Leah Feiger: Yeah, definitely.
Brian Barrett: Delightful. OpenClaw, a little agent that can just run autonomously, has access to all your stuff. Gemini Spark is Google’s answer to OpenClaw. It’s the same sort of autonomous assistant that can do all the things, but because it’s Google, it has access to everything that you do on Google or any app that you tie in. So you can see how that becomes really powerful, and OpenClaw was already a privacy question mark, this even more so. You give it access to your Gmail, give it access to your calendar, give it access to everything that you touch online, your entire search history, and just say, “Hey, go do this. Remind me of this, do that.”
Leah Feiger: I couldn’t be less interested in a product.
Zoë Schiffer: We know.
Brian Barrett: But here’s the thing. I agree, it’s not for me, but it’s the kind of thing where this is going to be presented eventually to billions of people. The scale is the thing, who don’t necessarily know or understand or appreciate, not talking down to anybody, but this is the way in which this thing will have access to your stuff, can go wrong potentially.
Zoë Schiffer: I would say that OpenClaw was kind of a one-man project. The founder is now part of OpenAI, but this was a bootleg kind of experiment. I would imagine that when Google does it, they’re implementing more safety guards.
Brian Barrett: No, you’re right.
Zoë Schiffer: I’m not saying it’s nothing. I’m sure this is going to be changed.
Leah Feiger: Fingers crossed up and down the line.
Zoë Schiffer: But I would expect that if they’re rolling it out to millions or billions of people that we are going to see some additional checks and balances.
Brian Barrett: Probably.
Zoë Schiffer: Here’s to hoping.
Leah Feiger: Well, speaking of the major AI players, I think we all know that the reputation of AI in the public eye has taken a little bit of a nosedive, which I personally love. I am loving the backlash. I literally—
Zoë Schiffer: Leah’s personally behind it.
Leah Feiger: Yes, exactly.
Zoë Schiffer: Dark money? Leah Feiger.
Leah Feiger: Every single little story and comment warms my AI Grinch heart. And we’re continuing to see reports of people really not happy about data centers being built near their homes to power all of this AI, raising their electricity bill while at it. And then there’s the effect of AI in an increasingly tough workplace. We were just talking about the Meta layoffs, et cetera. So it’s not probably a huge surprise to everyone here that last week when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt took to the podium to speak to the graduating class at the University of Arizona, he brought up AI and things didn’t go particularly well.
Eric Schmidt, archival audio: It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship you have. I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you. [Boos from the crowd] There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, and I understand that fear.
