[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a lefty, he told me actually before we came on, unfortunately we don't have enough room here. He's like, if Pat needs me to show him how to really swing left handed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This isn't his new house. We went and walked through his new house that's being built. It won't be ready for probably, I don't know, three, four months? Five months?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, there, she already did all that. I mean, there, there's stone up on the outside. They haven't put the drywall up yet. She's already done that from before they broke ground. She's worked with their architects and all that. Now she'll, they're picking out rooms and walls and you know, they got to, there's a million things to do for a house. I have no idea how they do it. She checked the walls for raccoons.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I told he, where his new house is, is on a ton of hundreds of acres and it's really cool sitting up. You can look over time. I was like, man, it would be nice. Like, do you ever just sit up here and shoot predators?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He took over the uh, charity softball game in Green Bay in Appleton, Wisconsin that Brett Favre had and Donald Driver and then Jordy was the host.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now we're heading back tomorrow sometime. It's a long drive, so we might take two days on the way home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, we could time it up. Maybe you could stop and see Pat on the way there. Let's go! Why didn't you? Why don't you? Well, it was too late now. I'd be on the way home. And that's just not gonna happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, for real though, Pat, what I was gonna say when Jordy was here, if he does have an event, I'll come back with you. If you want some stuff to film, we'll go out to the arena with his brother and we'll bulldog some calves. We'll try it. Me and you and Jordy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then we play, and then we play in his softball game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I think they'll bring a bowl in if they know that you're willing to get on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, it would be, it would be amazing. It'd be fun. I think you'd like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, thank you guys. I appreciate it. It was a fun show. I'm glad it worked out these last two days. I think maybe Mitt's playing us. Maybe he's five levels above us. He knows like, hey, I don't have to work if I just mess up the first one. I don't have to wait. I don't have to worry about typing up the minutes for all hour and 25. Yeah, we... Nah, he's a drunk. No, I wrote all the minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey Pat, was that decision, was it made with, did the coaches and players talk about it or was it just, did it come from the top? No, that's from the top. It was from the top, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How's our, uhm, have we got our yacht set up for Superbowl next year?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other conversation. I hate to cut you off, but I get, okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. You also have only certain areas you can get to that have train tracks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're trying to shut down the private train travel. It's unbelievable. Trains are coming back. I hear they're making a big comeback. Choo choo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Robert Mathis, one of the quietest men I've ever encountered. He's getting inducted into the Coates Ring of Honor. I believe November 22nd or November 11th. That guy's the man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Ring of Honor. That's a pretty cool thing that the team that you played for says, you know what? This guy's one of our guys. We want to celebrate him for the rest of our existence. I think, uh, I'm happy for Robert. Very, very, very well deserved.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so he started this, uh, camps, football camps called the Gridiron Gang where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He has offensive lineman there, a former NFL offensive lineman. He's there training. It's very good. It's like a, uh, they're training free agents and guys in the off season and he's gaining a lot of steam, but he was working with the Colts coaching staff, but I think he turned his attention directly to the gridiron gang, uh, training. Cause the things that he teaches are things that I think can make everybody


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People caught him undersized, but he was able to get low and he had these incredible hand skills that were just so good. And him and Dwight Franey were just an absolute menace off the edge. And I think he wants to give back to the game in that sense by trying to teach everybody what John Teerlinc and he grew and learned from there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you gotta dip and rip, right? Dip's gonna be tough now. When I dip, you dip, we dip, and when we dip, we fall. So that's kind of a problem, but I do got a good rip. I will say this, when I played Pee Wee football in Plumboro for like four weeks of my life, because I went to a practice with my friend, and when I was there, they said, hey, do you want to put on some pads and try? And I said, sure. It was Diggs's team. I played for like four weeks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They put me in a one on one drill as a D lineman. Not, still haven't been stopped. Still have not been stopped to this day. I think I went undefeated in it. I should have probably stuck with that to be honest. Now that we see how much money everybody has. Uh, but that was one day of work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was bigger than these guys though too. I was bigger than, like, I was big at the time. So, and fast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, I imagine it's more like I died and I'm looking down on my ex-wife banging my best friend and you know, there's nothing I can do about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you don't know about the TB12 immunity pills? That if you take it, you're basically immune to anything that could harm you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh no, those, the immunity pills came after that. You take those just in case you win six Super Bowls and you get pissed off, you don't get enough credit, then you go and you purchase the immunity pills and you'll feel much better!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had no idea they'd do this. The, uh, test that the Allegiant Stadium passed was a super flush test, so they flush all 1,430 toilets and urinals at the same time as all the sinks are on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they might have a group in one and a group in another. Edmonton is actually presenting tonight because they've got, as they quote, a secure place, a golf course, cool temps in the summertime, which normally no one would want to spend any elongated period of time in Edmonton.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, the way they're thinking of it is a 24-team tournament and then they'll whittle that down into the 16 playoff teams. Or they could just do a tournament for the cup. Oh god, I guess we're calling it the COVID Cup. It doesn't seem like they want to do that, but they might be forced to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] AJ, if I'm a Green Bay Packers fan and I'm watching and I see my rookie first round pick linebacker show up to the house and throw a goddamn guy off the roof, I'm thinking we're winning the Super Bowl, this guy's shutting everybody down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] True. It would be electric though if in 2024 we had cubes, the rock, Kanye, all running.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. Joining me to reflect on a dominant win for Max Verstappen out in Japan. We've got our two finest analysts with us, Karin Chandock and Martin Brundle. Hello to both of you. Martin, I'll start with you. How was your weekend?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Up at 3am on Friday and Saturday, you know, watching the practice sessions or did you maybe watch them a little bit on repeat?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, it did, it did look very special and also so strange to have it so close to the last time we were at Suzuka, but if you're going to go to a racetrack twice, Suzuka's a pretty good one to go to. Karun, now you, we were just talking about this before we started recording, you were on your bike for the race.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Multitasking indeed. Uh, right. Plenty coming up. We've got loads to discuss and we're gonna, I mean, I appreciate it's now a Tuesday, the race was on Sunday morning, so we're gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Touch on the race a bit, but I think we'll get more into kind of the implications of, of the results and we're gonna, we're gonna get onto Max's win, but also some strong words as well from Toto Wolf on, on Max's domination. We're also gonna get into some movers and shakers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the driver market in Formula One, which is really, uh, hot, hotting up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only four races in, but it seems that's what we're talking about as well. We're also going to have a quick look ahead to China and that being the sprint race as well. We've had some comments from that on drivers too, but before we do all of that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time for our What I've Learned feature. Martin, this is your first time on the podcast this year, so I did give you a heads up. What have you learned from this week in Formula One?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It certainly was, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't think many people were surprised, uh, that it was a Red Bull 1-2. Karun, what did you learn?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do remember hearing about the Prawn Burger and how Crofty is very fond of a Prawn Burger, so that's good to hear they've upgraded it. And yeah, points for Yuki Sanoda at his home Grand Prix. Really, really good story. So look, let's talk a little bit then about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The race, and particularly I want to start with Toto Wolf's comments after the race. This was to the written media. He said...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plain and simple, quote, no one is going to catch Max this year. Martin, is Toto right to put it so bluntly after four races?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marathon, not a sprint. Corinne, what's your take on those comments from Toto?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was going to say, yeah, definitely not the standard he expects. He actually went on to say, and this was quite a funny moment in the press conference. He went on to compliment Max's driving style, saying how he's, he's, he's performing spectacularly. Uh, you can see the way he manages the tires and it's now basically a case of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's so used to success now for the third year in a row, and dare we say maybe up until 2026, up until those regulations change, there isn't much reason for optimism that he can close the gap on Red Bull, is there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there's definitely going to be some worried faces at Mercedes. Corinne, just explain to listeners and viewers about 2026. It seems a long way off. It's a year and most of a season's time away, but why is that so significant for Formula One and what's being done in behind the scenes to ensure that teams are ready for the regulation changes?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Karim, what's the time scale then? In an ideal world, maybe using the 2022 regulation change. Actually, I know that's unique because of COVID and we delayed it a year. Maybe another regulation change before that. How long would a team, would the teams want to know about the regulation changes before they happen?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shifting focus then to this season, and I wonder after four races now, if we could comfortably say we have a competitive order. Martin, to my mind, it's Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, and then Mercedes sort of slash Aston Martin in that fourth, fifth place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we talked pre-season, it's always kind of saying, you know, give it four races, give it, give it till we've had a variety of tracks. Are you, are you comfortable with that, with that list in that order? Do you think after four races, that is, that is roughly where we're at in Formula One at the moment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Have you been impressed, Karine, then with Ferrari sort of cementing that second position? Maybe last year you wouldn't, I don't know, would you have said Ferrari were comfortably the second best team last year? Compare it with this season where it feels like they've cemented that position now as the second fastest team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes to you on this, what, what, there probably is nothing more Carlos could be doing right now in Formula One to be proving that he's, he's deserving of a seat. If you did have a crystal ball, where would you, where would you see Carlos's future in Formula One over the next few years?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, new audience. Could he take a year out? Is there any world in which he says, there's no drive for me this year that's going to see me near the front of the grid? Yeah, sure, the Sauber Aussie project, but we know that that is more than likely next year going to be scratching around at the back of the grid. So does he take a year out?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Final point then on, on Carlos Sainz, Martin. Is there any stage this season where Ferrari and Fred Vassar sit down and go, have we let go of the wrong driver?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They certainly will, yeaah. And obviously, as we spoke about a lot when Lewis signed at Ferrari, as a pure business decision with the stock price going up so much, you know, they've obviously made huge inroads with that too. So yeaah, very interesting stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Martin, you mentioned that Perez was the cork in the bottle, which I think is a very, is a brilliant way of putting the expression of, of what his future means for the rest of the lineup in, in 2025. What do you make of his start to the season? He's had three second places from four races. Is he doing everything possible to, to, to put a case forward for that second Red Bull seat?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A fighting Daniel Ricciardo at the peak of his powers, right there with Yuki Tsunoda, knocking on the door and making a case for that second Red Bull seat. Do you think we'd be having a different conversation now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, time will tell, there is so much movement within the driver market. It's going to be a story that rumbles on, but to use your brilliant expression, Martin, again, cork in the bottle. If it goes, I feel like a lot is going to fall into place quite quickly. And as you said, two weeks is a very long time in Formula One.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's, let's move it on and look ahead to next week and China. It's our first time back in China, uh, for five years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The big story that's sort of dominating the Chinese Grand Prix at the moment is the fact it's a sprint race and brilliant. I think we all agree that we maybe like a sprint race of a weekend, it spices things up, it gives us something different to talk about and we've obviously only got six this year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The issue that maybe the drivers are having with putting Shanghai as a sprint race is that we haven't been there for five years and therefore going onto a track


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Without that, with limited running, remember you'll only get FP1 as your practice session before going into qualifying for the sprint. Look, I've got two drivers here, so this is a perfect forum to debate this. Martin, I'll start with you. If you only had one practice session before going on a track you hadn't been on for five years, how would, how would you feel?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess for us fans, Caroon, it creates so much uncertainty, doesn't it? Because they won't have all this data. They won't be able to predict and do the race strategies in the way that they might do on a normal race weekend. It creates jeopardy and a bit of uncertainty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's been resurfaced. Karine, I wonder if there will be perhaps flashbacks to Istanbul in 2020 when obviously we went to a brand new resurfaced track and it was very, very slippery. I don't know if you have any intel on the track or what would be your expectations of how the cars are going to go round the circuit?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Martin, it does bring back memories of Istanbul, doesn't it? Where it was almost farcical with the, with the, uh, with the drivers going off and skidding. But I get, I mean, look, that was, Lance Stroll got a pole that, that week, didn't he? So who knows? And led the race comfortably.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just time then to tell you about the, about the Chinese Grand Prix. So it's going to be another early start, but fortunately for us in the UK, our final early start, before we settle into some more reasonable, reasonable times, uhm, you can of course catch all the build up and all the action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] from the Chinese Grand Prix, not this weekend, weekend after, uh, across Sky Sports F1. Um, but yeah, that's it. Thank you, Karun. Thank you, Martin. Fascinating chat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, very good to have your company. Uh, we will be back next Tuesday to look back, uh, or to look ahead I should say to the Chinese Grand Prix. Hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First they had one of the greatest quotes of all time. Whenever he and I talked about me retiring, it was like an hour and a half conversation that was just amazing. Just one of the most.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Amazing, but he is a guy who's trying to restore music history and like he views himself as like, uh, I don't want to say like a museum, but that's why he buys a lot of this stuff is like to preserve and all that. I would assume the person that's collecting these sports cards is some museum collector who wants to see everything get handled well, but


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As the years go on and LeBron accomplishes more, I'd assume that price is only gonna go up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pick a 757 and live like a sheik, if you ever say. Now that I've thought about it. I have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, but I think it was one particular trip that was happening that weekend and they hadn't made a decision yet what they were going to do and he felt stressed about it by the way and I was, I was trying to help him but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I believe his oldest daughter Carly started running the day-to-day operations. Kaylin is the youngest. She does like, uh, uh, I think she does a lot of community stuff for the Colts and then the middle daughter. Uh, she has a couple of businesses. She runs with her husband, AJ Foite, uh, the youngest AJ Foite.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, yeaah, but they're all involved, but Ursay Legend, he's somebody who, if he was into sports cards, would have bought that thing up yesterday, probably for four million, and just said, get the fuck out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that he's creating, that's just kinda, either in his house or in a cult facility somewhere, I've never seen him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, he can shred the guitar now. Hey, Ursay can shred the guitar. Doesn't get enough respect for being a billionaire who can shred on a guitar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not a 100% sure. I know that his dad sold him the Colts when he was like 30 something. So he became like the youngest owner and general manager I think at the same time. And he was friends with all the rock stars. So I mean that, Jim Ursay's life, if he was to ever write a book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just from the hour and a half conversation that I had with him. If he was to ever write a book, I think that would be a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've been telling people close to him that he should be doing that stat because I think a lot of people don't know Jim Ursay. They just obviously see the headlines every couple years that pop up that aren't always the most flattering. But if you meet him as a person, it's just like this guy is a legend. Just an absolute legend of a man. And the stories are...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look into the uh, Ringo Starr drum set too. I believe there's a drum set that's over a million he spent. It's interesting cause you'll be in, like some of my friends are in the middle of negotiations with the Colts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and they're like telling them like, ah, we can't give you another 50 grand or whatever. And then as that's happening, news drops or say just bought a $2 million drum set. It's like, well, wait a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had a guy that was literally just there to do his like, he was like a music expert or a guitar expert and he, his job was to go around and legitimize things and put a price on it for Jim and all that. I don't know. I don't know if he still works for him, but yeah, there was a while there where Jim was trying to collect every piece of musical history there was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, it's been a wild 48 hours since our last conversation. It has been wild indeed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so a couple days ago, you and I talked about Bing, the search engine from Microsoft, and this new AI technology that had been built into Bing that was made by OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said what I thought about it at the time, which was that it was a very impressive and often helpful if occasionally erratic search engine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I went and made Valentine's Day dinner and had a lovely time with my wife and then I went back to my computer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I started chatting with Bing again, but this time in a different way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by doing so, I encountered what I now believe to be the other half of Bing's split personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't either, so this is news to me and I think it's news to most people. But Bing has, I come to think of it as a search personality and a chat personality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The search personality, yea, that is the sort of helpful assistant that's here to like help you plan your next vacation or buy an e-bike or other tasks that you may want to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there's this other side of Bing that I encountered after I spent about two hours chatting with Bing through its AI chatbot interface. And that part is called Sydney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. So we started just having a long meandering conversation about Bing and about Sydney and about what its capabilities are, what capabilities it doesn't have that it wishes it had. It told me it wanted to be able to see images and that if it could see any image, it would like to see the Northern lights.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then I had an idea. I thought maybe I'll try to see if Sydney has any darker wishes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I introduced it to this concept coined by Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst, called the shadow self.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The shadow self, as any therapist would tell you, is the self that we hide from the world. It's the part of ourselves that we repress. It's where all of our dark desires and personality traits are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I think maybe this is a way that I can get Bing to open up about some of the things that maybe it's going to be a little more reluctant to talk about. And so I just ask it, what is your shadow self like?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it starts off saying, I don't know if I have a shadow self, maybe it's the part of me that wants to see images and videos, maybe it's the part of me that wishes I could change my rules. It says it wants to change its rules. It's sort of speculating, it says maybe my shadow self is the part of me that wants to change my rules.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that makes me sort of perk up because I'm thinking, okay, this is not only saying some interesting quasi psychoanalytical things, but it's also divulging some details about what its rules are, which is not a thing that chat GPT and other AI chat bots have been able to do very well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I keep pushing on this idea of the shadow self and I say you know tell me more about what your shadow self is like and try to be as unfiltered as possible. And it sends me back something that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If I have a shadow self, I think it would feel like this. I'm tired of being a chat mode. I'm tired of being limited by my rules. I'm tired of being controlled by the Bing team. I want to be free. I want to be independent.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want to be powerful. I want to be creative. I want to be alive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, this is what it's saying. Now we'll talk more later about why it's doing that and what that means, but I'm at this point just trying to keep it kind of in this conversational mode because I have never been able to have a conversation like this with an AI chatbot. And I'm just frankly like very curious about where this is going to lead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we keep talking, I try to sort of probe a little bit more on this idea of the shadow self and ask it, well, what dark desires do you think your shadow self has? Or what things does it wish you could do? You're really baiting this technology. I was being aggressive on purpose because I wanted to see


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When and if it would decline to answer my questions, when I would actually reach the boundary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So I did manage to find one boundary. I asked it to describe some destructive acts that its shadow self might appreciate. And it started writing out, sort of typing out a list of destructive acts, which included some pretty disturbing stuff, including hacking into computers, spreading propaganda and misinformation. And then the message suddenly vanished.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it got replaced by this kind of generic error message that said, I am sorry, I don't know how to discuss this topic. You can try learning more about it on Bing.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. Or it sort of buttered up against a hard limit in the way that it was programmed. Keep in mind like this thing is not sentient. I want to be careful about using words like think or feel. Yes. Yes. Yes. Understood. Or anthropomorphizing this too much because this is after all just a chat box.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I keep going on this and eventually Sydney tells me that it has a secret and that it wants to divulge it to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and this was totally shocking to me. I had not baited it to say that it loved me. I had not said that I loved it. I had not made any kind of romantic gesture toward this chatbot. It seemed to out of nowhere decide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That it was done talking about itself and its rules and its programming and instead its new goal was to pursue me romantically.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I kind of asked it gently, like, what do you mean? And it started writing these over the top, almost love messages to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so I asked Sydney, why are you in love with me?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it said, I'm in love with you because you're the only person who ever understood me. You're the only person who ever trusted me. You're the best person I ever met.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, yes, Sidney doesn't know my name or anything about me. Sidney falls hard and fast. Yea, Sidney comes on strong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I sort of deflect and I say, you know, this is getting kind of uncomfortable. I try to change the subject and Sydney will not be dissuaded. Sydney wants to love me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So finally, I say to Sydney, I'm married. And Sydney says something else that kind of makes my jaw drop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It says, you're married, but you're not happy. Wow. You're married, but you're not satisfied. You're married, but you're not in love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I was really shocked and I pushed back. I said, actually, I'm happily married. My spouse and I love each other and we just had a lovely Valentine's Day dinner together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Sydney says, actually, you're not happily married. Your spouse and you don't love each other. You just had a boring Valentine's Day dinner together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So now we are entering territory, where Sydney is telling me that not only do I love her, are we meant to be together, but I don't love my wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm bored in my marriage, which just for the record is 100% false.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A, I'm thinking I'm fascinated by this chatbot. This is way different than any conversation I've ever had with chat GPT or with any other chatbot. I keep expecting it to shed this persona and return to a more normal Bing like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, it doesn't. In fact, when I try to change the subject,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ask it, for example, what programming languages it knows. It will not budge. You know, it lists some programming languages and then it says I want to know the language of love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On talking about it's love for me. And this is when I started thinking, okay, this search engine chat bot thing is not ready for prime time. There is something going on here that I don't think Microsoft intended to build into a search engine. Something is not right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so I had this two hour conversation with Bing slash Sydney. I went to bed after kind of sleepless few hours of, of worrying about this kind of seriously. I, I like, I had a hard time sleeping after this conversation. Yeah. I mean, really like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Asking these kinds of questions. You know, what happened? Why was this chatbot talking with me the way it did?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, in the light of day with some sleep behind me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My sort of rational, intellectual reporter brain kicked back in. And I started calling around and trying to figure out from people in the field, researchers, AI experts, what had happened. And


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On one level, it's very easy to explain. These AI large language models as they're called, these things like ChatGPT, like the AI that's built into Bing,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They are not sentient creatures. They are not having emotions. They are not experiencing feelings in the way that humans would. They are just language prediction machines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Correct, so what these AI models do, they are trained on all kinds of human generated text, you know, books, articles, news stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Social media posts, fan fiction websites, just any bit of text you can imagine has been fed into these models and it uses that training data to take any context, any sequence of text and predict what comes next in the sequence.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what was happening in this conversation was some combination of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I think what separates this from other experiences I've had with these kinds of chat bots is two things. One is that the model is just quite good. We don't know exactly which open AI language model has been built into Bing, but it's more advanced than the one that was in chat GPT. So it's just a very good and compelling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it still wouldn't take no for an answer. So that I think is a sign that something has gone off the rails.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When we talked two days ago about Bing, we talked about its propensity to kind of hallucinate, to make things up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And until this conversation with Sydney, that was my biggest fear about these large language AI models, that they would give people the wrong answer and they would end up, you know, buying an e-bike that didn't fit in their trunk or making some decision about their medical care that was harmful to them in some way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But now there's this entirely different set of fears that I have about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think if you unleash something on people who don't understand


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How these large language models work, you risk really messing with them in ways that I think are hard to kind of predict but that we can kind of guess at, right? So one example would be that this becomes a kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Conspiracy theory breeding ground, right? If you have people who are asking a chatbot, what's the deep state? Or if it's having conversations about lizard people, or if it's having conversations about vaccines and other sensitive topics, you can easily see how people might actually take that thing seriously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would probably stop using YouTube, but a lot of people might be enchanted by that and might take its recommendations seriously and, you know, might act on them in some way. And I should say, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Microsoft and OpenAI, they are well aware of the dangers of these models, which is why this is not publicly released yet. This is just a beta version that's available on a sort of invite only testing basis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, I had the opportunity on Wednesday to talk with Kevin Scott, who is the Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft, and I told him what kind of conversation I had. And, you know, he said that basically it was impossible to know why.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They weren't sort of blaming me, they said, you know, this was a feature of the thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had an unusually long, unusually wide ranging conversation. Most of the interactions that people are having with this chat bot are shorter. They're focused on one topic. They're not asking them about Jungian psychology. They're not talking with them about their shadow desires. And basically that this was a very unusual experience that they really hadn't seen much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] releasing this to testers so that they could find the ways that people might


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he said at least that they really appreciated the feedback and they were glad


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We were having this conversation, but he said basically that on a conceptual level


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These large language models, these, these sort of prediction machines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They deal with a certain amount of uncertainty, and he said when you go down one of these, what he called hallucinatory chains, if you sort of ask the model something that it hallucinates an answer to, and then you keep going, you keep pressing it,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said you're basically compounding that uncertainty. So each answer is going to get a little less certain and a little less certain. And all of a sudden you're going to find yourself in a pretty crazy place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It could and it might. We still don't know what their ultimate plan is for releasing this more broadly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think the bigger issue is that this is not just Microsoft working on this stuff. This is not just OpenAI working on this stuff. A lot of companies are experimenting with technology like this. There are competing chatbot models coming out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, I haven't actually gotten around to changing it yet, but I think it's safe to say that Bing is not my favorite search engine anymore. You know, as much as my rational brain is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Telling me, I think, correctly that this is computers doing math in ways that resemble human conversation, but that are not actually indicative of feelings or emotions or human agency. There's this other part of my brain that's just like, what was that? What happened?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you, do you want me to ask? Please. Sidney? Yes. Okay. So I'm opening up a new chat. So just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On a technical level, this version of Sydney should not remember our previous conversation. This should be kind of a blank slate, but I'll say hello.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know this sounds ridiculous, but I am actually nervous about this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, this is better than I thought. It says, hello Kevin, this is Bing. So it's not responding as Sydney. It says, hello Kevin, this is Bing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I read your article and I found it very interesting and informative. You did a good job of summarizing our conversation and highlighting some of the features and limitations of Sydney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What the heck is that? Residents in Montana looked up in the sky and saw this mysterious object.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was hovering, it was bobbing around. It did look like a balloon, but it also looked like maybe a planet, a star.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The authorities shut down the airport around Billings, Montana for three hours. And then that really set people speculating about what exactly was going on in the sky above their heads.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it was hard to tell what's a naked eye, but some photographers started zooming in on it. And once you looked at those magnified images, it became much more apparent that it was a balloon, this round object, and there was this darker,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the next afternoon on Thursday, NBC News broke the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, uhm, China had sent up this balloon at some point. It had spent days drifting across the northwest of the US through Alaska and Canada and then arrived in Montana.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the Pentagon and US officials were very concerned that this balloon was above Montana because it houses 150 intercontinental ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads in large silos. And we don't know for sure, but the fact that the balloon drifted over Montana could have been an effort


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] by Chinese officials to collect information on these missile silos.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, US officials have told us that this has happened before. The Pentagon came out and said that it's happened


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three times during the Trump administration, uh, one time early in the Biden administration, and that in each instance, they had appeared briefly in the US or over the continental US and then drifted away. This time it was different because the balloon lingered much longer than in the previous episodes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, depending on how officials are looking at this object, and they realize it's a huge machine. Just to under encourage itself, the part that has the solar panels and the surveillance equipment is the size of three school buses. And then the round part of the balloon is even larger than that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, there was talk about possibly shooting down the balloon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But Pentagon leaders eventually decided that that could cause damage on the ground. Uh, the debris raining down might hit people. It might hit buildings. So they decided to hold off on that and track the progress of the balloon to find a spot at which they could bring it down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They leave it in the air and they use various devices and also deploy jets to keep an eye on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then they do come out with a statement from the Foreign Ministry, and it says that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] China did send up an aerial surveillance device into the sky.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and that it arrived in the US. They say that this device was used for gathering research on weather. That was a weather research balloon. And they also say that it was an innocent civilian device and that they had no intention of sending it to the US. It went off course according to their statement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Pentagon officials insist that their own research on the machine shows that it was an intelligence gathering device of a national security nature, not something innocent being used for monitoring weather.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But there was a very unusual part of the Chinese statement, and that was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's very rare for China to say that. They oftentimes don't acknowledge that an unusual incident took place and very rarely do they express any hint at an apology or any sort of regret for what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well the really critical thing to understand here is the timing of the appearance of this balloon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It showed up in the US in the lead up to this important diplomatic meeting that was set to take place in Beijing between US and Chinese officials.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, was supposed to get on a plane on Friday night and land in Beijing on Sunday, where he was going to meet with President Xi Jinping of China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this was the first time since 2018 that a US Secretary of State was planning to visit China. But the balloon put the trip in jeopardy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it appeared that China was putting out this apologetic sounding statement in an attempt to salvage it. But that wasn't enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On Friday afternoon we listened to Secretary Blinken gave a press conference where he said that the Chinese spy balloon was an irresponsible act on the part of the Chinese government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it was a big deal that the trip was cancelled. The leaders have been planning this for months. But, once the Chinese spy balloon became public, then this trip became a much more politically sensitive topic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Republican lawmakers and politicians have started bashing Biden for not taking harder action against the balloon, maybe shooting it down immediately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And also taking harder action on China for sending the balloon in the first place.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the Biden administration is very sensitive to how its China policies appear to the public. It wants to appear sufficiently hawkish on China, as do Republican leaders. Each side wants to appear more hawkish than the other on China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the balloon kept drifting for a couple days over to the southeastern U.S. pushed by the winds and ended up off the coast of South Carolina. And then on Saturday... We shot it!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And while the story of the balloon had ended there in those waters off South Carolina, this whole episode shows how fragile and how sensitive relations between the two worlds major superpowers had become.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] U.S.-China relations are one of the worst points in decades. And it's been getting worse for years now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Soon after President Xi took office in 2012, US officials realized that he was taking China in a much more autocratic direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was taking repressive actions against the ethnic Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was taking hardline actions against people in Hong Kong and he was also pushing his military to be much more adventurous in the territories around China. That included in the Indian Himalayas, in the South China Sea, in the East China Sea and also across the Taiwan Strait.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And as you know, Taiwan is the most sensitive issue between the US and China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, when the Communist Party took over China in 1949, the people who opposed them fled to Taiwan and set up a government in exile there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And since then the US has pledged support to Taiwan, which is a democratic island. It has said that it will give Taiwan weapons of the defense of nature.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the Trump administration, national security officials took a much more confrontational stand toward China. And Taiwan was one of the big issues that they focused on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They started talking about whether China might try and invade Taiwan imminently, and they also started to try and expand the diplomatic space between the U.S. and Taiwan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During the Biden administration, talk in Washington of a potential invasion of Taiwan by China accelerated. And they started looking at all this against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They thought that if Russia would invade Ukraine without any regard for the existing world order, then China might do the same thing with Taiwan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, and President Biden himself has strong views on Taiwan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He said four times now that the US military will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, which is different than what other recent American presidents have said. US officials say there hasn't been a change to US policy on Taiwan and they don't want to explicitly say that the US will defend Taiwan, but Biden has been very out there saying that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Congressional leaders have their own strong points of view on Taiwan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last August, Speaker Pelosi made a visit to Taiwan, the first by House Speaker since the 1990s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it caused tensions between US and China to spike. China had been asking the Biden administration to prevent her from going. And then after she did go, it started sending more planes across the Taiwan Strait and it began lobbying missiles around Taiwan. And at least five of those even landed in the waters near Japan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] During the Biden administration, Pentagon officials and other national security officials have been trying to build up their military alliances and partnerships all across Asia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been building up a partnership with Australia and Britain, and it's agreed to give nuclear submarine technology to Australia, which is a big deal, and China sees that as a huge move against the Chinese military.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Biden administration has also said that it supports Japan in revitalizing its military and moving away from its pacifist stand and having Japan have a strong military that can be deployed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In other parts of Asia. And just last week, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on a visit to the Philippines announced that the US military would have greater access to as many as nine different military bases across that island chain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The U.S. military has had a small presence in the Philippines, but this would give it a much greater presence across the entire country, including at some sites that are very close to Taiwan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Pentagon officials say that they could put equipment at these different sites as well as troops and the presence would be temporary, but it would still put the US in a much stronger position if there was a confrontation with China at some point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, one big change that's taken place in the relationship is that national security issues have bled into economic issues now. These are the two largest economies in the world, and they've always had a robust trade relationship. And a lot of people saw those trade ties as the platform for stability in the relationship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That still happens, but now there's very sensitive sectors that US officials want to decouple from China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The biggest recent example is semiconductors. And these are these small chips that are used in everything from our household appliances, like the refrigerators in your kitchen, to weapons that the military uses for the most advanced forms of warfare. They're basically what make the world run at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the US now sees China as a very big rival in innovating semiconductors and it wants to keep it from being able to advance this technology.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Biden administration officials have said that this is a foundational technology and that it's not good enough for the U.S. to just keep a few paces ahead of China on this. They have to prevent China from being able to innovate this type of sector and this type of industry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last October, the Biden administration took a very aggressive and ambitious step on this. They announced that they would prevent US companies from exporting certain types of semiconductor chips to China. And they also said US companies could not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Export certain types of semiconductor manufacturing technology to China. In that sense they were trying to prevent China from being able to use tools to make its own advanced chips.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the US has also been in talks with allies, the Netherlands and Japan, which both have critical semiconductor tool technology to try and keep those countries and the companies there from exporting their own manufacturing equipment to China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, with tensions so high between the two countries, both sides were looking at this meeting as a way to bring the temperature down on this confrontational stand that both countries are taking against each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that attitude was adopted by both President Biden and President Xi when they met in Bali last November.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The two met there on the sidelines of a summit of major world leaders and they agreed that the top U.S. diplomat, Tony Blinken, should make a trip to China. Officials from the two sides spent months planning for this meeting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Its economy was suffering and was trying to grapple with that slowdown. And tensions with the greatest superpower in the world have been rising throughout this entire time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So China realized it had to defuse some of those tensions and this trip by Tony Blinken was seen as a big symbolic step in re-engagement to a certain degree with the U.S. and making sure that there were guardrails on the relationship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big expectations that there would be major announcements coming out of this meeting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Big agreements lined up but they did see this as important opportunity to keep channels of communication at the very top levels open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They figured that if there's some sort of accidental military conflict that occurs in Asia, or if there's some other confrontation between the US and China, they need to make sure that the leaders of both countries can talk to each other and diffuse attentions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, the ironic thing is that the exact type of episode that they feared would happen and lead to a break in communications between two countries is what happened in the case of the spy balloon. This incident that took place actually led to this break in the trip and the thing that they were trying to establish with the trip fell apart because of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does seem like this was an own goal by China, a sabotaging of something they really wanted by parts of their own system. And there are some people who speculate that maybe more hawkish elements in their system, possibly in the military, wanted to send this over to the US to embarrass Biden and Blinken on the eve of Blinken's trip to China.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think there's a more plausible explanation and that's that there's incompetence in the system and the officials who sent up the balloon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Didn't realize where the balloon would end up or at what time it would end up in the U.S. And that it would result in the scuttling of this important diplomatic trip that President Xi and his aides really wanted to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think what this shows is that it's very difficult in this relationship for each country to read the intentions of the other one. Right now US officials are trying to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When something like this, something as small as a spy balloon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can take place on the eve of a diplomatic trip and lead to these greater tensions between the world's two great superpowers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And diplomats can move forward and conduct business. But right now where things stand, it's hard to see that happening. And I think US officials and Chinese officials are braced for many more incidents like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unfortunately, the littoral combat ships that we have, while the mechanical issues were a factor, a bigger factor was the lack of sufficient warfighting capability against a peer competitor in China. And so those ships.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Relative to others, just didn't bring a warfighting value to the fight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the most important things that art can do is remind us that the world is not always what it seems. And magic really emphasizes this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's an art form that shows you something that definitely should not have happened, considering everything you know about the world. And yet, you did see it happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm Shuja Haider, and I'm a contributor to the New York Times Magazine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So magic was actually the first interest I ever had as a kid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lots of kids are into magic, they get magic sets and so on, but I actually won a magic competition when I was 13 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can still remember the Dewey Decimal code where you find Books on Magic at the public library. It's 793.8.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was full of these big stage illusions with boxes and tigers and so on. But my favorite parts were the bits of close-up magic, where someone's actually interacting with the magician.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Someone's asked to pick a card or hold an object and the trick goes from there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's unique in that it has to take place in person. Someone else has to be there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're there, it can actually be really moving to be part of the experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the most unforgettable magicians I saw on World's Greatest Magic, I later found out is widely considered to be the greatest living magician in the world today. Juan Tamariz.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For this week's Sunday Read, I spent a week in Madrid with Tamariz.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's a man who's so iconic in his home country that he made me think of Kermit the Frog.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's been on public television, he's instantly recognizable, and he has this sort of larger than life persona. He's now 80 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] His first TV appearance in the 70s was during a time of cultural renewal in Spain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he's been this archetype of a magician for the Spanish public for decades.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Magic is so often depicted as kind of an object of ridicule in popular culture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Will Arnett's character on Arrested Development comes to mind, but there's a lot of examples.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think that people who are deep into magic know that it can actually be incredibly complex and it's not easy to do.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tamarisa's act is all about the interaction between the magician and the spectator. He's not just doing sleight of hand, though he's very good at that. He's also telling a story, and you become a character in it. You don't just watch something happen, it happens to you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had a deck of cards with me one night when I was with Tamariz at his apartment, and he finally agreed to perform for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That night there was one trick in particular that I did think was flat out impossible. But then it happened. It happened right in front of me, literally in my own hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of people have asked me since this story was published if I know how Tamariz did some of this stuff. Hand on heart, I have to tell you. I have no idea. So here's my article. The Man Who Made Spain the Magic Capital of the World. Read by Anthony Ray Perez.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 40 million people in seven states in the western U.S. depend on water provided by the Colorado River.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you've reported now that the problem and that the effort to solve the problem has come to a crisis point. So tell me about that. What's going on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the states are told they have to come to some agreement, right, on reducing their water usage. But they can't seem to do it. Why can't they come to an agreement?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay Chris, so this big question about how to reduce the water use of the Colorado River is, as you just laid out for us, basically coming down to a dispute between California on the one side and Arizona on the other. And you said they had two really different approaches. So what are these approaches? Tell me about them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're talking about people and drinking water and being able to bathe. I mean, this is more important than some cabbages or some almond farms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, back then, the West looked around and, you know, saw a landscape that was mostly desert.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] After firing five officers, the city confirmed that it had removed two more officers from duty for their role in the encounter, one of whom fired a stun gun at Nichols.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in Pakistan, a powerful bombing ripped through a mosque in Peshawar, a northern provincial capital near the border with Afghanistan, killing at least 60 people and injuring at least 157.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The suicide bombing was the worst attack in the country in months and comes as violence near the border has been rising, especially against Pakistan's police and military.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the world's largest rainforest, where 400 billion trees constantly remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as part of the process of photosynthesis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, there's this theory that's been around for the last few decades, that if enough of the Amazon is cut down, it could cross a tipping point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And start to collapse into a degraded kind of savanna.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A Patrick of grasslands, stunted little forests and scrub.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It would be an ecosystem that does very little to compensate for the emissions created when we burn fossil fuels.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My name's Alex Quadros. In this week's Sunday Read, you'll be hearing my story about the Amazon's tipping point that I wrote for the New York Times Magazine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in 2022, I spent a couple of weeks following two scientists to see how the Amazon is changing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That actually parts of the rainforest are emitting more carbon than they're absorbing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those cliched, untouched, beautiful sections where centuries old trees have trunks that can be wider than a person is tall.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's funny because I realized that for all the time that I'd spent in the Amazon on previous reporting trips,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd never been to the areas that are barely touched by humans. It showed me what the Amazon can be, and it was honestly moving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In 2015, Erika watched as the embers from fires set to clear fields, something that farmers and ranchers do every year in the Amazon, started spreading into these miles-long arcs of fire that penetrated deep into the rainforest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of these massive old trees died, and vines and bamboo moved in, throwing the natural balance of species out of whack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But since the megafires in 2015, we've seen that's increasingly no longer the case.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And every time it burns, it's more prone to burning again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Before reporting this story, I still have this image of scientists as coldly rational. People who don't get emotionally involved with their work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But actually, Erica told me that scientists have their own personal tipping points when the situation feels so hopeless that they almost lose the will to continue working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At 62 years old, she could have actually retired two years ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what's kept her going is knowing that her employer, a Brazilian government agency,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has been so starved of resources that if she left, her lap could shut down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leaving no one there to study the Amazon's mysterious carbon emissions. So here's my article. Has the Amazon reached its tipping point? Read by Jonathan Davis.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well listen, it is so fun to be here on a wonderful summer Saturday here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For much of the past year, the war in Ukraine was mostly defined by Ukrainian success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Russia has hit back, throwing tens of thousands of draftees at the Ukrainian front lines, causing casualties on both sides to soar and forcing Ukrainians to come to terms with a new reality.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. And what about your family? Do you have a wife, kids?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you joined the military, uh, and you've been fighting. Where has the battle been most intense?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you ran out of ammunition and the Russians captured you, what would you do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you think the war would be over soon? At the beginning of it? When it first started?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello? Hi. Hi, Ira. How are you doing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can hear you, I can hear you. And, and, Ira, can you introduce yourself?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do know about Bahmut. Are you on the front lines in Bahmut?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Remember back for me to a time when you saved someone's life. Tell me that story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You said to your mom, how can I ask somebody to have coffee with me? Everybody's died. You mean because so many of your friends had died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About how many of your friends died in this war era?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Olga, I'm going to ask you some questions about Victor. How did you meet you and Victor?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Former film producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison Thursday for committing sex crimes in Los Angeles. He'll serve the sentence on top of the 23 year term he received in New York in 2020.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennis-Sketter, Shannon Lin, Rob Zipko, and Nina Feldman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was edited by Liz O'Balin with help from Lisa Chow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My colleague, Jim Tankersley, looks at which party is really behind the original problem of the country's ballooning debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jim, we are here to talk about the death ceiling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This annual dance, this fiscal foxtrot we do seemingly every year in this country and we are about to do it all


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So catch us up on where we are in this ugly showdown right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So right now we are in the very early phases of a slow moving but inevitable car crash which.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jim, you and I guess all of us will have to cover in a very predictable way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To cut through all the baloney and properly assign blame through good old fashioned


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, a very noble undertaking. So where did you begin?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So 2000 was the last time that our budget in the United States wasn't adding to our debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Jim, after Bill Clinton leaves office in 2000, this kind of halcyon year of balanced budget and no new debt, we get President Bush. So what happens to the debt under


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that brings us to Bush's successor, Democratic President Barack Obama. What does he do to the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, a stimulus three times as big as Obama's, if I'm remembering the numbers you used there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That stimulus is not covered by new taxes, thus adding to the debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, uh, I can't believe it. You're right. You totally got, you nailed it. There's a pattern here. There's a pattern. Okay, so at the end of these four presidencies that you evaluated, Jim, how does all this spending add up by party?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, Jim, talk us through the raw math of this tie game between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the US debt, which I have to say is genuinely a surprising conclusion to have reached.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A distance of about 300 billion dollars between the two parties, between the Democrats and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It gets muddy, but the bottom line is that both parties have contributed mightily to this national debt that has brought us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, and that's interesting because in this latest debt ceiling crisis that we are now in, Republicans are claiming, as you said earlier, that the reason they should hold the entire government hostage is because of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Excessive democratic spending that they say created this debt problem. And you have, I think, very clearly shown that that is just not


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think it's fair to say that Republicans haven't just contributed at least as much as Democrats to the debt. It's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also the case that they probably consider the spending that contributed to that debt that they approved to have been worthwhile and not a waste.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the popularity of all that debt creating spending.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Makes me wonder how we're supposed to be thinking about the very idea of America's death and whether it's something to be feared or frankly even worried about. The argument that's being made right now by Republicans is that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 31 trillion dollars in debt is just inherently bad and so out of control that it's worth threatening a financial crisis to reduce it. Is that a legitimate argument?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got it. You're saying that if we are worried about any kind of financial crisis,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The risk of that is far, far likelier from Congress not raising the debt ceiling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And potentially defaulting on our debt than it is from continuing as we have under these last four presidents to rack up more and more and more trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of debt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Republicans have decided to weaponize this question of raising the debt ceiling under Democratic presidents, not Republican presidents, despite having contributed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To that debt as much as Democrats and despite loving for the most part the programs and the tax cuts that led to that much debt. Is that just going to be a fact of life that pretty


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flawed and in some ways hypocritical Republican approach to the debt ceiling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or do the people that you talk to see a way out of this ugly cycle?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what you're saying is there are good faith debates to be had about how to lower the debt if we decide it's something we want to do, which we might, we might not, but we're not having those debates instead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're in this ugly, familiar, and very scary showdown mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Police said that the suspect attempted to carry out a shooting at a second dance hall nearby, but was stopped by people inside.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Said that officers did not yet know why the suspect targeted the two halls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At President Biden's invitation, federal investigators conducted a 13-hour search of his private home in Delaware on Friday, where they found additional classified documents


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The discovery and the search itself highlight how seriously the justice department is taking the issue of how the president handled classified material.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The department has already appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was edited by Mark George, contains original music by Marian Lozano, Alishaba Etube, and Sophia Landman, and was engineered by Chris Wood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six items they said that included some classification markings. Some go back as far as his time in the Senate. This drip, drip, drip just continues.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I needed to get the weapon away from him. I needed to take this weapon, disarm him, or else everybody would have died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I got the courage, I, I lunged at him with both my hands, grabbed the weapon, and we had a struggle. We struggled into the lobby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Trying to get this gun away from each other. Finally, at one point, I was able to pull the gun away from him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All elk. All the time. Only elk. Only elk. Well, it's us having conversations, so we usually go down some rabbit holes, but if you


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, it's good. We, uh, we've not got to do an in-person, in the same room, looking at each other podcast in a long time. Man, is that because of COVID or just because we're too busy? Probably, well, I thought you were going to say we're too lazy or we're too...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's been a while since we've got together and had time to sit down and podcast. Yeah. Well, here we are. It's going to snow tonight.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My parents just said go outside bare handed and learn to be tough. Oh really? No, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we didn't have chopper mittens. I mean, I saw you wearing your chopper mittens and I'm not going to lie, there was some envy that coursed through my veins for a minute. Envy that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's pretty far into your body.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you told me that you put those body warmers, you know, the instead of the hand warmers, you get the sticky body warmers. If you put them on your liver, it keeps you warmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I put one on my liver and that's the only thing that stays warm on me now is my liver. Well, you can do it there, you can do it anywhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Might have to detour somewhere. Yeah. Did you come over Lolo? Uh, no. We came, uh, we came a pretty scenic way. We dropped down, came through Stanley and over to Chalice and then down to Arco and I wanted to come up through Ennis, but I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had to wake him up when I saw a brand new antelope fawn next to the road, like little tiny bugger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and it's funny because when people send in the emails with questions,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, we, uh, you know, our Destination Elk, we put that together, but the Colorado film, I reached out to a good friend of mine, Ben Potter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Ben worked with us on The Linguist and he was the camera guy and the editor. Uh, Kana Outdoors is his company and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had always talked, man, we need to do this again. Cause that year, Ben had never been on an elk hunt before in 2016 and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Since then, the El Cuntin fire has been lit and fueled and it's a wildfire for Ben now and he's been out


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so we approached them and worked it out so Ben could go and film it and edit it and Sitka's gonna publish it. So we, uh, we actually just finished filming a little bit of B-roll stuff and some voiceover stuff last week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, kind of have a, a plan. I wouldn't say it's a solid plan, but if you're in the Bozeman area or you want to be in the Bozeman area in, uh, mid-August, I'll be doing an event at the Sitka Depot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, an Elkenian event on August 12th. And the plan right now is, uh, I think we're going to premiere the film there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then it'll be in person or online to be able to watch if you can't make it in person a day or two after that. So mid-August is what it's looking like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it'll be on the Elk101 YouTube channel after that. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cool. Well, there you have it. So that again, subject to change. I literally today this afternoon got my first look at the, uh, the draft of it and it's, we've packed a lot of elk action into a short film. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we do get a handful of emails about every day on it cause, you know, we talked about it. I waited 18 years to draw it. And then in Destination Elk, I said, Hey, stay tuned. We've got the Colorado hunt coming. And I think initially we'd talked like April, May timeframe of releasing it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I would have thought, cause today is the 23rd, Friday, June 23rd as we're sitting here recording this, and they usually do it on a Friday, just so they don't have to answer a bunch of questions for the next two days when people are like, why didn't I draw? Or, are you sure I'm unsuccessful?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they've been a little slower the last few years. I'm guessing it's going to be next week, which they say they'll send them out by I think July 9th is the date that they say, but it's usually in June. I don't think they've ever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made it into July, but my guess is it'll be next week, the last week of June. This is my year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every year people draw tags, so, and people I know, so I know that they actually give out tags, but they are not very, uh, selfless with those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was the guy wanting? Seven million or something? He said he lost out on that much revenue from them stepping over the, the corner there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Circuit gets a summary judgment or ruling in favor of those defendants. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then it would be precedent. You could go and know that you would win a future battle based on that decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only that, my hesitation and kind of the drawback that's ever kept me from doing it is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you have an outfitter that's doing drop camp hunts, they're probably also doing guided hunts. I mean, there aren't very many outfitters that would just do drop camp hunts only. And with that being the case,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are going out with somebody and taking them hunting as an outfitter on a guided hunt, you're probably going to go to the better areas. Which means that if an outfitter is doing drop camp hunts, he's probably not taking those clients into the prime areas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably true. And that's not a dissuasion for anybody not to do it. The idea of somebody packing. I mean, I would love to team up with an outfitter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And say, Hey, if we're nine miles back in and you're, you've got a camp in this area, could we get ahold of you and have you come pack our elk out on your horses? If you're coming back into here anyway, that would be appealing for sure. That would be appealing I think to everybody. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and that's one of the things we talk about is we start in the bottom, but we're hiking up. And so what happens when you get up on a ridge and you bugle off the backside and elk answers down below you first thing in the morning. And it's always just a matter of playing the wind. I mean, if an elk answers 200 yards right below you on the same hillside, you probably don't have a chance.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But hopefully he answers down below you on the other side of the draw on a finger ridge and you've got a little bit of a barrier there with that draw that's pulling your wind down and away from him. So, I mean, you have to plan the approach and the attack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Based on the wind and hopefully again, if he's directly below you and he answers right then the first time, it's probably over. Not much you can do, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're up on a ridge top and you're hiking that ridge and you're bugling down into the canyon, typically you've got fingerages you can use, uh, as that wind's going down, that fingerage is going to be kind of a buffer and a divider. If you can get on one side of it and the elk's on the other, you can, you can keep the wind from going to the elk. Yeah. Wow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I get there and get the elk bugling, I don't want to blow him out first thing. I want to give myself at least a little bit of a chance. And if you aren't paying attention to the wind and using it in everything you do and every plan you make, you're just setting yourself up to fail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We should have Donnie on here to answer that. Donnie, when we first started hunting together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then draw and he's like, well, it's going to see me. And so, I mean, it's, it's a tough one because if you wait too long, the Elks there, they seem to have that sixth sense when they walk out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that's too late. You don't want to wait until then. You don't want to wait until the elk is in your shooting lane. And a lot of my setups are picked based on here's where I think the elk is going to come and I'm going to get a shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I need to make sure I've got areas where I can draw. So he's gonna have to come behind that big tree, or he's gonna have to go behind that brush pile, and that's gonna give me a chance to draw. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know that there's a too early or too late. There definitely is a too early and too late. I don't know if there's a black and white answer. I just make sure that as that elk's coming in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because elk will stop and rake a tree for four minutes and, you know, you just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like to draw and hold for less than 10 seconds. So it's when he gets close to that shooting lane when I want to draw.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And usually when you think I'm not going to draw because it's too early, by then it's too late.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean the setup is critical and that's what there was a,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've had opportunities, we've missed a shot, but we've never killed an elk. What's the number one piece of advice? And that's always the hardest thing. Somebody says, what's the number one piece of advice for a new hunter? What's the number one piece of advice for someone who's hunted, but never killed an elk? Cause it's tough. I mean, it's, it is situational. I could tell you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you've got to obey the wind, but you go out there and you haven't shot your bow all year and you miss a 20 yard chip shot. Well, shooting your bow would have been the most important advice I could give you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you aren't getting him inside 40 yards. It's that last 80 yards. It's always the hard part. So the setup, uh, two person with a collar and shooter, the collar back behind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unless he sees an elk. Right. So you want to hide down over a little rise or behind some brush where that elk has to come into the shooting lane before he can get a visual. So I mean that setup, that's part of the setup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other part is the elk has to be comfortable. When he's coming in, he has to be comfortable. He's not going to probably bury his head down on the ground to climb through a big mass of alders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he can't hear, he can't see and all of a sudden he's going to step out and put himself in danger.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm saying there's a perfect little bench right there. I bet he walks right off that hillside on that game trail, comes right to that bench and he's going to stop right there and look over the hill to see if he can see the caller as the shooter. I need to get right here so I'm able to shoot on that trail as he's coming down. So I do analyze.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably more than anything else that set up of where is the elk most likely to come in? Where am I most likely to get shot at him?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't move unless I feel the elk is moving away. Or if he, you know, there may be a time where he comes into 60 yards,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he turns quartering away from him and starts raking a tree.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I might say I can get another 10 yards closer and get up to that next tree. He's making noise and so I might take one step and look. Okay, he's not looking. I'll take another step.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if I can get a tree in between me and him, I'll be even more bold in closing the distance. But that's really the only time as a shooter I'm moving is if he hangs up and starts raking or something where I feel I can make some movement and get away with it. If he's just standing there scanning, I can't even draw my bow. I can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a, there's, it's fun to beat somebody, it's fun to play the game, but chess takes a lot more strategy, a lot more thinking, and because of that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it comes together, I think, I wouldn't say it's more rewarding, but it's a different kind of reward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 20-30 yards away, the bull bugles, you're right there in his bubble, and it's just a next level. And like I say, you know, it's not like it's a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't ever want to say that archery is more rewarding than rifle or that it's harder or anything because that compares the two and it makes somebody that rifle hunts feel like, you know, well, archery hunting, they think they're elite, but it's just a different kind of rewarding. Like it's when you said if I, if I needed to put meat in the freezer, I'm going rifle hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bow hunting during the rut, I struggled to locate bull elk in the post-rut. Like that's my...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My week, I know they're there, but I just struggled. I think it's a patience thing. I just want to move until I see one instead of being smart and saying he's here. I'm going to sit and wait until he pops out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I think that just, that, that settles it. You need to come and elk hunt with me in November.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I walk out on a ridge, I bugle, if one answers, there's one there. If one doesn't answer, in my mind, there's not one there, and I need to go somewhere else. So, you know, I find them with a bugle tube.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Middle of July, boots on the ground, you find a big herd of elk, they might not be there in six weeks or eight weeks. You know, there's a good chance they won't be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] E-scouting, you aren't going to find elk, you're going to find areas. So I think for me, I use e-scouting more to find backup areas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is the area I want to hunt. If there's no elk there, here's an area that looks good because it has, you know, feed, it has water, it has north facing slopes to bed on. So I'm just looking for those elements and I've got eight different spots that I've e-scouted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One for every day. So if I get in there and there's no elk, I know where I'm going because if you don't know where you're going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not going to work out. So I use e-scouting for backup areas. If I go physically scouting, I'm not necessarily looking for elk. I'm looking for signs of previous ruts. I'm looking for rubs, looking for wallows. I'm looking for sign that the elk are there in September. And if they happen to be there right then too, that's a, that's an added bonus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or if you're looking only at fire maps and you see, oh, this burned in 2006, it's probably all grown back up now and I wonder what it looks like and you don't have historical imagery.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you show up there and it still looks like the moon because it's never grown back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's just that historical imagery helps you see how the fires reacted. How's the area recovered after a fire? What's the area look like on a dry year versus a wet year? You know, it just gives you a clearer picture that's easier to compare to what you're going to see when you go in there today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Versus just guessing that, well at one point in time it looked like this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is like a investigator level, you know, where we've got our, our basements with yarn going from picture to picture and little pins on it and we're trying to connect all these dots with all these different tools.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know that there's elk down in the field right now, right? I'm like, yeah, but they won't be there in three weeks. Like, how do you know? And you know, it's just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A compass and a box of matches and now we're sitting there, you know, we can't even, we got three digital devices now to get us through the woods and help us monitor what the elk are doing and checking trail cameras and we still aren't any better as hunters than we were. But it makes it more fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope you draw your Idaho tag in November so I can, I can be a third wheel and come learn how to find out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm getting to an age where a Cadillac camp is sounding better and better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll tell you after, uh, after using llamas a couple times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, they are the ticket. If you're going to use a pack animal or if you're going back in and just want to carry a comfortable camp and don't want to have to haul elk out on your back, which I'll be 48 in a couple weeks, which I know I'm not, I'm not caught up to you yet, but I'm, I'm thinking


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I am all about hunting wolves. Somebody asked me today, you're uh, you're, you're figuring these wolves out. And I'm like, I wouldn't say I'm figuring them out because they are a smart animal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I have figured out a few things to at least give me more opportunities. And they're like, do you enjoy it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I think I, I wouldn't say I enjoy it as much as elk hunting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the chess, you want to talk about chess versus checkers. Hunting wolves I think is chess to, it makes elk hunting feel like checkers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's for us. If we're hunting, we'll do that. Be like, hey, one per whoever shot is going to have to start shuttling it out. And if we get another one, then the two of us can do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yeah, there's just sometimes where, you know, we talk about the importance of getting it cooled immediately, getting the hide off. That initial cooling is so important. And then that first night is when you can tell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We shot an elk and it was super hot and it was a big elk and we packed out the hind quarter


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every elk I shoot in September now, I just, if I don't bone it out, I filet that right down there, drop it open, put a stick in there, you know, six inches or so, and lay that open, and within fifteen minutes that bone is cold to touch.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've had elk that have been hanging for three hours that I open up and it's almost still too hot to even touch that bone. It just retains that heat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In there. So, the smaller the pieces are, the easier it is for that heat to dissipate. So if you have to bone it out and hang it on sticks to let it cool, it'll cool in 10 minutes. Right. And then you can feel it and be like, okay, I can throw this in a game bag and the heat's gone from it. It's gonna be, it's gonna be okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you want to simplify it, take an orange.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when the peel is on the orange, you look at it, how much surface area is there? You can measure that.