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Is it Too Late To Stop The AI Takeover? | Unsubscribe Podcast 250

08 Feb 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?

0.031 - 1.093 Unknown

You can hear me on camera.

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2.315 - 3.998 Richard Ryan

You're the bad guys.

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4.68 - 11.071 Unknown

You used to do sketch comedy too. Sketch comedy and stand up for a while, yeah. Do the N-word joke you have. You're getting real red right now.

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11.252 - 15.84 Brandon Herrera

No, it's the cedar fever. Oh, I see. The cedar fever activated by racism.

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15.88 - 37.378 Donut Operator

Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous. And Brandon, his hair is fucking fabulous. And Donut, a dark joke disposition. And there's a fat electrician. Welcome to Unsubscribe.

38 - 42.589 Richard Ryan

Hey, really quick, before the episode starts, we have a special little giveaway with Mr. Richard Ryan.

42.71 - 50.265 Unknown

I actually don't sell these books anymore. It's the limited edition Matt Black hardcover. So I got like a thousand copies I'm going to give away to viewers. How do you want to do it?

50.325 - 57.26 Richard Ryan

Head over to BunkerBranding.com, buy any two shirts, and we will send one of these for free back at you. Do me a favor.

57.42 - 73.491 Unknown

If you like it, maybe leave me a review somewhere. Where? It doesn't matter. Be direct. Amazon. They just write a note. It doesn't matter. Just let me know you appreciate all the hard work that went into this. Their diary. Love it. Big fan. Now back to the show. Gabe. Give a... Gabe.

Chapter 2: How did Richard Ryan get involved in YouTube content creation?

243.67 - 246.633 Brandon Herrera

Oh, yeah. I feel like half of them are going to be targeted, but let's go.

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246.694 - 270.268 Unknown

No, no. Come on. Come on. All right. So we might as well start with hot takes. insider trading or insider trading when it comes to politics and everything. I just feel like my hot take is, no, they should be able to and they should make a shit ton of money while they're in there. The problem is... The incentives aren't aligned. They're misaligned.

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270.508 - 279.401 Unknown

They're making money while their constituents are losing money. So how about we structure things in a way where if their constituents are winning, they're winning.

0

279.841 - 296.545 Unknown

If their constituents are losing the purchasing power of their dollar and their housing's going up and all these other things, bailouts and different industries and stuff like that, then they lose their money and their equity and these other things as well. The consequences for them, I think, should be equal to the constituents. And I think they're just...

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296.525 - 314.012 Unknown

If you ban people from insider trading, okay, then they'll get people to prop up their campaigns, however they're going to do it, through super PACs or whatever. And then they'll grind it out for four years, eight years, or however long they're in there. Then they'll get a nice job when they're out.

314.072 - 320.322 Brandon Herrera

That's what they do now. No, no, that's what I'm saying. They all get big, cushy, million-dollar lobbying jobs and stuff like that.

320.302 - 341.453 Brandon Herrera

Well, actually one of the things that I had thought about and these are things that you propose and like I'd have to talk to people about it whether or not it's actually like a Legitimate thing and plus it would I would probably never pass a vote because you know people typically don't vote against their own interest It's the shitty part But I had considered like what if you capped the salary because the the salary for for congressmen I forget it is like 130 a year or something like that.

341.574 - 347.242 Brandon Herrera

Yeah, what if you capped it at? Whatever the medium salary is in your district.

347.302 - 347.322

I

Chapter 3: What was the impact of the YouTube adpocalypse?

765.484 - 786.602 Brandon Herrera

When I was watching early YouTube in the days of you, FPS Russia, stuff like that, it was like your tech assassin videos and stuff like that. I just remember it was so, for the time, this is where you have dudes with a... 360P, you know, $400 Best Buy camera propped up in the woods, like, I'm going to shoot some cans.

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787.183 - 792.531 Brandon Herrera

And you're doing like Hollywood production, like video assets and all like it looks like it belonged on Discovery.

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792.751 - 799.921 Richard Ryan

You are the one of the first slow-mo or were you the first slow-mo individual to use it, especially for firearms? No, I think I was.

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800.362 - 817.562 Unknown

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I think at the time, the only big ones were maybe Will It Blend? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Will It Blend? And then FPS Russia. Will It Blend? I forgot. I forgot that existed. Yeah.

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818.625 - 818.725

Yeah.

820.78 - 829.337 Brandon Herrera

Man, this is like, oh, that's YouTube. There's a lot of people in the audience won't even remember this. Like it's before their time.

829.678 - 861.273 Unknown

Yeah. Yeah. And then that kind of branched off. You got the people who really kind of doubled down on that was, I think, TechRacks. And then Demolition Ranch kind of went from specialty shotguns to like .50 cals and stuff like that and everything. Pour one out for the homie. Yeah, yeah. Dude, come on now. That's wild to see like Inception and the whole arc and then just like, yeah, it's wild.

861.313 - 868.503 Brandon Herrera

Retirement. Him from being a real young guy to being a successful family man who's just like, all right, peace out.

868.523 - 888.992 Unknown

When I left Los Angeles to launch that media company with Verizon and Hearst, I actually came through here and I stopped to visit with Matt. And we filmed a few episodes where we like duct tape, I don't know, some shotguns together or something.

Chapter 4: How is AI influencing the future of warfare?

1146.238 - 1159.144 Unknown

They were actually starting the coming together for the station. So that was Phil DeFranco, Kasim G and all these guys coming together to create one of the first multi-channel networks. Every new name is just a flashbang into like...

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1159.124 - 1184.575 Unknown

oh yeah like 10 15 years ago lisa nova i met philip because of you yeah like it's all those weird rams yeah i always forget about that and um yeah and so they were like hey look you know you should um you should do your own thing and it's like well i don't want to i don't want to take away from what it is that we're doing here i don't want to go from making sketch comedy to doing other sketch comedy stuff like i want to keep contributing to that so it's a hard 180 from this

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1184.555 - 1201.639 Unknown

What do I enjoy? And I literally sat down. I was like, what could I do every single week that I wouldn't get tired of? What would be evergreen? What would constantly have new stuff coming in? That's where I kind of came out tech assassin and the breakdown because there was always new movies, new video games, new gadgets and shit like that coming out.

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1201.719 - 1206.546 Unknown

And then I would always have something new and I wouldn't get burned out, which I did. Uh, and then

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1206.526 - 1222.527 Brandon Herrera

Yeah, it happens. It happens. And editor, if you could put up just like a little clip of like the tech assassin stuff. Like I really want people to understand like the assets and whatnot involved. Because it wasn't just a dude in a field with a gun. Like it was very like in depth. Somewhat thoughtful. Yeah.

1222.507 - 1230.625 Brandon Herrera

Well, I just hear you're adding like visual effects and shit, which like nobody was doing in the, at least in the gun space. And I don't think anybody's really doing that now, frankly. Yeah.

1230.745 - 1252.462 Unknown

Well, I mean, it's kind of hard to invest that kind of bandwidth in any way. There's no point in diminishing return with that. It's like... You just keep getting demonetized and throttled with your distribution and stuff. It's so frustrating. Yeah, it turns out they don't like us very much. No, no, no. It's weird. It's very weird.

1253.163 - 1276.126 Unknown

It's like, you know, the chip on my shoulder with that was that they would, you know, they invested $25,000 into my channel in the first NextUp. Who's they? Google. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I was part of YouTube's first NextUp class. That was 2012, I think. And they flew us out to... What is NextUp?

1276.146 - 1277.287 Richard Ryan

I don't even remember that. I don't know either.

Chapter 5: What insights does Richard share about AI and its implications?

3789.374 - 3792.679 Brandon Herrera

I don't wear uncomfortable shirts. This is comfy as .

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3792.699 - 3814.862 Richard Ryan

That's why we wear them all the time. So Poncho's got a bunch of great styles. The original Western denim and ultra light. If you're looking for the perfect shirt, something breathable and stands out in a good way, give Poncho a try. Go to ponchooutdoors.com slash unsub and get $10 off your first order. That's P-O-N-C-H-O outdoors.com slash unsub. That's it.

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3815.042 - 3825.748 Richard Ryan

It's crazy when you start learning how AI works or iterations and then how it learns. You're like, oh, okay. So I just have to be very targeted and it will refine, refine, refine.

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3825.728 - 3832.763 Brandon Herrera

I mean, even on a basic level, just in the last six months, if you've noticed, AI, even just image generation has gotten faster.

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3832.903 - 3850.41 Richard Ryan

Way faster. So that's what I'm saying. That is because of iterations. Time done. AI is just getting smarter each time. That is one iteration. It's getting more efficient, I think, too. Well, it's iterations. That's all that is. It's like I've learned this once. I've learned this twice. I've learned this three times.

Chapter 6: How is AI influencing our perception of reality?

3850.47 - 3851.431 Richard Ryan

I've learned this four times.

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3852.352 - 3874.062 Unknown

NVIDIA is making that money, though, too. They're putting those GPUs online. This is the scariest thing I've seen recently. Do you see the ice pulling the baby away from the mama? No, yeah. You guys see that one? Perfect example. It was shared 11 million times on Facebook, and it was a nice agent taking a baby from a mom out of a car.

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3874.042 - 3878.452 Unknown

There's a third arm coming from, yeah, completely AI generated.

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3878.472 - 3884.185 Brandon Herrera

I mean, we're reaching levels of disinformation that no generation before us has ever had to deal with.

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3884.205 - 3910.03 Unknown

So here's the thing. I got a hot take on that, too. You know, I think that the Second Amendment doesn't just apply to firearms. I think that the Second Amendment applies to any tools at which you're able to defend yourself against tyranny. And, you know, I think that digital warfare in and of itself is the threat vector more so than, you know, an invasion.

3910.491 - 3926.556 Unknown

I mean, now, granted, I can go on a rant on an invasion, too, because I think the humanoid robotics thing is going to be an insane Trojan horse. Because to my understanding, you're an investor in that as well. Yeah. Dude, the irony of it is I am hedged 50-50.

Chapter 7: What are the ethical concerns surrounding AI influencers?

3927.177 - 3934.89 Unknown

I'm like individual rights absolutist, but I also know that this is the path of least resistance and a lot of people are going to lean on convenience.

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3935.732 - 3954.004 Richard Ryan

Trojan horse is the best verbiage I have heard for that because I told them about how if AI took over, it would – It would show in one way. You would never know AI is in control and then trying to do something bad until it's way too fucking late.

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3954.024 - 3954.464 Donut Operator

Oh, yeah.

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3954.484 - 3979.593 Richard Ryan

It is that Trojan horse of, oh, we don't know. It's going to just... It's going to, oh, find a server farm. Oh, we can control it. And it'll be... AI will never run away from us. We're in control. OK, then it learns that then it outsources its mind to a server farm and now it's like, OK, well, I'm going to live here and now I'm going to find new iterations to get around this control.

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3980.034 - 3981.977 Richard Ryan

But I'm going to just make it look like

3981.957 - 4004.334 Unknown

COVID or something like that or it's mankind made and then I'll come in later dude It's intellectual masturbation to think that you're smarter than like so like the point at which machine learning or an AI is recursive in its learning like And again, different people debate on general intelligence versus super intelligence and everything.

4004.834 - 4029.49 Unknown

Regardless, at the point at which it's smarter than the collective humanity or any one person alive, you can't – if you're an ant, you can't understand – a human stepping on you or coming with ant killer or something like that. You're just trying to live your life. You only know how to go left or right. Go get your food and do this.

4029.951 - 4038.306 Unknown

By definition, super intelligence will have threat vectors and understanding of things that we cannot comprehend.

4038.286 - 4056.865 Unknown

And I think for most people, they're so egotistical and thinking that they're smarter than the average person or smarter than this or that, that you can't see that the threat is going to be so great that you're not going to be able to comprehend it, literally comprehend it, because it's going to be so much smarter than you.

Chapter 8: How can we navigate the digital landscape responsibly?

4146.371 - 4166.235 Unknown

Yeah. If you don't mind talking about it. Yeah, please. Yeah, that's great. You know, again, I think I'm an individual rights absolutist in so many different ways because I think that the further we get in this technological progression, the more we're going to really need to shore up those rights as best as we can. Yeah.

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4166.215 - 4186.776 Unknown

And when it comes to AI and like these diffusion models, specifically a diffusion model. So most people are familiar with a language model. A large language model, um, is an AI model that's trained on human language. Um, and it creates pattern recognition based off of, you know, the probability of the next word.

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4186.936 - 4192.802 Unknown

And it can kind of sound smart and understanding, but it's really just a probability and what the next word's going to be.

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4193.122 - 4195.265 Brandon Herrera

That's kind of like the middle button when you're typing on your iPhone.

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4195.285 - 4218.328 Unknown

Correct. That's exactly it. So that's a very distilled down way, a crude way of putting it. But nevertheless, a diffusion model, if you've ever gotten a mid journey or something like that, a diffusion model is just a bunch of pixels that's trying to make sense of the text that you gave it. And it's creating an image based off of the understanding around those. And so.

4218.308 - 4238.415 Unknown

My concern is while the internet, like very much social media, YouTube and everything was very novel in the beginning. It was us. It was the creators against the big industry, against the studios. Like we're fighting the man like for distribution. We're going to make movies and put them online. The barrier to entry is zero now. It's zero. It becomes the Wild West.

4238.755 - 4267.355 Unknown

But then industry and government comes in and says, okay, we got to rein this thing in. How do we do this in a way that we can keep control of this thing from getting out of hand or the people getting too much freedom from it? My concern is that language models and diffusion models will be... heavily. So there's not many open source, there's open weighted language models and stuff.

4267.375 - 4287.955 Unknown

So an open weight, like, you can change the emphasis on something, right? So like, the deep seek the the Chinese model, you can't say, you know, make me an image as easy ping as a Winnie the Pooh or something like that, because it's open weight, it's not an open model, you can't change the fundamental code base around it. But

4287.935 - 4316.946 Unknown

But in the future, I feel like as these things consolidate, you're going to have your Apple or your OpenAI and your Gemini, and you'll have the three big ones. And then they'll have the monopolies, and then they can start leaning on the consumer in a way where it really infringes on their ability to do things. Because look at how much does various AI technologies help assist you

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