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Interview Only w/Brad Carson - AI Needs Serious Regulation & Serious Regulators · The Chuck ToddCast

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1:51
Speaker 2: Well.
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Speaker 1: Everybody is trying to figure out things when it comes
1:54
Speaker 1: to artificial intelligence, right I think as consumers or trying
1:58
Speaker 1: to figure out how is it impacting our lives? How
2:02
Speaker 1: is this going to impact our future of work. You've
2:06
Speaker 1: got older kids, You're wondering are you even remotely giving
2:10
Speaker 1: them the education they need to survive in this new
2:13
Speaker 1: AI driven world. Governments are trying to figure out, you know,
2:17
Speaker 1: how do we help this great technology come around? But
2:23
Speaker 1: do so with some guardrails considering how poorly the same
2:29
Speaker 1: tech companies that are trying to bring us AI brought
2:31
Speaker 1: us social media, and there certainly seems to be disputes
2:36
Speaker 1: about that. And what's been interesting is is how negative
2:41
Speaker 1: the country is becoming on AI, artificial intelligence. And I
2:45
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of fear out there. I think
2:47
Speaker 1: the fear is understandable. I think the technology is remarkable.
2:50
Speaker 1: I think, like many people, I think now we all
2:53
Speaker 1: every day we use it more. Sometimes we don't even
2:56
Speaker 1: fully realize how much we're using it, but we use
2:58
Speaker 1: it more. But the fear factor is definitely gone up.
3:02
Speaker 1: And in some ways that fear is driven by the
3:04
Speaker 1: people that are bringing us these AI companies, because they're
3:07
Speaker 1: the ones that tell us, well, there's this small, small
3:10
Speaker 1: chance that whatever we're developing is going to consume us all,
3:13
Speaker 1: and you're sitting there going so why are we doing this?
3:18
Speaker 1: So it is look, the next ten years probably are
3:21
Speaker 1: going to be defined politically by this battle of how
3:26
Speaker 1: do we integrate AI into society and how do we
3:31
Speaker 1: do it on our terms rather than on AI's terms.
3:34
Speaker 1: So my guest today is a former member of Congress,
3:36
Speaker 1: former Democrat Brad Carson from the state of Oklahoma, president
3:39
Speaker 1: of Fulsea University, and he's president of Americans for Responsible Innovation.
3:47
Speaker 1: So the idea is that he's trying to work on
3:49
Speaker 1: trying to create some better conditions perhaps, and I say perhaps,
3:56
Speaker 1: because we're what this conversation is about, of a of
4:01
Speaker 1: a regulatory environment that could earn the trust of the public. Because,
4:04
Speaker 1: as I point out, it's some very recent NBC News poll,
4:07
Speaker 1: but this has been pretty consistent so far. Most Americans
4:13
Speaker 1: see more negative coming from AI than positive. Now we're
4:16
Speaker 1: unique around the world. Most other Western democracies are a
4:19
Speaker 1: bit more pro AI than we are. And I think,
4:23
Speaker 1: like I said, the experiences of social media on this country,
4:27
Speaker 1: in particular the experience of what globalization did and the
4:31
Speaker 1: fact that that's still a living memory for many of us.
4:34
Speaker 1: So I in many ways Americans have earned their skepticism
4:38
Speaker 1: on this. Brad Carson, Welcome to the podcast.
4:42
Speaker 2: Thanks Chun, great to see you again.
4:44
Speaker 1: So let's let me start with that. I want to
4:47
Speaker 1: get into some overall politics, whether there's such thing as
4:50
Speaker 1: an Oklahoma Democrat anymore, and we can discuss that, because
4:55
Speaker 1: even then, you were an outlier when you were in
4:57
Speaker 1: Congress start with this. Tell me about your organization and
5:04
Speaker 1: be transparent with me. Who's funding it, who's what you know?
5:09
Speaker 1: Because I tell you we're in the middle. There's so
5:11
Speaker 1: much money flowing into politics right now, coming from a
5:14
Speaker 1: handful of people trying to influence the regulation of AI.
5:19
Speaker 1: So tell me about organization and tell me who's buying it.
5:22
Speaker 2: So American's Responsible Innovation is now about two years old.
5:26
Speaker 2: We're by partisan group. I'm a Democrat. I'm the president
5:28
Speaker 2: of it. We have several Republicans who work for us,
5:31
Speaker 2: and we take great pride in working across the aisle
5:34
Speaker 2: because we believe AI should not be a partisan issue
5:37
Speaker 2: and that it's some one that both parties have a
5:39
Speaker 2: huge stake in managing well. We're funded by family foundations
5:43
Speaker 2: or charities. We take no money from the tech sector
5:46
Speaker 2: at all, So our biggest funders are groups like Coefficient Giving,
5:49
Speaker 2: ohmed Y are Packard Foundation, and a number of family offices.
5:53
Speaker 2: So we're independent of the tech sector entirely, and we're
5:56
Speaker 2: often critical of them. But we believe that AI can
5:58
Speaker 2: be powerful, transformative, and so we're not We don't want
6:02
Speaker 2: to kill the golden goose either.
6:05
Speaker 1: All right, you say you're entirely independent from the tech sector,
6:08
Speaker 1: and then you also mentioned the Packard family. I mean
6:10
Speaker 1: that's part of Hewlett Packard. I mean I assume you
6:13
Speaker 1: have some family offices that made money in the tech sector.
6:16
Speaker 2: Sure, some people who gave give to us actually even
6:18
Speaker 2: work for the labs today. They might work for OPAI
6:21
Speaker 2: or Anthropy. We don't take any kind of corporate contributions
6:23
Speaker 2: like you might see at other groups in Washington, DC.
6:28
Speaker 1: Look, the reason I asked that you've got We're in
6:30
Speaker 1: the middle of primary season and you see you literally
6:34
Speaker 1: have super PACs that open AI is supporting versus a
6:37
Speaker 1: super pac that Anthropic is supporting, because they're actually not
6:41
Speaker 1: always on the same page when it comes to the
6:44
Speaker 1: regular regulation issue. Do you do you guys have that
6:49
Speaker 1: tension inside your organization.
6:52
Speaker 2: We do have a bit of a tension about that.
6:53
Speaker 2: Although you should know that that super pac network, of
6:56
Speaker 2: which Anthropic is a contributor, I actually run that as well.
7:00
Speaker 2: That's kind of something I do in addition to my
7:02
Speaker 2: work as AARI. And that's a group we found that
7:05
Speaker 2: kind of spun out of AAR and we raised a
7:07
Speaker 2: lot of money for it, and then we convinced Anthropic
7:10
Speaker 2: to contribute to it because to their credit, Anthropic, like
7:13
Speaker 2: the other donors, believe that we should have reasonable guard
7:15
Speaker 2: rails around that. So I'm very involved in the politics
7:17
Speaker 2: of it, very involved in the Illinois races today as
7:20
Speaker 2: we tape this, but also involved to aari kind of
7:24
Speaker 2: the advocacy work on the hill. So both of those
7:26
Speaker 2: kinds of things, do you why should we yah?
7:33
Speaker 1: Let me put it this way, the amount of money
7:36
Speaker 1: you brought up the Illinois races. By time people hear this,
7:38
Speaker 1: we will have already had these primaries. But it's funny
7:41
Speaker 1: you bring up the Illinois races. I think it's just
7:45
Speaker 1: I can't believe the amount of money from outside groups
7:49
Speaker 1: that's involved in the center race. Now I understand it.
7:51
Speaker 1: The primary is the center race, right. The winner of
7:54
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary has like a ninety five percent chance
7:56
Speaker 1: of being the United States center barring some unforeseen event, scandal, etc.
8:02
Speaker 1: So the game is the primary. But you ran for office.
8:06
Speaker 1: Can you imagine having to run for office now in
8:10
Speaker 1: this era of super PACs where you may have a
8:13
Speaker 1: theory of the case of what kind of campaign you'd
8:15
Speaker 1: run a run, but the outside group that supposedly wants
8:20
Speaker 1: you to win, has more money, and if they say,
8:23
Speaker 1: you know, we don't like your messaging, We're going to
8:24
Speaker 1: do another messaging. You're you no longer have control of
8:28
Speaker 1: your own campaign. Have you? Can you imagine what life
8:32
Speaker 1: would have been like for you as a candidate under
8:34
Speaker 1: the under these conditions.
8:36
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's one of the greatest changes in
8:38
Speaker 2: American politics that most people don't appreciate the hard dollars
8:41
Speaker 2: campaign raises, they're almost insignificant. You look at the Illinois primaries,
8:46
Speaker 2: candidates there often raising one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars.
8:50
Speaker 2: Super PACs are then spending four or five million dollars
8:54
Speaker 2: against you. We're involved in a race in North Carolina's
8:56
Speaker 2: fourth district in the research triangle, each candidates spent about
8:59
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars. The super PACs spent a couple
9:02
Speaker 2: of million on each side. So you see, happy in
9:05
Speaker 2: American politics is in some ways you would even have
9:07
Speaker 2: to raise money as a candidate. You could just sit
9:10
Speaker 2: back in your house let the super PACs fight it out.
9:12
Speaker 2: Because whatever you raise and asks hard it is to
9:15
Speaker 2: raise when you're running for office, how exhausting that is,
9:18
Speaker 2: it's going to be matched probably ten x or more
9:21
Speaker 2: by the super PACs, So really extraordinary.
9:24
Speaker 1: Should this should? It doesn't sound like you think this
9:28
Speaker 1: is a good system. Obviously they're working within the system
9:31
Speaker 1: that it is. I always joke I cover politics as
9:33
Speaker 1: it is, not as I wish it were, and you're
9:36
Speaker 1: participating in the system as it is, perhaps not as
9:39
Speaker 1: you wish it were. But my word, I mean this
9:42
Speaker 1: is if the candidates aren't in charge of their messaging
9:48
Speaker 1: or their campaign, then what's the point.
9:50
Speaker 2: That's a great question. American democracy is really at stake
9:53
Speaker 2: here the superPAC era. But you're going to really see
9:55
Speaker 2: it manifested this cycle and the next one. You know,
9:58
Speaker 2: Crypto pioneered this strategy. Apex very involved with it too.
10:02
Speaker 2: Both of them have a hut.
10:02
Speaker 1: You're not alone.
10:03
Speaker 2: I don't want it.
10:03
Speaker 1: You're right, I'm picking on you because you're here.
10:06
Speaker 2: No, the well four or five of us were playing
10:09
Speaker 2: big are superbacks at seventy five million dollars. I'd be
10:11
Speaker 2: happy to stand down if everyone else would as well,
10:14
Speaker 2: because it's really destroying American democracy, changing the way elections
10:17
Speaker 2: are had. So it's a terrible system that we've to
10:21
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, both Supreme Court and FEC interpretations of that
10:24
Speaker 2: Supreme Court opinion. We permitted it to get completely out
10:27
Speaker 2: of hand.
10:28
Speaker 1: Look, when you served in Congress, do you think back
10:31
Speaker 1: about the do you have any regrets collectively, not you
10:37
Speaker 1: the individual member of Congress, but collectively because it was
10:40
Speaker 1: the entire era had a hands off approach on the Internet,
10:43
Speaker 1: very hands off on regulating, you know. I mean, I
10:46
Speaker 1: remember at one point John McCain advocating we should have
10:49
Speaker 1: the Internet should be tax free forever. And I remember thinking,
10:51
Speaker 1: you know, at some point that's not going to work,
10:54
Speaker 1: and it didn't. The Internet shouldn't have any sales tax.
10:56
Speaker 1: You know, at some point that's not going to work,
10:58
Speaker 1: and it didn't.
10:59
Speaker 2: Right.
11:00
Speaker 1: But we had such a light touch on the Internet,
11:04
Speaker 1: and it worked until it didn't.
11:08
Speaker 2: Right.
11:08
Speaker 1: Social media, to me, is the greatest failed experiment on
11:13
Speaker 1: the human brain that is still ongoing. And I don't
11:16
Speaker 1: know why we haven't stopped the experiment yet right.
11:20
Speaker 2: Looking back.
11:21
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm asking it that way because how
11:24
Speaker 1: do we avoid the same mistakes with AI? And what's
11:26
Speaker 1: something you think Congress and government should have done differently
11:31
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early aughts with the Internet.
11:33
Speaker 2: Because I would actually say we did more than just
11:35
Speaker 2: not have a light or more than just a light touch.
11:38
Speaker 2: We effectively immunized all of the Internet companies from any liability.
11:42
Speaker 2: This is the famous section two thirty of the Communications
11:45
Speaker 2: Decency Act. And so it wasn't that we just said
11:47
Speaker 2: we're not going to regulate you. We said we will
11:49
Speaker 2: immunize you from any claims that you defamed people, that
11:52
Speaker 2: you hurt them in any way, that you intentionally inflicted
11:55
Speaker 2: emotional distress, that you're liable for products liability, all of
11:59
Speaker 2: those things. We actually told the companies you're free from
12:02
Speaker 2: having to worry about that. That was in nineteen ninety six,
12:05
Speaker 2: at a time when only seven percent of the people
12:07
Speaker 2: even had Internet. Google and Facebook were just a gleam
12:11
Speaker 2: in their founder's eyes. So it was a terrible air
12:14
Speaker 2: for us, and we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of that
12:17
Speaker 2: this year. Well, we want to make sure AI is
12:20
Speaker 2: we don't do the same thing. So one of the
12:21
Speaker 2: big fights in Washington, DC right now is about the
12:24
Speaker 2: preemption of state laws. So a lot of the venture
12:27
Speaker 2: capitalists Open AI has been in this camp that we
12:30
Speaker 2: want to pre empt all state regulation of AI in
12:33
Speaker 2: many ways, that's just two thirty reprized for the AI
12:36
Speaker 2: age basically say there be no law. We're going to
12:39
Speaker 2: basically hold these companies unaccountable. And I think there's a
12:42
Speaker 2: way to have your cake and eat it too by
12:44
Speaker 2: saying we need some light touch regulation. They should be
12:46
Speaker 2: held accountable for their harms. We which allow the courts
12:49
Speaker 2: to develop common law over the years, which is finally
12:52
Speaker 2: calibrated to the actual risks that the AI systems present,
12:56
Speaker 2: rather than like giving them a blanket immunity. That's what
12:58
Speaker 2: we did to social media. And the stories that come
13:01
Speaker 2: out of social media are obviously horrifying. And when those
13:03
Speaker 2: families sue Facebook, TikTok or someone, they have no recourse
13:08
Speaker 2: at all. That's a terrible system that obviously harms the families,
13:12
Speaker 2: gives them no redress, but doesn't make the companies fully
13:15
Speaker 2: internalize the many costs are opposing on society.
13:19
Speaker 1: Well, and I get I mean, many of my listeners
13:22
Speaker 1: know I have this pet peeve about section two thirty,
13:26
Speaker 1: specifically when I don't understand how it is any not
13:30
Speaker 1: only that I don't understand how it has any function anymore.
13:34
Speaker 1: For this reason, not that you know, yes, government should
13:37
Speaker 1: have withdrawn it a while ago. But forget that the
13:41
Speaker 1: second Facebook or Instagram or Google created an algorithm to
13:50
Speaker 1: determine what I see and what gets fed to me quicker.
13:57
Speaker 1: They have become a publisher, They are an editor. They
14:00
Speaker 1: made the decision what goes above the fold, Brad, and
14:03
Speaker 1: what goes below the fold in the old fashioned news stand.
14:07
Speaker 1: That is a decision. It was not, you know, and
14:10
Speaker 1: you're a publisher at that point. So I don't understand
14:14
Speaker 1: how the courts have interpreted Section two thirty as even
14:17
Speaker 1: being functional anymore for any of these entities.
14:20
Speaker 2: It's a great question, and the use of algorithmic curation
14:24
Speaker 2: is one of the kind of emerging questions I think.
14:27
Speaker 2: You know, we've already talked about how the Supreme Court
14:29
Speaker 2: bollock stuff campaign finance and brought us the superPAC era.
14:32
Speaker 2: Their interpretation of First Amendment law over the last few
14:35
Speaker 2: years is equally troublesome, because they now hold things like
14:38
Speaker 2: the use of algorithm as being no different than you know,
14:41
Speaker 2: when you were back in the editor of Hotline, back
14:44
Speaker 2: when I first met you a long time ago. You're
14:46
Speaker 2: making editorial decisions every day, right, that's covered by the
14:49
Speaker 2: First Amendment, you can be for a candidate, you can
14:52
Speaker 2: be against the candidate, you can write for or against.
14:55
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court now holds those kind of algorithms are
14:57
Speaker 2: equivalent to that. That makes no sense to me. But
15:00
Speaker 2: as long as that jurisprudence exists, right, it's very hard
15:04
Speaker 2: to argue that algorithms are outside of Section two thirty
15:06
Speaker 2: is immunity. So we have a problem with how the
15:08
Speaker 2: Supreme Court's interpreting the First Amendment as it comes to
15:11
Speaker 2: like these tech platforms as well.
15:14
Speaker 1: No, you're look, that's a that's a fair pushback on
15:17
Speaker 1: my pushback, which is this First Amendment interpretation of an algorithm.
15:21
Speaker 1: But the point is is that they've the initial instance
15:25
Speaker 1: of Section two thirty was well where they're not publishers.
15:27
Speaker 1: They're just a platform that they somehow don't have any
15:30
Speaker 1: influence on their platform. And while that might still be
15:34
Speaker 1: true of our reddit, you know, in the way that
15:36
Speaker 1: Reddit works, that is not true of x that is
15:39
Speaker 1: not true of Instagram. They you know, yes, you know,
15:44
Speaker 1: they don't create the content, but they go out of
15:47
Speaker 1: their way to make sure I see certain content based
15:51
Speaker 1: on my profile that they have decided to suck up
15:55
Speaker 1: with data. So that's why I'm that's where my you
15:59
Speaker 1: know what, I don't understand that how they can then
16:02
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no no, We're just a plot. We're just
16:03
Speaker 1: in charge of a platform. You can't hold us accountable
16:05
Speaker 1: for it.
16:06
Speaker 2: I mean that shows you the danger of a two
16:07
Speaker 2: thirty pass at a time when no one even understood
16:10
Speaker 2: what the internet.
16:10
Speaker 1: We didn't know what they were passing.
16:12
Speaker 2: So you pass these like vague terms that are in
16:14
Speaker 2: the law, courts are forced to interpret them, and right
16:17
Speaker 2: courts go off on this or that tangent and they
16:19
Speaker 2: have a lot of money now, the social media companies do,
16:22
Speaker 2: so they fight back in Congress with millions of dollars.
16:24
Speaker 2: They all have super packs of their own, and so
16:27
Speaker 2: it's very hard to change. And so one of the
16:29
Speaker 2: great lessons of two thirty for AI is like, don't
16:32
Speaker 2: pass some kind of metal law before you even understand
16:34
Speaker 2: like what's going to happen in five years, because then
16:36
Speaker 2: you can't change it. You know, it's very hard to
16:38
Speaker 2: politics to get these things reversed.
16:42
Speaker 1: Well, this is what I love federal federalism. We have
16:46
Speaker 1: fifty states, and it does seem as if it's a were.
16:52
Speaker 1: The divide on whether states should be allowed to regulate
16:55
Speaker 1: AI is I think an interesting fight because it's not
17:00
Speaker 1: a left right divide. This really is a industry versus
17:05
Speaker 1: everybody else fight. Right, you have Ron DeSantis, who is
17:09
Speaker 1: who's marching forward on trying to get AI regulation in
17:13
Speaker 1: the state of Florida, while Donald Trump's still trying to
17:16
Speaker 1: give immunity to these companies. I imagine if you're taking
17:19
Speaker 1: anthropic money, you're on the side of letting the states
17:22
Speaker 1: give this a shot. First.
17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, we actually said we've always advocated for that. They've
17:26
Speaker 2: brought it twice before Congress, and we led the coalition
17:29
Speaker 2: to AARI to defeat that again. Republicans and Democrats, Republican
17:33
Speaker 2: ags Sarah Huckaby Standers was rallying Republican governors. DeSantis, Steve
17:38
Speaker 2: Bannon was on the Hustings like really active in this.
17:42
Speaker 2: So it does transcend party label in some way, and
17:45
Speaker 2: really it's a world now. I think only people actually
17:48
Speaker 2: for this policy are like three people. They're a sixteen
17:51
Speaker 2: z Anderson Horroriz, the VC firm that Mark Andrews ben
17:56
Speaker 2: Horowitz runs, and the Open AI guys that's really used
17:59
Speaker 2: for it. Topics not for it again, anthropics in the industry,
18:02
Speaker 2: they're very divided. Anthropics says, well, we prefer to have
18:05
Speaker 2: a comprehensive federal standard. That would be wonderful, but the
18:08
Speaker 2: absence of that, you have to have the states to
18:10
Speaker 2: do their work, and so through a lot of divisions,
18:12
Speaker 2: and it's actually just a few small people. Unfortunately, they
18:15
Speaker 2: have billions of dollars and the ear of the White
18:18
Speaker 2: House as we speak, because of the tech rights influence
18:21
Speaker 2: there that they can get their way against. Really people
18:24
Speaker 2: in both parties.
18:35
Speaker 1: Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from
18:38
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away.
18:42
Speaker 1: We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in
18:44
Speaker 1: the best shape. My mother single mother, now widow. Myself
18:48
Speaker 1: sixteen trying to figure out how am I going to
18:50
Speaker 1: pay for college and lo and behold, my dad had
18:53
Speaker 1: one life insurance policy that we found wasn't a lot,
18:57
Speaker 1: but it was important at the time, and it's I
19:00
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Speaker 1: something you should really think about it, especially if you've
20:13
Speaker 1: got a growing family. So, I mean, is this when
20:20
Speaker 1: you're getting involved in these campaigns, how much are you
20:24
Speaker 1: spending money on the issue of AI itself and how
20:26
Speaker 1: much are you just involved in helping somebody who you
20:28
Speaker 1: think will be on your side in the in the
20:32
Speaker 1: battle over regulating that.
20:34
Speaker 2: So it's a bit of both. It's people we know
20:36
Speaker 2: are going to be on our side, and then we
20:38
Speaker 2: are spending some money on trying to socialize AI make
20:41
Speaker 2: people more aware of it, because right now many people
20:43
Speaker 2: have a lot of concerns, but it's not the top
20:46
Speaker 2: of mind for them in voting.
20:47
Speaker 1: Are you surprised at how negative people are about this?
20:50
Speaker 2: I know I'm not really because I can see it
20:52
Speaker 2: even here in Oklahoma, where I still live. You know,
20:54
Speaker 2: people who are very Trump oriented, very conservative state. This
20:58
Speaker 2: is seventy thirty Trumps. You know, I don't know many
21:01
Speaker 2: liberal Democrats here, and many people are fired up. We
21:04
Speaker 2: have a huge data center rebellion from people who are
21:07
Speaker 2: deeply religious, conservative across the board Trump voters, and they
21:11
Speaker 2: don't want data centers, which is one manifestation of this fight.
21:14
Speaker 2: And you know, we actually pulled a lot. You know,
21:16
Speaker 2: the only thing more unpopular than Benjamin net and Yahoo
21:20
Speaker 2: in a Democratic primary electorate or AI companies. It's kind
21:23
Speaker 2: of extraordinary, actually, and I think you know, what you
21:26
Speaker 2: said at the outset is actually really telling every other
21:28
Speaker 2: country in the world. AI is much more popular. In China,
21:31
Speaker 2: something like eighty five percent of the people are very
21:34
Speaker 2: positive about AI. So it's not the technology itself it's unpopular.
21:38
Speaker 2: It's how it's interactive with our somewhat dysfunctional political system.
21:42
Speaker 2: That's what makes it so unpopular here. I think that
21:44
Speaker 2: does speak to the need to really have like a
21:46
Speaker 2: better social contract with people. You know, more people sense
21:50
Speaker 2: like this, the political system can't be hijacked by a
21:52
Speaker 2: couple of people that you know will work against us.
21:55
Speaker 2: That's I think what makes it so unpopular here because
21:57
Speaker 2: we are an outlawier in that respect, and the explanation
22:00
Speaker 2: for it is our unique kind of socio political dynamic.
22:04
Speaker 1: Well, I hear you there. At the other two points,
22:06
Speaker 1: I think there's no doubt it's the fear of our
22:10
Speaker 1: politics and whether they can manage the moment. And I
22:12
Speaker 1: certainly have those concerns. But you know that, I just
22:18
Speaker 1: think trust in the tech companies is so low because
22:22
Speaker 1: I don't think you know, social media is one of
22:24
Speaker 1: these phenomenons that it really has turned into the smoking
22:29
Speaker 1: of the twenty first century. We all know it's not
22:31
Speaker 1: good for us. We all know it's unhealthy. We're desperate
22:35
Speaker 1: to make sure our kids, don't. You know. We're like,
22:38
Speaker 1: let's get it out of schools. You want to talk
22:40
Speaker 1: about it some this bipartisan right that a matter of
22:42
Speaker 1: red state of blue. Get the get the spreens out
22:44
Speaker 1: of the schools. Right, And yet we can't quit. We
22:50
Speaker 1: all can't quit.
22:50
Speaker 2: Right.
22:51
Speaker 1: It's it powers economy, It helps to fuel this economy
22:56
Speaker 1: in some ways, we don't know how to We know
23:01
Speaker 1: this is bad and we don't know how to stop it.
23:03
Speaker 1: And I think the fear that's my theory, and that,
23:07
Speaker 1: oh my god, if we do AI, then we'll never
23:09
Speaker 1: be able to unwind this.
23:11
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. I mean, we know now from the
23:13
Speaker 2: various leaks, for example, from Meta who know about things
23:17
Speaker 2: they knew that they tolerated, that they were almost willing
23:20
Speaker 2: to encourage behavior that is criminal and shocking in lots
23:24
Speaker 2: of ways, right, because it promoted engagement. You know, we
23:27
Speaker 2: know the AI companies, especially we've seen Chat GPT because
23:29
Speaker 2: it's the most consumer facing of all of the AI
23:32
Speaker 2: products out there, more than Anthropic or Google's products. Are right,
23:37
Speaker 2: How people can like misuse them and become addicted to them.
23:40
Speaker 2: We can lead people to solve farm I think, I mean,
23:43
Speaker 2: because you covered DC so much. There's a question like
23:45
Speaker 2: tink the Kids Online Safety Act, which is a response
23:48
Speaker 2: to the social media problems. It passes the House and
23:51
Speaker 2: the Senate overwhelmingly. It gets bottled up in leadership. Why
23:55
Speaker 2: because they're on the phone with like Meta you know
23:58
Speaker 2: that's got millions of dollars to give to the super packs,
24:00
Speaker 2: the majority and minority leadership packs, these kind of things.
24:04
Speaker 2: And so that's the dysfunction. It's like people know it
24:07
Speaker 2: and their politicians look kind of the rank and vile.
24:10
Speaker 2: They do support changes, but it gets bottled up because
24:13
Speaker 2: again a couple of phone calls from people you know
24:17
Speaker 2: really kind of like can stranglehold it. That's a unique
24:19
Speaker 2: aspect of American politics. That's again about the money, and
24:22
Speaker 2: it's one of the terrible aspects of American politics.
24:25
Speaker 1: Well this is I mean, look, you keep coming back
24:28
Speaker 1: to something that I don't think is unfair to coming
24:30
Speaker 1: back to, which is as you know, here we have
24:33
Speaker 1: a we have a democracy that desperately needs updating. I'm
24:38
Speaker 1: not going to call it broken. I'm going to call
24:41
Speaker 1: it in disrepair and it needs modernizing. You know, we
24:44
Speaker 1: need some cases, it's just simply catching up to reality,
24:47
Speaker 1: particularly when it comes down money and politics works and
24:52
Speaker 1: things like that. But it is I don't We're not
24:58
Speaker 1: going to improve the democracy in time to get AI right.
25:03
Speaker 1: So let's put on our well, we got to deal
25:07
Speaker 1: with the politics that we have now that we wish
25:09
Speaker 1: we had. What's the safer way within this system that
25:15
Speaker 1: we can be rolling out AI to help people feel
25:17
Speaker 1: better about this.
25:19
Speaker 2: I think the first thing is we should let the
25:20
Speaker 2: states which are more agile, less captured by big money interests,
25:24
Speaker 2: have the ability to take a stab at this and
25:27
Speaker 2: to experiment with it. That's the first thing. I think
25:29
Speaker 2: the second thing is we should minimally demand that these
25:32
Speaker 2: frontier labs, these are the five big companies to have
25:35
Speaker 2: the very well known models. This is ex Google, Meta, Panthropic,
25:41
Speaker 2: Open AI. Right. They need to be more transparent about
25:44
Speaker 2: what they're doing. They need to be reporting to government
25:46
Speaker 2: authorities like can this great novel pathogens? Can it promote
25:50
Speaker 2: offensive cybersecurity risk? Can it help?
25:52
Speaker 1: By the way, what is the government entity that ought
25:54
Speaker 1: to be overseeing this?
25:55
Speaker 2: I would like to see something of the Department of
25:57
Speaker 2: Commerce or Department of Energy. Okay, are there already to
26:00
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons or a lot of export controls, So that's
26:03
Speaker 2: where they should do it. They should be reporting up there.
26:05
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, if you have a model
26:07
Speaker 2: that actually say it could be proven to develop novel pathogens,
26:11
Speaker 2: and we already know that most of these models are
26:13
Speaker 2: better than PhD virologists, so they're incredibly good at this
26:17
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And if it could develop a bio weapon,
26:19
Speaker 2: you should be actually prohibited from releasing that. Today you're
26:22
Speaker 2: not prohibited in any way from releasing that, and you
26:24
Speaker 2: don't even have to test for it. And so the
26:26
Speaker 2: idea is like, there are certain things that should be
26:28
Speaker 2: testing for, you know, and that you shouldn't be able
26:31
Speaker 2: to release these, and you should have safeguards. So if
26:33
Speaker 2: you could develop child pornography, for example, we should know
26:36
Speaker 2: ahead of time and you shouldn't be rock.
26:39
Speaker 1: Look at what GROC has pulled off, right, Elon must
26:42
Speaker 1: decides to sexualize GROC and usership what triples? Yes, exactly,
26:48
Speaker 1: I don't want to. We can make a comment about
26:51
Speaker 1: our own society about that. But let's humans are going
26:54
Speaker 1: to human Okay, So that is that is what it is.
26:57
Speaker 1: Humans are going to human. You know, I always say
27:01
Speaker 1: our problems in this country are incentive structures. Right. Good
27:04
Speaker 1: people can do bad things with bad incentives. Bad people
27:07
Speaker 1: will do good things with good incentives. So what Groc
27:12
Speaker 1: basically did is, Hey, let's imagine I have the worst
27:15
Speaker 1: incentives imaginable. Could I triple the amount of users I have?
27:20
Speaker 2: Well, the answers, yes, exactly, they're new deifying images. Of course,
27:24
Speaker 2: there's the whole Mecha Hitler episode. Do you know where
27:27
Speaker 2: it took on the persona of Adolf Hitler. It kind
27:30
Speaker 2: of blows your mind. Actually, And these products like take Groc,
27:33
Speaker 2: the one we're just talking about, it's now embedded increasingly
27:36
Speaker 2: in the Defense department. It's replacing Anthropic and Claud's product
27:40
Speaker 2: there in many ways. And this is the most, the
27:42
Speaker 2: least reliable, the least safeguarded of all of them. And
27:46
Speaker 2: so you know, someone who spent a lot of time
27:48
Speaker 2: working at the Department of Defense under the Obama administration
27:51
Speaker 2: and thinking, you're like, I can't I wouldn't want to
27:53
Speaker 2: rely on this. But well, again, because humans will be human,
27:56
Speaker 2: we often do rely on computer outputs that think like, oh,
27:58
Speaker 2: that must be right, the computer said, and we don't
28:01
Speaker 2: actually interrogate it enough. So it's actually very parallel situation
28:04
Speaker 2: we're finding ourselves in.
28:06
Speaker 1: You know, I was speaking with he wanted to say
28:10
Speaker 1: this off the record, but it was a retired general
28:14
Speaker 1: who was knee deep in COVID, so he was helping
28:19
Speaker 1: in that world. Has not has not been has been
28:22
Speaker 1: in the private sector since. But he remarked to me,
28:26
Speaker 1: he said, I do not understand. He said, you know,
28:29
Speaker 1: the government made sure, you know, if they were in
28:35
Speaker 1: charge of the scientists making the nuclear weapons. The government
28:39
Speaker 1: created the Internet, then it took the internet public. We
28:44
Speaker 1: are letting the private sector do this without much government
28:48
Speaker 1: supervision at all. And I say this. We know how
28:53
Speaker 1: people feel about government these days, and you may not
28:55
Speaker 1: trust who's in charge of the government, depending on your
28:59
Speaker 1: political person. But previous instances, you know, collective collective concern
29:07
Speaker 1: by government proved probably a good thing with nuclear weapons,
29:13
Speaker 1: and proved a good thing with the initial creation of
29:16
Speaker 1: the Internet as a as a defense thing. This general
29:21
Speaker 1: was mortified that the government had no was not essentially
29:25
Speaker 1: holding the hands of these companies.
29:28
Speaker 2: I think he should be mortified. It's really the first
29:30
Speaker 2: kind of transformative military technology that's being developed by the
29:34
Speaker 2: private sector, private companies. We don't even see their research.
29:37
Speaker 2: We have no idea like what's happening in the skunk
29:39
Speaker 2: works of these labs, no visibility into it. It's really
29:44
Speaker 2: quite extraordinary. And now we see with Claude in this
29:46
Speaker 2: whole speed with p Hexeth Department of War, how reliant
29:49
Speaker 2: they are on AI had. The Iraq War has shown
29:52
Speaker 2: some examples of Claude's use there, and so I think, yes,
29:56
Speaker 2: he should be mortified because what's happening in San Francisco
29:59
Speaker 2: within a six by six square mile area there. It's
30:03
Speaker 2: transforming the world. It's going to transform military power, and
30:06
Speaker 2: we really have no oversight or even insight into what's
30:09
Speaker 2: going on.
30:11
Speaker 1: Do you ever say to yourself that are we living
30:13
Speaker 1: a Bond movie? Right? I mean, this is the plot
30:17
Speaker 1: of one of those b minus Bond movies, like not
30:19
Speaker 1: even a really good one.
30:22
Speaker 2: It's some people, I think are waking up to it.
30:24
Speaker 2: And that's why people are scared about this. That's why
30:26
Speaker 2: the unpopularity is there. People are like, you know, I
30:28
Speaker 2: see a lot of polling data and people do recognize
30:31
Speaker 2: it might be able to do some amazing things, you know,
30:33
Speaker 2: cure diseases, new.
30:34
Speaker 1: Materials, social media. I look, I'm old enough to remember
30:37
Speaker 1: the Arab Spring. We thought, wow, we have democratized the world.
30:42
Speaker 1: Social media is going to get rid of authoritarianism. Oopsh
30:46
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, it's funny you bring up we
30:48
Speaker 1: all talk about the health benefits. There's a story out
30:51
Speaker 1: there about the guy in Australia who developed the cancer
30:54
Speaker 1: treatment for his dog. Right, and as a dog lover,
30:57
Speaker 1: you know, I was, I'm like, yeah, I could see
31:00
Speaker 1: myself doing that for Cali, you know, my puppy. That's
31:06
Speaker 1: the good part. But if you can develop, if somebody
31:09
Speaker 1: without scientific training can develop this amazing treatment to shrink
31:14
Speaker 1: a tumor on their dog, what could they do to
31:18
Speaker 1: actually give you a tumor and to actually create cancers
31:23
Speaker 1: if they chose to. It's the same thing with the
31:26
Speaker 1: Arab Spring. That's what we learned with the Arab Spring. Right,
31:29
Speaker 1: what was a positive the minute, Well, you could break
31:33
Speaker 1: through until the authoritarians decided, oh, we'll control the flow
31:37
Speaker 1: of information again.
31:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's what one of the lessons of
31:41
Speaker 2: social media is there's good and bad to both these things.
31:44
Speaker 2: They're not unalloyed one way of the other. And you
31:48
Speaker 2: have to have a regulatory scheme that's flexible enough, which
31:50
Speaker 2: isn't easy to achieve, but it must be allowed to
31:52
Speaker 2: be flexible. Social media we froze it, you know, in
31:55
Speaker 2: Ice in nineteen ninety six, so section two thirty it
31:57
Speaker 2: was over.
31:58
Speaker 1: Yep.
31:58
Speaker 2: It's basically been unregulated, set and immunize any harm. And
32:01
Speaker 2: if you try to get after it, they always say
32:03
Speaker 2: it's section two thirty. We're immunized from this. You know.
32:06
Speaker 2: You can't allow that to happen for major technologies, and
32:08
Speaker 2: that is the danger of AI. That's really the big
32:10
Speaker 2: fight to AI. Now. It's like, do you want to
32:12
Speaker 2: repeat section two thirty? I think it's fair to say
32:14
Speaker 2: that like that tech right crowd David Sachs A sixteen
32:18
Speaker 2: Z people like that open AI. That really is what
32:21
Speaker 2: they want to do. And the question is, like, we
32:23
Speaker 2: have learned our lesson, you know. And it's not to
32:25
Speaker 2: say AI should be prohibited or that it can't do
32:28
Speaker 2: many good things. It can't, but you do have to
32:30
Speaker 2: have a certain agility which the law permits, and to
32:33
Speaker 2: freeze that like we did with social media is just
32:36
Speaker 2: a disastrous mistake that you know has changed society irrevocably.
32:40
Speaker 1: What are some good state regulations being developed that you'd
32:43
Speaker 1: like to see. Let's see how that sticks. Maybe that
32:47
Speaker 1: will work. I mean, you know, this is the laboratory
32:49
Speaker 1: of well, we like to call the fifty states, right,
32:53
Speaker 1: the laboratory of Democracy's what's a few in attempts you'd
32:58
Speaker 1: like to see to see if okay, and maybe this
33:01
Speaker 1: will be a good national regulation. But let's try it.
33:03
Speaker 1: Let's try it in Indiana or Oklahoma or Yeah.
33:06
Speaker 2: First I'll give you like three or four of those.
33:08
Speaker 2: For one thing, Ron DeSantis is proposing an AI Bill
33:10
Speaker 2: of Rights in Florida. It gives you know, your right
33:13
Speaker 2: to owne your data and have transparency into AI decision making.
33:17
Speaker 2: I like laws like that. California and New York for
33:20
Speaker 2: the Frontier labs have required transparency in reporting requirements have
33:25
Speaker 2: added to those requirements. That's not enough, but that's a good,
33:29
Speaker 2: good step in the right direction. Maybe the third bucket
33:32
Speaker 2: is it's a whole different type of AI than like
33:34
Speaker 2: ROCK or chat GPT. It's very pervasive. It's how AI
33:38
Speaker 2: is being used in our day to day lives. For example, surveillance,
33:42
Speaker 2: you know, facial recognition, algorithms deciding whether we're going to
33:46
Speaker 2: hire you or not, algorithms determining whether your health claim
33:49
Speaker 2: is going to be approb.
33:51
Speaker 1: Let me give you the one that I'm just rip
33:53
Speaker 1: us about surveillance pricing. I think this is so unconstitutionally legal,
34:00
Speaker 1: and it's like, I am you want to really make
34:03
Speaker 1: you know, It's like, do you want when the middle
34:05
Speaker 1: class and upper middle class decides to pick up a pitchfork.
34:07
Speaker 1: That's when politicians are troubled in Surveillance pricing is one.
34:10
Speaker 2: Of those Well, this shows you the power of state law.
34:12
Speaker 2: So you know, you may have seen this. It kind
34:14
Speaker 2: of broke in the news last week where I'm a
34:16
Speaker 2: Washington Post subscriber online and to renew right, it quoted
34:20
Speaker 2: me a price and at the bottom it had a
34:22
Speaker 2: little note that this was based on an algorithmic determination.
34:25
Speaker 2: Right of my use patterns they knew about. The thing is,
34:28
Speaker 2: they knew my credit history. They probably know how much
34:30
Speaker 2: money I make, so they probably you know Taylor, like, hey,
34:32
Speaker 2: he's a super user.
34:33
Speaker 1: Hey do you remember when you clicked when you accepted
34:38
Speaker 1: terms and conditions that allowed the Washington Post to do
34:40
Speaker 1: a credit check on you.
34:42
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think I did that, but like
34:44
Speaker 2: all terms of Star, I'm sure we did. That's my right.
34:46
Speaker 1: I hate those goddamn things because I'm sure they'll say, oh,
34:48
Speaker 1: you accepted terms and conditions. You mean oh, because because
34:52
Speaker 1: you put a gun to my head to accept terms
34:54
Speaker 1: and conditions every time you update the app. But they
34:57
Speaker 1: looked at your credit report, think about that.
35:00
Speaker 2: Brand among other things. Right, they have all the consumer
35:03
Speaker 2: data you could want on me. They know what I
35:05
Speaker 2: else I subscribe to you, they know I'm a New
35:06
Speaker 2: York Times subscriber and The Atlantic and things. But the
35:09
Speaker 2: only reason we even got who noticed about that is
35:11
Speaker 2: because New York has a law that says if you
35:13
Speaker 2: engage in algorithmic pricing, you have to put a little
35:16
Speaker 2: note on it. And they obviously have a lot of
35:18
Speaker 2: New York readers. And it's only because of that state
35:20
Speaker 2: law that I in Oklahoma got notified of that. So
35:24
Speaker 2: these are the kind of things like that's not frontier
35:26
Speaker 2: level AI. They're not using chat GPT, that's AI, and
35:29
Speaker 2: the average American should know about that, and we should
35:33
Speaker 2: like have a debate. And that goes into the broader
35:36
Speaker 2: question like surveillance. You know, that anthropic Apartment of War
35:39
Speaker 2: got into the things that we call legal in this
35:41
Speaker 2: country that you and I might over cocktails call surveillance,
35:45
Speaker 2: or ordinary people like that's surveillance. The government doesn't call
35:48
Speaker 2: it surveillance. I mean, it's shocking the amount of data
35:50
Speaker 2: they have. Llms can create a whole dossier about you.
35:54
Speaker 2: You know that there wasn't possible before llms existed to
35:58
Speaker 2: really assimilate all this data U and so those kind
36:01
Speaker 2: of things like I like that New York law, things
36:03
Speaker 2: like that that make you, at least even if we
36:06
Speaker 2: don't prohibit it, you need to be notified. Like if
36:09
Speaker 2: I'm doing a job interview and this happens in places
36:11
Speaker 2: you often now will like stare into the screen and
36:14
Speaker 2: the AI will say like is this person smarter or
36:16
Speaker 2: not because of my gestures or maybe my glasses. You know,
36:20
Speaker 2: it's like I deserve to know if AI is evaluating
36:23
Speaker 2: me in some way. Those kind of laws I like
36:25
Speaker 2: to see.
36:30
Speaker 1: What do you think? What is your biggest concern in
36:34
Speaker 1: this fight? That that you're you're you're you don't have
36:39
Speaker 1: enough of the big tech titans on your side.
36:42
Speaker 2: I think that's part of it. I think you knew
36:45
Speaker 2: there's a there's a political economy aspect of this right
36:48
Speaker 2: where you have to fight. And we know that good
36:50
Speaker 2: ideas don't just prevail because they're sound and even popular
36:53
Speaker 2: ones kids Online safety shows that big money can prevail
36:57
Speaker 2: in American politics. So I think that's the biggest concern,
37:00
Speaker 2: you know, if people are left My job leading a
37:02
Speaker 2: super pac is quite easy. The often aspect, well, what
37:05
Speaker 2: do I have to believe to earn your support? And
37:07
Speaker 2: I say, all you have to do is believe in
37:09
Speaker 2: having a democratic debate about AI. If that happens, I
37:12
Speaker 2: think most people will probably come to my side. What
37:14
Speaker 2: I don't want to do is for close it, you know,
37:16
Speaker 2: like we've had with crypto policy in this country, where
37:19
Speaker 2: today there's no real debate on cryptopolicy because the superpack
37:22
Speaker 2: has now made it impossible for people to be against
37:25
Speaker 2: that issue. We don't want that for AI, right. We
37:28
Speaker 2: want it to be free where people can have actually,
37:30
Speaker 2: you know, an argument about what we should do, and
37:33
Speaker 2: if so, I have confidence in the American people to
37:36
Speaker 2: come to the right conclusion.
37:41
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39:14
Speaker 1: like we're having enough of a debate. It doesn't feel
39:16
Speaker 1: like we've had enough of a tutorial, you know, in
39:19
Speaker 1: a in a healthier democratic system, because our systems, you know,
39:24
Speaker 1: some version of we have a cold. We can some
39:27
Speaker 1: of you may decide how bad are is it? The flu?
39:29
Speaker 1: Is it? How bad is it? But we're definitely not healthy.
39:35
Speaker 1: Who would be leading this conversation about about AI? I mean,
39:39
Speaker 1: do we need an old time fireside chat? Do we
39:43
Speaker 1: need a General Eisenhower to sort of, you know, explain things?
39:49
Speaker 1: You know, what what would what what? What would a healthier,
39:52
Speaker 1: small d democratic system be doing right now with the
39:55
Speaker 1: development of AI and bringing the public along and making
39:59
Speaker 1: the and feel a little more secure about it.
40:02
Speaker 2: I think two groups can do this. One is if
40:04
Speaker 2: the company leaders themselves were more open about it. I
40:07
Speaker 2: think Anthropic has actually done a good job of that.
40:09
Speaker 2: They've been pretty forward leading, They've expressed concerns that's made
40:12
Speaker 2: people aware. If you had all the LAB leaders come
40:15
Speaker 2: together and talk about these things more openly, not simply
40:18
Speaker 2: like be arguing their own book, like what's best for
40:21
Speaker 2: the narrow share interest here, but like the broader social context,
40:25
Speaker 2: that would help. I think my real hope is in
40:27
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty eight presidential race, you need someone at
40:30
Speaker 2: that level of platform, that level of free media covering
40:33
Speaker 2: them say look, America, look what's happening here, you know,
40:37
Speaker 2: and to like that it kind of like raises the
40:39
Speaker 2: consciousness of the whole country. Ron DeSantis has done a
40:42
Speaker 2: bit of that in Florida. Have been a great leader
40:43
Speaker 2: on this issue. But if you want a president and
40:45
Speaker 2: you said, look, you know, technology is actually a defining
40:47
Speaker 2: issue of our day. It's redefining party allegiances. Where Steve
40:51
Speaker 2: Bannon and Elizabeth Warren or like eye to eye on
40:54
Speaker 2: these kind of questions, you know, and you should be
40:56
Speaker 2: paying attention. And here's some solutions for it as well,
40:59
Speaker 2: not just crying of the solutions that works.
41:02
Speaker 1: You know, it strikes me as the safest place to
41:04
Speaker 1: be politically is if you're pro consumer. You know what
41:08
Speaker 1: you're describing, what essentially what Governor DeSantis is proposing. And
41:13
Speaker 1: in some ways it is very much a small C
41:15
Speaker 1: conservative approach, which is, hey, we got to have a
41:19
Speaker 1: specific essentially a bill of rights right, which is really
41:23
Speaker 1: a consumer protection you know, we can have larger arguments about,
41:27
Speaker 1: you know what should this be allowed and should this
41:29
Speaker 1: be allowed? Right? And that's where sometimes you lose people
41:32
Speaker 1: on the right. Well, I don't want government to involved
41:35
Speaker 1: with all the decision making, but let's have some basic
41:39
Speaker 1: protections for the consumer right. And it feels like if
41:44
Speaker 1: you put if the north star is consumer protection hard stop.
41:50
Speaker 2: I think it's a one political message.
41:52
Speaker 1: That you probably can get to the right place without
41:54
Speaker 1: without feeling that you're too blue or too red.
41:57
Speaker 2: I think it is actually a great message, and I
41:59
Speaker 2: think though you do need someone of stature to inject
42:01
Speaker 2: that into the debate to let people know, like AI
42:04
Speaker 2: is changing your life. You may not even be able
42:06
Speaker 2: to see all the things that's doing right. You don't
42:08
Speaker 2: even know it. Sometimes it's invisible to you. But consumer
42:11
Speaker 2: protection claims are very powerful and to make a kind
42:14
Speaker 2: of a major issue. That's what I hope twenty twenty
42:15
Speaker 2: eight brings. And I actually think it's going to be
42:17
Speaker 2: a major issue in twenty twenty eight. So I'm pretty
42:20
Speaker 2: optimistic that it's going to be a huge question. And
42:22
Speaker 2: once it's become part of the broader discussion, a few
42:25
Speaker 2: people can't control it anymore. Right, it can't be just
42:27
Speaker 2: like two guys in Silicon Valley plotting against you. Once
42:30
Speaker 2: it's in South Carolina, New Hampshire. It's a thing, you.
42:35
Speaker 1: Know, It's funny, you know, the Internet never did become
42:37
Speaker 1: a centerpiece conversation in a presidential election, not ninety six,
42:42
Speaker 1: not two thousand. You know, I remember McCain tried with
42:45
Speaker 1: the tax free Internet and thought there'd be some there
42:50
Speaker 1: would be a somewhat of a centralizing You know that
42:55
Speaker 1: you'd have been dismissed as a candidate if you didn't
42:58
Speaker 1: have a policy talking about how to integrate the Internet
43:02
Speaker 1: into every day commerce, et cetera. I'm with you. I
43:06
Speaker 1: think twenty eight is going to be the year where
43:09
Speaker 1: that is focused on fear of AI job displacement. I'm
43:12
Speaker 1: not saying AI job displacement is going to be taking place,
43:15
Speaker 1: But the fear of it, I think is going to
43:17
Speaker 1: be at a more heightened state come twenty twenty eight.
43:20
Speaker 1: We've seen already a few things like the Jack Dorsey
43:24
Speaker 1: company where he just laid off forty percent of his folks.
43:27
Speaker 1: Whether that was really AI driven, you know, right every
43:32
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, that's that's interesting. Let's see if two
43:35
Speaker 1: or three more companies do this, then it's a trend, right.
43:40
Speaker 1: But I do sense fear of AI job displacement is
43:43
Speaker 1: probably going to be a a central concern, particularly you're
43:51
Speaker 1: certainly seeing it labor units right now.
43:53
Speaker 2: I think also rising electricity prices and perhaps water usage.
43:57
Speaker 2: Some of those concerns are more serious than others. Overestimate
44:01
Speaker 2: the use of water things, but you've seen Spanberger run
44:04
Speaker 2: all those kind of issues. Loud And County flip a
44:07
Speaker 2: seat from red to blue. A couple Georgia political public
44:10
Speaker 2: health Brad.
44:10
Speaker 1: I mean not to get like very specific here, because
44:13
Speaker 1: I've my electric bills gone up through the roof and
44:17
Speaker 1: I'm in Arlington County, which is not far from Loudon.
44:21
Speaker 1: But the reason we're paying a steeper price is because
44:25
Speaker 1: of how electricity is transmitted alunk off the grid. Into
44:29
Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic, and it turns out that you know,
44:33
Speaker 1: like you know, it's gonna hurt us more than it
44:37
Speaker 1: will hurt another state more because they get their electricity
44:41
Speaker 1: slightly differently than Maryland gets THEIRS. Then Pennsylvania gets THEIRS,
44:46
Speaker 1: Virginia gets THEIRS. You know, what it's done for me
44:50
Speaker 1: is that it's highlighted. Hey, our grid is a mess.
44:53
Speaker 1: We probably need to restructure the grid in a way
44:58
Speaker 1: to minimize consumer pain and maximize stability.
45:05
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's one of the underappreciated aspects
45:07
Speaker 2: of what AI has done, is there's this incredible energy
45:10
Speaker 2: build out across the country.
45:11
Speaker 1: Yeah no, but it's exposed some problems, problems too.
45:14
Speaker 2: But it's actually I think probably will lead more than
45:16
Speaker 2: anything else has to some solutions to those. Right, you're right.
45:19
Speaker 2: The grid has to have probably a trillion dollars invested
45:22
Speaker 2: into it, right, We need more interconnection agreements. The regulation
45:25
Speaker 2: is pretty come by.
45:26
Speaker 1: I know, who should pay for it? We don't have
45:27
Speaker 1: to pay for it now. Friends that want to build
45:29
Speaker 1: these data centers, this should be the price. Nothing wrong
45:32
Speaker 1: with that.
45:32
Speaker 2: And that's the right, right, that's actually and this is
45:35
Speaker 2: why I think it's going to be a good issue. Actually,
45:37
Speaker 2: you know, you asked me, like Oklahoma Democrats and like
45:39
Speaker 2: Southern Democrats like this is actually a classic wedge issue
45:42
Speaker 2: if you're a Democrat in these states, because you're something
45:45
Speaker 2: like you know what, I'm I'm actually for lowering your
45:47
Speaker 2: electricity bill. I'm like, I want these data centers to
45:49
Speaker 2: pay their way. Sometimes, like pro business Republicans have a
45:52
Speaker 2: hard time getting themselves to that position. And so you've
45:55
Speaker 2: seen in a couple places, right, it's a really good
45:57
Speaker 2: issue to kind of like get these concernsvatives who care
46:00
Speaker 2: about affordability and water, environment, energy use, I mean, who
46:04
Speaker 2: are skeptical at AI in Silicon Valley as well. Kind
46:06
Speaker 2: of inherently all that comes into kind of a world
46:09
Speaker 2: where I think he's going to make for a lot
46:11
Speaker 2: of strange politics.
46:12
Speaker 1: Actually, and let me let me end with a little
46:16
Speaker 1: bit of just your observations of what's going on in
46:19
Speaker 1: particularly in your I don't know, is it your former
46:22
Speaker 1: political party or your current one person? Do you consider
46:25
Speaker 1: yourself a Democrat?
46:26
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, of course.
46:27
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the difference between an Oklahoma Democrat and a
46:32
Speaker 1: national Democrat these days?
46:34
Speaker 2: Or is there one I'm about the last Democrat in
46:37
Speaker 2: the state of Oklahoma today, So I'm kind of like,
46:40
Speaker 2: you know, the last of the Mohicans here, I'd say,
46:45
Speaker 2: I think, you know, my view has always been that
46:48
Speaker 2: the parties do capture by the values of the professional
46:50
Speaker 2: managerial class, you know, whose concerns are almost post material,
46:55
Speaker 2: right about things like if you come like I do
46:57
Speaker 2: from eastern Oklahoma, small towns, That's what I presented in
47:00
Speaker 2: Congress where I was from, their concerns are very material
47:04
Speaker 2: health care jobs, roads, schools, We have meth and opiate
47:08
Speaker 2: addiction that are endemic, you know, these concerns of like
47:12
Speaker 2: kind of esoteric social questions, which if you're like living
47:16
Speaker 2: you know in loud In County, one of the richest
47:18
Speaker 2: counties in the country, there are not that many people
47:20
Speaker 2: who like worry about these things with the same intensity.
47:24
Speaker 1: And to me, I like to say, I have you
47:27
Speaker 1: have the luxury to worry about those things?
47:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so things that you know, even if
47:31
Speaker 2: they're in the right about it, they make them more
47:33
Speaker 2: salient than they should be. You know. It's like, you know,
47:36
Speaker 2: in my mind, like I think the whole question that
47:38
Speaker 2: the party's debating about trans issues, you know, you could
47:40
Speaker 2: be four or against it. These are different positions. It's
47:44
Speaker 2: really not that salient to the average voter. And so
47:47
Speaker 2: you know, we should focus on things that are like
47:49
Speaker 2: driving their their kind of household decision making, and Democrats
47:52
Speaker 2: need to be better about that. So that's the problem
47:55
Speaker 2: with the coastal Party. But I still think Democrats have
47:57
Speaker 2: the best message for people who have very material concerns
48:01
Speaker 2: about healthcare and public schools, things like that. So I'm
48:04
Speaker 2: working do my best to reclaim that tradition.
48:07
Speaker 1: I have a specific question about Oklahoma. You know, one
48:10
Speaker 1: of the things I like to remind people is that
48:12
Speaker 1: even in one party states and a political a strong
48:16
Speaker 1: political opposition develops some and it isn't sometimes it's within
48:21
Speaker 1: the party. Right, We've seen that in Texas there are
48:24
Speaker 1: basically two Republican parties and they're clashing right now in
48:27
Speaker 1: that center base. But we had seen this, right, the
48:30
Speaker 1: one part of the Republican Party wanted to impeach Compact,
48:33
Speaker 1: another part is trying to defend him. But you know,
48:36
Speaker 1: the weak Democratic party and it's perhaps getting a little
48:39
Speaker 1: stronger down there today, but at the time, but you know,
48:42
Speaker 1: there's the reason the phrase exists. Politics of horors a vacuum.
48:45
Speaker 1: What I've noticed about in Oklahoma is as the Democratic
48:49
Speaker 1: Party has fallen away as the chief opposition to the
48:54
Speaker 1: to the majority governing governance in the state, that the
49:00
Speaker 1: tribes have become the check, the oppositional check. And sometimes
49:06
Speaker 1: it'll be by the tribes funding a Republican primary candidate
49:10
Speaker 1: to a certain sitting governor or sitting attorney general. Maybe
49:14
Speaker 1: it will be finding a former Republican to run as
49:16
Speaker 1: a Democrat for governor.
49:18
Speaker 2: Or.
49:18
Speaker 1: It's, you know, is Oklahoma politics. It's it's a two
49:24
Speaker 1: party state, but it's not Democrats and Republicans, it's Republicans.
49:27
Speaker 1: And that the next most powerful interest group is the tribes.
49:31
Speaker 2: That's probably a fair assessment of it. The tribes are
49:34
Speaker 2: historically very democratic. Unsurprisingly, over the last twenty years have
49:37
Speaker 2: become very wealthy and have a lot more political interests
49:40
Speaker 2: at stake, and they've spread that money around. Because Republicans
49:43
Speaker 2: are in ascendancy really and have like basically every office
49:47
Speaker 2: at every level. Right, they've played in a lot more
49:49
Speaker 2: Republican politics to find people who are supportive of them.
49:52
Speaker 2: They've been real at war with Kevin sitt or governess.
49:55
Speaker 1: They have and that's basically been over a over good
49:58
Speaker 1: old fashioned economic right how much did the state get
50:01
Speaker 1: in the gambling revenue.
50:02
Speaker 2: And also jurisdiction, you know of things. But now they
50:05
Speaker 2: have people running for governor, which is all about the
50:07
Speaker 2: Republican primary. Again, there's no serious democratic cand is. Some
50:11
Speaker 2: of them are very strongly aligned with the tribes, some
50:13
Speaker 2: less so, and so the tribal issues are actually driving
50:16
Speaker 2: a lot of it. They fund a lot of things,
50:18
Speaker 2: independent expenditures, and so I think it probably is fair
50:20
Speaker 2: to say that after kind of state government, we have
50:24
Speaker 2: a kind of rump oil and gas industry that still
50:26
Speaker 2: has some power, but probably the tribes are the most
50:29
Speaker 2: organized kind of figures. They keep a check on government.
50:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're seeing Look, this is what you're seeing a
50:36
Speaker 1: little bit in the state of Florida and what you're
50:37
Speaker 1: seeing a little bit in the state of California where
50:39
Speaker 1: the tribes are becoming the sort of the bulwark against
50:44
Speaker 1: a majority, you know, the majority party running amok, almost
50:48
Speaker 1: running unopposed. And I think we all know our democracy
50:51
Speaker 1: doesn't work without a little bit of friction, that's sure,
50:54
Speaker 1: and in that sense it develops a friction. What would
50:57
Speaker 1: you tell you gave some advice about like how you
50:59
Speaker 1: viewed the party in general. What kind of anybody out
51:04
Speaker 1: there running in twenty eight that you're like, boy, they're
51:08
Speaker 1: at least talking about issues differently and it's about time,
51:12
Speaker 1: or you know, who's who's just standing out to you
51:15
Speaker 1: is sort of like, well, I hope to hear from
51:17
Speaker 1: hear more from them after twenty six.
51:19
Speaker 2: You know, I hear John Hassoff on the stump. I'm
51:21
Speaker 2: always very impressed by him and how he's thinking of things,
51:24
Speaker 2: and I hear Buddha Judge that kind of similar rhetoric.
51:27
Speaker 2: I think kind of that analysis I gave, perhaps offered
51:30
Speaker 2: less stridently than I did, is one people recognize, you know,
51:34
Speaker 2: that we need to get back to more of a
51:35
Speaker 2: class based politics than that we've had in the past.
51:39
Speaker 1: Well that's what Trump did. He ran a good old
51:42
Speaker 1: flash and class wharf, you know, class warfare campaign which
51:46
Speaker 1: Bob Shrum used to help Democrats run back in the
51:49
Speaker 1: dates of Gore and Kerry and and and those campaigns
51:52
Speaker 1: which were quite competitive.
51:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually can envision. This is one of my
51:56
Speaker 2: goals in life is have a Democrat go on Steve
51:58
Speaker 2: Bannon's war room and say to the magabase that listen
52:02
Speaker 2: to him, Like, the truth is Trump has betrayed the magabase, right,
52:05
Speaker 2: all the things you cared about about the swamp and
52:08
Speaker 2: all this.
52:09
Speaker 1: That's my wife's theory. She's like that you should say
52:11
Speaker 1: he lied to you. Yeah, don't tell them they were dumb.
52:14
Speaker 1: Go the other way around. I mean, this has been
52:16
Speaker 1: the problem with the left. They keep attacking the voter
52:19
Speaker 1: for supporting Trump, rather than understanding why the voter wants
52:24
Speaker 1: Trump in the first place.
52:25
Speaker 2: So, if you want to make America great again, so
52:27
Speaker 2: what a great thing that is, you should vote Democratic, right,
52:30
Speaker 2: because we are the ones who are actually going to
52:32
Speaker 2: deliver this message to you. I actually think that's the
52:34
Speaker 2: jiu jitsu that said that's probably too hard for people.
52:37
Speaker 1: To You're, well, it's why. It's a reminder. I always say,
52:42
Speaker 1: today's MAGA voter was a Clinton voter in the nineties.
52:44
Speaker 2: One hundred those were all Democratic voters.
52:47
Speaker 1: I think they were all Bill Clinton voters. I wonder,
52:50
Speaker 1: don't you agree they were Reagan voters and they were
52:52
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton voters.
52:52
Speaker 2: I bet they were. All of them were registered Democrats
52:55
Speaker 2: back in the day, and they were your constituents. Yeah, exactly,
52:58
Speaker 2: and my district now that I won is seventy five
53:00
Speaker 2: twenty five Trump And so it shows you like these people.
53:04
Speaker 2: They have certain interests, and Trump spoke to them in
53:07
Speaker 2: a brilliant way. And we shouldn't take that away from
53:09
Speaker 2: like the genius of his campaigning. We should try to
53:12
Speaker 2: like re channel that in some way.
53:15
Speaker 1: President of Tulsa University did love it or hate it?
53:18
Speaker 2: I love there. Actually, Jane in June to do full
53:20
Speaker 2: time AI work. I loved it. University Tulsa is a
53:23
Speaker 2: great place.
53:23
Speaker 1: What's worst it is it as bad politically. I mean,
53:26
Speaker 1: you know that's the old joke, right The politics are
53:28
Speaker 1: worse on a college campus because the stakes are so low.
53:31
Speaker 2: It was far harder politics than the actual being an
53:33
Speaker 2: elective office ever was.
53:36
Speaker 1: Well, it's I always had a soft spot being a
53:39
Speaker 1: Miami Hurricane boy. I always had a soft spot for
53:42
Speaker 1: the Golden.
53:42
Speaker 2: Hurricanes, exactly where the two hurricane in the world. Right,
53:45
Speaker 2: of course, Oh, you grad myself. I have to hate Miami.
53:48
Speaker 1: I know you don't, but that's all right.
53:50
Speaker 2: We had to.
53:50
Speaker 1: If it wasn't bro Oklahoma, Miami wouldn't have gotten into
53:53
Speaker 1: the top tier.
53:54
Speaker 2: That's true.
53:54
Speaker 1: Beating Oklahoma gave Miami an identity, so losing I I'm
53:59
Speaker 1: very thankful for the old Big eight, our coaches.
54:02
Speaker 2: Jimmy Johnson right from Oklahoma, since you're our best people.
54:05
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, and then we sent you one back
54:07
Speaker 1: with Schnellenberger that didn't go so hot, but that's that's
54:11
Speaker 1: neither her door there. Hey Brad Carson, this was great.
54:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming on. And uh, look this this
54:18
Speaker 1: is I see why you're engaged in this. I mean,
54:21
Speaker 1: this really is in some ways more how if we
54:27
Speaker 1: got to get a ri we got to get this
54:29
Speaker 1: right because getting it wrong could be could be very
54:33
Speaker 1: very damaging.
54:35
Speaker 2: It is the most important fight going on right now.
54:38
Speaker 1: That's for sure. All Right, we'll be well, let's let's
54:41
Speaker 1: stay in touching, Chuck,