems like in this case, was done by this human Waymo employee. But I I would have to imagine it's like a mix of the both of the two.

And I think that's like a very I'd like to know, like, how are they determining when there's like distress occurring?

Yeah. And like, this was probably, at least in Waymo's eyes, like a very legitimate use of that. Like if they see a gun shaped object, they feel they need to act or something, but you still want to know as a passenger or even a passerby, well, what systems are in place so it's not like it's just a could a Waymo employee just log on anytime and just start looking at me or whatever like we've had with so many of the various smart devices scandals over the years when it comes to audio or video and that sort of thing. I mean, Jason, this relates to some of your earlier coverage about, you know, cops sending subpoenas to Waymo for footage collected by the vehicles. Like, just remind us what sort of that context is.

Yeah. I mean, there's been at least one case in LA, maybe more where the LAPD, like, requested footage from Waymo. And this was this was basically like LAPD knew that a crime occurred somewhere near a Waymo, and then they retroactively went asked Waymo for the footage that, the that the car recorded, like, of the outside world. Like, I'm not aware of footage or anything that's come from inside a Waymo where a crime was being committed in a Waymo or where like like this is a different thing that's happening. But I think that, I mean, it's obviously very related, but I'm saying that usually it's like an after the fact thing where the cops are already aware of a crime and then they go and they request the footage and they either subpoena it or they request it.

Like, you've done reporting that a lot of social media companies, and I think maybe telecom companies to some extent, have like these portals where law enforcement can request footage that they don't have to go through a subpoena pro a formal, like, legal process. And I think that it's it's kind of unclear the extent to which Waymo is willing to cooperate with police. And I think that in this case where it's like they're proactively going to the police, that's like quite concerning. And I think it's just a reminder that these things are surveillance, vehicles like on wheels, basically.

Yeah. Same with the delivery robots and various other things we're seeing. And on that, Sam, we are seeing like more of this backlash against autonomous sort of systems, but also Waymo's specifically. I can't remember who shared it in Slack, but there was this video of a guy being the shit out of a Waymo, like, a couple days ago or something. Like, I guess we haven't done any reporting on it, but, like, what what what do you think is happening there?

Is this just part of, like, a built up resentment against these vehicles or something? Like, what do you think?

Yeah. I think so. I think it's probably in large part that, it's also I mean, we've talked about, like, our conflicting, like, feelings about Waymo on this podcast before. I see people break the law in incredibly dangerous ways every single day in Brooklyn and elsewhere in ways that, like, are, like, near death experiences just walking around. So I don't know.

It's like, I'm ready to beat the shit out of any car that comes near me ever again, and maybe a Waymo will be in my path next time. Like, I don't know. But, there there's also been a lot of instances lately where Waymos are just fucking up massively. I don't know if you guys saw the video of the Waymo running over the fireworks over the fourth of July weekend. It just stopped over a rocket.

You know? It just parked

sort of thing.

Kind of. Yeah. Just stopped there. I think it probably realized too late that it was driving through the middle of, a party, which is, like, that's not good. And there's somebody in the car recording that.

It's like, you know, that's not safe either. Like It's they they abide by the rules of the road the way a robot would, but then in these situations that require like a human mind, they just totally bork it. So I don't know. I think people are frustrated by everything in this space and anything that involves automation. And I think driverless cars are a part of that.

So and, you know, it's like it's the same way that people kick the delivery robots for, like, blocking the sidewalk. It's like these are private companies operating in very public spaces and using these public spaces as experiments. And I think that, is their whole business model, and they can't function without it, and they should be ready for people to kick the shit out of their robots if they if people choose to. You know? It's like, they're also covered in cameras, so I don't suggest doing that.

Please don't do that. You will probably go to jail for destruction in public public not public property, private property.

In a public place. Yeah.

In a public place. So yeah. I don't know. It's it's an interesting time. We see a lot of people defacing cameras in public, things like that, which again is another private company, operating as an experiment on the public.

So I get it for sure.

Totally makes sense. Alright. We'll leave that there. If you're listening to the free version of the podcast, I'll now play us out. But if you are paying for a 4,000,000 subscriber, you get to hear about how I bought a $3,000 cyber suit that electrocutes your muscles.

How about that? You can subscribe and gain access to that content at 404media.co. We'll be right back after this. All right. We're back in the subscribers only section.

Sam, do you wanna lead the humiliation ritual on this one? Or that

is up

to you?

I do. I really do. So the headline for the story is I bought the $3,000 fitness suit that electrocutes you. I'm sending it back. Where do you even begin with this, Joe?

I don't even know. I think we need to start with a psychiatric evaluation, but let's just stick to what's in the story, I suppose, and we can let people make their own, diagnoses. I you have a series of questions here. I'm gonna ignore them. Why what first prompted you to buy this suit?

Like, how did it first come into your awareness? Because this is something that I did not see at all until you brought it up.

I think I first saw it in Bloomberg Businessweek, which I

mistake. Read

which I read occasionally because the features are really good where it's like, oh, here's a feature about Walmart or Starbucks or something. Don't know. I think the journalism is excellent. And then there was like, they did the cheat issue where it's like, here are all the fun ways you can do a little cheat. And one of the writers spoke about this suit and like said it really, really works.

I'm like, that's crazy. And I'm into fitness tech, like I have an Aura Ring, I have smart swimming goggles, which I'm not going to go grab now, but they have an AR display that shows how fast you're swimming, your distance, all of that. So I'm like people assume, I think, people assume we're like anti tech, you know, just like as a publication or something. It's like, dude, I love the shit out of tech. Are you joking?

It's just like, it has to be very particular, a very particular use case and that sort of thing. So I see it in Bloomberg, and I think I put in my order then because I know either either I'm actually going to get something out of this and it like might be worth the money and like, I don't spend my money. Like Jason described me as a monk before, so I was like, I'm just going to buy this cyber suit. Or at least it will be like material to write about and to talk about as well. Yeah.

So that happens. And then there's a John Clooney profile in Esquire.

George Clooney?

Yes. Was I?

John Clooney?

Did I say John Clooney? No. I no. I didn't. No.

Said

You did. Yeah. It

No. Oh my god. Okay.

So we do everything Clooney does because he is, you know, a god, obviously. Yeah. Obviously. He's aging beautifully.

Yeah. I read the profile and I I didn't I don't even know what I know. I listened to it because I don't read, my profiles of celebrities normally. And it happened to mention the suit. I like, yes.

That's the one that's coming for me. And, like, Clooney says it's amazing. So, you know, that's how I first heard it and how I first got it. It took, like, five or six months to arrive. You know?

What so what is it what is the promise, I guess? What is the the sell here?

The promise is that you can get something like two two hours of strength training in twenty minutes, which one sounds crazy, obviously, two, also very appealing if that's true, you know, and like, I I do a lot of rowing, I do a lot of swimming, I love those. I don't really do much strength stuff. Like I've really fucked up my body by trying to do various strength stuff like I had chronic headaches for six months when I fucked something up in my nerves or something. I had to like I didn't even put some story, but I had to lay down at one point and the doctor like injected something into my neck, and it was a horrible sensation, to like fix the headache Like a nerve attack or something? Something like that to fix the chronic headaches I was getting.

I had to do a bunch of physical therapy. And I I want to strength stuff to have a more rounded out fitness plan and fitness experience, and then I could translate that strength to rowing into swimming, but I I fuck it up all the time, basically. And rather than, you know, doing probably the same thing and paying somebody a modest amount of money to show me how to do it like a personal trainer, I then bought this suit that electrocutes you, instead.

So it's like shock it's like zapping your muscles to stimulate them into growth.

That right? To To actually answer your question. Yeah. So EMS, electro I'm gonna bring up the thing in front of me, but it's an acronym. And, you it basically electric shocks your muscles to make them contract in the same sort of way that you'd be doing an exercise.

The idea is to encourage muscle growth. And like you wear it while doing, like, you're not like running, and you're not really even doing like, sit ups or anything like that. You're doing like the motion of a squat for four seconds while it pummels you. You're doing a lunge for four seconds while it pummels you and that sort of thing. And then after twenty minutes, the workout is over.

But yeah, it's it's it's feeding electricity basically into you. You've so you've soaked the suit. You've soaked your base layer.

Which is a big part of this also, getting wet before you get in the suit because it has to have something to conduct the electricity. Well well, let let me ask dry.

No. No. That'd be stupid. So let me you can't get in the suit dry.

You're ridiculous.

Can can I just ask you? Because all of you, because this is when you guys come in. Because I I, like, got the suit and I wetted it up and I put it on my rowing mat and you have to really spray it with water and I sent you guys photos. Like, was your reaction to seeing this?

I'm horrified, personally. Was like, what you calling sineest wet flurries? Yeah.

Like

I was like, oh, my friend is nuts. Emmanuel called

you the craziest person he knows.

Yeah. Yep.

Trish, I agree with.

Mhmm.

I don't think it

was that crazy. But I've, like, talked to you about it. I've, like, read the article. I have gotten updates on this over time. And, like, I can only see it as, like, a joke, like, a like an extended joke, like on you I mean, like, you're playing on Oz.

Joe's doing a bit for his whole

life. Doing a bit for the content slash, like, for like, the idea that you thought that this would be, like, a good thing for your body is just, like, I refuse to believe it.

Like believe it. I believe

I can't believe it. I just, like, like, like, what? Wait. What? You I I can't even talk about it.

It's too upsetting. The idea that you're, like, I'm gonna slither into this suit and it's gonna shock me and that's gonna, like, get me strong. I don't get it. I'm trying to get it.

Well, to to to point to some of the reporting, I emailed a lot of researchers who worked on EMS. Only one got back to me. I don't know if that's I don't know what that shows, but one got back to me, a professor from Taiwan, he's like, yeah, EMS can work. It's usually used by, like, athletes. Think Usain Bolt has done it and stuff, and it's like, we need to target this hyper specific muscle group to shave down your run time by a fifth of a second or something like that.

And now there are these companies like Catalyst, the one I bought, and there's Titan Body and there's all these other ones. Apparently it's really, really big in Europe. Like there are clinics that you go into and you have a session with one of these, and apparently that's somewhat common. Mate, well, the supervision fit. The supervision bit is like a big part of it.

But now they're trying to offer it to consumers. And although scientifically, there might be benefits to athletes, I think there's a lot of stuff around the consumer part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I like, I laugh, but I do get it. I get understand why you thought this was gonna be a good idea because there are, like there's something called a TENS machine or, a TNS thing that you put on your head for migraines, and I've thought about doing that before. And that's basically, like, nerve stimulation on your head that you can, like, dial up and down that is supposed to help migraines. But, like, I've never done it because it's scary. So, like, I when you were like, I'm gonna put my whole body in one of these things that, like, shocks my muscles, I was like, you need to make sure there's someone in the house because you're gonna die.

So that was my reaction. I was, like, genuinely concerned for your well-being. I was like, we're not gonna hear from Joe, and, you that's gonna be a problem for the company.

Sorry. Did we go over the numbness? No. Not yet.

Yeah. So tell me what it so tell us what it exactly did to you once you were slithering in. I hate that.

So it Australia went way worse than I expected. Like I did not expect these effects that I had on the subreddit. It's all people just complaining about the delivery times or, oh, I've lost so much weight from it that now I need a different size suit and the company won't honor the new suit size. Like it's all of this sort of stuff in the subreddit. There's no one complaining about injuries or anything like that.

When I did it, I got sort of pins and needles in my hands and feet, like during the actual workout, maybe about halfway through because it ramps up in intensity, it starts fairly low, and then by the end, you were at like three times or something the power you were at the start. And the virtual instructor is doing this. He says in this video, I'm going to ramp

it up

now. So about halfway through, I start getting the pins and needles in my hands and feet. They say that can actually be expected. So, okay, cool. It's expected behavior to get pins and needles in your hands.

It should go away after a while. It didn't for me. The hands after a bit, I guess, but like the pins and needles and then the numbness, especially my feet would last for days. And I was like looking at my feet like, have I fucking like, I don't burst a blood vessel or like fucked up my nerves or something like that. I would get so cold, I would start sneezing, which was very crazy because like it wasn't cold and I like wasn't sick, but I felt fucking cold, numb, and pins and needles occasionally, and it just wouldn't leave.

And I told the CEO of Catalyst this and he was like, that's very, very abnormal or extremely abnormal, something like that. And he said, you should make the suit wetter. So he made the suit even more wet on top of how wet it already was. And then I just ended up turning the arms off because you can control it with the app. So you like have a little touch screen and you I want more on my thighs or less on my abs or whatever.

So I turned the arms off. So that stopped that issue, but now I'm still getting the feet numbness as I remember. And I don't know, it was starting it was borderline getting too scary, like, am I actually gonna fuck something up? And after you we published this, people were talking about it on the biohackers subreddit, which I think a lot of people here have a lot of opinions about because we've covered various stuff from that subreddit for a long time. And then someone highlighted that bit where I wrote that my feet were getting numb, and they were just like, holy shit.

This guy's like frying his nerves out here. I'm like, woah. As you said, Sam, I'm going too hard for the biohacker subreddit apparently.

Yeah. That's that's a that's a line that definitely gets crossed, in the story. I think the CEO is probably like, fuck. We, like, mailed, like, the worst red teaming situation ever to this journalist, and he's gonna, like, write a story that's like, I I paralyzed myself with this suit.

We gave we gave four zero four Media the exclusive, and here's what

they did. They wrote a very weird story. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you you probably shouldn't have mailed this to him.

Why is there so much slithering in and out of the suit in the

Yeah. Yes. I'm waiting for the expos

from the sexualize it, which props to you because everyone else did immediately. Because this is e stim is a is a kink that people have. So maybe there's a market that they don't know about yet.

I see.

It probably doesn't go hard enough for those guys. But, so, I mean, I wanna get existential about this because I think this, again, speaks to something going on with you that's not about fitness and is more about your mental health. And we support that because we're all deeply mentally unwell here at four four Media. Did it feel like it I mean, did the concept of this make you question your relationship with quantified self stuff with, like, fitness maxing sort of technology? Did you kinda have a moment that was like, oh, I, it's like how Jason had a moment where he appreciated his real life when he was LARPing.

It's like, do you now appreciate your fitness outside of the suit world?

Yeah. I think it's very, similar to the takeaway that Jason got from going into the world of LARPing. Like, I put efficiency into my life in so many different ways. Like, I have an instant pot, which I fucking love and Emmanuel, I'm sure looks down on me. He was like cooking these amazing dinners for his family, you know, using all these amazing cooking techniques and I just throw in the instant pot.

It's like, dude, I can make a stew in like fifteen minutes. Are you joking? I have that. When I'm swimming, I'll sometimes use resistance gloves because that will like get out a bit more stimulation of my chest if I'm doing breaststroke, something like that. I do rowing because it can like activate something like 80% of muscles, it's low impact, it's a highly efficient form of cardio, both for steady state and for high intensity interval training as well.

As Emmanuel knows, I like to play video games efficiently as well where it's like there's grind, grind, grind to get the item you need or whatever. So this, I bought this very much in that context where I try to squeeze efficiency in my life as much as possible. And this was like the extreme version of that where I eventually, I say eventually, kind of quickly, to be honest, came to the realization of what the fuck am I doing in this suit? I'm like dripping wet, there's water all over my home, my feet are numb, I feel like shit, and like I've just spent a hell of a lot of money on this suit as well. Like for what?

To squeeze something down to twenty minutes and I was feeling so bad from it that I couldn't then go and swim and row, which were the things I was trying to supplement in the first place, you know? So like it really did make me reflect on like efficiency and fitness and you lose something when you try to over official size or whatever you want to say, like everything, you know? And I'll still do a lot of efficiencies in my life, but like not that one. I discovered my limit at jacking myself into a $3,000 cyber suit, which I guess is good to learn that.

Yeah. We learned it the the weird way. I wouldn't even say the hard way. You learned it

the most possible way. Because it was kind of easy. That's kind of the point.

Yeah. It's like,

I didn't even put in the effort in to learn to lift weights or anything. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

It's the fitness journey, not the fitness destination. Let's pray that Casey Johnson doesn't listen to this episode. I'm just gonna leave it at that. We're gonna get you into some kind of weight routine in someday.

But Well, I mean, she she provided comment for it, and she was like saying, and for those who don't know, Casey Johnson is, you know, a small woman, very, very successful with her, newsletter and and and training, I guess, untold people around the world, how to lift weights. She when I told her about it, she pointed to like one of those devices from the fifties or whatever that was like, hey, you can get abs by electrocuting your stomach or whatever. And I like, yeah, the vibe is similar. It's just it's slicker now because it's an app. You know what I mean?

But, yeah, she she essentially called it a scam. You know? Buy one of the trailer.

Yeah. Well, thank you for your service.

Yeah. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Alright. With that, I will play us out.

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