The Pomp Podcast
00:33:03 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:33:03] S1: Why should I not be scared of the kung fu killer robots? Because the way that they are marketed is they're gonna be your bodyguard, but what if they come for me? [00:33:11] S0: Of course. But sure. Your car can also, the brakes could stop working. The self driving car can make the wrong turn. GPS could tell you to drive off a cliff. [00:33:21] S1: That's different. [00:33:23] S0: Sure. There's some differences, but there's also some similarities. Right? It... It's the same thing. Like, think of [00:33:29] S1: But, like, this thing is smarter than me. [00:33:31] S0: AI is definitely smarter than us. [00:33:33] S1: I know. [00:33:33] S0: I mean, there might be other smart people who [00:33:35] S1: would not be smarter than But [00:33:36] S0: me, you know, I got a small brain. It is a 100% [00:33:39] S1: know that. That's what I'm saying. But, like, [00:33:42] S0: I just I just said, hey. It's smarter than me. Cool. I got that. Me and [00:33:45] S1: Okay. So [00:33:45] S0: machines would... I'm on your team. Like But [00:33:48] S1: what if you're not? What if you're not? [00:33:52] S0: Then we'll deal with it. [00:33:53] S1: No. That's scary. For my anxious brain that doesn't like uncertainty at [00:33:57] S0: It's like saying, like, what if the robotic arm in the warehouse turns around and smacks the worker? Are we just not gonna... We're just not gonna have robotic arms in the warehouse anymore? [00:34:09] S1: I don't know. It's just too much for my little brain to handle.
00:34:09 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:34:09] S1: I don't know. It's just too much for my little brain to handle. [00:34:12] S0: Right? So, like, it it goes back to... We can play the what if game all day long. Right? Every single day when you buy a consumer packaged good and you ingest it, what if it was bad? What if it has salmonella? Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Is that what it's called? [00:34:30] S1: Salmonella? [00:34:31] S0: What is it? [00:34:32] S1: What did you just say? [00:34:33] S0: Salmonella. Oh my god. Is that what it's called? [00:34:35] S1: The robots are definitely taking over. [00:34:37] S0: What is it? [00:34:39] S1: Salmonella. [00:34:40] S0: That's what I said. [00:34:41] S1: You said... What did I say? What did you say? I don't know. That was crazy. [00:34:46] S0: Right? So the point is that we take risk every single day, but it just goes back to... I can talk from my personal experience. AI... Just think of our life for a second. Let's let's have a personal conversation. [00:35:00] S1: Oh.
00:35:00 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:35:00] S1: Oh. [00:35:02] S0: AI probably had a very profound impact on our family Yes. In terms of our two children. For those that don't know a story, that we've talked about publicly, we had, twin boys. And during the pregnancy, we were told by a doctor that, there was complications that most people would, terminate the pregnancy. We, Polina, used AI to confirm the fact that the doctor was wrong. Long story short. The second, AI has made us significantly more productive. Has It probably helped us make more money in our businesses. Mhmm. It has definitely given me back an incredible amount of time that I then can spend with my family. It also has done tons of things in terms of plan events for us to do, find cool things to do [00:35:48] S1: I agree. Manage things. Are we are we enjoying all that at the expense of something scary happening because we're feeding it all this information? [00:35:56] S0: We live in 2026. If you walk outside of our office and go one block, there are probably 20 cameras that are gonna film you in New York City. And you're worried about telling the AI, I don't have enough toilet paper. Can you order me more? [00:36:17] S1: Like, what? I'm always on top of the toilet paper. [00:36:19] S0: Right. I can't think about how crazy this sounds. You you walk around with a tracker. Like like, there's GPS in your phone. [00:36:27] S1: Tell the people about the Amazon story. [00:36:29] S0: What Amazon story? [00:36:30] S1: The Amazon store. So Anthony has, like, a thing about being tracked by tech.
00:36:30 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:36:30] S1: The Amazon store. So Anthony has, like, a thing about being tracked by tech. [00:36:35] S0: Oh, so, one of the first Amazon Go stores, you know, where they [00:36:39] S1: Amazon Go. [00:36:40] S0: Facial recognition. You walk in, you don't... And then you get your stuff and you walk out. [00:36:44] S1: And you don't pay being, like, really cool to introduce Anthony to his first Amazon Go store. [00:36:48] S0: Polina used to work out of Brookfield Place Mhmm. Down in Lower Manhattan, and that was when... Where one of the first Amazon Go stores was. And so I went to pick her up after work one day, and we were walking around. I was, on the phone, in air quotes, and she was like, hey. I gotta go get something from that store. Do you wanna come in? It's the first, you know, Amazon Go store or whatever, or one of the first ones. And I was like, no. No. I gotta do this call. And she Which was weird [00:37:14] S1: because you could have just done the call in the store. [00:37:16] S0: So she went in, and and when she came back out, she said, did you not go in there because you don't want them to scan your face? And I said, of course. I didn't have a call. I just I just wasn't going to the store. But we were still like... We we were dating for a while, but like I didn't wanna like get into the whole like, yeah, the conspiracy, the government... [00:37:34] S1: But you just said that there's 20 cameras pointed at you. [00:37:36] S0: So I [00:37:36] S1: like, I'm
00:37:36 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:37:36] S1: like, I'm [00:37:37] S0: not going to the store. I've never gone to an Amazon Go store. Bezos, good luck. Can't see me. But... Yeah. Correct. I walk outside the office, and there's 20 cameras. But, like, hey. Do I wanna live in New York City or not? So it goes back to this idea of there are plenty of things that we should be scared of. By the way, I don't love the surveillance state. I don't love the fact that all of our data is everywhere. I don't love blah blah blah blah blah, whatever. Am I so unhappy, so worried, and so negatively affected by all that that I'm willing to go, like, homestead in Oklahoma and live off the grid? No. So guess what? I am actively making a decision to participate in that. That's on me. That is an individual choice that I am making. [00:38:15] S1: If the kung fu robots come?
00:38:15 · Polina Pompliano, Anthony Pompliano
[00:38:15] S1: If the kung fu robots come? [00:38:17] S0: If I choose to buy a kung fu robot as a bodyguard, which by the way sounds awesome, we'll talk about that later, how much it costs, and whether I should do it. But if I choose to do that and it goes rogue, I have nobody to blame but me. I'm the one who bought it and gave it keys to, you know, our place, or let it come with me to the office or ride in the car. If it turns on and just slaps me, why I let in the car? It's just like I'm a big believer that, people like to worry about things. And when they worry about things, they try to find the craziest, most cockamamie thing ever. So for example, all these people who keep running around saying AI is gonna kill us. Okay. Let's play a game. I am going to assume that you are correct that AI is gonna kill us. And I ask them, how will it happen? I swear to you, the stories that I hear are like, well, see, the AI is gonna hack into this pathogen lab, there's gonna be this [00:39:14] S1: super That's immediately what came to my mind. [00:39:16] S0: Pathogen, whatever. And then they're gonna let it escape. And when it escapes, it's gonna get into the airstream or the jet stream. And then when it does that, it's gonna go all through all the the world. It's gonna kill all humans. And I say, okay. Great. You're fucking crazy. [00:39:31] S1: Why, though? It could happen. [00:39:34] S0: Sure. And I could literally walk on the floor, and the engineer could have made a mistake, and a hole opens, and I fall into the crust of the earth. Like, all kinds of crazy shit