Latest / Brian Thomas / The REAL AI Threat - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

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The REAL AI Threat - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Back jack other than i appreciate you letting me get
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: that out of my uh system and welcome back to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the morning show.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Well thanks for the heads up uh and thanks for
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: having me back pal always enjoy it i have been
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: leery of robots ever since 1968 when stanley kubrick's movie
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: 2001 showed us how the robot cutting off an astronaut's
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  Speaker 2: oxygen i later suspected kamala harris must be a robot
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: because without a teleprompter, she could only talk gibberish. However,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: despite those concerns, I want to warn listeners not about robots,
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  Speaker 2: but about politicians and industry executives who want the federal
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: government to regulate A.I. excessively while Red China and Russia
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: push full speed ahead. Sam Altman is chief executive officer
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: of Open A.I., the folks who gave us chat GPT.
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  Speaker 2: I don't use it. As you can tell, I'm sorry
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: for all the mistakes. Now, having freely created the technology
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  Speaker 2: that made him a billionaire, Sam Altman wants federal safety
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  Speaker 2: requirements enforced by federal audits to slow the pace of
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  Speaker 2: AI development. Anthropix, Dario Amadei, and to a lesser extent,
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  Speaker 2: Elon Musk have joined in that call. They hope Other
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: nations will limit development too, perhaps by agreeing on multinational accords. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: maybe they will. When Communist China's leader Xi Jinping arrives
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  Speaker 2: in Washington next week, I bet he'll whisper in President
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  Speaker 2: Trump's ear, like some Chinese Henny Youngman, Donald, take my AI, please.
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  Speaker 2: It could happen. Xi does speak some English, and President
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  Speaker 2: Trump will tell you that if you wanted to, He
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  Speaker 2: could speak Mandarin better than Confucius. However, President Trump has
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  Speaker 2: already said, quote, we're leading China in AI. And frankly,
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  Speaker 2: I want to keep it that way because whoever wins
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  Speaker 2: AI wins, end quote. Now, I can hear lofty opponents
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  Speaker 2: of our president tut-tutting. Oh, he's so crude and stupid
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  Speaker 2: and fat. And Melania doesn't like him anymore. And you
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: know what they say. They're right. For instance, as you've mentioned,
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  Speaker 2: Trump's promise to pay every adult citizen $ 5, 000 if Republicans
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  Speaker 2: hold the House and the Senate, that's inflationary, unconstitutional, and
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  Speaker 2: the kind of vote buying we normally get from Democrat socialists. Amen, Jack.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: But someone I respected more than most anyone as a kid,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: my family doctor, said something very similar back then about
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: another president, Ronald Reagan. The good doctor, and he really
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  Speaker 2: was good, thought America should unilaterally disarm, surrender our nuclear arsenal,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and then hope that the Soviet Union would follow suit.
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  Speaker 2: Many people agreed with my doctor. President Reagan himself, during
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev,
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  Speaker 2: came this close to disarming. But then the Gipper apparently thought, well, wait,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: am I nuts? Mikhail may be a nice guy, but
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  Speaker 2: there's also the Communist Party, the Politburo, the KGB, including
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  Speaker 2: that crazy young lieutenant colonel, what's his name? Oh yes,
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  Speaker 2: Vlad Putin. So Reagan said to himself, disarmament would mean suicide.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: He told Gorbachev instead, thanks but no thanks, and ramped
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  Speaker 2: up medium-range missiles in Europe and what critics derisively called
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  Speaker 2: Star Wars in outer space. And After 69 years of
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  Speaker 2: terrorizing the world, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, largely
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  Speaker 2: because it could not keep up with the free world economically, militarily,
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  Speaker 2: and technologically. Hold on, though. Some of you must be asking,
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  Speaker 2: to quote, win against Red China, we're going to let
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  Speaker 2: Hal the Robot kill us all? Well, to quote Joe Biden,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that. I am saying we should not
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  Speaker 2: invite the federal government, either Democrats or Republicans, to control
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  Speaker 2: AI development, to pick winners and losers, very likely choosing
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  Speaker 2: the politicians' donors, and then try to compete with authoritarian
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  Speaker 2: regimes that refuse to be controlled. Regimes like Red China
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  Speaker 2: that already are fermenting fear in America of AI to
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  Speaker 2: keep us from competing. We know China has a rich
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  Speaker 2: history of co-opting Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, Eric Swalwell, Tim Walz,
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  Speaker 2: and others too numerous to mention. No doubt some Republicans too.
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  Speaker 2: But critics ask, what will happen without government control? Well,
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  Speaker 2: let me ask you, do we really need big government
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  Speaker 2: controlling everything? We often talk about movies, Brian. Back in
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  Speaker 2: the 1920s, silent movie days, many Hollywood movies were becoming
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  Speaker 2: as sexually depraved as you can imagine, even in 2026.
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  Speaker 2: It was part of the disillusionment following World War I.
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  Speaker 2: These movies showed ancient and modern orgies, fathers forcing daughters
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  Speaker 2: into prostitution. I cannot even describe, Brian, the most vile
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  Speaker 2: of them on morning radio. It continued until a grassroots
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  Speaker 2: groundswell of revulsion, the kind of revulsion that that led
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  Speaker 2: to prohibition forced Hollywood studios to join together and police
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  Speaker 2: themselves to agree on a code and set up a
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  Speaker 2: private council to enforce that code. And guess what? The
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  Speaker 2: depravity stopped. As always, I like to mention, Shirley Temple
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  Speaker 2: and Mickey Rooney soon topped the box office. Can AI
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  Speaker 2: companies do the same thing prodded by congressional hearings and
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  Speaker 2: oversight and public revulsion? Sure. However, here's a dirty secret, friends.
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  Speaker 2: The established AI giants may actually want government control to
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  Speaker 2: block competition from upstarts who have new and better ideas,
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  Speaker 2: as they once did, and to provide established companies with
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  Speaker 2: legal immunity. I saw this myself. I saw this back
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  Speaker 2: when I was a lawyer in New York. You were
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: in Chicago. Some of my firm's biggest clients were the
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  Speaker 2: biggest tobacco companies. We defended them in product liability lawsuits.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Private plaintiffs claimed that smoking caused cancer. The companies at
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: first fought against federal warnings slapped on each pack of cigarettes.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: But in reality, those warnings, to a degree, protected big
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: tobacco because we could argue that smokers had been warned,
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  Speaker 2: yet had chosen to assume the risk. All this is
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  Speaker 2: nothing new. In the past, opponents tried to ban cigarettes
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  Speaker 2: or over-regulate railroads, automobiles, they still want to ban gas-powered cars,
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  Speaker 2: what are called Luddites, the term for 19th century machine breakers,
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  Speaker 2: people who didn't want machine looms, they wanted to work
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  Speaker 2: at home. Luddites have opposed almost every technological advance since
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  Speaker 2: the invention of the wheel, claiming they destroyed jobs, health,
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  Speaker 2: the environment, you name it. Transition is hard. And technology
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  Speaker 2: does sometimes need to be regulated. So yes, let's debate.
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  Speaker 2: What's the reasonable way to regulate AI that's least likely
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  Speaker 2: to disrupt free enterprise? When the Biden administration sent federal
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  Speaker 2: employees to tell Mark Zuckerberg and others which political statements
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  Speaker 2: and opponents ought to be shadow banned by social media,
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  Speaker 2: the feds actually set up an office in Zuckerberg's firm.
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  Speaker 2: Elon Musk responded, in the private marketplace. He bought Twitter
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  Speaker 2: and restored free speech on the internet. The last thing
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  Speaker 2: we needed was the federal government taking over. In sum,
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  Speaker 2: I say, go slowly slowing down. Go slowly with federal,
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  Speaker 2: much less international regulation, which our enemies will not honor. Also,
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  Speaker 2: let state and local voters have a voice in the process,
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  Speaker 2: especially when it comes to local concerns like like zoning
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  Speaker 2: with data centers and water quality and that sort of thing.
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  Speaker 2: Don't let established companies block competitors and stifle advances while
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  Speaker 2: China and other dictatorships zoom ahead. Let's instead, let's trust
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  Speaker 2: in progress on this 250th anniversary of our independence. Because progress,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: my friend, is what America is all about. What do
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  Speaker 2: you say? I agree. 100% human, friend.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I agree with you completely. And, you know, for someone
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: who was always of the mind, you're talking about your
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: tobacco litigation argument. Since the 1964 Surgeon General's report came
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: out saying smoking will kill you, boiling it down to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: its barest elements, I've always thought, you know, you do
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: assume the risk because the science is right there. The
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: whole world's been told that tobacco causes cancer. So, but. liability.
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  Speaker 1: I think my ultimate point on this, the liability that
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  Speaker 1: any of these companies faces for the harm that they
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  Speaker 1: do directly related to the product that they made is
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: what brings about safety. If they know they're going to
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  Speaker 1: be on the hook, let's say you can use their product, ChatGPT,
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  Speaker 1: for example, to create a virus that will kill the planet.
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  Speaker 1: I know it's too late to unring the bell if
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  Speaker 1: someone does that, but clearly they have every interest in
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  Speaker 1: the world to not kill off the consumers of their product,
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  Speaker 1: which makes me think they might want to put a
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  Speaker 1: safeguard in there, but they would be responsible for and
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  Speaker 1: liable for all humankind for what they did to the world.
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  Speaker 1: I just can't see that happening. It's the fear of
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  Speaker 1: doing something bad. It's the fear of accountability and being
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  Speaker 1: held responsible is what's going to force them to do
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  Speaker 1: the right thing in the end. I think that's kind
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  Speaker 1: of the capitalist method, isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Brian, these companies are already facing lawsuits. That's why they
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  Speaker 2: want to shut them down. And by the way, picking
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  Speaker 2: up on something you were talking about before, education. If
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  Speaker 2: you worry, folks, about computers getting too smart, why not
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: try making students smarter instead of dumbing down graduation requirements?
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  Speaker 2: And there's one more thing. There must be listeners saying,
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  Speaker 2: why are you so afraid of China? I'm sick of
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  Speaker 2: hearing about China. Their economy is tanking. Well, that's true.
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  Speaker 2: But that's what makes them so dangerous. And remember, even
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  Speaker 2: with an impoverished population, Communist China, for a generation, took
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  Speaker 2: our manufacturing jobs, thanks to both Democrats and establishment Republicans
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: looking for cheap labor. Until Donald Trump, for all his craziness,
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  Speaker 2: began bringing those jobs back. China still has a stranglehold
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  Speaker 2: on rare earth minerals because we've over-regulated our own reserves.
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  Speaker 2: way we over-regulated energy in the name of climate change
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  Speaker 2: and so much else. The danger is always politically motivated over-regulation.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you're not looking for an argument with me today,
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  Speaker 1: Jack Atherton, which is true. I think every single week
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  Speaker 1: you've been doing this segment. Brilliant as always. Yeah, marketplace
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  Speaker 1: can figure it out. We are in competition. We better
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  Speaker 1: stay in competition or the Chinese will win, as you
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  Speaker 1: pointed out and Donald Trump pointed out the other day.
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  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it. Jack Atherton, appreciate your time
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  Speaker 1: every single week here on the 55KRC Morning Show. And
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: remind my listeners they can hear this, your commentary, on
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: the blog page, 55KRC. iheart. com. Jack, I look forward to next
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  Speaker 1: week already, as I always do. And best of health
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  Speaker 1: and love to you and your better half.
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  Speaker 2: And to you. Thanks so much. Thanks, brother.
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  Speaker 1: It's 719-55KRC, the talk station.