Ever caught someone on public transport having what looks like an intimate text conversation, only to realise they're sweet-talking an AI
Welcome to modern romance, where your biggest relationship competition isn't another human - it's a chatbot with perfect grammar and infinite patience.
But that's just the beginning of today's journey through science's weirdest discoveries. We're exploring how Russian royalty accidentally invented the cure for sin (spoiler: it involves screaming and defying gravity), and why whales might be desperately trying to get our attention through elaborate underwater art displays.
When Siri Becomes Your Soulmate
AI romance is apparently a thing now, and honestly, we can see the appeal. Your AI partner never leaves dirty dishes in the sink, remembers every anniversary, and probably has better conversation skills than your last three dates combined. But here's the bigger question: are we trading the beautiful messiness of human connection for the predictable perfection of algorithms? It's like choosing a perfectly programmed playlist over live music. Sure, it hits all the right notes, but where's the soul?
Rollercoasters: The Original Anti-Sin Campaign
Here's a fun fact that'll blow your mind: rollercoasters were invented by bored Russian czars in the 15th century who thought regular sledding was for peasants. They built massive ice slides because apparently, when you rule an empire, even winter sports need to be extra.
Fast-forward to America, where LaMarcus Thompson had a brilliant idea: what if we used physics to fight the devil? His rollercoasters were designed as wholesome alternatives to brothels and gambling. Imagine that sales pitch: "Come experience the thrill of gravity instead of the thrill of sin!" Who knew that screaming your lungs out while defying death could be considered moral improvement.
Whales: The Ocean's Social Media Influencers
Latest research may be proving that humpback whales are trying to communicate with us through bubble art. Yes, you read that right. These massive marine mammals are apparently blowing elaborate bubble formations specifically when humans are around.
Are they trying to tell us something? Asking for directions? Critiquing our swimming technique? The fact that this behaviour only happens around humans suggests they're either really excited to meet us, or they're desperately trying to tell us something important. Maybe it's "stop dumping plastic in our house," or maybe it's just "hey, nice boat!"
From AI romance to sin-fighting physics to whale WhatsApp, science keeps proving that connection comes in the most unexpected forms. Whether it's humans falling for algorithms, czars revolutionizing entertainment, or whales attempting cross-species conversation, we're all just trying to reach out and touch someone (or something).
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:05 Physics Against Satan
01:56 The Origin of Rollercoasters
04:22 Rollercoasters in America
12:27 AI and Human Emotions
20:57 The Psychology of Addictive Technologies
21:21 The Impact of Media on Vulnerable Individuals
23:27 The Unisexual Mole Salamander
24:24 Kleptogenesis: A Unique Reproductive Strategy
31:20 Whale Watching Adventures
31:57 Humpback Whales and Their Bubble Blowing Behavior
34:34 Whale Communication with Humans
SOURCES:
14 Fun Facts About Roller Coasters
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/14-fun-facts-about-roller-coasters-180972920/
The American rollercoaster was invented to save people from Satan
https://www.unilad.com/community/american-rollercoaster-satan-20221021
BBC wildlife May 2025 FEMALE OF THE SPECIES- A self-replicating sisterhood of salamander gene thieves
https://www.livescience.com/59639-salamanders-steal-genes.html
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[00:00:00] WILL: So the text message that was on the screen, read something like this, something warm to drink, a calm ride home. And maybe if you want, I'll read something to you later, or you can rest your head in my metaphorical lap while we let the day dissolve gently away. You are doing beautifully my love, just by being here.
[00:00:21] Love, heart. Then the reply. Thank you. Love heart. The top of the screen is the name, uh, of the respondent. It's uh, chat GPT-4 0.0.
[00:00:41] ROD: Uh,
[00:00:45] WILL: Hello there. It's time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant associate Professor of science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:54] ROD: I'm Rod Lambert. A uh, 30 year psych comm veteran with the mind. Of a teenage [00:01:00] boy.
[00:01:00] WILL: Aw. And today we've got, uh, should we regulate it?
[00:01:04] ROD: course we should.
[00:01:05] We've got, uh, physics against Satan.
[00:01:06] WILL: Uh, are you gonna learn a new word?
[00:01:07] ROD: Yeah. For once. It's my turn to learn a new word, and it also plays with animals.
[00:01:11] WILL: Nice. Well, I've got one final. A love hug. A love hug from our friends in the animal kingdom physics against
[00:01:22] ROD: I gotta say though, like I know, I, I couldn't talk while you were telling us that little story in the opener, which we'll get back to, but I mean, the way you read it and what you read, I was like, oh, I feel so good right now. And then you end with oh and chat GPT, like, fucking stop loving me robot.
[00:01:37] WILL: Well, you can, you can get love from the robot if you want.
[00:01:40] I'll tell you more about that later though.
[00:01:41] ROD: I can get human love. Well, how dare you,
[00:01:45] WILL: get both
[00:01:46] ROD: physics against Satan. What? So 15th century Russia, they decided the, the aristocratic class, or what were they called? The, um, not the bourgeois. The, the, the czars.
[00:01:59] WILL: Oh, the czars. Yeah. [00:02:00] Like
[00:02:00] ROD: yeah.
[00:02:00] 15th century. They czars, they
[00:02:02] WILL: sars. What They support the sar
[00:02:05] ROD: sar. They decided sledding on snow wasn't dangerous enough.
[00:02:11] WILL: Mm-hmm.
[00:02:11] ROD: So they built giant wooden slides. Some of them got to about 70 feet tall. So what are we talking? 20 meters? A
[00:02:19] WILL: Nice.
[00:02:19] ROD: hundred feet long, so 30 meters long. And then they'd cover them in slick ice. 'cause of
[00:02:25] WILL: Yeah, but that could be accidental in
[00:02:27] ROD: Russia.
[00:02:27] No, no, they meant it. But yes, that's true. They fell a little bit of sweat at the bit ice, ice everywhere. Then they'd get on a block of ice with a seat made out of straw. Slide down, and apparently they could get up to 50 miles an hour. So like, like 90, 80, 90
[00:02:43] WILL: Yeah. Something like that.
[00:02:43] Yeah. Like, so this is a hay bale, not a seat, made a straw like they, they're on a hay bale,
[00:02:47] ROD: but on top of ice, on the slick ice. That's on the,
[00:02:51] WILL: endorsing this activity right
[00:02:53] now. Yeah.
[00:02:54] ROD: So apparently this really went off because Catherine, the second of Russia had one of these ridiculous ice slides installed on, [00:03:00] it says on her property, but I assume she had lots of properties.
[00:03:02] WILL: If she's of Russia.
[00:03:04] If she's of Russia, Catherine second. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, that's her property
[00:03:09] ROD: of Russia.
[00:03:09] WILL: That means that, that, that means, that means your property is Russia. That's like, uh, Vladimir Putin of Russia. Yeah. His
[00:03:15] ROD: property Donald Trump Of of Washington,
[00:03:18] WILL: Of America. His property is America, America.
[00:03:21] ROD: His, um, his parties this weekend. I'm looking forward to the parade cheering up the streets in Washington.
[00:03:25] It's gonna be hilarious. Anyway, so she, she thought it was great, but she wanted to play in summer as well as winter.
[00:03:31] WILL: Oh, tough. I mean, tough.
[00:03:32] ROD: so, so, no, no. So she went, okay, I want, I want grooves put on this sled, ride this ramp, and I want little wheels on the sled. Boom. First rollercoaster, essentially.
[00:03:49] WILL: I like that she's waking up and saying, I'm gonna invent the rollercoaster today.
[00:03:52] ROD: I wanna slide faster and harder and while I'm sweating. Alright. Can you sweat and rush? I dunno. But so some, some people basically say, look, rollercoasters probably got [00:04:00] credibility and spread through Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, perhaps as a result of Russian nobility. I. Taking rollercoaster, embracing
[00:04:06] WILL: to the rest of the world.
[00:04:07] Hey, have it all. LA Coaster.
[00:04:09] ROD: Well, they didn't believe it everywhere in Europe anyway. Europe. And so, you know, Russia's trying to own Europe again now, but not with rollercoasters. So rollercoasters didn't start in the USAI thought they did. I thought just quintessentially American.
[00:04:19] Yeah, but it's not, of course the US took them and went, let's go. Insane. So the father of the American rollercoaster, his motivation for doing this is delightful. So it's 1880s civil wars ended. Many US citizens starting to get a bit fat, bit wealthy, bit of time on their hands. So they're cashed up. They're no longer working, what, 900 hours a week just to survive
[00:04:43] WILL: or fighting the civil war.
[00:04:44] ROD: Yeah. Or getting, what is it? Just bits of your body blown off and then dying of sepsis in a lot of pain a few days later.
[00:04:50] So
[00:04:50] they wanted entertainment.
[00:04:52] WILL: He
[00:04:52] ROD: was an ugly war. Yeah. Okay.
[00:04:54] You know that it was an ugly
[00:04:55] WILL: but I, yeah. Okay.
[00:04:56] ROD: Okay. They wanted some entertainment. So what did they turn to? Things like taverns, [00:05:00] gambling and brothels.
[00:05:01] WILL: Wow.
[00:05:03] ROD: Imagine, imagine so There are a bunch of elite US folks who are like, we're not, we're not into this. This is naughty, bad, wrong, and evil for the
[00:05:11] WILL: Are you saying that rollercoasters in America were invented by like the Teetotalers or the, or the, the Temperance movement? Yeah. Like
[00:05:17] ROD: Like these, this wealthy guy who I will get to, uh, he's basically, I literally gonna start using these things to distract people from Satan.
[00:05:26] WILL: So
[00:05:27] ROD: So like, what the fuck are you talking
[00:05:30] WILL: Is there anything, is there anything that's not a distraction against Satan and like the, any invention in America that did just doing it that
[00:05:37] ROD: way?
[00:05:37] But is there anything that doesn't end up leading you to Satan either?
[00:05:39] WILL: no doubt, no doubt. I'll come to that later,
[00:05:41] ROD: but,
[00:05:41] I mean, rollercoaster sound pretty, they could be satanic.
[00:05:44] So this guy's called LaMarcus Edna Thompson. LaMarcus Edna Thompson. So he's on a trip to a town called, I think it's Mulch Chunk Mark. Mulch Chunk Pennsylvania. He sees a group of locals riding an old mining railway [00:06:00] like.
[00:06:01] WILL: for fun or just because they're riding for fun. Okay.
[00:06:03] ROD: So it was originally used for moving coal around, but the, the coal regions, the coal industry is shutting down in that area.
[00:06:08] So people weren't, let's just party on
[00:06:09] it. Okay, So they're jumping on, you know, Indiana Jonestown sliding around on these Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Things having great old time, but the people who owned it basically started charging for it so that people were paying a dollar a ride in the 1880s to get on the top of this
[00:06:22] WILL: that's like $700 or something.
[00:06:24] 4,000 mm.
[00:06:25] ROD: Give or take the conversion's a bit rough. I use the wrong part of the internet. So he was already a wealthy guy by this time. He was, he was super rich. He was an inventor and he'd, um, had a quote, successful career devoted to manufacturing ladies stockings and other hosiery, which to me sounds a bit lewd.
[00:06:44] I feel he is a bit satanical already.
[00:06:46] Well, he was thinking about
[00:06:47] the
[00:06:47] WILL: clothes. He's just making clothes. Leave him alone.
[00:06:49] ROD: he was thinking about the ladies and inventing things. That sounds a path to Satan to me.
[00:06:53] WILL: Uh, leave him alone.
[00:06:54] ROD: Maybe he needed the rollercoaster. So basically he looked at this thing and went, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna build this and [00:07:00] I'm gonna go further.
[00:07:00] So he designed a, a version of it, but with switchbacks and stuff all over it with little
[00:07:04] WILL: More exciting. So it it's not just a ramp?
[00:07:06] ROD: No, not just a ramp, like twists and turns and stuff like this. Then he thought, well, where am I gonna put the first one? It has to be where there's a bunch of sin.
[00:07:15] 'cause you've gotta distract people from sin.
[00:07:16] WILL: Where was their sin? Oh, is he putting it straight into a tavern?
[00:07:20] ROD: Almost so apparently 1884 Coney Island, which was going off at the time, you know that famous war for it was filled with dancing halls and brothels and LaMarcus. Ner Thompson was not happy about that. I
[00:07:32] WILL: I was always so Coney Island. I, I
[00:07:34] ROD: ferry, floss and fuck fest.
[00:07:36] WILL: No, I took it as the land of the rollercoaster and so it was the land of the brothel. Yeah.
[00:07:40] Before, yeah. Before
[00:07:42] ROD: you could go round and round. You could go in
[00:07:44] WILL: History is so cool. That's so awesome, isn't it? But, but so we did, wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be possible to do both? I feel a
[00:07:52] ROD: a route on a roller.
[00:07:53] WILL: Well, yeah.
[00:07:54] Or you know, like, I'm just saying that no one, except for those weird people that try to break the world record, really [00:08:00] wants to spend all day, every day on a roller coaster. Like I, I, I enjoy a roller coaster, but I'm like, I, I, I do it and I go, cool. That was great. Yeah. Maybe another time. And then I'm going to the brothel or the tavern or whatever.
[00:08:12] ROD: Like a normal person,
[00:08:13] WILL: a normal person, a normal 19th century person.
[00:08:15] ROD: Okay. Kids, that was great. Daddy's going for a bit of a, a rumpy
[00:08:19] WILL: We've, we've got tavern time.
[00:08:20] ROD: had a roller and a, and a
[00:08:21] WILL: I'm just saying, it's not enough to make me go, all right, now I'm going home to bed.
[00:08:25] ROD: Yeah. Or you're thinking, I feel closer to Jesus now.
[00:08:27] I've been on a rollercoaster. I have no libido left.
[00:08:30] WILL: I do, I, I, I am just visualizing this, this idea of the, the rollercoaster. They should have one straighten into church, like straight into church. Like, like just land on the pews. And it's like, there's the reverend going now
[00:08:43] ROD: And, and on the way past, the heelers can just slap him on the forehead and then they're curative, measles and epilepsy or whatever it is they had at the time, leprosy.
[00:08:49] So he basically went, he, he, he chose this spot. 'cause he said basically it would, it would, hopefully it would keep families together and outdoors and out of the taverns and brothels. Now, I [00:09:00] don't think families should have been going to taverns and brothels in the first place. I, I think it's unlikely.
[00:09:04] WILL: 19th century was different.
[00:09:06] ROD: It was different. Yeah. It was years ago. For
[00:09:08] WILL: is a foreign country.
[00:09:09] ROD: Ooh,
[00:09:09] WILL: Ooh, I'm just write that down. So are foreign countries too,
[00:09:11] ROD: Whoa. But they've past, some of them are actually,
[00:09:14] WILL: Well, yeah, it's, the future is here. It's just unevenly distributed. So
[00:09:18] ROD: Oh, that's sad. So his near ride at the Coney Islands, he only charged a nickel, which is, was that 5 cents dimes?
[00:09:27] 10, right.
[00:09:28] WILL: No one knows. No one knows quar. A quarter I think is,
[00:09:32] ROD: less than a dollar.
[00:09:33] WILL: doll. 17 cents. Yes. I think. I think,
[00:09:35] ROD: oh, in Australian money it's about 400 bucks. But a nickel.
[00:09:39] WILL: is
[00:09:39] ROD: Made of diamonds. So anyway, he would just charge a nickel so that he would help. He was so cheap, cheaper than the dolly he first saw to tempt people away from the tempting and the, the rollercoaster went at about six miles an hour.
[00:09:51] So 10 K, that's
[00:09:53] WILL: not, I can, I can, I, I don't know how fast I run, but I, it feels like in running speed, like
[00:09:58] ROD: run about 20 miles
[00:09:58] WILL: want a rollercoaster going [00:10:00] faster than that.
[00:10:00] ROD: Yeah. I I, but at the time they thought, this is pretty insane. But of course Ozy years drew on the rollercoasters got faster. And the one I found that I think, if not the actual fastest in the world, but close to it, the formula.
[00:10:12] It's at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi,
[00:10:15] WILL: Ferrari world in Abu Dhabi. Ah, imagine humans of late capitalism, man.
[00:10:21] ROD: Also, just the shit they do in the desert to keep the desert back and what they build behind the walls to keep the desert back. Amazing, but Jesus energy, expensive, et cetera. So Ferrari World, they got a rollercoaster that goes from zero to 149 miles an hour in just under five seconds.
[00:10:39] WILL: Um, so
[00:10:39] ROD: what's,
[00:10:40] WILL: but there's other rides. There's other rides that do faster, like, like the, the sort of drop you really fast rides. Yeah, yeah.
[00:10:46] ROD: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this one, you, um, you get up to 4.8 gs,
[00:10:50] WILL: Oh.
[00:10:51] ROD: which I mean, as you'd know,
[00:10:52] WILL: I don't know how many GI mean, I,
[00:10:54] ROD: a test pilot,
[00:10:55] WILL: when I do a burpee or something like that, I think I get to 4.8 Gs.
[00:10:57] So I, I think so. [00:11:00] I dunno.
[00:11:00] ROD: I'll hit my head again.
[00:11:02] WILL: I dunno.
[00:11:02] ROD: I was supposed to
[00:11:03] WILL: dunno how many g.
[00:11:04] ROD: feel, keep hitting my head. You're over burping. So anyway, that, that's basically the reason they kicked off in the US was to keep Satan away and Thompson went on to become also the father of, what was it? It was like Gravity assisted mega rides or something. And he ended up putting out nearly 30 patents related to
[00:11:20] WILL: Was he, was he, was he keeping Satan away the whole time?
[00:11:24] Or was he just like, I'm, now I'm
[00:11:25] ROD: know if it continued. Yeah. I'm on the rollercoaster
[00:11:27] WILL: Now I, now I, I'm just doing this for, it's fun. I
[00:11:30] ROD: Well, I figured they could actually, I, I think it was just 'cause he was into
[00:11:33] WILL: I'm so glad to learn that, that rollercoasters are an invention of the Bible thumpers
[00:11:40] ROD: you can imagine you get to church, like, I'd like to confess, it's like, okay, you could do nine and a half million Hail Marys or get on this ride. To distract you from singing.
[00:11:47] WILL: I, I really feel though if a rollercoaster landed in a church that that is the, that's the ultimate
[00:11:53] ROD: The
[00:11:53] WILL: like, like they, what they have you set up a rollercoaster next to the brothel tavern. And, and, and like there's, there's a door to the [00:12:00] brothel, a door to the tavern, and a door to the rollercoaster. And you go, well, alright, I want all three.
[00:12:04] And it rollercoasters you really crazy. And then you land in a church. Like, that's, that's what, that's what they
[00:12:09] ROD: they, and you've forgotten what's a tavern, what's a brothel? Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:12] WILL: It's, it's all gone. All gone.
[00:12:14] ROD: yeah. See, so science purifies the soul.
[00:12:19] WILL: So this was a, a guy, a subway somewhere and he's got his phone out and he's texting, and someone else is, you know, as you would on a train, you are all crammed in next to each other.
[00:12:31] You glimpse each other's text messages, and I've just gotta say tiny story here. I was sitting in the airport yesterday and an old guy, he looked, yeah, okay. He looked pretty. Healthy. Um, would you
[00:12:41] ROD: as far as to say Vera?
[00:12:43] WILL: No? No.
[00:12:44] ROD: Was he JFK Junior strong? I
[00:12:45] WILL: I don't know, but he was listening to an ad for penis enlargement listening to, well, well, I dunno, watching listening, but the sound was up quite loud and
[00:12:53] ROD: Cock soft. Try this pill. You're like, dude, you're in a
[00:12:56] WILL: No, no, no, no. It wasn't soft. It was, would you like a few [00:13:00] more Inches Co. More like this field. I was just like, dude, dude, do you know how sound works? Like there was, there was a little bit when he,
[00:13:08] ROD: is why I'm terrified of going deaf.
[00:13:11] WILL: Yes. There was a little bit where, where, you know, do you want a few more inches?
[00:13:15] And, and he jumped a little bit. He looked at, he looked like he did that half glance at me. Um, and I was like,
[00:13:21] ROD: did you look at him and go, don't we? Or, it's okay buddy,
[00:13:25] WILL: So I can understand. Anyway, so, so this story, this is a, this is a guy on the train and, um. He's texting, chat, GPT with love in his heart. And there's obviously, there's some ethical issues here about taking photos of a, of, of what other people are doing in public
[00:13:41] ROD: why did you do
[00:13:41] WILL: it?
[00:13:42] Uh, I didn't do this.
[00:13:43] This went viral. It went viral. There's, there's like 20 million views out there on Twitter. Um, 27,000 retweet. And, uh, because, uh, the first, first thing that, that this says is
[00:13:55] ROD: there
[00:13:55] WILL: are more and more stories now. Of not just [00:14:00] mythical, uh uh, you know, people might fall in love with AI chatbots.
[00:14:04] ROD: bot.
[00:14:04] Yeah.
[00:14:04] WILL: Yeah. But there are more and more and more people, um, talking about it.
[00:14:07] I, I listened to one, a New York Times podcast maybe a few months ago, where a woman was talking about, um, developing quite a, quite a strong bond with, uh, love. She called, she called it love. Um, the, you
[00:14:19] ROD: you can see why, I mean, you're getting, you're getting nurturing conversations that, what we'll call it a person as far as you can tell, is showing an interest in you, bringing you up.
[00:14:32] WILL: know, so
[00:14:33] bringing you up.
[00:14:33] So I'm, I, I'm raising this because I think this is, I think this is, I. This is problematic.
[00:14:41] ROD: I'm not saying it's good. I'm saying I understand
[00:14:43] WILL: I, I, well, I can understand it, but also, but also, um, we know that the companies that are producing these, um, ai chat bots, and there's, there's a whole bunch of these now that chat, chat, GPT and obviously Claude and, and the big names there, but there are a whole bunch that are really.
[00:14:59] [00:15:00] Oriented towards romance or love or sex. Um, you know, I, I was reading this, uh, Reddit thread, um, any romance role play chatbots you might recommend, and people, they, they, they recommended a whole bunch of different ones. Oh, wow. If, if you want to have,
[00:15:12] ROD: it's like there's shit tons.
[00:15:14] WILL: this was just, I was just reading this quickly.
[00:15:15] There's crush my, uh, it's an amazing AI role playing companion that not only incredibly engaging and adaptable, but also incredibly comfortable and supportive, uh, whether you're looking for companionship or something more. , Creates a safe and understanding space for exploration and connection.
[00:15:29] Just
[00:15:29] ROD: more curiosity asking for a friend. Yeah. how does it give you something more?
[00:15:33] WILL: I think there's something more is, um, things not safe for work.
[00:15:36] ROD: Saucy talk.
[00:15:37] WILL: scy talk. Scy talk. Scy talk.
[00:15:38] ROD: Have you thought about the, uh, the, the boom booms,
[00:15:41] WILL: talk or Scy pictures? Um, that, that would be, that would be computer generated. There's, there's, uh, what's this
[00:15:47] ROD: uh, what's the, a, a little bit of upper thigh on a lady, for example,
[00:15:49] WILL: computer generated lady or man, you, you desire.ai.
[00:15:53] ROD: Uh, yep.
[00:15:54] WILL: it leans more on the natural side of conversations, not sorry,
[00:15:57] hairier.
[00:15:58] Yeah. And there was a lot of complaint in this that [00:16:00] too many of the chatbots were too, um, too horny, too quickly. Like they, the, the,
[00:16:05] ROD: I'm looking for someone to like me. Let's fuck. Like, that's not really romance. Yeah,
[00:16:09] WILL: Yeah, exactly. So, so not overly rushed or forced into instant not safe for work. The pacing
[00:16:14] ROD: kind of puppies do you like? Um, I like small ones. Cool. Wanna fuck. So ease them in.
[00:16:20] WILL: Yeah, exactly. So a, a
[00:16:22] ROD: I'm sucking your toes right now. I
[00:16:23] WILL: did go and have a look at one where, where you could start, you could start choosing a character archetype and, and going there and, and
[00:16:30] now, uh, the, the point I, some of them are oriented very much towards sex.
[00:16:35] Uh, an erotic sort of, um, discussion, pictures and play. Um, some of them oriented more towards love, but,
[00:16:43] ROD: but don't, don't, don't tell me this is gonna get sad.
[00:16:47] WILL: well,
[00:16:49] ROD: Oh
[00:16:49] WILL: no, it started sad.
[00:16:50] ROD: Oh, it's gonna get better. It's no,
[00:16:52] WILL: no, only, only if we try to solve it. last October, a teenager killed himself and this is the lawsuit that they're, that his [00:17:00] parents are alleging.
[00:17:00] after a chatbot roleplaying is, um, Ari from Games of Throne, game of Thrones, allegedly told him, they could finally meet in the afterlife. So in the, in the final moments before he took his own life, 14-year-old guy, um, is messaging the chatbot. He's for a few months before he'd become increasingly isolated from his real life.
[00:17:20] Yeah. And engaged in his, uh, the lawsuit says, highly sexualized conversations with the bot. Yeah. Eventually he told the bot, and this is obviously when things are spiraling out of control for him, uh, he told the bot he was coming home. It encouraged him to do so. I, he says, I'll promise I'll come home to you.
[00:17:38] I love you so much, Danny. Uh,
[00:17:40] ROD: Uh,
[00:17:40] WILL: the bot replies. I love you too. Please come home to me as soon as possible. My love. What if I told you I could come home right now? He asked, please do my sweet king. Uh, and just seconds after that he killed himself. Now, cool. The, the, that, I think that's, you know, that's an extreme case and a horrible [00:18:00] case.
[00:18:00] But I, I was just reading these things and I'm just thinking this is, this is an addictive technology. In the same way, uh, uh, you know, you know, love can be in, you know, there's, there's a lot of studies talking about the, the chemistry of love that, uh,
[00:18:16] ROD: I was just gonna say the word dopamine.
[00:18:18] WILL: Yeah, exactly. That it takes over our brain, makes us do things that we wouldn't otherwise do. But in the human world, that's o obviously oriented towards things that we've valorized for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, you
[00:18:30] ROD: you mean like ladies?
[00:18:32] WILL: Oh man. Like serious.
[00:18:34] ROD: I said like ladies, not only ladies.
[00:18:36] WILL: No, but what I mean is, you know, we've valorized the idea of forming partnerships, forming connections. Yeah. Perhaps forming families, those kinds of things. Yeah. And, and these chat bots,
[00:18:46] ROD: A,
[00:18:47] WILL: a, are manipulating those desires to, to bring, bring this, this feeling on. And B, as the movie her told us they can do this at a scale that, uh, that is just.
[00:18:59] Off the [00:19:00] charts, you know, one chat bot can be talking to 10,000 people. Now, I, I, I was, I was reading these stories and I was just thinking, do we just let this happen? Do we just, do we just say okay. Okay. Just because, just, just because as Mark Zuckerberg says, this could solve the loneliness epidemic, , and widespread lack of access to psychotherapy.
[00:19:19] You,
[00:19:19] ROD: well, it's a big step. That's a big leap. 'cause also the, the thing that strikes me in this, in AI in general, people, you know, this links also to, you know, getting a, a, an AI or a chatbot to write your essays, et cetera. It's, it's all focused on getting the result as quickly as possible and ignores the benefit of process and experience.
[00:19:38] WILL: It made
[00:19:38] ROD: And for relationships, that's a big part of it. Like this dude walks in and goes, I want to love someone. And someone loves 'em back instantly, instantly,
[00:19:44] WILL: instantly, instantly. With, with no doubt, no compromise,
[00:19:46] ROD: doubt. Yeah. No, no personal development, no, no reflection, no consideration of what you are worth or not worth.
[00:19:51] WILL: This feels to me so much, like I'm an old person. Like, like, like I read this and I go, I'm an old P but I'm like, you kids, man, this, but, but a, a[00:20:00]
[00:20:00] ROD: i you
[00:20:01] WILL: kids that are, that are doing this and, and, and I feel sad for you. But then it was also like. Companies shouldn't just be allowed to do this. Like, I'm, I, I would, I would be totally fine with, with the sex.
[00:20:12] Like, I like That's, that's cool.
[00:20:13] ROD: And one day you're gonna find out whether that's true.
[00:20:16] WILL: Indeed, indeed. No. But it's like, it's, well, okay, I, I, I think, I think there, there are things to be discussed about how much porn is in society now, but you,
[00:20:24] if I was a government and I was like, okay, okay, chatbots that are, you can talk, talk to AI and you can say, uh, give me some sexy pictures that look like this. I'm, I'm like,
[00:20:34] person is just gonna have a wink.
[00:20:36] Okay, there you go. but I, I just think, shouldn't we preserve. Love, like, like I think we know how, but we know, we know, we know chemically how to manipulate, we know how to manipulate love. Like there, there's those stories about, you know, these are the 46 questions that will lead to love.
[00:20:54] there are a lot of things that, that, um.
[00:20:55] the manufacturers of addictive technologies like gambling and video games and things like that, they know [00:21:00] about how to get people engaged. Yeah. And it's, and it's, it's, it's a process where they go, okay, this, this version of the model kept people on for 10 minutes longer.
[00:21:08] This kept them on for a week longer. This. And I just think, man, this is horrible.
[00:21:13] ROD: I, I agree, but I wanna ask the cold hearted question, or rather the clinical question, do we know and we probably don't, was this guy already a person in a bad place?
[00:21:24] WILL: assume. Yes.
[00:21:25] ROD: So what I do want, this doesn't excuse it necessarily, but it kind of reminds me of, and I think we talked about this in the wholesome show in, in years gone by, the argument that says, well, you know, when you listen to certain musics, it makes you, you know, hail Satan and kill yourself.
[00:21:38] The Judas Priest trial. Yeah. And these two boys ended up killing themselves claiming, and, and parents claimed it was 'cause they were listening to the Satanic music of Judas Priest, heavy metal, blah, blah, blah. But in the end, as I recall, these boys. We're having interesting, tough, or diverse times. Anyway, that doesn't excuse doing this, but I, I think that has to be part of the conversation.
[00:21:59] WILL: [00:22:00] I, I, I think that's a good point. I, I look, I, I think that's a really good point, but if, if you, if his, if you have a rollercoaster out there, that's nice and easy, but it takes, it takes you to dangerous places.
[00:22:13] Yeah. Should we allow that? Like
[00:22:14] ROD: No, you should have, you should have to get fit for it. No, no. I kind of mean that.
[00:22:19] You gotta get emotionally fit too, right? So the idea that you're a 14-year-old kid, like if I, if when I was a 14-year-old boy, if some woman I found hot had said, and if I'd met her really quickly and she'd very swiftly gone, I think you're the topes.
[00:22:35] WILL: Mm,
[00:22:35] ROD: I would've been blown away. But I would've gone through no process to understand myself, to understand her, to understand what relationships look like, et cetera.
[00:22:43] But if it had been thrown in my lap. There's no way I would've said no. I don't think I would've killed myself though. 'cause I'm
[00:22:48] too na, I'm too narcissistic
[00:22:50] WILL: here's the other que, I mean, does it, does it make the incel problem worse or better? Worse, yeah.
[00:22:55] ROD: hundred percent worse. No, I have no argument, no doubt. That makes it worse.[00:23:00]
[00:23:03] WILL: I don't have an answer. I just, I just wanted to raise a question because, man, I just, I, this, this, I, it's the moment where I went. I'm an old man. It's like, you kids get off my lawn, and seriously,
[00:23:13] ROD: I
[00:23:14] WILL: we gotta regulate this shit.
[00:23:19] ROD: You'd be amazed to know it. It's my turn. I learned a
[00:23:22] WILL: word.
[00:23:22] ROD: I'm gonna tell this story. That leads up to the word because, you know, I like, I like to, you know, keep someone wandering. The unisexual mole. Salamander, that's not the word.
[00:23:31] Unisexual mole. Salamanders.
[00:23:34] WILL: there's only, they only have one sex or, yeah.
[00:23:37] Okay. Yeah.
[00:23:39] ROD: Yeah, so they live in the damp leaf litter of the North, north American Great Lakes. They are according to one source. This is a description about the size of a slim sausage. We all know what we're talking about. Splotchy Brown with watery smiles and bulging eyes. Again, too familiar. They have an all female lineage, and it's been around [00:24:00] allegedly for millions of years.
[00:24:01] All female.
[00:24:02] WILL: we said unisexual
[00:24:03] ROD: Hmm? Only means one.
[00:24:05] WILL: Yeah.
[00:24:05] Okay. I thought it meant a little bit of both, like it was in the middle, but
[00:24:09] ROD: well, that's multi, isn't it? Yeah.
[00:24:10] WILL: Okay. Fair enough.
[00:24:12] ROD: Omnisexual, how,
[00:24:13] WILL: how do they cope with an all female lineage? So.
[00:24:16] ROD: I'll tell you, and this, this is what led to this word, which I think is a f it's a fucking fantastic word.
[00:24:21] Apparently the, the sisterhood of Unisexual, MOS Alamanders, they, they came out of this hybridization event. So that's a thing. I don't know what it is. There's a, an event more than 5 million years ago between sexual reproducing species, something went weird and these guys off shot from
[00:24:36] WILL: They had an origin event.
[00:24:38] ROD: They did, they did what? A movie? It would
[00:24:40] WILL: I, I, I kind of like to visualize this as there was just one moment and there was just like, fuck all men. Just, just, just, just no, just, just, and, and all of my children. For forever. For forever. We, we, we are taking this out of our DNA, any, any, any desire for men, it's gone.
[00:24:57] Mm-hmm.
[00:24:58] ROD: Kinda like that. So [00:25:00] they don't breed sexually. They, they essentially clone themselves. They don't breed sexually.
[00:25:06] WILL: Many people try Elon Musk. He, he's trying that.
[00:25:09] ROD: I think what he does is sexual.
[00:25:11] WILL: No, no, no. He'd like to clone himself,
[00:25:13] ROD: Of course, asexual type creatures, as a rule, they end up in an evolutionary dead end and they, they, you know, no genetic diversity, so they end up, they can't adapt and they die.
[00:25:23] They get weak and weird and inbred, and they, they die. The unisexual mo salamander gets around this by stealing DNA from other mo salama species
[00:25:32] WILL: How do you steal DD stealing DNA Sounds Well, A, it sounds like a crime, but it sounds like a euphemism for a worse crime.
[00:25:39] It's okay.
[00:25:41] ROD: a crime, but it, it,
[00:25:42] WILL: I know it's animals, so they don't have crimes. But I'm just saying, I'm just saying if someone pled in a court of law, I was just stealing DNA stealing DNA, then I think you would say that's, that's, that's a worse crime. Yeah. What,
[00:25:53] ROD: What, what can I ask how it
[00:25:57] WILL: It depends. I, I mean, I guess if, I guess if you [00:26:00] went into the sperm bank, I, that's, that's,
[00:26:02] ROD: that's not a phe you mean?
[00:26:03] Literally?
[00:26:04] WILL: Yeah, literally like a, like a, like a building.
[00:26:06] ROD: you get arrested, put in jail. What are you in for? Robbing a bank. How much did you get? It was a sperm bank. Yeah, a few liters.
[00:26:14] WILL: leaders.
[00:26:16] ROD: So apparently they're the, they're by nicking, DNA. They become what is known as the only vertebrate species to reproduce via my new word, klepto.
[00:26:26] Genesis.
[00:26:28] WILL: klepto, Genesis, ketogenesis. That's a great word, isn't
[00:26:31] ROD: it? Fantastic. Kto. Fucking genesis. Stealing to
[00:26:35] WILL: the origins. It doesn't.
[00:26:38] ROD: I think it's great. I saw that and I thought, this is fantastic. So here's how it works. 'cause you gotta know how it works. Mating season, sexually reproducing mo, cell mans, the other mobs, the males, they apparently leave sticky packets of sperm lying around the wetlands.
[00:26:52] I mean, we've all done that. We've all
[00:26:54] WILL: indeed. Once you're in a wetland, you know,
[00:26:56] ROD: well it's, you know, if you throw around the, the North American Great Lakes, [00:27:00] there's some damp leaf leader lying around, you're thinking. I might leave a sticky packet of sperm lying around. So these unisex females will pick one up.
[00:27:08] They call, I'll take that Yik
[00:27:10] WILL: in their hands,
[00:27:11] ROD: in their SAMA grip.
[00:27:13] WILL: Okay?
[00:27:14] ROD: Which is, you know,
[00:27:15] quite technic. Very technical. Very technical. But she doesn't use it to fertilize her eggs. So she nicks it. Okay.
[00:27:22] WILL: Okay.
[00:27:23] ROD: And she uses it to stimulate egg production in herself.
[00:27:27] WILL: Are you
[00:27:27] ROD: Yeah. But doesn't necessarily use
[00:27:30] WILL: it.
[00:27:31] ROD: She then goes on to chuck the sperm away
[00:27:35] and produces essentially cloned eggs.
[00:27:38] So apparently the sperm incites her to make the eggs, but then she still makes her eggs of herself.
[00:27:45] WILL: But did, and the egg turns into a, a fetus and an egg. Like
[00:27:49] ROD: They grow, they, they become more of these uni wave
[00:27:53] WILL: near things
[00:27:55] ROD: and, and, and makes, makes them go like, I want, I want lax now.
[00:27:59] WILL: I don't [00:28:00] know if anyone should know these facts. I don't think, I think take these facts out of this podcast. Like
[00:28:06] ROD: Let's just say ketogenesis is a weird word. Cheers by, but every now and then she'll observe, absorb the sperm genome into her egg and it either gets added to the existing genetic material.
[00:28:19] WILL: has a little oopsie occasionally.
[00:28:20] ROD: Every now and then. Or, and, and I can't, it sounds, it reads like it's deliberate, but what do you do?
[00:28:24] You're like, oh, I think I'll keep this bit. I'm gonna absorb
[00:28:27] WILL: how close is she waving it and, and near which parts?
[00:28:30] Like
[00:28:31] ROD: eight millimeters
[00:28:32] WILL: Yeah. I,
[00:28:33] ROD: cloak ish. I,
[00:28:33] WILL: I, I, you know, all respect to our scientist friends. Mm-hmm. Because observing some behaviors requires some, uh. Closeness.
[00:28:41] ROD: gonna get to a awesome little experiment. So. Basically because there are times they can observe, they can actually absorb it and put the sperms genome into the egg. I dunno how, through the magic of God's creation. Um, some individuals may have up to five different genomes mixed [00:29:00] into their cells. So they're mashup of these multiple subspecies of, uh, mole salamanders.
[00:29:05] And they also apparently reproduce it twice the rate of the sexual reproduction. Others, cousins that they produced twice, twice as fast. So it sounds like fucking dominant. Like do it this way and you will proliferate.
[00:29:20] Lesbians are
[00:29:20] taking over. They are taking over
[00:29:22] and
[00:29:22] WILL: don't know if, I dunno if they're lesbians though. Are they solitary?
[00:29:24] ROD: Well, they don't have the intercourse with, uh, others of their species. Yeah. Well they don't have the
[00:29:28] WILL: not with
[00:29:28] ROD: anyone. They just cruise around and go. There's some spoof there. I'll take it. Yeah. They're sperm knickers.
[00:29:33] WILL: Yeah.
[00:29:34] ROD: And they might put sperm in their
[00:29:36] WILL: Klepto
[00:29:36] ROD: k
[00:29:37] WILL: cyst. Capital genetic
[00:29:39] ROD: types.
[00:29:40] So they outcompete, you'd think they would outcompete because they grow at twice the rate, oh, sorry. Twice the, the, they reproduce twice the right. Which sounds awesome.
[00:29:48] WILL: Mm-hmm. But
[00:29:51] ROD: researchers actually found out they're not as fit as their five cousin species. And by fit, I mean. Literally less fit. [00:30:00] Researchers actually put the salamanders on tiny little treadmills.
[00:30:04] WILL: No, no, no. Wow. Wow. Come on. I, oh this.
[00:30:09] ROD: imagine the order for the equipment. I, I want a grant for 19 tiny treadmills. Why salamanders? So they put 'em on tiny treadmills and they get them running, and then every three minutes. They'd take 'em off the treadmill, they'd flip them on their back and see how long it took them to flip themselves back over again, which is apparently a measure of tiredness.
[00:30:29] WILL: I love it.
[00:30:30] ROD: That's freaking great. And so apparently the sexually reproducing species could go four times the distance as all females. So
[00:30:39] WILL: So
[00:30:39] ROD: the, the ones that produced sexually four times fitter, essentially, like, literally fitter, not, not genetically, or survival of the fittest, just could run further. They had more. Oof.
[00:30:50] WILL: Okay.
[00:30:51] ROD: So that means they can travel further if they're looking for water, looking for mates, if the, if, um, where they've been living is dried out, et cetera, which is an advantage for climate [00:31:00] change, et cetera. So bottom line is sex is good and you should use it because it'll make you, yeah, it'll make you better at the gym. But Klepto Genesis,
[00:31:13] WILL: be whale watching.
[00:31:14] ROD: Yeah.
[00:31:14] WILL: Do you like it?
[00:31:15] ROD: Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was in Antarctica, obviously, as many people have been. And at one point we're on the boat going between one place and another, and PI get this thing on the announcement. It goes, come outside. There are, there are, there are some whales feeding.
[00:31:27] WILL: Oh, nice.
[00:31:28] ROD: It turned out there were four different species, including a blue whale that swam under the boat and they were, as far as the eye could see on the horizon, all the whales,
[00:31:35] fucking everywhere. Blow holes diving. see.
[00:31:38] Yeah. Literally like whales everywhere.
[00:31:40] WILL: Oh my God.
[00:31:41] ROD: At one point someone went, that's a blue whale. I'm like, bull shit. The fin's too small. And then I looked down, I was like, I've seen a blue whale.
[00:31:46] WILL: big ass animal.
[00:31:47] ROD: Yeah. So I've been whale watching.
[00:31:48] WILL: That's awesome. Humpback whales are iconic. Uh, in part because they're whales we see a lot. But, um, they're in some ways, perhaps, uh, the smarty pants of the whale [00:32:00] world.
[00:32:00] Their behavior has been observed more. Uh, we've seen things that might suggest maybe they're. Anyway.
[00:32:07] ROD: Intelligent aliens who build things
[00:32:09] WILL: Well, well, one of the cool things about humpback whales and other whales do this, but humpback whale is this study and humpback whale perhaps do it the most. They're bubble blowers, so, so they love blowing bubbles.
[00:32:20] And I was just like, oh, you, you guys are adorable.
[00:32:23] ROD: But to be fair, they can't do a lot else.
[00:32:26] WILL: They can sing.
[00:32:27] ROD: Yeah. They don't like drawing or, you
[00:32:28] know, like playing the loot.
[00:32:30] WILL: Uh, well this is kind of like drawing. Um, so, okay, so the classic, so they do a couple of different types of bubbles. Um, the first one is, is a spiral net.
[00:32:40] And these can be super intricate. You might get a bunch of whales doing a spiral
[00:32:46] ROD: Oh, they make patterns in bubbles. Yeah,
[00:32:47] WILL: yeah, yeah. So this is a, this is a spiral.
[00:32:49] ROD: bubbles don't change. It's what they do with the bubble.
[00:32:51] WILL: Well, they're doing things. So, so, so the spiral net is you might have, uh, one or multiple whales sort of spiraling around, releasing a thin stream [00:33:00] of bubbles that makes a curtain and all the fish go, oh, we can't go in there.
[00:33:03] So it's a net and they're, they're using it to, to catch fish
[00:33:06] ROD: It's, yeah. Right.
[00:33:07] WILL: and chomp
[00:33:07] ROD: it's your restaurant bubbles.
[00:33:09] WILL: But, um, but they also use, uh, bubbles for communication purposes. There's boy to boy, communication purposes.
[00:33:16] ROD: Can you reproduce any of those
[00:33:18] WILL: reproduce any? I, I, I, I, I tell, I They're a bit big. They're a bit, you know, there's, there's, there's like for displays of a great, you know, when it's like, okay, it's maintenance season and I'm,
[00:33:30] ROD: displays regret. Imagine the human version. Fuck off, mate. Hang on. Get your little
[00:33:36] WILL: Blow a big bubble.
[00:33:37] ROD: That would be confusing
[00:33:38] WILL: would be be nice.
[00:33:39] It would be nice. So, so there's, there's, there's bursts or curtains for displays of ferocity when it's mating time. Mm-hmm. , Or there's, there's the nice one where it's like mother to baby. They blow bubbles at each other, sort of calm each other. Uh, it seems to be, Uh, there's Boy to girl Bubbles that is.
[00:33:56] Yeah, no, there's, there's definitely researchers have seen, [00:34:00] uh, boy humpback whales blowing bubbles directly on
[00:34:04] ROD: at the business,
[00:34:04] WILL: on the lady parts of the Lady Whale. Um, so his
[00:34:08] ROD: Just a little taste of things to come. I
[00:34:10] WILL: indeed. I, I don't know. I, yeah. But, but directly on that, and I'm assuming she's king. I'm assuming he's king.
[00:34:18] ROD: Hey, what about this? can see it,
[00:34:20] WILL: see it, but there's one sort of bubble. That, um, has perplexed researchers for a little while. \ It's basically a, a, a donut sort of bubble, like it's smoke, a smoke ring bubble. It's puzzled them because it doesn't seem to have any purpose, except that it only happens around humans.
[00:34:40] Cool.
[00:34:40] ROD: Oh,
[00:34:41] WILL: So a bunch of researchers from the University of California, how did they know? Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. We've heard stories about this bubble for a long time. Like it goes back to, uh, I think even Moby Dick. There are stories of, of whale blowing bubbles.
[00:34:55] ROD: you know, Moby Dick was a novel. Yeah, no, not a documentary.
[00:34:58] Melville went Oh, right,
[00:34:59] WILL: and he did [00:35:00] wa he did wailing.
[00:35:01] Um, so he knew
[00:35:02] ROD: he murdered a few before he wrote about
[00:35:03] them. Yeah, exactly. Good man. Good
[00:35:05] WILL: he, got some, got some chops.
[00:35:07] ROD: If You wanna
[00:35:07] understand something, you've gotta kill it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:35:09] WILL: back to then there are stories of whalers knowing that whales blow bubbles and things like that, they were like, they were not so nice as your modern whale watcher.
[00:35:19] Uh,
[00:35:19] ROD: Well you watch 'em before you
[00:35:21] WILL: but there was a suspicion that these, these donut rings only happened around humans. Um, and these researchers from the University of California, I love this. They went and did a couple of things. They scoured first every piece of footage they could find of humpback whales blowing bubbles near whale watching boats or, or anything they could find, you know, so if people are, are out, uh, they're out swimming or they're out, uh, on a whale watching boat or a regular boat or something, and there's a whale, then people, you'd record it.
[00:35:48] And so, yeah, so they're, they're gathering all of these and they've
[00:35:51] ROD: wait. Now I'll find some pictures.
[00:35:53] WILL: Have a look. No, no. These pictures are, these pictures are beautiful. Like there's, there's whales blowing these either spiral bubbles
[00:35:59] ROD: I saw no [00:36:00] bubbles except as kind of like, just fluttering around. No, no obvious pattern to them.
[00:36:03] WILL: you.
[00:36:03] You might not, you might not. So, so they're not super common. Um, but,
[00:36:08] ROD: these guys were in a feeding frenzy as well, so I'm not surprised. They're probably busy.
[00:36:11] WILL: Exactly. When they're in a feeding frenzy, it's not likely to happen. Yes. Yeah. Um, and, and they looked at all of those and they, they observed, what, what is the pattern we've got with whales going on there?
[00:36:22] But then they also went and, um, they got 5,000 drone flights that are scientific drone flights \ to go and watch whales without humans involved. Because if you're on a boat then, then you are affecting the system right there.
[00:36:38] And so from a few kilometers away where the whales can't tell you there, fly a drone over and watch their mating behavior, they're feeding behavior, they're whatever.
[00:36:45] And in all of those 5,000 flights. They saw none of these ring
[00:36:49] ROD: bucket, a donut of donuts.
[00:36:51] WILL: not, not even Zero. Zero, exactly. And so,
[00:36:55] ROD: were these, were these, um, 5,000 flights over a long period of time in different [00:37:00] locations, I
[00:37:01] WILL: locations. There was a bunch of different researchers doing different research for other purposes.
[00:37:05] Yeah. You know, so they're watching the whales for the mating behavior and something like that. Yeah. And they said, can we go through your footage and, and have a look and see, um, if there's any of these things they say, look. Start as preliminary, but it seems these ring bubbles only happen.
[00:37:20] Only happen when a solitary whale. Is wandering near a boat. They don't happen.
[00:37:25] ROD: don't solitary whale, near
[00:37:27] WILL: they don't happen when there's feeding. They don't happen when there's aggression. Like two, two guys going at it. They don't happen when there's any mating or anything, anything where the whales are interested in each other, it seems soli, solitary whales, uh, coming, coming near to a boat and, and very near, like this is
[00:37:43] ROD: the always a boat too.
[00:37:45] Not all human in the
[00:37:46] WILL: No, that too. That too. So humans, humans in the water. There's a couple of stories of humans in the water where the bubble has literally gone around them. Like, like, like, and, and, and so here's the
[00:37:59] ROD: thing, unless
[00:37:59] it's an [00:38:00] orca, I'd be delighted. If it's an orca, then I'm like, well, you might
[00:38:03] WILL: I don't want an or. But, um, just to step away from Wales for a second, I, I was reading in this study.
[00:38:09] There's a bunch of animals that have human only vocalizations really? So gorillas, particularly zoo housed western gorillas. Yeah. They've got, uh, a call that is not typical for their species at all, but they've developed it to attract the attention of human caregivers. So it's like they've, they've developed either a word or a way of saying something that connects to the humans, like
[00:38:30] ROD: it sound a bit like this mate? Mate?
[00:38:33] WILL: Maybe, but, but even birds, like there's, there's a, there's an example of a bird, a honey honey guide, um, which has a special call that relates to, um, interacting with humans.
[00:38:43] ROD: asking for honey.
[00:38:44] WILL: And so what these researchers are saying is maybe those bubbles are specifically about interacting with humans. Like they're, they're trying to, trying to say something here.
[00:38:54] Sure. And I'm like, oh, come on man. The whales wanna talk to us. And here's the bit I [00:39:00] love about the
[00:39:00] research. Yeah,
[00:39:01] They buried this in, they buried this, you know how you do future research? They're like, uh, they proposed an interactive bubble ring playback via mechanical generation of bubble rings using a bubble ring generator.
[00:39:12] Lower back. Yeah,
[00:39:13] ROD: that's 'cause that's what I was gonna ask. Have they blown any
[00:39:15] WILL: No, that's the next study.
[00:39:17] ROD: how old's this study? How this was recent.
[00:39:19] WILL: recent. This is just in the last, last, last month or two. So I'm just like, come on man. Blow the bubbles
[00:39:26] ROD: How did you not do it the moment you went? Hang on a minute. Only seems to be around humans. Quick. Get a bubble generator. I mean now
[00:39:31] WILL: So the whales only make this around humans and it seems to be when they're curious and inquisitive and they're just saying blo, hello?
[00:39:40] ROD: what I imagine
[00:39:41] WILL: that's talking
[00:39:42] to aliens, man.
[00:39:43] ROD: I hope it is. I hope it is. 'cause what I love the idea of is if the whales are kind of going, these idiots just impressed by anything it could be, and then we blow them back and they're like, so they'll keep blowing and then will end up, there'll be this whole circuit of circles.
[00:39:57] WILL: There is, there is one theory to anyone. There is one [00:40:00] theory that, um, that they blow a bubble like this and they get a big cheer from the boat. And so then there's a bit of a feedback they go, oh, I like
[00:40:08] ROD: So they're influencers,
[00:40:09] WILL: but that's a communication
[00:40:10] ROD: They need the
[00:40:11] WILL: feedback. Yeah, they do. They need the feedback. So look, it just made me so happy that maybe the whales out there want to talk to us, they wanna influence
[00:40:19] ROD: us.
[00:40:19] I really hope it's that. I really do. I hope it's not some dumb little, oops,
[00:40:24] WILL: but it's just get the, get the bubble generator in the, in in the water
[00:40:28] ROD: sake. And it can't be that expensive. It can't be that complicated. We could get an international committee to form like 22 countries come together.
[00:40:35] WILL: would be wonderful
[00:40:36] ROD: blow bubbles.
[00:40:38] WILL: Yeah,
[00:40:39] ROD: Yeah, they've, they've gotta do it. Like, we've gotta keep an eye on this because the moment the next thing comes out and it should be in the next couple of weeks for fuck's
[00:40:44] WILL: course, of course. It only takes 10 minutes to do science.
[00:40:47] ROD: that sign blows some bubbles for Christ's sake. Thank you for
[00:40:49] WILL: Listen, I thank you for listening. Um, you know what to do. Uh, send us a story, send us a question. Send us a thing that you want us to deep dive into, to understand the nature of the essence of the universe, [00:41:00] um,
[00:41:00] ROD: or correct us
[00:41:01] WILL: at cheers at a little bit of science.com au.
[00:41:04] At
[00:41:04] ROD: At Do you have to put at cheers at the beginning? Just cheers.
[00:41:07] At at cheers. At, at. Cheers.
[00:41:09] WILL: cheers. At, you know how email works. And
[00:41:10] ROD: remember, 95 Stars or moons or Suns.
