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The 'Effective Altruism' Cult Exposed with Theo Wold · The Alex Marlow Show

0:05
Speaker 1: All right, real Theo Wall, the real Theo Wall, former
0:08
Speaker 1: assistant attorney general, former White House deputy assistant for domestic
0:11
Speaker 1: policy under Trump. He does a lot of other stuff, too.
0:14
Speaker 1: He's getting more and more prolific on socials as well.
0:16
Speaker 1: He's back with me to talk about AI and other things. Theo,
0:20
Speaker 1: you've got the legal background. I know you approach some
0:22
Speaker 1: of this from a legal perspective. I want to get
0:24
Speaker 1: to some of that. But the main thing here is
0:28
Speaker 1: trying to define and trying to introduce people to effective altruism.
0:33
Speaker 1: This is so much worse than what some of, I won't,
0:37
Speaker 1: I won't say so much worse. This is the potential
0:39
Speaker 1: to be so much worse than any of my supervillains
0:42
Speaker 1: that I've been reporting on for my career. The George sources,
0:44
Speaker 1: the Reed Hoffman's, Lorene Powell jobs is this could be
0:47
Speaker 1: worse because this is essentially what they're doing is they're
0:50
Speaker 1: trying to create more regulation, more global governments, more leftism,
0:54
Speaker 1: more globalism, but they're doing it with almost like a
0:57
Speaker 1: religious element to it. And these are the exact people who,
1:01
Speaker 1: who are the most powerful people in AI right now.
1:05
Speaker 1: Give me your definition of effective altruism and tell us
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Speaker 1: what you think are the most important things to know
1:09
Speaker 1: about it right now.
1:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, Alex, I mean, I'll just say at the start here,
1:14
Speaker 2: I think what you just laid down is exactly right.
1:16
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why they are such a
1:19
Speaker 2: potent adversary, why they're so dangerous is there's actually a
1:24
Speaker 2: philosophical foundation here. Unlike sort of the cult of personality
1:28
Speaker 2: that grew up around Barack Obama or some of the
1:31
Speaker 2: Soros activities with local DAs or criminal justice reform, where
1:37
Speaker 2: people will say something like, what's his endgame? the effective
1:41
Speaker 2: altruists are very clear about both sort of their philosophical
1:44
Speaker 2: underpinning and where that leads them. And so I think that,
1:47
Speaker 2: you know, with that said, the best place for people
1:50
Speaker 2: to start is time to crack open, you know, your
1:53
Speaker 2: Jeremy Bentham, because at root, the effective altruists will say
1:57
Speaker 2: they're essentially utilitarians, but they take it in a very,
2:01
Speaker 2: very strange place. So, you know, utilitarian is someone who
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Speaker 2: essentially says, Let's measure the goods, let's measure the harms,
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Speaker 2: and let's ensure effectively that we're doing the greatest good
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Speaker 2: for the greatest number of people and reducing the harms.
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Speaker 2: The effective altruists will say, well, we're going to future
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Speaker 2: cast that. And we're not limiting our calculus to ensuring
2:22
Speaker 2: the greatest good for the greatest number of people alive today.
2:26
Speaker 2: We're going to make calculations and determinations about what we
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Speaker 2: think the good is based on our view of the
2:33
Speaker 2: unfolding of time. So if this happens to harm whatever
2:36
Speaker 2: this may be, a policy, a regulation, a type of technology,
2:41
Speaker 2: if this harms future citizens... 100, 200 years from now,
2:46
Speaker 2: we're going to move to stop it now. And this
2:48
Speaker 2: could be intubation or certain types of pharmaceuticals at a hospital.
2:54
Speaker 2: It could be air conditioning in France. It doesn't matter
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Speaker 2: what you're doing with it today. If it harms someone
3:00
Speaker 2: down the road, that's important to them. As I said,
3:02
Speaker 2: the other part of this is they've got a really
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Speaker 2: wacky notion about biodiversity and speciesism. So if you're harming, say,
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Speaker 2: shrimp populations in the future, they may move to stop you.
3:15
Speaker 2: So it's not just what's the greatest good for human persons,
3:18
Speaker 2: it's also what's the greatest good for whatever the biological
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Speaker 2: material that the effective altruists are weighing importantly today. And
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Speaker 2: so this has all kinds of ramifications for how they
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Speaker 2: view the human person, not only in a bioethical context,
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Speaker 2: but but obviously in terms of the relationship of power,
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Speaker 2: who has it, who wields it, and for what end.
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Speaker 2: And I think, you know, just summing up here, I
3:40
Speaker 2: think the effective altruists are, you know, they're kind of
3:43
Speaker 2: a wacky new age, as most of these things that
3:45
Speaker 2: come out of California are, a new age kind of cult,
3:47
Speaker 2: you know, they're polyamorists, they have very bizarre sort of
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Speaker 2: views on how society should be organized, the dangers, as
3:54
Speaker 2: they call it, of the nuclear family, but they also
3:56
Speaker 2: have a very clear-eyed vision about political organization. They should
4:01
Speaker 2: have the power, ordinary people should not, and all of
4:04
Speaker 2: these other institutions, i.e. Congress, the courts that get in
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Speaker 2: the way of mediating that power need to be pushed aside.
4:14
Speaker 1: Everyone should follow Theo on the Everything app, at RealTheoWald.
4:17
Speaker 1: He's also at RealTheoWald with a O on Instagram as well.
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Speaker 1: So everyone should follow him there at those places. So
4:25
Speaker 1: what do we know about the origins of effective altruism?
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Speaker 1: Because these are obviously godless people. They seem to be
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Speaker 1: congregated around the Bay Area, Berkeley, Silicon Valley type. Berkeley
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Speaker 1: in particular, which is, I know, all too well. for
4:38
Speaker 1: a number of reasons and it just seems like these
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Speaker 1: people who are they lack a lot of charisma but
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Speaker 1: they have a lot of power and they probably didn't
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Speaker 1: do well with the opposite sex when they were growing
4:48
Speaker 1: up and it feels like they all feel like they've
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Speaker 1: got god god complexes but can we add more detail
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Speaker 1: beyond that beyond just sort of those generalities Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I think, again, this won't surprise anyone who's keeping score
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Speaker 2: at home, but a lot of these folks found sort
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Speaker 2: of their, again, their philosophical sort of formation at the
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Speaker 2: A lot of these, you know, the leading lights in
5:15
Speaker 2: the effective altruist movement had their sort of intellectual formation.
5:19
Speaker 2: And that sort of shaped also, you know, a lot
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Speaker 2: of the contours of their social grouping. I mean, you're
5:26
Speaker 2: right to say, you know, it's a Bay Area thing.
5:29
Speaker 2: But a lot of these people, you know, start in
5:30
Speaker 2: the Bay Area and then they're moving into other sort
5:33
Speaker 2: of industries elsewhere. in Silicon Valley, in startup culture, and
5:37
Speaker 2: a lot of them really come to crystallize in their
5:40
Speaker 2: views about the institutions of our country. in the FTX
5:44
Speaker 2: scandal with Sam Paikman freedom and that, that whole fiasco,
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Speaker 2: a lot of them were behind that effort to essentially
5:52
Speaker 2: in many ways, as you noted in others, um, you know,
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Speaker 2: cannibalize the Democrat party that you, you mobilize significant sums
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Speaker 2: of money, uh, to Democrat candidates to get them to
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Speaker 2: move off of regulating FTX. And, uh, you use those
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Speaker 2: donations in essence to buy, uh, mouthpieces in Congress so
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Speaker 2: that ultimately they could shape, they being the effective altruists,
6:17
Speaker 2: could shape the regulatory or legal structure that would be
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Speaker 2: governing their industry. And that's the same play they're making
6:24
Speaker 2: right now with AI, which is essentially to scare the
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Speaker 2: bejesus out of the ordinary American. The killer robots are
6:31
Speaker 2: coming and there's nothing we can do now. The technology
6:34
Speaker 2: is on the loose. So what we need is the
6:37
Speaker 2: deep state to step in here And create, as President
6:40
Speaker 2: Obama called it, sufficient guardrails, right? The regulatory landscape to
6:44
Speaker 2: control this technology. And that's precisely, precisely what they want
6:49
Speaker 2: to see happen.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so in a nutshell, this is a philosophy which
6:55
Speaker 1: has turned into a social movement. I think it's become
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Speaker 1: more of a religion that is telling people to do
6:59
Speaker 1: the most good that they can with their resources. And
7:02
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing where good intentions has
7:04
Speaker 1: caused so many problems in our society, but they lay
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Speaker 1: it out in this way. But now we know from
7:10
Speaker 1: when you get them talking, The goal is basically control
7:14
Speaker 1: and using AI to control human beings and perhaps even
7:17
Speaker 1: our entire country. I think their short-term goal would be
7:22
Speaker 1: running some sort of a federal AI regulatory agency. But
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Speaker 1: I think in general, they would love it to be global.
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Speaker 1: I think they'd love it for it to be a
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Speaker 1: global governance. And there's a key figure in here, a
7:31
Speaker 1: guy named Holden Karnofsky, who is married to Dario Amadei's
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Speaker 1: sister who founded Anthropic with him. And he also was
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Speaker 1: a part of that group METR, M-E-T-R. And when Amadei
7:43
Speaker 1: came out last week and suggested that we need to
7:45
Speaker 1: slow down AI and we need to maybe have some
7:47
Speaker 1: sort of global governance, that board that he suggested might
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Speaker 1: be the people to do it is METR. So METR
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Speaker 1: was his own brother-in-law who started this thing called GiveWell,
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Speaker 1: which is where all the effective altruists were donating.
8:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, two things here, Alex. I'll just pick up on
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Speaker 2: the one thread that you've thrown down here on sort
8:09
Speaker 2: of the religious connotation. And I think, you know, it's
8:12
Speaker 2: kind of an old canard that commentators or thinkers on
8:15
Speaker 2: the right will have. Well, you know, this starts to
8:17
Speaker 2: look a lot like a religion. And people will dismiss that.
8:20
Speaker 2: But in many ways, I think the sort of connective tissue,
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Speaker 2: if you will, philosophically between the climate change alarmists, the
8:29
Speaker 2: Al Gore, the Greta Thunbergs, and the effective altruists, it's
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Speaker 2: a one-two step here. They're very similar in that They're
8:35
Speaker 2: sort of post-Christian in many ways. They have an anthropology
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Speaker 2: that acknowledges sort of the failings of human beings, but
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Speaker 2: their anthropology doesn't then conduce to humility. And then in
8:48
Speaker 2: order to overcome these limitations of the human person, we
8:51
Speaker 2: need total control. We need absolute control from the smartest people,
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Speaker 2: from the wizards and the high priestesses of this cult.
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Speaker 2: They're the ones who need to be making the determination.
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Speaker 2: And meter is a great example of this, where if
9:03
Speaker 2: you read the fine print of what, you know, they're
9:06
Speaker 2: essentially their whistleblower, Coxon was saying in the Wall Street
9:10
Speaker 2: Journal piece, what Hillary and Barack and all the British,
9:13
Speaker 2: you know, members of the Labour Party who came out
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Speaker 2: all in coordination, right? I mean, from 18 minutes with
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Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal op ed that Coxon drops to,
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Speaker 2: you know, the next day getting coordinated statements from several
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Speaker 2: members of the British Parliament. All of this is converging
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Speaker 2: on one point, which is, well, we need a third
9:28
Speaker 2: party group. And a lot of people read that and
9:31
Speaker 2: heard that and said, oh, well, they're calling for the
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Speaker 2: creation of some kind of governing institution, an FEC, an
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Speaker 2: SEC that will over... you know, over have oversight over
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Speaker 2: AI or some sort of regulatory teeth. And that when
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Speaker 2: you read the fine print, that's not at all what
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Speaker 2: they were asking for. What they were asking for was
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Speaker 2: meter this institution that is stood up of anthropic open
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Speaker 2: AI loyalists, everyone who has sort of come of age
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Speaker 2: over the last 10 years in the effective altruist movement
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Speaker 2: in the Bay Area. and it has a C3, C4
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Speaker 2: sort of architecture already scoped, and it has a list
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Speaker 2: of names of the people they want serving on this.
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Speaker 2: So it was a fait accompli. No, don't just create
10:09
Speaker 2: some kind of amorphous governmental entity. Actually, here's what we want.
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Speaker 2: It's already on the shelf. Let's just give it to you.
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Speaker 2: And then to your final point, Alex, this is precisely right.
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Speaker 2: All of the implications that Dario and Sam Altman have
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Speaker 2: given in these interviews is they don't envision NIDA as
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Speaker 2: operating within the bounds of U.S. jurisdiction or U.S. law.
10:28
Speaker 2: They see this as a global entity. And, you know,
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Speaker 2: a lot of people have said, you know, sort of stalkingly,
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Speaker 2: is Dario suggesting that, you know, the Chinese should have
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Speaker 2: some kind of seat on this entity or that, you know,
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Speaker 2: we're going to do some kind of global governance with
10:42
Speaker 2: our peer adversaries in Russia and China? Yes, that's exactly
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Speaker 2: what the effective altruists want. Another mechanism to get around
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Speaker 2: the hidebound in their eyes, the hidebound institutions of the
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Speaker 2: American republic.
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Speaker 1: Really, it's all so scary, but also I feel like
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Speaker 1: I'm encouraged that people seem to be seeing the patterns here.
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Speaker 1: I think they understand that this is some sort of
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Speaker 1: an op. But I just want to be crystal clear
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Speaker 1: here what the op is going on, is that these
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Speaker 1: are people that are deeply tied within Anthropic. And Anthropic,
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Speaker 1: along with OpenAI, is the two sort of the duopoly
11:17
Speaker 1: of these closed-weight companies. AI systems that we've been talking
11:21
Speaker 1: a lot about on the show in the last few episodes.
11:25
Speaker 1: And they would like to see some sort of a
11:27
Speaker 1: regulatory agency come in, which will make it almost impossible
11:30
Speaker 1: for any competition to emerge against them. And so we'll
11:33
Speaker 1: basically have these two companies, it'll be the last two
11:35
Speaker 1: companies on earth, I think is how they phrased it
11:38
Speaker 1: in the past. That's what it would be. And they
11:40
Speaker 1: want Anthropic to do well, but they also do want
11:43
Speaker 1: this AI global governance thing. And The point here, Theo,
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Speaker 1: which is so scary, is where do they get this concept,
11:48
Speaker 1: which is they're not just building an AI business. They
11:50
Speaker 1: actually should be basically put in charge of planet Earth.
11:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that's the essential thesis because, you know,
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Speaker 2: I think you're right, Alex, people are seeing this unfold
12:00
Speaker 2: and that's, you know, thanks to, you know, outlets like yours,
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Speaker 2: but also just the ability of people to see in
12:05
Speaker 2: real time, the chronological timelines, like, Oh, okay. Now Hillary's
12:09
Speaker 2: coming out with a statement. Oh, there goes Barack Obama
12:12
Speaker 2: with his statement. And this is again, the benefit of having,
12:15
Speaker 2: you know, an app, uh, you know, a platform like
12:17
Speaker 2: X where people can see these posts and start to
12:19
Speaker 2: piece together for themselves. Well, this is, this is weird.
12:22
Speaker 2: Why are members of the Labour Party in the British
12:25
Speaker 2: Parliament coming out with statements about, you know, this guy
12:29
Speaker 2: Coxon and the worries of AI, you know, in less
12:31
Speaker 2: than 10 hours after this whole thing came to fruition?
12:35
Speaker 2: So I think people are realizing the convergence here. But
12:39
Speaker 2: to the greater point, I think what some people take
12:41
Speaker 2: away from it is, oh, okay, so this is just
12:45
Speaker 2: like an insert whatever industry you don't like. into the
12:49
Speaker 2: you know into the the syllogism this is this is
12:51
Speaker 2: just like big tobacco it's just like the social media
12:54
Speaker 2: companies they're trying to create a regulatory fence to sort
12:58
Speaker 2: of enshrine their model and gain a government-backed cartel so
13:03
Speaker 2: they reap enormous wealth right that's true that's true yes
13:08
Speaker 2: but the next step can also be true at the
13:11
Speaker 2: same time which is to your your latter point there
13:14
Speaker 2: they want to fence out competition, they want to eliminate
13:19
Speaker 2: any of sort of the excesses on their margins on their,
13:21
Speaker 2: you know, the extremities of their CapEx, because they really
13:24
Speaker 2: don't have a business model that's profitable at this point,
13:27
Speaker 2: other than taking the IP of individual industries or companies.
13:30
Speaker 2: But the next step really is also true at the
13:32
Speaker 2: same time, which is they have a vision for how
13:36
Speaker 2: government should evolve over the next 10, 20, 30 years.
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Speaker 2: And AI-backed technology, folks like Dario and Sam Altman view
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Speaker 2: themselves as not just supreme technologists, but also morally and
13:50
Speaker 2: ethically evolved, that they should be making the determinations on
13:53
Speaker 2: war and peace and national security and and the ethics
13:56
Speaker 2: of killing, whether that's assisted suicide, abortion, or, you know,
14:00
Speaker 2: conflicts in the straight of war moves. And they view
14:03
Speaker 2: themselves as the transition, this technology transitions to a new
14:07
Speaker 2: phase of global governance. And I think both of those
14:10
Speaker 2: things can be true. They can be profit motivated, but
14:13
Speaker 2: at the same time also being, you know, the newest
14:15
Speaker 2: version of a totalitarian, a totalitarian state.
14:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so interesting because they want to
14:22
Speaker 1: do both. And I think this is part of why
14:26
Speaker 1: I think I noted earlier that people see the op,
14:28
Speaker 1: that there's something going on, that's not what meets the eye,
14:30
Speaker 1: because they're saying that these products are so dangerous that
14:34
Speaker 1: literally there's a 10% chance that AI is going to
14:39
Speaker 1: destroy the world in the next 10 years, which is,
14:41
Speaker 1: of course, false. It's not true at all. But they
14:43
Speaker 1: say that that's that's, they're advertising that our product could
14:48
Speaker 1: kill all of humanity, but also our product is the
14:51
Speaker 1: best and you should put the people who are involved
14:54
Speaker 1: with our product in charge of the AI global governance.
14:57
Speaker 1: It does make you kind of roll your eyes and
14:59
Speaker 1: think that who are these egomaniacs and why would anyone
15:02
Speaker 1: listen to them because they're good at harvesting and categorizing
15:06
Speaker 1: other work that billions of other human beings have done,
15:08
Speaker 1: which is all AI is, is just harvesting everyone else's
15:10
Speaker 1: work and compiling it together. Because they're good at that skill,
15:13
Speaker 1: we should just put them in charge of everything. That
15:15
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
15:17
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people are going, wait
15:19
Speaker 1: a minute, there's something going on here that is not
15:21
Speaker 1: what meets the eye. which I find nice. But then,
15:24
Speaker 1: and this is where Theo, maybe you can help me.
15:27
Speaker 1: What do we do with this information? Now that we
15:28
Speaker 1: all are, we see what's going on. We see there's
15:30
Speaker 1: a big power play. We see it's a bunch of
15:32
Speaker 1: Democrat donors. We're a month and a half from the election.
15:35
Speaker 1: They all are acting like not enough is being done
15:37
Speaker 1: to regulate AI. They're appointing themselves, promoting themselves as the
15:41
Speaker 1: only people who can regulate AI. We know that looks silly,
15:45
Speaker 1: but then what do we do from here? What are
15:47
Speaker 1: our options?
15:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. I will say,
15:51
Speaker 2: to your point about the connection between these two companies,
15:55
Speaker 2: the frontier labs of OpenAI and Anthropic, and sort of
15:58
Speaker 2: the wider landscape electorally for the two-part system that we
16:02
Speaker 2: have today. they're very much interested in advantaging Democrats. That's just,
16:08
Speaker 2: that's very clear. And, you know, if Anthropic and OpenAI
16:12
Speaker 2: go forward with their IPOs, it is most certainly the
16:16
Speaker 2: case that they will mint an entire new class of
16:18
Speaker 2: Democrat donors, and not just marginal ones, significant ones. And
16:22
Speaker 2: in many instances, you know, the money that Sam Altman
16:25
Speaker 2: and Dario have Amadei will walk away with, will make
16:29
Speaker 2: some of these, you know, these divorced women's fortunes, you know,
16:33
Speaker 2: Mackenzie Bezos and some of these others, it'll look small
16:37
Speaker 2: in comparison. I mean, they stand to make. a substantial
16:40
Speaker 2: amount of money. And so I think that should concern
16:43
Speaker 2: anyone who's looking at the future of, wow, we're at
16:46
Speaker 2: the cusp of surviving George Soros as he makes his
16:50
Speaker 2: way into whatever comes next for him after this life.
16:55
Speaker 2: And what are the threats on the horizon? I do
16:59
Speaker 2: think what we should do is there should be some
17:01
Speaker 2: serious consideration, as some others have suggested recently, on whether
17:05
Speaker 2: the IPO should go forward for these two companies. Number one,
17:09
Speaker 2: Number two, we should take them at their word. They
17:12
Speaker 2: want a third-party organization that should regulate AI. Let's give
17:16
Speaker 2: them one, but not the one that they want. It
17:19
Speaker 2: shouldn't be meter. It should be made up of the
17:22
Speaker 2: best technologists who are actually grounded in in our civilization
17:26
Speaker 2: who come to bring to bear our sort of philosophical, historical,
17:32
Speaker 2: moral tradition on the question. Not effective altruists chosen from
17:36
Speaker 2: University of Cal Berkeley's faculty lounges, but folks that we
17:40
Speaker 2: know who are capable of understanding the technology and also
17:42
Speaker 2: understanding have some rootedness in a proper, full view of
17:47
Speaker 2: the human person. So let's create an organization. And the
17:50
Speaker 2: third one, you know, as David Sachs has suggested, I
17:52
Speaker 2: think this is one of the best formulations that anyone
17:55
Speaker 2: has said is, if these things are so dangerous, stop.
17:59
Speaker 2: You can walk away tomorrow. We don't need the frontier labs.
18:02
Speaker 2: If what you're telling us is true, then you should
18:05
Speaker 2: just walk away from this technology and leave it be,
18:08
Speaker 2: which we all know is that's calling them on their bluff.
18:12
Speaker 2: It is a gross canard. And I think the fourth thing, Alex,
18:15
Speaker 2: is something that you're trying to do. Others who are thinking...
18:19
Speaker 2: I think, you know, in a very expansive way about
18:23
Speaker 2: this technology and its implications, not just for our government,
18:26
Speaker 2: but for the human person more broadly, people have got
18:28
Speaker 2: to educate themselves about what AI is and what it isn't.
18:32
Speaker 2: And I think that is so important because, you know,
18:36
Speaker 2: as those who I respect in this area have said
18:39
Speaker 2: many times, artificial intelligence is a tool. It is a
18:42
Speaker 2: tool just like the sort of transformational tools that we
18:44
Speaker 2: have had over the last thousands of years. The creation
18:48
Speaker 2: of the clock, the development of the transistor radio, the
18:51
Speaker 2: creation of the Internet tools can be wielded by human
18:54
Speaker 2: beings for good or for bad. But it really comes
18:57
Speaker 2: back to human agency. And what are humans willing to
19:00
Speaker 2: do with this technology? And what are the things that
19:01
Speaker 2: humans say? you know, we're going to set that aside
19:04
Speaker 2: and there should be some legal or regulatory obstacles for
19:07
Speaker 2: using AI in this way. So just to give you
19:09
Speaker 2: an example, you know, I think a lot of us
19:10
Speaker 2: lamented the death of Kyle Busch, you know, when he
19:13
Speaker 2: had this sepsis infection that went untreated. You know, the
19:16
Speaker 2: use of AI technology in a number of major city
19:21
Speaker 2: hospital systems over the last two years has increased detection
19:24
Speaker 2: of sepsis death by 700%. I mean, just enormous benefits
19:29
Speaker 2: to everyday Americans, diagnosticians, you know, nurses working extended rounds
19:34
Speaker 2: in hospitals are able to catch sepsis indications far earlier
19:38
Speaker 2: and treat them and people are surviving. That's a good thing.
19:42
Speaker 2: That's a good thing. Now, if AI is going to
19:44
Speaker 2: be used by hacking collectives in Wuhan to break into
19:47
Speaker 2: American health records or to disrupt our our national security,
19:51
Speaker 2: that's a bad thing. But all of these things, again,
19:53
Speaker 2: come back to human agency. And I think that's incumbent
19:56
Speaker 2: upon everyday Americans is educate yourself on the technology, learn
20:00
Speaker 2: a little bit about what it means, what it portends.
20:03
Speaker 2: and then we can have an educated conversation as a citizenry,
20:06
Speaker 2: not being led by the nose by a bunch of
20:08
Speaker 2: elitists in Berkeley, but as a citizenry of what we
20:10
Speaker 2: want to see happen with this.
20:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just to be crystal, the reason why they
20:15
Speaker 1: want to be in charge of the regulatory entity is
20:20
Speaker 1: because they do think they're smarter and better and more
20:22
Speaker 1: moral than all of us, but also because they will
20:25
Speaker 1: set the regulations so that they make the compliance, Anthropic complies,
20:29
Speaker 1: but no one else who's competing with them is compliant
20:32
Speaker 1: with it and thus they're going to squeeze our competition
20:34
Speaker 1: it just it's so obvious too it doesn't even seem
20:37
Speaker 1: like a brilliant point that i can make that up
20:39
Speaker 1: but it's so what they're doing and i can't believe
20:43
Speaker 1: that they they thought they were going to get away
20:44
Speaker 1: with it i mean it's like a lamer than a
20:47
Speaker 1: scooby-doo episode i mean it's the it's so right off Yeah,
20:52
Speaker 1: you take the mask off of the regulator and it's
20:54
Speaker 1: Dario Amadei, like, right there. It's like, oh, yeah, of course, dude. Like, obviously,
20:58
Speaker 1: what a dork. These guys are such dorks. And I
21:01
Speaker 1: note this, I know this on a podcast last week
21:03
Speaker 1: with Emma Jo Morris. They really have no riz. And
21:06
Speaker 1: I think that this is not insignificant. They're very not
21:08
Speaker 1: charismatic people. You know, Sam Bankman Freed was the original
21:11
Speaker 1: effective altruist. And look what happened to him. So they
21:15
Speaker 1: don't really have a bunch of compelling people who you're
21:18
Speaker 1: inclined to follow into the midst of Avalon, if you will. So...
21:22
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is going to work, but
21:25
Speaker 1: I'm struck by their inability to message. I was thinking
21:30
Speaker 1: about this. I've been making this analogy for a while,
21:32
Speaker 1: so the audience will have heard this before, but Pablo
21:37
Speaker 1: Escobar was ruining Colombia with drugs, but then he at
21:40
Speaker 1: least would buy a soccer field for people, and so
21:42
Speaker 1: they think, yeah, well, at least we got the nice
21:44
Speaker 1: soccer field. Most of the country's ruined, but it's a, hey,
21:48
Speaker 1: we got a soccer field. That's pretty cool. And These
21:50
Speaker 1: guys can't even buy the soccer field. They just put
21:52
Speaker 1: the data centers up there. They tell you it's Chinese
21:55
Speaker 1: propaganda if you don't like the data center. And instead
21:58
Speaker 1: of these are trillion dollar companies, they could put together
22:01
Speaker 1: a $ 50 million fund for each of these cities and say, hey,
22:04
Speaker 1: if your energy prices go up, we're going to pay
22:07
Speaker 1: for it. The money's already set aside. Just draw from
22:09
Speaker 1: this funds. And by the way, we're going to update
22:12
Speaker 1: the community park. We're going to put some lights up.
22:15
Speaker 1: So you have a ball game at night and everyone go, okay, fine.
22:18
Speaker 1: We'll give it a shot. But they don't do that. Like,
22:20
Speaker 1: why do they not do that? These are the worst
22:22
Speaker 1: messengers in human history. They're supposed to be geniuses and
22:25
Speaker 1: they're the worst marketers of all mankind.
22:28
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, and it's for a reason in part, Alex,
22:30
Speaker 2: that you and I both know, which is Silicon Valley.
22:32
Speaker 2: This is, you know, all these guys who think they're
22:34
Speaker 2: the smartest people in the room, you know, that they're
22:37
Speaker 2: brilliant geniuses about everything, including politics. And it turns out
22:42
Speaker 2: they're actually quite dumb when it comes to this sort
22:44
Speaker 2: of bare knuckle politics, that politics requires you to have
22:47
Speaker 2: some anthropology that tracks with reality. What is it that
22:49
Speaker 2: people need? What is it that people want? What are
22:51
Speaker 2: they asking for from me? And then actually going and
22:53
Speaker 2: delivering on it. But I'll say related to this point
22:56
Speaker 2: that you're making about the soccer fields, One of the
22:59
Speaker 2: frustrations that should be creeping up in the minds of
23:02
Speaker 2: most Americans right now is even for those local authorities
23:07
Speaker 2: that have supposedly successfully negotiated with the AI companies or
23:12
Speaker 2: their third-party front groups that are building, the subcontractors that
23:17
Speaker 2: are building the data centers, the best that people will
23:20
Speaker 2: highlight is, well, we got a one-time lump sum payment
23:25
Speaker 2: They agreed to pave the parking lot for the high school.
23:28
Speaker 2: They built us a new senior citizens facility. This is
23:31
Speaker 2: so small ball. This is absolutely small ball. There's two
23:35
Speaker 2: things that all... It's a minimum, exactly. The local county commissioners,
23:40
Speaker 2: county supervisors, mayors... You need to start thinking about this
23:44
Speaker 2: in terms of what is it they're actually using these
23:46
Speaker 2: data centers for and for open AI and anthropic, you know,
23:50
Speaker 2: that are sort of tokenized businesses, what what local authority
23:54
Speaker 2: should be asking for is no more straw purchasers, no
23:58
Speaker 2: third party groups that come in and say, well, we
23:59
Speaker 2: need this data center for who? For where? Where's the
24:03
Speaker 2: compute going? Is it going to service overseas interests? Is
24:06
Speaker 2: it going to serve these certain companies? Tell me who
24:10
Speaker 2: your primary interest is. And then number two, the request
24:13
Speaker 2: should be, we want a percentage of the profits. Whatever
24:16
Speaker 2: you're running through this data center, whatever this is, if
24:19
Speaker 2: it's for Meta, if it's for Google, we know these
24:21
Speaker 2: are trillion dollar companies, a $ 25 million one-time sum to
24:26
Speaker 2: build a senior citizens facility and pave a couple of roads.
24:29
Speaker 2: That's nothing for these companies. We want a 1% annual
24:34
Speaker 2: profit off of their tokenized sales, and we want it
24:37
Speaker 2: as a dividend for every resident in the city. These
24:40
Speaker 2: are the kinds of things that people should be asking for,
24:43
Speaker 2: thinking about. And again, it gets back to my previous point,
24:45
Speaker 2: which is, You've got to educate yourself about these technologies,
24:50
Speaker 2: which will then lead you to understanding the business models.
24:52
Speaker 2: And as you noted a moment ago, with the two
24:54
Speaker 2: frontier labs, their business model right now is build these
24:58
Speaker 2: massive data centers to increase their compute, that's their infrastructure cost,
25:02
Speaker 2: and then to cannibalize and ingest the proprietary data of
25:07
Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of different companies from multinational law firms
25:10
Speaker 2: to mom and pop insurance companies in one state. And
25:14
Speaker 2: they're taking that information and creating third party competitors for
25:18
Speaker 2: those companies, for those industries, and driving those other companies
25:21
Speaker 2: that they are originally contracted to help out of business.
25:25
Speaker 2: So local authorities, state governments need to be smarter about this.
25:29
Speaker 2: And one of the first ways to do it is
25:30
Speaker 2: take off the mask and ask the third party strawmen
25:33
Speaker 2: who are building these data centers to who are you
25:35
Speaker 2: building this facility for? Let's start there, and then we
25:39
Speaker 2: know who we're negotiating with.
25:42
Speaker 1: I think that is, if you were proactive about it,
25:45
Speaker 1: I just don't know why that wasn't the approach from
25:48
Speaker 1: the start. And that is, it's very creepy, and it's
25:50
Speaker 1: very interesting how, because I've been also watching Meta go through,
25:54
Speaker 1: they're doing media rounds, they're making overtures, or they're starting
25:57
Speaker 1: to understand that their products are addictive and not helpful
26:02
Speaker 1: to people. They're making some acknowledgement of it, but they're also.
26:05
Speaker 2: Not going all the way and noting that we've.
26:08
Speaker 1: Just gotten so much less healthy on a mental basis
26:11
Speaker 1: since the invention of Instagram and meta boosting it at
26:15
Speaker 1: a huge rate. And TikTok is even worse than Instagram
26:18
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and we could spend the
26:19
Speaker 1: whole conversation on that, Theo. But it's just not being
26:23
Speaker 1: clean and open and honest about how a lot of
26:26
Speaker 1: these new technologies are causing a lot of problems. It
26:29
Speaker 1: feels like the unwillingness to confront that, it just reminds
26:31
Speaker 1: me very much of the smoking industry, like the cigarette industry.
26:37
Speaker 1: We can't go on without at least, can we talk
26:40
Speaker 1: about the actual conversation? It feels like we're just talking
26:43
Speaker 1: around the basic problems.
26:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I entirely agree with that, Alex. And as I
26:48
Speaker 2: was noting, with Meta being a little bit more open
26:50
Speaker 2: and transparent, it's after they lost in court in New Mexico,
26:55
Speaker 2: a place where no one really thought they were going
26:56
Speaker 2: to lose anything. And then they lost to the tune
26:58
Speaker 2: of close to a billion dollars. And so the ongoing
27:02
Speaker 2: litigation they face in several other jurisdictions, I mean, this
27:05
Speaker 2: could be a very bad year for Meta. No wonder
27:08
Speaker 2: they are moving to settle most of these disputes. Similarly
27:11
Speaker 2: for TikTok. But this gets back to what you're raising,
27:14
Speaker 2: gets back to the same central question, which is, if
27:16
Speaker 2: you're asking my community to build a data center that
27:19
Speaker 2: will rob us of productive agricultural land or you know,
27:23
Speaker 2: we'll take away open space, or that's just gonna be ugly, right?
27:26
Speaker 2: Because look at the aesthetics of these things. And lots
27:27
Speaker 2: of people commented on this, you know, early utility companies,
27:30
Speaker 2: whether it was some of the Edison backed electricity outfits,
27:34
Speaker 2: or some of the public water utilities, they were required to,
27:38
Speaker 2: you know, essentially under law to build beautiful buildings, beautiful buildings,
27:42
Speaker 2: like you're going to stick this ugly, you know, generation
27:44
Speaker 2: plan in our neighborhood, at least try to blend it
27:48
Speaker 2: so that it's something that's aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
27:50
Speaker 2: And these data center companies won't even do that. So
27:53
Speaker 2: that said, look, I think one of the things that's
27:55
Speaker 2: at issue here is local and state authorities should be asking,
27:59
Speaker 2: is this data center being built specifically in other words,
28:02
Speaker 2: to inundate our young people with 24 access to disgusting pornography?
28:08
Speaker 2: Are you building a data center to essentially put up
28:11
Speaker 2: suicidal ideation content, TikTok, so you can increase your compute bandwidth?
28:16
Speaker 2: Things that, for example, the Chinese would never tolerate, not
28:19
Speaker 2: in a million years. So if compute is necessary to
28:23
Speaker 2: protect the interests of the American Republic, to expand our
28:26
Speaker 2: national security apparatus vis-a-vis our peer adversaries abroad, that's one thing.
28:31
Speaker 2: If new compute is needed, new data centers are needed to,
28:34
Speaker 2: you know, to sort of satisfy the demand for 24
28:36
Speaker 2: hour porn. I think that just, you know, it sits
28:40
Speaker 2: a lot differently for people who are being asked to
28:42
Speaker 2: bear the burden of this kind of infrastructure in their backyard.
28:45
Speaker 2: So these are the central questions that people should be
28:47
Speaker 2: asking people, meaning our elected officials should be asking of
28:51
Speaker 2: these companies.
28:54
Speaker 1: It is so right on and is such a great question.
28:57
Speaker 1: It's like, what is the data supporting? Is the data
28:59
Speaker 1: supporting something that's really going to change the world for
29:01
Speaker 1: a better place? I was just struck by this, how
29:03
Speaker 1: this comes up a lot, Theo, but I feel like
29:07
Speaker 1: I never really get to dive into it too far,
29:09
Speaker 1: which is that we've gotten, we've solved so many of
29:12
Speaker 1: life's essential problems over the last quarter century. It's a
29:15
Speaker 1: lot of food insecurity issues, a lot of poverty has
29:18
Speaker 1: been solved. And of course, boredom, boredom is now over.
29:21
Speaker 1: Thanks for our phones. We're not bored anymore. Every second,
29:24
Speaker 1: we can be stimulated by something. And we're immeasurably less happy.
29:28
Speaker 1: We've done an absolutely horrific job with our own mental health.
29:33
Speaker 1: We're less spiritual. And I think we're dumber in a
29:36
Speaker 1: lot of ways as well. And so we never talked
29:39
Speaker 1: about these things again. And I, it does, it strikes
29:43
Speaker 1: me as we're now going headlong. We're about to accelerate
29:45
Speaker 1: this process at a rapid rate. And I do wish
29:49
Speaker 1: that people could have a, at least be able to,
29:54
Speaker 1: the people who run these companies are, would be honest
29:56
Speaker 1: about this. It's not necessarily a good thing what they're doing.
29:58
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean they're not free to do it and
29:59
Speaker 1: free to try, but it's a, can we use, and
30:03
Speaker 1: you're a godly man. I know you're, I want to
30:06
Speaker 1: talk about how religious people can see this because we
30:10
Speaker 1: can't fight it. I don't want to fight against it.
30:12
Speaker 1: The AIs, it's here. We're all using it. We're all
30:15
Speaker 1: using it, whether we like it or not. How do
30:18
Speaker 1: we use this to grow the kingdom of God? We
30:21
Speaker 1: can't accept that it's necessary for things to get worse
30:24
Speaker 1: because we have the new technology. It doesn't have to.
30:26
Speaker 1: So what do we need to do from your vantage point?
30:27
Speaker 1: What are the steps we must take?
30:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a fundamental question, Alex, and I agree.
30:33
Speaker 2: Not many people are having this kind of discussion. And
30:35
Speaker 2: I'll say it was very interesting to me a few
30:37
Speaker 2: weeks ago, right as this sort of Coxon You know,
30:40
Speaker 2: the researcher who was really like a six-week intern at Anthropic,
30:44
Speaker 2: you know, blows the whistle and says, oh, God, this
30:47
Speaker 2: technology is going to kill us all, which, you know,
30:49
Speaker 2: obviously was just the beginning of the massive PR convergence
30:52
Speaker 2: for the Frontier Labs. As he's making his way into
30:55
Speaker 2: the media spotlight, we get news that Wendell Berry, the
30:59
Speaker 2: great agrarian poet and novelist, has died. And look, I
31:04
Speaker 2: didn't always agree with Wendell Berry's politics, but sort of, again,
31:08
Speaker 2: his fundamental anthropology, his understanding of the human person in
31:11
Speaker 2: relation to technology and in relation to the soil, the
31:16
Speaker 2: lived environment around the human person, I think is must-read.
31:20
Speaker 2: for anyone who is an American, but also interested in
31:24
Speaker 2: these questions about sort of the personification of a human being.
31:28
Speaker 2: You are materialized and you live in a certain time,
31:31
Speaker 2: in a certain place. And what does that mean then
31:34
Speaker 2: for the kinds of tools you should be using or
31:37
Speaker 2: the kinds of interactions you should have with your environment,
31:39
Speaker 2: including other people? And I think one of the quick
31:42
Speaker 2: things I can say on this subject is primary humane
31:46
Speaker 2: endeavors are who'd never be offshored or segregated over to
31:52
Speaker 2: AI technology? And what are primary humane endeavors? The ability
31:56
Speaker 2: to think for oneself, and the ability to write and
32:00
Speaker 2: express in some kind of media, whether that's a tweet
32:05
Speaker 2: or a substack post, an essay or a novel, you
32:08
Speaker 2: should never, ever allow technology to do those primary functions
32:13
Speaker 2: for you. And it just sort of turns out, as
32:15
Speaker 2: we know, whether you're talking about St. Ambrose and some
32:20
Speaker 2: of the work he did, he was one of the first,
32:23
Speaker 2: I mean, in St. Augustine's account, one of the first
32:25
Speaker 2: primary figures in the Western civilizational intellectual landscape to master
32:30
Speaker 2: the art of reading silently. Which sounds like nothing today,
32:34
Speaker 2: but the idea both of having written material that you
32:37
Speaker 2: could read and then reading silently, that you're imbibing information
32:41
Speaker 2: and allowing it to change the contours of your own
32:43
Speaker 2: mind and your own soul. turns out to be pretty
32:45
Speaker 2: transformative technology, if you will. And I think that through
32:50
Speaker 2: our entire civilizational history, we have understood that the ability
32:54
Speaker 2: to think and to speak, whether that's in written form
32:57
Speaker 2: or an oratory or debate or primary humane functions, we
33:00
Speaker 2: should never give those over to technology. And when we do,
33:04
Speaker 2: when we do give it over to technology, you see
33:06
Speaker 2: it all the time, right? The The statements that Ilhan
33:08
Speaker 2: Omar published the other day or Ro Khanna, it's slop.
33:13
Speaker 2: It's absolute slop. Everyone can detect it a mile away.
33:16
Speaker 2: And no, that's not just a question of will the
33:19
Speaker 2: technology get better? Will chat GPT, you know, be enhanced?
33:22
Speaker 2: It is detectable because there's no humane animation behind the writing,
33:26
Speaker 2: behind the words that they're mouthing. And I think that's
33:30
Speaker 2: one of the primary places where humans should say, look,
33:32
Speaker 2: you know, this will create efficiencies in the workflow at
33:34
Speaker 2: my hospital. It'll improve diagnosticians, whether the diagnosis is looking
33:40
Speaker 2: for terrorists or whether the diagnosis is looking for certain
33:43
Speaker 2: antibodies in a sick individual. But as far as replacing
33:48
Speaker 2: my ability to think for myself or to give a
33:50
Speaker 2: written account of my thoughts, that belongs to me alone.
33:53
Speaker 2: I'm not giving that over to anyone.
33:55
Speaker 1: One thing that really strikes me in all this is
33:58
Speaker 1: how I think there's a lot of people like me,
34:00
Speaker 1: and I see the anti-AI arguments as not really persuasive.
34:05
Speaker 1: And I'm very gettable. And I've got an audience of
34:08
Speaker 1: people who really don't like AI. They don't like it.
34:11
Speaker 1: They don't want it. And they wish it wasn't happening,
34:14
Speaker 1: even if it is. And I feel on a personal level,
34:17
Speaker 1: I'm gettable to be convinced that I need to be
34:20
Speaker 1: an optimist about this technology. And it just feels like
34:23
Speaker 1: everyone in the AI, the people who are positive on AI,
34:27
Speaker 1: are just horrible salespeople. We went through all the effective
34:31
Speaker 1: altruist stuff. A lot of people in the Trump administration,
34:34
Speaker 1: which I largely agree with, suggesting that it's all Chinese
34:37
Speaker 1: propaganda if you don't like data centers, which it's not.
34:40
Speaker 1: It's totally legitimate to not like data centers, whether or
34:42
Speaker 1: not Is Chinese propaganda or not is sort of irrelevant.
34:45
Speaker 1: And then, you know, Jensen Wong's really articulate on why
34:49
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have an AI slowdown, but he's the one
34:51
Speaker 1: who stands to make the most money. I happen to
34:54
Speaker 1: agree with him, but it's not the best look if
34:56
Speaker 1: your spokesman is the guy who will be the single,
34:58
Speaker 1: the guy who will make the most money of any
35:00
Speaker 1: individual on earth. if we don't slow down AI. So,
35:04
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just a fact of the matter. So
35:06
Speaker 1: that's why I get, I'm a messaging guy and a
35:09
Speaker 1: media guy more than anything else. And that's why I'm
35:11
Speaker 1: fascinated by this. I've never seen a, emerging technology be
35:15
Speaker 1: sold to the public in such an ineffective way. So
35:18
Speaker 1: I guess my thought to you is, because you sound
35:21
Speaker 1: more optimistic than pessimistic about this technology, what do we
35:25
Speaker 1: say to, let's say, the Christian community? What do we
35:27
Speaker 1: say to other believers to get people at least open-minded
35:31
Speaker 1: to using this stuff for good?
35:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and sorry I didn't answer this directly
35:35
Speaker 2: in the last refrain there, but your question is For believers,
35:40
Speaker 2: especially Christians, this is a good example of what I'm discussing.
35:43
Speaker 2: There's a piece that was written, I think it was
35:44
Speaker 2: in the New York Times just a couple days ago,
35:46
Speaker 2: about the number of pastors who are using AI to
35:51
Speaker 2: write their sermons for them to essentially replace their own
35:57
Speaker 2: authentic witness of Christ's teaching and using a template, in essence,
36:02
Speaker 2: to preach to their own congregations. That's slop. That's just
36:06
Speaker 2: absolute slop. I mean, that's essentially like saying, you know,
36:10
Speaker 2: Michelangelo went to do his great work, whether it was
36:13
Speaker 2: in the Sistine Chapel or whatever, and he had AI.
36:16
Speaker 2: He took a template and he was just painting by number.
36:18
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no individual genius there. There is no
36:21
Speaker 2: prayerful reflection between God and, you know, and his mouthpiece.
36:26
Speaker 2: before the congregation. So I think it's one of those
36:29
Speaker 2: moments where, look, to use this technology correctly, you actually
36:34
Speaker 2: have to be rooted in the wellspring of knowledge and
36:39
Speaker 2: moral teaching of our civilization. And for, you know, look,
36:42
Speaker 2: I used to be a Luddite. I was very committed Luddite.
36:45
Speaker 2: And I will say, as someone who is a little
36:47
Speaker 2: bit more optimistic on this question, which is unusual for me,
36:50
Speaker 2: I'm usually pretty pessimistic on most things, I would say
36:54
Speaker 2: it's because I have a fairly robust confidence in our civilization.
36:58
Speaker 2: I actually think when people mine the deep reservoir of
37:04
Speaker 2: teaching we have, again, on these questions of bioethics, on
37:07
Speaker 2: the proper relationship between the citizen and the state, on
37:11
Speaker 2: on the proper understanding of the human person as someone
37:14
Speaker 2: who's embodied with a soul, I think we come to
37:17
Speaker 2: the right answers on these things. No, we didn't stop everything,
37:21
Speaker 2: including transcontinental navigation when we created the clock. We didn't
37:27
Speaker 2: stop writing or thinking or reading when we created the typewriter.
37:31
Speaker 2: And obviously, some people made the claim that the AI,
37:33
Speaker 2: you know, AI is a more transformational technology than any
37:36
Speaker 2: of those that I just named. But the point remains,
37:38
Speaker 2: which is the human person, especially the Western man, has
37:42
Speaker 2: an entire 2000 years of history of moral teaching to
37:48
Speaker 2: draw upon to put this technology in its proper place,
37:50
Speaker 2: which is in service to the human person. first, period.
37:55
Speaker 2: And so if there is a lament, if there's a
37:57
Speaker 2: concern or a fear among people, especially Americans, it's just
38:02
Speaker 2: further proof and commentary on how disassociated we are from
38:05
Speaker 2: the roots of our own civilization. You want to beat AI,
38:08
Speaker 2: you want to put AI in the proper box where
38:11
Speaker 2: it belongs, open up scripture, read some Aristotle, and revisit
38:16
Speaker 2: the founders. And I know that sounds very reductionist and
38:18
Speaker 2: very simplistic, but if you are watered by the wisdom
38:22
Speaker 2: of our civilization, then you're not going to be in
38:24
Speaker 2: the drought that Dario and Sam Altman and all these
38:27
Speaker 2: other people were. want to sketch. And just one last point,
38:29
Speaker 2: you know, for anyone who's confused about what their view is,
38:32
Speaker 2: go watch the, you know, the interview that Tucker did,
38:34
Speaker 2: for example, with Sam Altman, when they talked about there
38:36
Speaker 2: was this really telling refrain about assisted suicide. And the
38:41
Speaker 2: question was, you know, on the broad end was about,
38:44
Speaker 2: is assisted suicide a moral good? Is it something that
38:47
Speaker 2: your models will encourage people to pursue? How do you
38:50
Speaker 2: construct those models to inform people when they're making these
38:53
Speaker 2: queries of chat GPT? And that was just sort of
38:56
Speaker 2: the bridge to get to the more specific question, which was, well,
38:59
Speaker 2: we have evidence that ChatGPT has counseled people to commit suicide.
39:05
Speaker 2: the absence of a physician or the legal architecture that
39:08
Speaker 2: exists in places like Canada. Is that what your model
39:11
Speaker 2: is doing? And Altman then backpedaled and said, oh, I
39:14
Speaker 2: can't really answer this question. Well, tell us who your
39:16
Speaker 2: ethicists are. I can't really reveal who my ethicists are.
39:19
Speaker 2: That's the future. If you're not doing your homework, if
39:22
Speaker 2: you're not going to bother to actually inform yourself about
39:25
Speaker 2: what our civilization teaches on these questions, then it's going
39:27
Speaker 2: to be Dario and Sam Altman and their hidden ethicists
39:30
Speaker 2: who do it for you.
39:31
Speaker 1: So then what do we do? What are we to
39:33
Speaker 1: do to try to make sure that we're keeping an
39:35
Speaker 1: eye on, we're keeping everyone focused, keep everyone's eye on
39:38
Speaker 1: the ball so that we could maybe, God willing, benefit
39:41
Speaker 1: from this technology. But in the meantime, we need to
39:46
Speaker 1: stay vigilant and diligent here on behalf of our children
39:49
Speaker 1: and our family members and our country.
39:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, three quick things I'd say on this, Alex. One,
39:56
Speaker 2: the American person, the American citizen, has always been good
40:02
Speaker 2: at tinkering, right? This is something Tocqueville talks about with shipbuilding.
40:06
Speaker 2: We've always been, I mean, you know, that motif that
40:09
Speaker 2: we're all, we are all proud of the idea that
40:12
Speaker 2: a group of, you know, kind of weirdo guys got
40:14
Speaker 2: in a garage somewhere in San Jose and invented the
40:18
Speaker 2: personal computer. That's actually something we're proud of as Americans,
40:21
Speaker 2: because it really gets to home to the idea of like,
40:23
Speaker 2: you know, gunsmiths and home millinery, all the way to
40:26
Speaker 2: the PC, we've always been playing around with things and
40:29
Speaker 2: creating ways of doing things faster, more effectively than anybody
40:33
Speaker 2: else on planet Earth. So we should keep building. And
40:36
Speaker 2: then that's what I think the president is exactly right on.
40:39
Speaker 2: Some of the other specifics, you know, maybe I agree,
40:40
Speaker 2: maybe I disagree, but the underlying thesis is of America
40:43
Speaker 2: has never been afraid to build. That's number one. Number two,
40:46
Speaker 2: America has never been afraid to actually go to our
40:50
Speaker 2: own sources when we have hard questions. Let's think about
40:53
Speaker 2: this in terms of scripture. Let's think about this in
40:55
Speaker 2: terms of what the founding fathers said. about regulation about
40:58
Speaker 2: our legal architecture and then i i think the third
41:01
Speaker 2: is you know really this idea of americans are good
41:05
Speaker 2: at negotiating we've always been good at driving a hard
41:08
Speaker 2: bargain that's why so many of our adversaries fear us
41:11
Speaker 2: not just on the battlefield but across the negotiation table
41:15
Speaker 2: and so local and state communities need to be asking
41:17
Speaker 2: themselves who are these people How much money do they have?
41:21
Speaker 2: What's their end goal here? And whether we're agreeing to
41:25
Speaker 2: a good deal or not is answered first and primarily
41:28
Speaker 2: by those three questions, which is why do they need
41:31
Speaker 2: this data center? What are they going to use it for?
41:33
Speaker 2: And who stands to benefit? And how much money do
41:34
Speaker 2: those people have? That will tell you whether you're getting
41:37
Speaker 2: taken for a ride or not. So we shouldn't be
41:39
Speaker 2: afraid to build. We shouldn't be afraid to source these
41:42
Speaker 2: questions back to our own tradition in our own civilization.
41:46
Speaker 2: And three, we shouldn't be afraid to drive a hard
41:48
Speaker 2: bargain and say, okay, Daru, you want a third party group?
41:51
Speaker 2: We're going to give you a third party regulatory group.
41:53
Speaker 2: And it's going to be made of people who are
41:54
Speaker 2: deeply skeptical of you and your technology. And they're going
41:57
Speaker 2: to look at this from every angle. You asked for it,
42:00
Speaker 2: and now we're giving it to you.
42:02
Speaker 1: The Trump administration seems a little reluctant to do anything
42:05
Speaker 1: specific on this at the moment. And because they see
42:09
Speaker 1: this as an opportunity for a massive surge economically and
42:12
Speaker 1: a big sprint forward for the country. which could be
42:15
Speaker 1: historic for President Trump, just by nature of Trump being
42:17
Speaker 1: a little right place, right time type thing. If he
42:19
Speaker 1: doesn't get in the way, then this could be the
42:22
Speaker 1: best case scenario for AI. And I'm not ruling that
42:25
Speaker 1: out either. I'm not ruling out the worst case scenarios either.
42:27
Speaker 1: I don't think they're happening in the next 10 years
42:29
Speaker 1: if they're happening. But I do think some of the
42:31
Speaker 1: worst case scenarios are horrifying. But some of the best
42:34
Speaker 1: case scenarios, that is, we really do hit a new
42:37
Speaker 1: level of prosperity we've never seen before. Trump doesn't want
42:39
Speaker 1: to get in the way of that. So what do
42:41
Speaker 1: you think he should do and what's realistic?
42:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the first baseline premise should be,
42:48
Speaker 2: is AI actually, is it more analogous to the cotton gin,
42:52
Speaker 2: which is, you know, it displaces a great moral wrong,
42:56
Speaker 2: but it also creates an enormous productivity leap for the
42:59
Speaker 2: American worker. Is AI like the cotton gin? Is it
43:02
Speaker 2: more like, you know, the fax machine? And I don't
43:06
Speaker 2: think anyone has a definitive answer on that yet, right?
43:09
Speaker 2: I mean, both the doomerists and the optimists haven't really
43:13
Speaker 2: calculated this conversation publicly to let us know. It's true.
43:17
Speaker 2: or to at least, you know, to reveal behind the kimono, okay,
43:20
Speaker 2: you're hyping this a lot, but how much of an
43:23
Speaker 2: efficiency productivity gain is this? And that's one of those
43:26
Speaker 2: things where, you know, friends of ours and your viewers
43:30
Speaker 2: really need to remind themselves that the sort of the
43:32
Speaker 2: secret sauce of the American economy has been for 250
43:35
Speaker 2: years now, two central things. One, that tinkerer, that American
43:40
Speaker 2: worker who is incredibly productive, but also a self-starter. And
43:43
Speaker 2: then two, that we have cleared most of the regulatory
43:47
Speaker 2: legal obstacles that reduce productivity. We have always been the
43:52
Speaker 2: ones to embrace whatever technology, whatever new legal landscape that
43:56
Speaker 2: moves productivity forward. And that's not true in Germany. It's
43:59
Speaker 2: not true in Japan. It's not true in China. And
44:02
Speaker 2: we see that in both in their regulatory legal landscapes,
44:05
Speaker 2: but also the way their workers just approach their daily grind,
44:09
Speaker 2: whether it's on the factory floor or in the office.
44:11
Speaker 2: And so I think we should be weary of anything
44:13
Speaker 2: that would impose limitations on the American worker. At the
44:17
Speaker 2: same time, we should be weary of anything that's going
44:19
Speaker 2: to replace the American worker because that's a unique genius.
44:22
Speaker 2: So what can the Trump administration do? I really do think,
44:25
Speaker 2: as you mentioned a moment ago, Alex, it's time for
44:29
Speaker 2: them to make a case. They've actually got to present
44:32
Speaker 2: some kind of thesis and build a case. And I
44:35
Speaker 2: think that's what I see is lacking here. If you
44:38
Speaker 2: want to keep the landscape open for some of the
44:42
Speaker 2: open artificial intelligence research that's being done, the open weight models,
44:47
Speaker 2: then tell us why. Tell us why that's important. What
44:50
Speaker 2: do we expect to gain from that? Data center construction
44:53
Speaker 2: creates temporary construction jobs, electrician jobs, pipe fitters, steam fitter jobs,
45:00
Speaker 2: but they're temporary. And when data centers are up and running,
45:04
Speaker 2: the jobs that Meta or Google promise, hundreds of jobs,
45:08
Speaker 2: it's more like 10 or 20. So if it's going
45:11
Speaker 2: to be a windfall for the American worker, tell us how.
45:15
Speaker 2: And I think in many instances, some people are telling
45:17
Speaker 2: this story and it's pretty effective, but we haven't heard
45:20
Speaker 2: one from the White House or the president himself yet.
45:24
Speaker 1: Theo Wald, real Theo Wald, W-O-L-D, by the way, for
45:27
Speaker 1: Wald spelling. Anything else I can share, a plug for you?
45:30
Speaker 1: Anything else you want the audience to know about before
45:31
Speaker 1: I let you run? No, that's great.
45:34
Speaker 2: Just find me on X, Insta. And I think this is,
45:36
Speaker 2: as I said, the most important conversation we can be
45:39
Speaker 2: having right now as a people. And we should be
45:42
Speaker 2: having it. We should be demanding that our elected leaders,
45:46
Speaker 2: but also these elites out in California who claim to
45:48
Speaker 2: know better than the rest of us, it's time for
45:50
Speaker 2: them to show us their notes.
45:52
Speaker 1: Beautifully put. We'll leave it there. Thanks, Theo. I know
45:54
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon. Thanks to Misty for putting
45:56
Speaker 1: this together. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.