They Might Be Self-Aware

AI deepfakes are fooling job interviewers, world leaders can't prove they're alive, a grandmother went to jail over a facial recognition false match, and a dead Val Kilmer just got cast in a new movie, so Hunter and Daniel ask whether anything on a screen can be trusted anymore. Daniel's proposed solution to the AI accountability crisis: bring back Aztec-style human sacrifice, which is now the official position of this show. === AI deepfakes just cast a dead actor in a new movie, and one podcast host thinks human sacrifice is the answer. This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, nothing is real and nobody can prove otherwise. Netanyahu held up five fingers at a coffee shop to prove he's alive. People said that was fake too because the cash register showed the wrong year. Val Kilmer, who has passed away, is starring in a new film using AI deepfake technology and a cloned version of his voice, with SAG's blessing, his family's sign-off, and his estate getting paid for the work. Deepfake job candidates are ghosting interviewers the second they're asked to put a hand in front of their face. And a grandmother from Tennessee spent six months in jail because AI facial recognition matched her to a bank fraud suspect in North Dakota, a state she's never set foot in. But here's where it gets philosophical. Hunter poses a brutal thought experiment: what if AI could save 6,000 lives a year on the roads, but the price is that nobody is ever held accountable for the 30,000 who still die? Would you take that deal? Turns out, no, because humans demand someone to blame, even if it costs us thousands of lives. Daniel's solution? Bring back human sacrifice. Aztec-style. On top of a pyramid. He's shirtless, he's wearing a headdress, and this is now the official stance of They Might Be Self-Aware. Hunter is dying inside. The algorithm will never show this to anyone. Daniel says find the episodes with four views, those are the spicy ones. The AI deepfake era is here. Nobody can prove they're real. And the only honest response might involve a ziggurat. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 00:00 Gary's Payphone Dispatch 01:53 Hunter Fails to Prove He's Real 03:27 Deepfake Job Interviews Are Out of Control 05:35 Netanyahu's Six Fingers & the Fake Coffee Shop 10:05 How Do You Prove Anything Is Real Anymore? 12:28 AI Facial Recognition Jailed the Wrong Grandma 18:40 Save 6,000 Lives but Nobody Gets Blamed 23:15 Daniel Proposes Human Sacrifice (Official Show Position) 26:06 Val Kilmer's AI Deepfake Movie (He's Dead, by the Way) 29:48 Will AI Turn Movies into Slop or Start a Renaissance? ⚡ Listen now & get self-aware before your tools do. 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3EcvzkWDRFwnmIXoh7S4Mb?si=3d0f8920382649cc 🍎 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-might-be-self-aware/id1730993297 ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9DopLlG7IbOqV-WD25jcw?sub_confirmation=1 📢 Engage Daniel wants this to be the #1 episode to prove the algorithm rewards human sacrifice. Do your part. Subscribe, send this to everyone you know, and comment: should we trust AI deepfake detection, or do we just need a really tall pyramid? 🏛️ 🧠 They Might Be Self-Aware — but are we? #AIDeepfake #PostTruth #TheyMightBeSelfAware

AGI is here — Jensen Huang said so. So why is Hunter still paying $200/month for AI subscriptions he forgot he had? This week on They Might Be Self-Aware, Hunter and Daniel react to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang declaring that AGI has been achieved — then immediately watching him walk it back with "it's not conscious, it's not an alien, it's computer software." They put Suno 5.5's AI music generator to the test live on air, humming a melody and getting back a track good enough that Hunter threatens to DMCA-strike his own podcast. Suno-generated music is already charting on iTunes, and producers are now using it to create copyright-free samples — a shift that could reshape how music gets made. The conversation turns to what AGI actually means versus ASI, and whether models like Claude Opus and Qwen 3.5 have crossed that line for most everyday computer tasks. Spoiler: AI still needs a manager, which means middle management lives to fight another day. Hunter confesses to a subscription spending spiral triggered by the $200/month Claude Max plan and his quest to cancel the services he forgot existed. They debate whether AI will widen inequality or whether open-weight models running locally — plus MCP servers and tools making Claude ridiculously capable — will keep the playing field level. An Axios report comparing AI pricing to Uber's subsidize-then-squeeze model leads to an unexpectedly great car analogy involving Hunter's 1996 Land Rover parked next to his Cybertruck. The episode wraps with a sharp breakdown of why consumer AI and enterprise AI are fundamentally different markets — and why enterprise is where the real money is headed. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Gary the Producer Has Feelings About AGI 2:36 Suno 5.5 Made a Banger on Air 6:37 What AGI Actually Means — The X% Y% Z% Test 8:40 AI Still Needs a Manager (Middle Management Rejoices) 11:43 Hunter's $200/Month Subscription Intervention 15:52 AI's Uber Pricing Problem 19:48 Why Enterprise AI and Consumer AI Are Different Games ⚡ Listen now & get self-aware before your tools do. 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3EcvzkWDRFwnmIXoh7S4Mb?si=3d0f8920382649cc 🍎 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-might-be-self-aware/id1730993297 ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9DopLlG7IbOqV-WD25jcw?sub_confirmation=1 📢 Engage Daniel's afraid to like his own YouTube videos because the algorithm might punish him. Are we right to fear the algorithm, or has he lost it? Vote in the comments. New here? Subscribe for twice-weekly AI chaos. 🧠 They Might Be Self-Aware — but are we? #AI #AGI #ArtificialIntelligence

The Sora shutdown is official — OpenAI killed its video AI even after Disney put $1B on the table. Anthropic is winning without video, images, or any of it. So why was OpenAI doing it at all? OpenAI just raised $110 billion and still couldn't keep Sora alive. Hunter and Daniel rip into the Sora shutdown, the three competing theories about why OpenAI pulled the plug, and what it means for the Anthropic vs OpenAI battle that's reshaping the entire AI industry. Anthropic subscriptions reportedly climbed 5% in February while OpenAI posted its biggest subscriber decline ever tracked — and Anthropic doesn't even do video. The "everything app" strategy is looking more like a liability than an advantage. On the video side: generating top-tier AI video still costs $8–10 per minute, but open-weight models like LTX 2.3 are closing the gap fast. Hunter actually got one running locally on his MacBook by turning Codex loose in full YOLO mode — left the room, came back, had a rendered video and a slightly broken computer. Now that Sora is gone, who takes the AI video crown? Google's Veo 3 is the obvious frontrunner (and they're already plugging it into their ad network). But Grok is the dark horse nobody's watching — cheap, fast, and getting better multiple times a month. Daniel drops an official 2025 prediction: Disney will partner with Google for AI video by year's end. The logic? If people are already generating Mickey Mouse Ring camera videos with open-weight models, Disney might as well get paid for it. This leads to a genuinely unresolved argument about whether user-generated AI content with brand imagery counts as advertising. Hunter says yes. Daniel says absolutely not. Things mean things, Hunter. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Gary vs. the Payphone (Cold Open) 1:36 Your $200/Month AI Plan Is Subsidized Cope 3:14 AI Video Costs $10/Min — We Have the Receipts 5:54 "I'm Going All In on Sora" (About That...) 7:49 Why OpenAI Actually Killed Sora 10:37 Anthropic Is Winning Without Video or Images 12:33 The Video AI Power Vacuum: Veo 3, Grok, Runway 15:23 Disney's $1B Partner Just Died — Now What? 20:04 Is AI-Generated Mickey Mouse an Ad? ⚡ Listen now & get self-aware before your tools do. 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3EcvzkWDRFwnmIXoh7S4Mb?si=3d0f8920382649cc 🍎 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/they-might-be-self-aware/id1730993297 ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy9DopLlG7IbOqV-WD25jcw?sub_confirmation=1 📢 Engage What's the most reckless thing you've let AI do? New here? Subscribe for twice-weekly AI chaos. 🧠 They Might Be Self-Aware — but are we? #AI #OpenAI #Anthropic