Season 1 Wrap-Up: Behind the Show and What’s Next

Transcript generated automatically from the episode audio and lightly cleaned up (filler words removed, misheard names corrected where clear). Speaker labels were added afterward and may contain errors.

Rob May: Hi everyone, I'm Rob May. I'm the co-founder and CEO at Neurometric.

Anna Kirk: And I'm Anna Kirk, sales lead at Thread AI.

Rob May: And you're watching the AI and NYC podcast. So, first of all, apologies today. I'm getting my voice back. I think it was the pollution we had here in New York coming down from Canada kind of got me. And so, I'm a little horse today, but bear with me.

Anna Kirk: You're a little horse.

Rob May: Yeah. A couple of announcements. First of all, Ryan Eppley, as we wrap up this first season, has decided to step down from the show. He'll be back from time to time, but you know, Ryan runs a startup, and that startup's growing really fast, doing really well, and he's just gotten a little too busy, I think, to come do this regularly. Though he will still make appearances from time to time. Second announcement is I've written a book on investing in AI that is coming out in September. We will link to that in the show. So if you want a free digital copy or you want to buy a hard copy, you'll be able to go do that.

But would really appreciate your support in that. And then the big news for today is our producer Madi, who is always behind camera, is sitting out here with us today and she's going to talk about as as we wrap up this year, this season, we're going to take the next month off and not shoot anything, plan for plan for the next season of the ANYC podcast. So Madi's going to talk a little bit about interview us. You're going to learn a few personal details about us and she's going to talk a little bit about what's happened in the last year. So Madi, welcome to being on camera.

Madi Donlan: Matt, thank you guys. Oh my god, it's so cool to be on camera with you guys and not behind the scenes for the first time. Hi everybody. Yeah, I was super excited to come on and flip the script and get to know you guys more so that the audience can kind of see everything that goes into this and all the personality behind it that makes it cool.

Rob May: So, Madi does all the real work like we show up and we talk. Madi Madi interviews the guests. Madi helps cut the video and post it and all that stuff. So like we don't do that much work on the show. And maybe I mean do you want to give like I don't know how much you want to talk about your background but do you want to give like 30 seconds on your background because you have a really interesting background.

Madi Donlan: I'm a graphic designer have video background. So Rob thought it would be cool to have me on for a production role.

Rob May: Madi was doing some graphic design work freelance for my company and I learned about her video background and said hey would you want to do this?

Madi Donlan: And yeah and I was psyched. It just sounded like so much fun and I'm loving it.

Cool. But yeah, so let's start with like some some fun questions that I prepared. I want to learn more about how you guys work together on this show. We all know how you guys met. You met at a conference.

Rob May: Yes. March of 20 25 20 24 25 25. Yeah. It's been about a year and a half.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. I met Rob for the first time. I know we've already talked about this, but I'm going to talk Yeah. When we met and maybe this kind of also gets into one of the questions you wanted to ask so not to jump the gun but when we met you were I mean you come across as so like grounded and poised and like articulate that I just assumed I knew who you were and I was like oh god this guy is a VC like I know exactly who he's going to be and you have continued to surprise me you are such a human contradiction

Rob May: awesome put that in my bio thanks

Madi Donlan: so okay on that note if you were to describe Rob in three words other than human contradiction. What would they be?

Anna Kirk: That's some of the ones I was going to use.

Madi Donlan: If you could just add one.

Anna Kirk: High agency, but also high openness. I know that's technically more than three words, but like I feel like that that kind of tension is what I look for in people often. And you can't always find like you're opinionated, but then also open to that opinion being challenged.

Rob May: Yeah. I would say for Anna, can I just say quirky, quirky, quirky?

Anna Kirk: Quirky, quirky, quirky.

Rob May: Definitely quirky. I think this is part of the reason that Ann and I are friends is she has some of the most like random hobbies and thoughts in the world which is really really cool and obviously like very very wide breath of intellect like we like this I think we like hanging out is we have talked about just today right we had brunch before the show we had a convers we've had conversations about like politics mani technology economics we were talking earlier about how the civil war company onita was started as a Excal. So like it just like we have we have ranged very widely and it's one of the things I love about hanging out with Anna.

Anna Kirk: I would say like Robbie you do a good job of like putting guard rails to my chaos.

Rob May: Yeah. I think that that's a good way of describing our friendship.

Madi Donlan: Keeps you grounded.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. I love it.

Madi Donlan: All right. What's one thing that other people wouldn't guess from watching the show about you guys?

Rob May: I would just say that Anna and I never dated because people people see they're like you guys have such good like rapport on the show or people met us personally like we're really good friends and we talk know a lot about each other's personal lives but yeah from the time we met I think we just it's always been like a brother sister thing and we've always had like really good personal chemistry and friendship. Yeah.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. And there's a 20-y year age difference, so it's also a little bit unusual, which I like I have appreciated so much because Rob has just like had so many different life experiences than I have. But I think because we both are open to different experiences and different types of perspectives, like that ends up being really symbiotic. Whereas I feel like, you know, a lot of the time when you meet someone who's 20 years older than you or 20 years younger than you, there's just not much to talk about. And I like we always have something to talk about which has been pretty cool.

Rob May: Yeah. She's we I don't think I've said this on the show but my kids who are both teenagers love escape rooms. So like Anna did an escape room with us.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Like our thing.

Madi Donlan: That is so fun. What kind of escape room did you guys do?

Rob May: We Well, we've done Was that Indiana Jones?

Anna Kirk: Yeah, it was kind of like Indiana Jones themed one here in Midtown. I feel like I feel like I pulled the least weight in that entire like escape room experience.

Rob May: Well, I would say so I we even do them when we travel internationally and when we were in Madrid this summer in Spain, we did the best escape room I've ever been in, which was a Goonies themed escape room.

Anna Kirk: You told me about this.

Rob May: Yeah. And it was I mean it was awesome, right? It had all like you know how they play the piano and the bridge collapse like they had that thing in there like it was so well done.

Anna Kirk: I actually think that escape rooms need to be more like it should it shouldn't be like a it shouldn't be a room. It should be like an entire experience. Like if you made like a like like a like laser tag arena but it was just one like massive escape room like I think they're really they're really underelling themselves, you know, cuz you go to them in New York and it's like oh like this is like a box so you could tell they were on like pretty fixed budget, right?

Madi Donlan: It would be cool if they started as soon as you enter the building.

Anna Kirk: Yes. Like a Meow Wolf. Have you ever been to a Meowolf?

Madi Donlan: I have in Santa Fe like that but escape room.

Anna Kirk: Yeah, that would be cool. They should like make one in a meow temporarily.

Rob May: Business idea. Whoever does it, contact us. We'll talk about it on the show.

Anna Kirk: Yeah, we'll do a show in that venue. That'd be fun.

Madi Donlan: Yeah. Okay. You guys were just talking about how you're about 20 years apart. I guess Rob, despite you being older, what's something Anna has taught you?

Rob May: Wow, that's a really good question. Several things. So a has Anna's is a very accomplished musician and several things have crept into our conversations over the years that made me realize that. And so I've learned some stuff about music from Anna. She was the first one to notice. I didn't notice this, but when we got the show the music for the show done for the first time, she's like, "Oh, they wrote it in the same key as the subway tones." And I was like, "Oh, that's like really cool." And so she picks up on a lot of stuff like that, which has been cool.

Madi Donlan: Yeah. You play the harp, right?

Anna Kirk: I do play the harp. Yeah, really hard to shle around different New York City apartments. So, I will say that there are not that many heart movers in New York City. It turns out

Rob May: Anna has promised at some point she's going to learn a Rolling Stone song on the harp, which is my favorite band.

Anna Kirk: You know what? And I'll make you a bet now. I'll do it and we can play it on the show. Like, I'll play it on the show.

Rob May: Let's do it. That would be sweet. A year from now.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Rolling Stones on the harp. Let's do it.

Madi Donlan: There you go. So, I guess that answers the next question that I had was what's something that you're into outside of AI and tech that people would only know if they know you.

Rob May: This is going to sound so crazy and people are going to think I'm the ultimate nerd and it knows you're not giving anything. So, I've gotten so into topology, the branch of mathematics in the last year and it's partially AI related. I think it's good. So, topology is the study of like surfaces and how they move and so stuff like that. So, like if you if you know what a Mobius strip is, it's like one of the more interesting surfaces in topology. But I've liked math for a long time. I think it's really interesting. I was an engineering major in college, but I probably should have done some pure mathematics. And someday when I'm semi-retired, that's probably what I'm going to do is go back and study math. And I just I think topology is really fascinating. I've been to some lectures at NYU. I've read some books on it this year.

Anna Kirk: So, it's one of the cooler things that you have taught me. Like I love I think you know to flip it back at you like my what I have learned from Rob. You go so deep on one very specific niche topic and like recently it's been topology which is really cool and like prior to that it was neuroscience which is really cool and so I think like you're kind of like a gateway to my like like getting to entertain new like niche hobbies or experiences or like fields that I wouldn't normally have thought about.

Rob May: We got to have a fica on now that I've said his name. I think he has to come on.

Anna Kirk: I He wants to come on. I need to

Rob May: Anna Anna has a topology friend.

Anna Kirk: Oh, I will after the show actually. I'll connect you with him.

Rob May: Perfect.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. He just came out with a book around like how to make and I'm going to butcher it like how to make like very advanced theoretical mathematical concepts more grounded and how that should be influencing education. So, he's actually designing a video game around like how to teach people advanced concepts like top topology which yeah, we got to have him on.

Madi Donlan: That's cool. Video game design is incredible. All right. Okay. I have a next question. What's something about how Rob works that you didn't expect going in, but now really respect?

Anna Kirk: I think it goes back to this like high agency, high openness tension where like you are very like opinionated and you know, you like I think your first instinct is like to make something happen. Like you do a good job of taking initiative but I think what the thing I did not expect is that you're also like given that you're highly open like you are open to push back and you're open to new ideas and like you will you know like you'll apply structure but then in the context of like other people being okay with that structure and you know like you're surprisingly flexible for having that be like your first instinct. I think that's probably what I would say.

Madi Donlan: And what's the most Anna thing that Anna does?

Rob May: The most Anna thing that Anna does is when a conversation with a guest is going in a direction and she knows what question she she does this like she's like like physically excited to ask the next question.

Anna Kirk: But then sometimes if we have I think sometimes that does mean that I will have a tendency to like derail not derail just like take it down a very specific direction. And you know, sometimes it's like not related to the news we wanted to talk about. I'm like, "No, but this is interesting." I have to keep like probing and go down this rabbit hole.

Rob May: But that's good though. I feel like the prompts and questions are there just to steer the conversation into something new. And like I said, that's chill. And I like when you do that. I think it's cool.

Anna Kirk: Thanks. Thank.

Madi Donlan: All right. Okay. So, this one this is kind of a fun question. Okay. Was there a moment that a guest said something that completely surprised either of you like or like pushed back completely on an assumption or an opinion that you had?

Rob May: I mean when Steve Steven Messer who's been on twice said a whole bunch of thing like that.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Shoot. I'm trying to remember. There was something that this is going to be another like pasta restaurant moment where like I'm going to think of the thing like 20 minutes from now after.

Rob May: Yeah. The last time that Charlie O'Donnell was on

Anna Kirk: Yeah. What VCs won't tell you about getting funded. Yeah. Yeah. There was something interesting that he I had made an assertion about God it was something about like like something about like startups or like VC funding and you just like completely push back in a way that I thought was very well articulated and I don't know if it like fully changed my mind but it did like make me more open to that opinion and I will have to like I think I'm going to have to like play back.

Madi Donlan: I guess along that same thing, are there any episodes that you guys think were underrated? Like maybe you didn't think was going to be as interesting as it ended up being?

Anna Kirk: The Boris one I thought the one with Boris I thought was a fascinating conversation and I think it always comes back to just like the personality of the guest and like the chemistry and like you can see how much passion they have behind what they're talking about.

Rob May: I didn't expect when we when we had Noah on from Pitch Roast Live, I didn't expect that show to go as well as it did because it was a little bit like slightly off topic for us.

Anna Kirk: That was such a fun show.

Rob May: And also the studio that we shot it in, we were at Podstream that day and it was in Times Square and they do a lot of events in Times Square and they normally give Podstream a heads up, but Madonna did a pop-up show.

Madi Donlan: I remember this.

Rob May: And so it was super loud and we kept going like what is going on outside? And the studio didn't have a didn't know that was coming. So that was that was a really fun show in on a bunch of vectors.

Anna Kirk: The one I was thinking was Taniya Mishra.

Rob May: Oh yeah.

Anna Kirk: I loved that one because you could just tell how much passion she had behind everything that she was saying. It almost like it didn't feel like we were being filmed or like anything was scripted. She was just like so

Rob May: she's also probably the most polished guest we've had. She was very so well spoken. Her answers were crisp.

Anna Kirk: Yes. She was Yeah. And it was coming from It wasn't coming from something she had said a million times when was rehearsed. It was just coming from like pure like this is something I'm really passionate and excited about and I'm excited to hear you listen or watch you listen.

Madi Donlan: She was really cool. She was so engaged and it was so cool.

Rob May: Yeah, that one really just like flowed.

Madi Donlan: That one and the Gabi Steele.

Anna Kirk: Yeah, I loved I mean similarly like you could just like tell that there was so much like passion.

Rob May: Funny if you so if you think about Gabi and Taniya and Hilary who were all on the women that have been on the show have been more pro- New York I think than the men and more like anti Silicon Valley cuz all three of them were a little like Silicon Valley. Like sometimes people are reluctant to take shots at the Valley, but like particularly Hilary was like here's what I don't like about it. Here's what they're doing wrong AI wise. And it was so that was interesting.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. I don't know if I put that together that there is like a little bit of like a gender like you would almost expect like sociologically speaking for it to be the opposite, right? And then yeah, it's the women come on that are fiercely defending New York New York ladies.

Madi Donlan: It's probably a little bit more like equitable industry-wise.

Rob May: It's both definitely more equitable industry-wise.

Anna Kirk: That actually doesn't surprise me. And you know like the female guests that we have had on I like they come from like a slightly different lens you know maybe not like even even Gabi like she was at we work prior and so there was a little bit more of like the kind of like applied angle of that where like even though Gabi is doing something that is like you know like core infra she has a little bit more of that kind of like prior experience from a different industry. But I mean that's been true of some of the male founder or the male guests we've had on too.

Madi Donlan: Yeah that's interesting. The founder circle guy Albert Albert I mean he was interesting and then like his background was education.

Anna Kirk: Yeah that was also really interesting like I think the theme that we've seen around New York being the applied AI capital is really like played out in terms of

Rob May: well and we have I don't think you came to the show but Ryan and I interviewed Doug O'Laughlin at one point from SemiAnalysis. SemiAnalysis is probably one of the top AI newsletters out there and they've opened a big office last year in New York because so many of their customers are here and I mean New York's just like the epicenter of the world for like 15 different industries.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. And also I think is going to be the epicenter of the world when it comes to making technology more accessible. That's what I'm hoping at least because we're all living on top of each other anyway. And like you know the it's becoming much more of an AI hub but like you're still around so many different types of industries where like it can actually like become applied. That's what I really want to get someone from the MTA on.

Madi Donlan: We've done this is the 36th shoot over the last almost year of doing the show. Does the show feel like what you guys originally planned it to be or has it become something different?

Anna Kirk: I think I mean I remember when you first raised the idea of doing a show together. We were at Barusi and Rob was like, "Oh, like you know, I've been thinking about starting this podcast. Like what do you what would you want to come on as a guest host every now and then? It'll be, you know, low commitment. Like you can do it every week or like every other week or something like that." and I have just been so shocked by like what we've put together in that amount of time. I expected this to be a side hobby, you know, and I don't I don't think about it like that anymore. I think about it like I look forward to every single episode. Like I'm excited to put like more of myself into it, not less.

Madi Donlan: Yeah. It's become like bigger than I thought it would, which is really exciting to see.

Rob May: Yeah. I think we've got two two things, right? I think number one, it's we've definitely gotten higher quality guests than I expected for a first season, you know, particularly in the beginning when like we didn't have a lot of traffic. You know, it's a little easier now. Like people can look and be like, "Wow, the show's well done. You've got a lot of traffic. You got a lot of a lot of listeners, you've had some great guests on and so it's much easier to get guests now. Yeah. I'm kind of surprised that we got there.

On the flip side, you know, I think the show particularly in the beginning, I think we've and maybe still a little bit we had a little bit of an identity crisis, right? We've talked a lot amongst the host as it how much is it to sort of interview people versus like talk about the news? And we still haven't figured that out and we're still trying to figure out the best format because what we really want to talk about is what's going on at at the intersection of AI in New York and so that that does need to be news related, but I don't know that our job is necessarily like report the news, but it's more like give context on what does it mean for the New York AI community. And so we've got some ideas going into next season about how we might deliver on that better. How we might have some breakout shows that spin off this a little bit to cover some pieces and so we'll see.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. You know, and I think like one of one of the things that I really appreciated about like this angle when you first came to me with the show idea is that like there's a real opportunity to like give more airtime to like different corners of this industry than the people who typically like get exposure like you know like I love having founders on. I love having like venture capitalists on, but like they get so much airtime in this in this city as I mean like Jake and Jenny from the NYC Tech Oregon. Yeah, I would love to like do even more of that going forward. Like yeah, you're if anyone works the MTA like come on the show. I'm so excited to talk about that. Like just like different like angles of how this could be applied and is being applied that don't necessarily isn't necessarily something you'd like see in a newsletter otherwise.

Rob May: So, I will we're going to look at some comments that people have left on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube about the show. Honestly, most of which are pretty stupid. So, you guys need to get out there, leave some either funnier comments or more educated, reflective comments than some of the weird stuff we've heard. But, we're going to look at some of our favorites from last year. All right. So, I'm gonna pull these up so you guys can see them.

Clip: Which means you are willing to break the thing that you were supposedly never going to break on. You're about raising money. You are like, I will never, you know, whatever this thing is. Soon as you get in there, you can't get anything done. You have to sacrifice this like religious belief. That's why religions suck for running countries, right? Look at Iran. Like that's a [ __ ] up country. Yeah. So, you have to be willing to bet. So you have to be willing to say this is the job I've chosen to completely lie to my constituents to get elected and then to be able to cut any deal that takes to get anything done.

Great. So you have you're totally listening. No, I think that's actually that's like those are the people you want there. Like you don't want to hire someone who has like real beliefs and convictions. They'll never get anything done. Cuz to hold your conviction thoroughly means you have to believe that there's a majority of people who 100% agree with your religious view of whatever issue you Good luck. You'll never get anything done in a in a democracy. Get something done. No, you'll be a dictator. It's the only thing you can do. It's the only role where you could be 100% right with luck.

Rob May: Yeah. Two things. First of all, as several people talked about Mamdani, which I do think is like I think he's in it for a lot more of he's a little bit of a pragmatist. I mean, everybody everybody's like, "Oh, he's a socialist." And like he came in and cut small business red tape. Like one of the first things that he did. So that was interesting. Did we mention earlier show Anna has a crush on him?

Madi Donlan: Really?

Anna Kirk: Yeah. I think he's so cute. Do you not? Yeah. I just I the thing that I appreciate about him, but then I don't know how much of it is like public versus private. Like I mean like you heard his Nick speech and like you heard the fact that he just declined a pay raise and there are things like that that that come across as like very principled and very consistent. But then again like he knows who his demographic is and he knows that that's exactly how to like gain more notoriety and more support not less. And so I think he's playing more of a long game in doing that. And that's where I am like, yeah, that's absolutely what I would want to hear a politician say, but he knows that it's what we want a politician to say.

Rob May: And then we got a comment here on the somebody left a comment. This is, I think, very common point of view that says we should be voting for politicians who don't take any corporate or foreign pack money to give us the best chance that they'll put the public's interests first. And you hear this all the time. We got to take the money out of politics. We got to take the money out of politics. But what it ignores is the second order effects of that, right? This idea that if you take the money out, you still need to win mind share to win an election. So where does that mind share come from? So you it comes from media. So this is part of the reason that Trump got elected, right? He had the he had the apprentice show and had that notoriety. He'd been in the media a lot, been cultivating it. And I think if you take money out of politics, then I think you get I think you get more Trumps. I think you get Kanye. I think you get Oprah. I think people who had money otherwise.

Yeah. Yeah. You get billionaires who can self finance or you get you get people that are big media celebrities that maybe Taylor Swift runs, right? What maybe that's a good or bad thing, but like what you're missing, what people don't understand is there has to be some currency of attention. How do you get attention? And if you can't buy it with money, then it's going to come from being outrageous in the media.

Madi Donlan: And like, you know, how would you design a better system?

Rob May: I don't know. You have a lottery. You pick a hundred US citizens at random and then run them down like a

Anna Kirk: I mean done before. Didn't the Greeks do that?

Rob May: Maybe. I don't know.

Anna Kirk: Edit that out if it's not the Greeks and say that I said the [clears throat] right thing. I like that has been done before where it was like it was your duty like it was like a rotational duty to serve. Which I appreciated because it didn't it like encouraged you know everyone in a society to be prepared to set step up and do their civic duty. Do I think it's realistic to do that here? Nor do I don't trust the like average person on the street to lead. But that's part of the problem. It's like attention is a currency and we're like attenti is a currency of everything. Like if if you can't maintain someone's attention for 3 minutes, like how do you expect to get their vote and keep them engaged?

Rob May: Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think taking the money out of politics solves anything. I think you just move to a new type of currency and that currency is probably media usage. Your ability to get free media, the rewarding, the rage baiters.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Right.

Rob May: Should we go on to the next one?

Madi Donlan: Yeah. All right. Next. TikTok.

Clip: Once you're a computer science major, you did not have to take an ethics course. So, you ended up with this whole situation where you had some of the best and brightest minds in the country in computer science working for companies trying to get you like click on more ads primarily. I think nobody ever stopped to ask like, is this a good thing? Like, should we be doing this?

Rob May: A lot of comments on this one about do you think an ethics course is going to change anything? And there's two ways to look at this, right? One is to say an ethics course isn't enough and you need something more or one could be to say that reality is more just genetic or inherent or not influenceable in this way. I think morality is primarily

Anna Kirk: I agree.

Rob May: So, so I'm I'm a little bit of a moral relativist over time in the sense that you cannot find a single action that across all times and all cultures has been considered wrong. And people will jump and they'll say, "Well, murder." You're like, "No, war. We go to war. War is legalized murder, right? The death penalty and things like that." And then people say things like incest. And you're like, "Nope." Like the ancient kings in Egypt believed that you had to keep the bloodline pure and breed with fam.

You know, some of these things. So, that would tell you that it's not purely genetic or you would probably expect to see in some kind of absolute, but I actually think it's primarily, but I think modern morality is primarily socially determined. You look for the cues from the people around you. And I think I do I think if everybody I like I disagree with the commenters here. I think if everybody had to take an ethics course, I think there's still going to be bad people and people going to do things, but I think it would shift the spectrum slightly. I think it would shift the distribution of how much people thought about it. And I think it matter and a lot of ethical dilemmas. Philosophers love to make this up. They're not all easy to work through and there's no good answers sometimes. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask the questions.

Anna Kirk: I also I don't think that ethics course is just about education or teaching people the right frameworks for how to think. It's also just giving them exposure to that in a society where I think the biggest problem with not more people thinking in ethical or moral lines even if that moral is relative morality is relative is that we have become so detached and it's very easy especially if you are a technologist getting paid a million dollars a year in Silicon Valley to become detached from the actual like service you were delivering or you know impact that you were having on other people. You've seen tons of psychology studies on this round like you like you are less likely to intervene or think AC like along ethical guidelines if you are detached from the person at the other end having that experience. And I think about that in New York City with like like DoorDash and Uber and these things where like yes, it's removing friction and we've talked about this on the show like it is removing friction of from the experience, but it's also removing the reality from the experience.

And so I think having just some kind of reminder that like yes, a person on the other end does exist and this is like how you should be, you know, like this is just like a reason to become exposed to this problem. It's more about awareness and I think it is about imposing a framework of thought on people in those types of courses. So like I agree with you and I feel very strongly about that.

Rob May: Yeah. Somebody left the question here. Do you seriously think ethics can be taught? Criminals do crimes because they don't know they're wrong. I don't think no. Yeah. I think criminals do know crimes are wrong for the most part. But I think they're until you have an ethical system which is how do you decide you know when you teach about like how do you make a decision? And you know the perfect example is like I don't have any money and I need to steal something so that my family can eat. That's an extreme example. There are series of their ethical points of view that would say that's okay in that scenario and there are ethical points of view that would say it's not.

Anna Kirk: And so I think yeah I do think it would influence people and back to this moral relativist way of thinking like there there are perfectly legal things that you can do that are unethical and they are all justified I guess legal or e legal. Illegal. There are ways to justify them based on your own personal detachment from the end impact. Yeah. Like it is much easier to steal a loaf of bread if you're stealing it from a Walmart than it is if you're stealing it from the hands of the person that made it.

Rob May: Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But I'm just I'm a big fan of the idea that, you know, that I think people need to be more thoughtful about a lot of these things. And I think we need a broader I don't know that I wouldn't say a liberal arts education for everybody but cuz I'm not even sure it should occur in you know occur in college but there there's a Scandinavian country that's Finland or you know Sweden or one of those places where you don't learn to read in kindergarten and first grade. They don't teach you that. They teach you how to be a good person. They teach you the importance of working together in society. And I think it should start earlier than that. And it's hard. The United States has a very individualistic culture, right? It's part of what drives free market capitalism. It's part of why we dominate the world in so many things because you're like, I can be the best. I can get paid a lot of money. I can do these great things. And but I wouldn't mind seeing that balanced with earlier childhood education around morality and you know, then you get into like all these weird who's morality and whatever. But yeah.

Anna Kirk: Well, that and also conflict resolution.

Rob May: Yeah.

Anna Kirk: Like do you know how to have a tough conversation? Like I don't think that's something that they teach you in elementary school.

Rob May: Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they ever teach you that unless you seek it out.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. I wish some people do forget a therapist or something.

Rob May: I'll plug there's actually a really great book and it's called the general art of verbal self-defense.

Anna Kirk: You told that that's a communication book

Rob May: and it's fantastic. There's even a version of the general art of verbal self-defense at work. Okay, we have one more TikTok to review comments for on sex robots.

Anna Kirk: Yes, this is a funny one

Clip: into robotics and she would talk a lot about this trend towards sex robots and what that might mean and in particular when people have say unusual sexual preferences. She wanted to do some research to see what would happen if you could enforce those preferences on a robot if they would be particularly if they were like let's say less socially acceptable preferences. Would exercising those on a robot that can't really be a victim be like okay that gets it out of your system and allows you to have more normal relationship in the other side of your life or does that reinforce those behavior patterns and make you more likely to do that on a real person? Right? It's interesting to me that this AI robotic side could lead us into some really interesting dilemas right on the edge of utility versus morality.

Rob May: All right. And this comment I Yeah, I don't know what to say to this guy that left this comment that has no female interaction and sex robots would be perfect and everything else. It's I don't know if this is a joke or real, but I what I would say is I am a big believer that whoever you are and whatever you're like, somebody's into that. Years ago, probably like 10 or 15 years ago, there was this like Reddit post that went viral where they do AMAs, ask me anything on Reddit, and this woman was like, I was one of the people that screened videos that were uploaded to porn site to ask me anything.

Anna Kirk: Oh my god.

Rob May: And people, she's like, I couldn't do it that long. It's very desensitizing. It was weird. But when they asked, one of the questions was like, "What was the biggest takeaway you had?" And she said, "Whoever you are, somebody's into you, right? Somebody's fetishized that. Somebody's made videos about that, right?" And yeah, short, tall, fat, skinny, regardless of your race, regardless of what your facial features are like, you think like, "Man, I have, you know, some weird thing about me, you know, I have big scar on the side of my face." Like, somebody finds that sexy. And so yeah, I but I you know think you got like the hard part I think about relationships of all kinds is like you have to be open to rejection to meet somebody. And that's what's really hard is going through the process of like well didn't work out with them, didn't work out with them.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. And then if you like double down on that insecurity it becomes worse not better and spiral.

Rob May: Totally.

Anna Kirk: Whereas like you know a part of it is just I think like admitting vulnerability.

Rob May: Yeah. You just have to keep you just have to keep going until like if you're that scarf face, but you just have to keep going until that person's like, "Your scar is so cute."

Anna Kirk: You know, and like there's somebody who's going to say that there's a lid for every potid. That was from my mom. Shout out mom.

Rob May: TikTok is a wild place. I will say in general, [clears throat] you guys need to be a little more thoughtful in your comments. We expect more from our watchers and we will be reviewing them more. So, let that inspire you to leave more. We do read them. You have everybody's watchful eye on you.

Madi Donlan: Yeah, I scroll.

Rob May: So, that's all we have for the TikToks to look at today. Yeah. So, why don't we end the show talking about We always end on a New York question. So, since it's just us, what about favorite New York place that we've hung out, Anna?

Anna Kirk: I love our I do love our Westside Highway runs.

Rob May: Yeah. Museum of Sex was a fun one.

Anna Kirk: That's where we got the Onita Sex. We wasn't there together. Silverware company. Fun fact.

Madi Donlan: So crazy.

Rob May: Yeah. On the running, we've also sometimes we run together on the West Side Highway. We've also run into each other running separately on the West Side. That was like a morning. It was fantastic. It was a lot of fun to see.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob May: And then I've taken Anna out of Flatiron Room.

Anna Kirk: Oh, I love that. I think like live jazz also is a very good like confluence of You took me to Smalls Jazz Club. I love Smalls.

Rob May: That was fun.

Anna Kirk: Yeah. Yeah, that was maybe one of my favorite ones.

Rob May: We have a lot of New York favorite places. New lyric's awesome. I love it here. It's great. Cool. Any final thoughts, Madi? What do you hope to get out of the next season? What do you want to see?

Madi Donlan: I definitely want to see more of you guys responding to the audience cuz that was super fun. And you know, as traffic does pick up, there'll be a lot more to respond to and I'm excited to see how you guys grow with that.

Rob May: So, [clears throat] for season two, we're on the same page. I think your thought. Let's do a live show where people can where we stream it live while we record it and people can call in.

Anna Kirk: I think we do a live show and then I also think I'm going to volunteer this for both of us. If there is something you want us to talk about on the show obviously like within certain guard rails like we'll take the highest comment, the top comment and we'll do it on the show.

Rob May: I like that. Yeah. That's a good one. Well, it's been a great first season. Thank you guys for for watching. We grew our fan base from zero to tens of thousands of listeners a month. Keep it up. Leave good comments without you. Yeah. Watch all the shows and we'll see you guys. We'll be publishing some stuff, but we're not going to record you through August, but we're not going to publish we're not going to record anything else till September. Enjoy the summer. Re-watch season 1 and we'll see you guys in the fall. Now