The hosts discuss a viral AI-generated podcast episode featuring a simulated interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs, exploring the implications of such technology. They analyze the high quality of the voice synthesis, the philosophical depth of the content, and the potential for using AI to simulate conversations between historical figures.
Topics: AI, Podcast, Technology, Steve Jobs, Joe Rogan, Innovation, Ethics, Future of Media
The AI-Generated Interview [00:06]
Sam Parr: The thing we’re talking about is it’s Joe Rogan interviewing Steve Jobs, and we’ll sell the background of how it works. But basically, it’s both, it’s all AI-generated, and Joe Rogan is inter- fake Joe Rogan is interviewing fake Steve Jobs. And I got a little emotional because like I like Steve- I kind of like Steve Jobs, but I respect him a ton. And just hearing him talk about topics that seemed modern, I was like, he’s, you know, he’s back from the dead. You know what I mean? I wouldn’t exactly say he’s one of my heroes, but he’s someone I respect and just I’m like, “Oh my god, the dead is alive again.” And that was-
Shaan Puri: Let’s let’s pull it up. So the way I think we should do this episode is I think we, I think we focus on AI. I think we show some of the stuff that has caught our attention. So it’s kind of a show and tell. So if you’re if you’re listening to the podcast, I think you’re going to want to be on YouTube right now to actually see this stuff. And when you’re there, you’re going to want to subscribe. And when you subscribe, you’re going to want to share, tell your friend. No, okay. But like, you do want to go to YouTube and just, I don’t know, go to YouTube and search My First Million and then then click the channel. This will be, uh, you know, the the AI episode will be up there. Ben is going to screen share here. And Ben, do we have audio? Let’s play a little bit of the intro.
Sam Parr: Well, let me let let me give the background really quick. So it’s a company called play.ht. Um, but they and one of their side projects is a thing called podcast.ai. And basically, what they did was they gave their AI algorithm or program, whatever you want to call it, they gave their uh program uh Steve Jobs’s biography, uh which is and I think they actually gave him one or two of his biographies because there’s two or two major ones. Then they basically gave him they gave the program every single Steve Jobs recording, I think ever, or anything that they could find on the internet, along with every Joe Rogan episode ever. And they made Joe Rogan interview Steve Jobs. And in the interview, it’s like 25 minutes long. They talk all about all types of stuff, but they say some amazing things like Joe Rogan does the intro and he goes like, he teases out the who who it is, just like he does in real life. He goes, “What’s up, freak bitches,” which I don’t even think he says anymore, but he said that in all the early episodes. He goes, “What’s up, freak bitches. Uh, today’s guest is someone who’s incredibly smart, incredibly weird.”
Shaan Puri: Oh, we should just play it, right? Let it let it let it.
Sam Parr: And insufferable. Well, he says insufferable, which I thought was crazy. So go ahead and play it.
The AI Podcast Experience [02:35]
Audio Clip: This podcast is brought to you by play.ht. All content is generated by artificial intelligence. Listener discretion is advised.
Audio Clip: Hello, freak bitches. Welcome to another episode of the Bro Rogan Experience. And on this episode, I welcome my friend who’s difficult to describe. I’m fascinated by him, and I hope you will be too. And he is weird and brilliant and sometimes totally insufferable. But my guest today has made some of the great technological products of our age, and he’s always pushing the envelope in innovation. Like, for example, with his next computer, he developed a new programming language and operating system, and then he became even more famous for making three applications for that computer. Uh, word processor, a spreadsheet, and an image editor. That just showed me that this dude was brilliant, had amazing taste, and I would just hope that I could be even like 1/10th of the genius that my friend today is. And I can’t even say his name, so yeah. So I was super psyched about having him in the house today. First time or, yeah, we’ve had you on before, but not for a long time. You’re like Patrick Swayze and um Demi Moore and Ghost. You’re a memory from the past. So without further ado, my friend who is difficult to describe and wonderful, and I’m so gratefully he came on the show.
Sam Parr: How’s it going? Good to see you, buddy. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the show. I’ve missed this. It’s always fun.
Shaan Puri: Wow. Like just pause there. Okay. So the things that like first, the voice quality. The voice quality is incredible. Like that sounds just like Joe Rogan, it sounds just like Steve Jobs. It it is it has gotten so much better than like how this used to be. I remember like, you know, when you had like the Garmin GPS in your car and you could like choose the Morgan Freeman voice or whatever, like anytime you’d have like this voice robot that was trying to say something new, it sounded totally computerized. And this doesn’t. So the voice quality is one thing. The fact that it kind of like it makes more sense, it makes more sense than it should. Like he’s doing an intro, it understands that. He’s teasing like this my friend who’s here today, this person’s a genius, but not saying who it is and what it is right away. That’s like a a showmanship thing that I thought was like really interesting. Um, the back and forth banter, like he gives that long intro and then Steve Jobs just kind of laughs, um, like you would if you had sat down for this kind of interview with Joe Rogan. I just thought that was incredible, the way it felt like a real conversation. And obviously there’s some stuff that’s like, you know, he’s talking about word processors and documents, so a little too much, like nobody would do that, but like damn, if 80% of that is not amazing.
The Philosophical Depth [05:38]
Sam Parr: And the reason I felt emotional listening to this was it’s I felt both like in awe, but also scared because as I was listening to this, it I was agreeing with what Steve says. And uh what what we’ll do in in a second uh Ben is fast forward like maybe 10 minutes in and basically Jobs goes on this long rant about LSD saying uh you know, LSD changed my life and I don’t think it’s for everyone, but it changed my life and it opened my mind up and let me read all these books I never previously would have read. And he says something like, “I don’t I wouldn’t take LSD a bunch of times in a row because I only needed it once or twice and it opened my mind and it introduced me and he he goes in depth. He goes, it introduced me to India.” And it’s just he talks about He’s talking about God. He’s talking about like all kinds of things that you’re like it’s not just like reading a Wikipedia page, you know what I mean? Like uh it’s very philosophical. He’s like, “When people think about God, they think about this.” But to me, it’s and it’s like, whoa, that’s a fully formed thought and philosophy and like that sounds like something somebody would say when they’re having like an in-depth podcast and not just like, “I did this in 1979 in March when I was living in Albuquerque. And then in 1981, I once again, it was wasn’t that. It was like a very real sounding thing.
Shaan Puri: And he has this- did you hear? There’s this beautiful quote that he says. And basically, the way that this company, if you ever listen to a bunch of Steve Jobs interviews, you’ll notice that at points, it almost sounds like they’re just chopping up some of his clips and just weaving them together because he has talked about this before. So I don’t actually know if he’s ever said this particular line before, but he starts talking about India and why he loves like uh that part of the world. And he basically says like, “Well, it’s so old and it influenced the rest of society.” And he goes, “There’s an Indian epic that’s 10 times as long as the Bible, the Quran, and all these other things combined.” The Iliad and the Odyssey, yeah. That’s what he says. Yeah, he’s like basically Indian history influenced the rest of the world and there’s an epic that’s 10 times as long as all these other books. And I just thought that was that’s just like such an interesting By the way, he does- so and he doesn’t say the name, so it kind of leaves you wanting there, but he is talking about the the the Gita, which is like is, I think, that long. It’s like a 16 part series or whatever. It’s like this really, really long thing. I would bet that it actually is multiples longer than the Iliad and the Odyssey. So I don’t think it was It’s so interesting that he said that. I I and and this is the point is that when he said that, I said, “I got to find that book.” Like he just sold me on this book. And so yeah, I the dead Jobs influenced me. So Ben, click play just for like 30 seconds.
The Deeper Meaning of Life [08:27]
Audio Clip: But there is some kind of deeper meaning to life and it can’t just be something that somebody made up because if it was, it wouldn’t be compelling. It would seem contrived and everyone would see through it. So I think that the meaning and the purpose is by the cosmos, the nature of the cosmos, which is pretty bold thinking. I mean, I don’t know how else to put it, but it’s not religious in the way people usually talk about. Taking LSD was a profound experience for me. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it, it washes over you and tells you that everything is connected. You’re not here by accident. You were put here for a purpose and if you can figure out what that is, then you’ll learn more about yourself than anything else could. It’s pretty intense.
Shaan Puri: So so so that quote is a real quote of his. “Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. It shows you that there’s another side of the coin. You can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it.” Okay, so that is like an actual quote of his, but it’s weaved into the conversation. Like there’s a part in the conversation where he where he where he says he’s talking about how he’s a fan of Joe Rogan. He’s like, “It’s nice to just sit back in the car and listen to you rant.” And it’s like, okay, so the first one where he’s the the the LSD, you know, okay, they just took a they just took, you know, his good read section or his quotes and they’re like, “Okay, cool. He’s he says things like this.” But where did the How did it know to say to Joe Rogan that I love to listen to your podcast in the car, just love to sit back and listen to you rant? Where would that have come from? How how does that happen? That is there’s like little moments like that that are like I just don’t understand this technology well enough to know how it could know to say something like that in that moment.
The Future of AI Conversations [10:05]
Sam Parr: So the first half of the call, he talks all about India and these like kind of platitude like life advice type of things, which were pretty amazing. But then the second half, which Ben just started playing a little bit, he talks about Google and they actually say Yahoo wrong. They call it Yahoo. Uh they they put the emphasis on the wrong syllable, but they uh he he’s he like does all these like says all these interesting quotes, which I actually think are things that he said again in the past. But he says stuff like, “You know, that’s the problem I’ve always had with Microsoft. In many ways, they’re smart people and they’ve done good work, but they’ve never had any taste. They’ve never had any aesthetic taste.” And then he goes on and he talks about Adobe and he criticizes Adobe’s business model and he goes, “Joe Rogan actually says, ‘What would you do to fix Adobe?’” And Jobs says, “Well, they’ve got 800 people working on Adobe’s business model. That’s just way too many people. And the fact that they charge just a little bit of money for a small bit of the product, it’s like buying a car but only getting part of the car and having to pay more money to get the rest of the engine.” And he like says these criticisms about Adobe, which frankly, I have no idea if it’s true, but he must have went on like a rant about this, you know, in the past. But and and then he goes, “You know, I had a lunch recently with Bob whatever at Adobe,” and he like says their full name. And he leads up this part of Adobe and he actually agreed with me that they need to fix it and they’re working on fixing it. And so anyway, he like actually gives almost more advice and his opinions on what I think are current events. I’m not well versed enough in with Adobe, but it seems like current events. It’s pretty magical.
Shaan Puri: It’s amazing. Yeah, this basically was like bring bring back someone from the dead technology. Ben, do you have anything to add? You’re a you’re a history guy. What did this like do you have anything that you felt when you when you watched this?
Ben: I really agree with Sam. It made me oddly emotional uh listening to it. It also scared me a little bit just because I thought of the application of like, well what if like you did this to my grandpa? And like what emotions would that bring back? And then that like frightened me of like, I don’t know if that’s a good thing to be able to experience like this representation of my grandpa that would feel like the real thing but isn’t, right? Like where are these thoughts coming from? So it’s equal parts like really compelling, really cool. As like a treat to be able to hear what I think is like a pretty accurate representation of how Steve Jobs would approach some of these things that are happening today. But then also just like scary to realize, but it’s not really him. And what is it really?
Shaan Puri: Well, it’s like it’s like a video, right? Today you could watch a home video and it’s like you see their face, you hear their voice, you it’s captured a moment in time. To me, this is an extension of that, which is like now it’s going to be somewhat interactive that you can kind of interact with these people who are here, them talk about new things. Uh and you know that it’s not like the real thing, but it’s, you know, there’s a Black Mirror episode that’s a lot like this where the the woman like uploads her boyfriend’s consciousness to like, you know, this robot and she’s kind of still dating him even though uh you know, he’s gone, but like there’s like the shadow of him that like, you know, can can simulate him. Um and I think I think there’s more good than bad. Um Sam, what do you want to say?
Sam Parr: Yeah, so let me add two points about why this is going to get even stranger. Well, the first point is is is almost scary. So basically, in 1985, here this is a quote from Steve Jobs. He goes, “My hope is someday, when the next Aristotle is alive, we can capture the underlying worldview of that Aristotle in a computer. And someday, some student will not be only be able to read the words Aristotle wrote, but ask Aristotle a question and get an answer.” And so Steve Jobs wrote that in ‘85, which is interesting. Now here’s where things gets really interesting.
Shaan Puri: Wow, that chills from that. Because that’s that’s he is what he’s what just what he just described is what just happened to him.
Sam Parr: It’s magical. Now here’s where things are going to get even more magical. So play. is it play.ai or play.ht? I want Uh so uh part of their website, you can actually vote for new episodes. And some of the top episodes that people have voted for is Elon Musk interviewing uh Nikola Tesla, Kanye West and Bob Marley talking about music, Jesus interviews God, and then I believe there’s Einstein and Buddha having a conversation on science and spirituality. Um And uh Trump interviews himself. Trump interviews himself. There’s Lex Friedman interviewing Richard Feynman, and then there’s uh Joe Rogan mediates peace between Russia and US. And that sounds like a joke, and it is a joke, but it’s actually an interesting tool where you’re like, “Well, like let’s hear Joe Rogan or let’s see if Joe Rogan can like bring together these two different people and hear each other’s perspective and we’ll actually find out where one another is coming from, even if it’s make-believe.” And but it will still be like maybe that is actually how they feel and I could work through this argument. So that’s why this stuff is actually really, really interesting and powerful.