Episode 37 · 35:50
Snooze Like Snorlax: Sleep, Dreams and AI
Sleep, vivid dreams and AI become one connected question: what can patterns tell us about ourselves? Dan and Tom compare the appeal of measuring rest with the risk of turning every night into a score.
They explore whether AI can help identify themes and habits while keeping interpretation grounded in context rather than treating a dream—or a device—as an oracle.
The useful bits
What to take with you
- Sleep data should support how you feel and function, not overrule it.
- A recurring dream can prompt reflection without requiring a literal explanation.
- Look for patterns across time before reacting to a single unusual night.
- AI can organise observations, but personal and medical context still matter.
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Transcript
Transcript generated from YouTube captions. Dan/Tom speaker attribution is AI-assisted and may occasionally be incorrect.
And based on the amount of sleeping you do and the sounds that it takes in more Pokemon when you wake up more Pokemon will reveal itself AI saved my life Rob and Ryan Reynolds the owners of wrexham AFC um telling me [Music] oh welcome welcome welcome so um welcome to another podcast today we're wearing caps we're both wearing caps backwards and forwards I have a preference for backwards caps these days which is bad because then everybody behind me can see The Branding but not.
In front of me so for some reason I just I prefer it I've actually been thinking I want to figure out if there is a better shape hat for my head and if there was an app that could scan my face and based off the shape of my face could tell me what perfect hat that I should wear because I think so these these hats are like the ones that have the um like this like the slope right but you know.
The ones that have the like the high top and the flatter things because these are like curved right the flatter hats I think that might be better for me so like the American like ones that are like a bigger front yeah so I'd like to find an app that could measure my face and tell me the perfect style hat to wear um and then print kind of thing right like hats on demand and you could choose the right hat for your head because they.
Do it for like you know like trilby's like proper fancy hats they'll be like hey this hat looks better on your head or like the size of it or whatever or maybe a cowboy hat or so I'm like could there be like an elevated thing that happens to be a hat shop um in the O2 Arena so maybe I should go and be like hey what hat do you recommend for this head I guess before AI it was probably just.
Someone that actually understands hats and hats yeah because there must be somebody because um people understand like face shapes and body shapes right and what you should wear color Stripes blah blah blah you know yeah um so surely that also works with head sizes I hope so no slightly this is a definitely uh an interesting topic for the Pod well let me jump into the second interesting topic following the human body we've gone from heads to head on a pillow.
Sleeping there is a new app so you're familiar with Pokemon right Pokemon had Pokemon go do you remember Pokemon go which is basically an ability to um it will use your actual uh location and you would hunt Pokemon in the real world through like an AR augmented reality app they've actually um people still do that you reckon I think they do yeah so there was this massive story out in America where there was loads of people running around.
Central Park to find Charizard which is like one of their most rare um or rarest Pokemon now like couple months back they've released a sleeping app so you remember the character Snorlax I think it is I think it's not a lot which is this big sleeping dude you use it to track your sleeping but it has to be on so you say hey I'm gonna go to sleep I have the phone on I turn it upside down so the screen is.
Not shining and it basically listens to you sleeping and based on the amount of sleeping you do and the sounds that it takes in more Pokemon when you wake up more Pokemon will reveal itself so I'm like this is so bizarre so I'm like there is a pattern here like of basically using some sort of human metric AKA like your physical location or you running around somewhere right now they're using sleep um and collecting that data and the.
Narrative is that like oh we're doing sleep research on Pokemon and you need to help us and the more that you sleep the more that we understand how Pokemon say or something something so it's like this research kind of like um Professor roach type thing and loads of people are using it so I downloaded it because I'm always curious with these things I started to like see what's what and it's like yeah you literally have to turn it on and basically put it next to.
Your bed and have it like actually like active so not like sleep mode not like turn off the iPhone like actually active um and it would listen to your sleep now it does say how do you know it's not subliminal messaging like talking to you to see you won't know any more Pokemon cards you won't know so I'm like how do how do these ideas come about like blending something to a human metric um I find is fascinating again any sort.
Of intellectual property like Pokemon people are like addicted to kind of like getting more Pokemon in the whole like setup is already there so I'm like what else what else can you like measure to be able to reveal more of something um you know like you can measure every time you burn your food yeah yeah like every time you you lose weight do you see more Pokemon like anytime you that I've noticed that um certain apps can track the nutrition and the nutritional.
Values which actually can then be in your health segment within your iPhone so could it be like every time you have vitamin D or vitamin C or whatever whatever like a particular Pokemon turns up or something I'm like so fascinating how you're again nobody had been running around as as when they had Pokemon go with the augmented reality stuff right so that was a really positive thing that basically encouraged a bunch of people to run around so this sleep one so.
Fascinating I have no idea what they're going to do with the data it definitely means that people are gonna have like high usage right because they're going to have it on for eight hours seven hours six hours ten hours of like sleeping around like sleeping around with it so LOL um sorry the internet's funny people with IP are funny like again it's just another way to get Pokemon into your brain another way to kind of like Pokemon alarm clock because that's technically.
What it is right it listens to you sleeping but you can set an alarm in the app so then it would wake you up probably with some sort of Pokemon noise because they've got all the IP so I'm like that's so so fascinating so fast man I like how you're on point as well because is um where is Pokemon originally from is it Japan Japan because it feels like I'm watching some sort of Japan movie because when you're.
Talking you'd stop and then oh is there a delay yeah yeah we're on point it feels like you're dubbed because you must be speaking to the Japanese style so I've not set this up in time but what I was hoping to do is join and maybe I'll do it next week Join one of these calls as an avatar so there's this app which is essentially like Tick Tock but the person in the videos is not a human it's an avatar.
Version right it's kind of like emojis like apple emojis it's an avatar so I can create this Avatar and then I can memoji style like talk and stuff and Avatar will like talk and move and things as if it's a live feed right so I can do Tick Tock s videos as that Avatar so I was thinking it would be great if one time I was the Avatar in here because you can attach it to OBS which is um a streaming.
Um piece of piece of software so then hopefully I could stream dream okay that into Riverside and then it would basically be my audio but the Avatar speaking live so I'm like super fascinating again if you think of all these like introvert Gamers people who love characters if I could be a Pokemon like if I could be Charizard in a vlog like or in a video or on my socials then one I might be more comfortable sharing like.
Stuff or being there and I could build a community in the very same way that people go to Comic-Con which is essentially a convention hall of like board games or computer games or like any sort of games or TV and film where people get dressed up and certain people there's a certain section of people that get dressed up as um like human-sized animals like foxes and stuff like fox costumes and things so I'm like uh so fascinating this like.
Technology Ai and just like the cleverness of things so it's all running just off your iPhone and it's just looking at you and translating you into this Avatar so there's social videos of these avatars I'm like oh this is so fascinating again on this podcast we're very Pro AI because we see all the benefits and the um and The Innovation and stuff don't say that because in 10 years time when they review our content and then we realize we don't like it.
Anymore I will always I will always be on like the enjoying AI side of things for sure I'll say that now it's a prediction they say you always have to have it like go to the podcast and content always works where you've got a hard line thing and I'm like AI is great AI is amazing and then you should be like easily persuaded though like so you're staunching your kind of like opinion but you can be persuaded so I'm like yeah AI.
Is amazing so what you tagline AI saved my life it's definitely an enhancing for sure so what's cooking up in your Dome well you did the uh a tangent of hat had sleeping then Japan and jumped up which I was gonna go sleeping okay oh yes so I have to actually take a step back because you went at a different angle than I was anticipating which is fine um so I had a fun dream the other day it.
Is nothing of that much value but I just thought it's more just interesting sure I had a dream of Rob and Ryan Reynolds the owners of rexham AFC um telling me to let people come into this room me and a bunch of other people to let people come into this room and then shoot oh no and I was like caveat but it was weird because it was like it felt like it was it is as if you're in a.
Live CoD game so it wasn't even if you're feeling like you were killing anyone it was more you just killing Bots or something um and it was funny because it was like or Not the Killing part but it's like two waves came in but then on the third one he said um don't shoot yet so it's like okay because I think we all had earpieces in but then I spotted um best friend um so then I wandered over to him and I.
Was like anyone that with these ear pieces in has got a live gun so that could go off at any moment so he's like right I'm going I'm going to take my family and just like went straight out so I was like sweet I saved one person and then I woke up well firstly we love Rex Smith's AFC we love Rob and Ryan and we love the Sony podcast and this has nothing to do with our opinion of them.
But somehow you must have thought did you watch some Call of Duty YouTube videos or something to like instill that seed in your brain so I I did watch John Wayne literally yeah so so that could have that's the Inception that on top of keeping up with um Robin Ryan over in um America so you've inceptions I guess that you've been inceptioned by Robin Ryan's personalities and also yeah it's there like the hotel looking after me as yeah.
And you're like the security guard and there's what 10 10 20 other security guards and there's what 50 people or is it like a 2-3 security guards and there's like 10 people I'm not entirely sure it sort of felt like those five to ten teams but then you'd let in about 10 to 20 people at a time as if it's like waves of people it's it's it's it's it's so interesting and I bet you felt that it was quite Vivid and.
Very nice of you just to tell one person and not the whole room like hey everybody get out it's a trap priorities right you don't want to Stampede yeah I think I think the weird thing is it just felt like everyone else was like a bot to some extent and it must have brought the realism of like oh I actually recognized someone in this read this isn't okay yeah so it brought you into reality the fact that you recognize somebody so then.
You were able to adjust to be like hang on a minute this is morally wrong I'm gonna readjust which is interesting because actually a lot of my dreams I have zero control over um I it's it's as if I'm watching a movie but through my eyes but I don't have control over my body so the fact that that I can sort of I don't know if I changed it or I trusted my body's memory in knowing who that person is if if I so.
I agree I I also don't I can't control my dreams but usually if I'm able to it's because I've had some sort of like crazy Super Saiyan level like um like fight to be able to control something so I'm kind of like I wonder if again because we always love talking about like the Deep narrative to things I'm like what does that represent and basically you were able to overcome that in your dream which is a representation of you overcoming.
Something in real life because you basically had the the Mind Focus to be able to like control your dreams so then it's basically your body's telling you even know you're trapped in this situation where you're forced to basically kill people you do have an aspect of control and you're able to save people now even though it's a difficult situation so I'm like What's the deeper meaning potentially of is this you psycho of psychology subconsciously overcoming something which is a difficult situation yeah.
Because you can control it I've been watching those um Diaries of a CEO recently the last two um I've seen two I don't know if they're the last two I think the last one was a will I am one which I was interesting and then the other one was a guy that I think used to work with Google um and it's like warning everyone of AI and but basically saying we're all no we're all doomed but we have to do.
Something about it vibes um but it was interesting because I think with Will i Am because Stephen Bartlett seems even though he's engaged with AI he seems very fearful of it but then it was interesting seeing where I am because he was like well imagine the first person that started a fire loads of people would be like oh that could cook something but there's the odd percentage that we like oh that could burn down though it's a village yeah.
And then it would bend down and then you'd create a car most people like oh it's helpful for transport someone else is like I could run people over with and it's like the like with everything he's like ai's clusters are tools just as like a car just as like a um yeah fire so the bit that we should be worried about is is the people aspect of whose hands is it falling into um but I guess what Bartlett was trying to.
Communicate is what happens if it because I guess with a tool you need a person using the power of Zed tool fire car whatever there's an element of I'm using this tool so then the trust is in the person but obviously if AI becomes that entity and then he's like I'm going to use cryptocurrency to bring down the world or whatever but it's one of those things it's sort of like I watched um Age of Ultron uh The Avengers one which.
I don't know if it's the second or third or whatever and it's very is going on similar topics of basically you've got one robot that wants to destroy everything because it's like what's the point people like it's gone through history it's like yeah people are the problem and then you've got another one that's a little bit more developed and a little bit more compassionate and it's like no but we should still let the people have a choice if they want to kill people that's fair.
Enough but a lot of them do do good um you just have the odd one or two that then drags people into the wars and stuff like that um and again I guess it's it's weird to think that film was I don't know it's probably like 10 years now thinking about it um to then be like well we're sort of in those mitts of what the people are saying about Ai and the advancements and and how do we regulate.
It it reminds me of two things um one is World coin and I'll come back to that one the second one is isn't there a film with Christian Bale in it maybe it's not Christian Bell or Tom um Tom Cruise where it's basically they have these three um three kind of like human like super intelligent humans that they've basically got hooked up to this machine and their dreams essentially are predictions of crimes that are going to happen and basically what happens is.
There's this police force that stop crimes before they happen because they've been predicted by these three individuals that dream them up so what happens is this police guy let's say it's Christian Bale because I can't remember who actually is let's say that it's him like one day the three like superhumans in this like floating water tank have a dream about him killing somebody so what they do is like cool we've got our new our new like Target list we need.
To stop this guy so basically he then is trying to run away from that being caught and because he's like I'm not going to do this this doesn't make sense kind of thing um and I think AI is very much embedded in uh for example policing right if they use AI to predict crime then the difficulty is is like if you are biased to begin with and you are arresting more black people for example then it will predict that black people are going to.
Create more crimes now it all depends on if you are doing that in an actual genuine Fair Way or if there's a higher probability of something uh based on personal um prejudices kind of thing like a Prejudice of an individual or a group of individuals which we know is is true so it's like yeah you want to remove it from any sort of predictive um things but then I'll spin it into this other thing one one person is.
Basically taking all the cameras the police police are wearing in the states and running it through an AI model to basically pull out uh Trends on when you can de-escalate things so what what um what works and what doesn't work so for example the person that asks more questions is likely to de-escalate a situation right the person that explains themself more aka the police person the policewoman or the policeman that explains themselves more have better outcomes in the video and then it's like.
Basically females are always better at de-escalation and so forth so like can we put more female police officers so they're using that data that's being collected to sift through it like big data style to then be able to coach and educate police forces to be able to have a better relationship with the community and have better outcomes right with basically less crime and so forth so my that's basically like one we could basically do it to predict crime which.
Probably is going to have bad things because again we've had skewed input and then the other thing is like can we like enhance officers and train officers so the chief of the precinct will be able to have this like analysis of all of my offices and be like okay cool we basically are not explaining ourselves properly oh we're getting like agitated because we're not asking enough questions or we're like escalating things more than we should so let's use.
That as training to change people's attitudes and change people's minds um so I I thought that was fascinating let me come on to worldcoin and then you can comment on anything that's come in worldcoin is from the makers of openai the Sam Altman I think his name is it's a world currency kind of like a cryptocurrency type thing and to be able and it's a proof of if you're a human or not so they have these orbs that they've.
Created um that are actual like physical orbs uh that scan your retina um your eye and everybody has I think this is true that like retinas are unique in a fingerprint unique too like nobody has your fingerprints and nobody has your retina I I think that's true for retinas for sure so you use this orb and they're dotted around the world and you can turn up for this all but to scan your eye for your eye then to be put into a database.
And then it basically gives you like a code to prove that you're human because an eye can't be well today it can't be replicated right a retina can't be replicated and and that's a unique code so then it unlocks this ability to show that you have proof that you're a human and then they're going to have this world coin attributed to it as well so there's like this Global Currency that everybody will have some money basically through this world coin thing and again.
We all know that the difficulty with that is like let's say that someone gets you Iris there is no technology that I know that can destroy your um your like eye to skew it but for example face recognition you could have facial reconstruction kind of stuff right you can alter it with plastic surgery or with prosthetics which would skew a computer but an iris um and I think can't be skewed so if that was leaked into the wrong hands.
What could that or like how does that happen again in in some countries they actually are um scanning number plates or whatever because you're speeding right and instantly your number plate is attached to your WeChat account which is basically your bank account and they'll deduct 60 pounds because you were speeding or whatever so it's like all integrated in this technology thing let alone whether or not if you if you call if you um do a crime and we use facial.
Recognition and your face is basically used to pay for things so we have it on the database so then we can like deduct money from you or come and find you or say this we wanted this person we have all your Facebook recognition stuff and all your data so interesting because I remember going to um an event in column Bay Ministry of Sound music uh was in the queue waiting to to get some drinks and it basically had.
A sign saying card only and there's a guy next to us that we saw half got to know whilst we were there me and my mate and he was holding cash and I said oh just for a heads up because I didn't want him to wait in the queue for ages to then get there to then complain and and like take up time where everyone's already waiting a long time that you can sort yourself out now that it's a card.
Machine and he literally went on a massive run how we should be using money because once everything's a card it'll basically be like this social currency I think is more implemented in China um of like if you do something bad you get deducted points if you do something good you get more points and and basically like you might as well pull the Honey Pants in yeah and use some Village words or whatever and it was funny because he was like.
He was proper preaching like convicted and then he pulled out his card got to go to the bar pulled out his card and paid I was like well [Laughter] and it's funny how it's like even if you want to be what was it like Pro cash for example you're not gonna beat a whole event where there's thousands of people that you have to pay card because the end of day is like the Little Britain computer says no like they have no cash.
To do anything with it and they don't want cash because then anyone can steal it so of course they just want it to get sent to whatever bank account because it makes sense because then they can just order and it's all a system that's more straightforward than you have some money and then you've got to take it to the bank and then you've got to order it's like it cuts out all that sort of process to some extent and.
Hopefully it'll be quicker because you're not dealing yeah but I just thought it was hilarious of like he's basically like a prophet in the Old Testament but then bowed down to the ruler and the card machine instantly I think it's fascinating this this whole um so I I don't disagree I like that those Concepts do exist as in you know deducting points and kind of like barring somebody from using something because government doesn't like how you're behaving and because they're so.
Into like interlinked into your infrastructure of banking and so forth but they can stop you from flying like in all the respect right if they don't like you so I understand that stuff but it it's it's challenging I I was thinking I chat with camera before about um the the um how do you create Unity the easiest way to create Unity is have a common enemy so what's this common enemy that we're going to create and is the common enemy.
Basically something that is fictitious enough that helps your cause so for example if you were a cryptocurrency Exchange could you say the common enemy is the government and the government is trying to control us therefore by this cryptocurrency now and it's like the the it's very fascinating how cool we're all shifting away from government control but then are we actually shifting towards manipulation of another source and that's where you get into the idea of like just being generally cynical so.
For example these cryptocurrency exchanges there was this massive was it FTX or something like that which blew everybody's money and was just spending everybody's money so the CEOs are just like rinsing your cash but yeah cool your cryptocurrency and I think they were faking the returns that you were getting on your cryptocurrency or something like that so I'm like cool yes you're shifting away from government to cryptocurrencies but then having the right cryptocurrency that has the right stability again I think cryptocurrency.
Is interesting and I am fascinated in it and I have had cryptocurrency I don't happen to have any now so I'm like I like basically those things because everybody is going to tell you from the loudest person shouting right like oh don't trust those people over here and these people over here be like don't trust those people over there so you just like wanna again it's all about self um like critical thinking and um yeah your own Reflections like.
Self-reflection and your own critical kind of like decision making rather than being swayed by anything too loud I think that's a thing is like the power of the government probably in the average person is massively diminishing but I think it's it's probably we're handing over the power to then tech companies because even though apparently the UK government is knocking on the door of apple and basically saying can we have backdoor access towards FaceTime and iMessage rather than it being encrypted.
And basically Apple like no because that's one of the reasons why people like us is our security element so then they've come to the conclusion of if apparently it's going to be a very long process anyway but if that were to happen if they a let in the UK behind doors they would have access to the whole world stuff so they can't do that and B it would then invite all the other countries to look in the back door of.
Stuff so they basically like if it does come to that end we'll just have to cancel iMessage and FaceTime for UK providers which is like that's crazy obviously I know they wouldn't want to do that because then it would affect just things because what they want to do is just have the same product for everyone I'm not advancing for everyone but it'd be crazy just to be like the fact that they've got how many people got iPhones like people could be skin.
And they've got an iPhone and a Liverpool or my new shirt that's why I was spotting in a local Town recently it's like you could be skin but you probably got those things but someone just turned off like now you can't use um FaceTime or no you can't use messages obviously I know a third-party one would come in and probably the UK government would try and work with a company to for you be out to see it or whatever but.
It's like that is some powerful stuff of just how much people that would affect people yeah and this um or this would give the strength to something like a was it telegram or Whatsapp or all the other sort of it's so fascinating because there's so many layers to this obviously everything has a different degree so for example government be able to look at messages broadly speaking that's a counter-terrorism like anti-crime approach right but then obviously I I don't know how well that's doing the.
Assumption yeah exactly right Mass control Mass uh like Trend kind of data of like uh sentiment analysis stuff right that could be one thing but then did you know that basically Amazon have started to remove information from their emails so when they send you your email to say your delivery is ready Google isn't able if you use Gmail Google isn't able to scrape that email to see that you're buying stuff from Amazon and buying X particular products and then showing you ads so I'm.
Like nobody's talking about that because we all kind of like are okay with that now so will there come a time where we're okay with these things because we over time realize I would rather have a really good email service AKA Gmail and I'd rather buy stuff from Amazon so of course it's going to send me emails or whatever right I'm not going to be kind of going into a shop and buying it physically so nobody knows let alone.
Card card companies will know that anyway right so I'm like that's really interesting that Amazon have like decreased the amount of information that comes in the email that's why I'm always annoyed when I say I don't know what this delivery is so I have to click in and go to Amazon to see hey it's delivery X because Amazon are trying to avoid giving Google extra metadata that's interesting yeah because that's what um William was talking about is basically who.
Who should own data and really it should be the individual but we're not we're not sort of there yet because at the end of the day if you're the one giving loads of data to Google for then someone to find you to sell you something let's say sell you an exercise bike because you wanted it to get fair and it's a thousand pounds they're making profit off you sharing data but if you went to Market Research you might get five for it whatever and.
Then they find out that you need an exercise bike and then is a grand but at least we've paid for your data in the process or is it uh oh because you're freely giving us your data and we know you're gonna buy anything we put in front of you should we give you a 20 discount on anything we put in front of you because because really we should be paying for your data because I guess it's finding oh done is dropped off online I guess.
It's finding um finding out how can you link up people that are attached to what the product you're trying to do to who wants to buy it but yeah so that is all interesting I'm not sure how long I should monologue until Dan is back but hopefully he will be able to join us soon and we are back after the interruption I basically didn't have my charger to hand so I lost power and um I also didn't want to cut across what.
You were saying to keep fluidity but it is what it is technology here um it wasn't that the government shuts off maybe people will be like the government shut them off so it wasn't the government it was just my lack of planning and lack of the fact that I didn't have it plugged in but lots of data privacy chat and and technology and tracking and all sorts of stuff today so um yeah it's very interesting final thought just to end on.
A different topic Jake Paul has a documentary out or like a one episode on Netflix that's also really good again very inspiring very strategic very clever very business-minded um so yeah you should watch that as well because we're always about good podcasts up good kind of like documentary things about mindset and about seeing people's process behind the scenes so yeah I'd recommend watching that between and on that note see you next week keep on hammering those Nails bye.
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