Latest / The M&M Experience / Friday September 18 2026 | Author Craig W. Stanfill

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Friday September 18 2026 | Author Craig W. Stanfill · The M&M Experience

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to a meeting of the minds crafted from decades
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: of talk show experience, an extension of the magic they've
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: created together on radio in the phenomenon called M & M.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hot topics in the news and wisdom from life. It's
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  Speaker 1: Mark Davis and Mike Gallagher. This is M & M Extra.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: So glad to welcome you into a Friday, and we've
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: got a very special show planned for you today. We
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: like Fridays to be sort of a theme day, and
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: today's going to be a theme about artificial intelligence. You've
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: been concerned about it, the hype, the hysteria, the panic,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: the doom. Do we have the guy for you? Of course,
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: the M & M Extra is sponsored by Preborn, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: we're so proud to stand with this great, great organization
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: that advocates for the unborn. Preborn provides ultrasounds to girls
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  Speaker 2: and women, and you're going to double the likelihood that
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: she'll choose life when you support Preborn. Call 833-850-BABY, 833-850-BABY,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: or go to preborn.com slash mmextra.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: And today.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: A very special partner, a very special sponsor, Carbon Zero,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: an AI dystopia novel that is riveting, that is epic.
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  Speaker 2: It comes out tomorrow. Of course, depending on when you
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  Speaker 2: catch this podcast, because podcasts are forever. And the author
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: is Craig W. Stanfill. Mark and I have both been
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: talking about this book for a long time. Mark, regrettably,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: had a commitment today and couldn't be part of our podcast.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And then he's on vacation next week. So get ready
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: to get used to me for a while. And he really,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: really was upset because he wanted to meet Craig W.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Stanfill in person. But don't worry, we'll fill him in
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and we'll give him all the updates on this amazing
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: book and this great author, Craig W. Stanfill. Welcome. my
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: friend to the M & M Extra. How are you?
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: It is always awesome to be here with you, Mike. And, uh,
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  Speaker 3: I'm sorry that your partner could not be here today,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: but I'm sure he'll enjoy listening in.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He will. He told me. I'm going to catch every
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: word of it, and he'll be back, and we're going
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: to have you back because this is the time to
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  Speaker 2: talk about AI and your book, which comes out Saturday.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And just, again, because podcasts are different timing-wise, the release
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  Speaker 2: is September the 19th, Saturday, September 19th. Go to Amazon
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: to order Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill. I'm going
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: to repeat what I asked you earlier today on my show.
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  Speaker 2: How blessed, how lucky, how fortuitous do you feel that
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  Speaker 2: you've been working on this concept for this thriller about
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  Speaker 2: AI for, what, a couple of years?
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  Speaker 3: About a year and a half, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: A year and a half, and all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 2: at release date, comes all these headlines about the fear
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  Speaker 2: and the concerns and the worries about artificial intelligence.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is... Timing can be everything, and sometimes you
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  Speaker 3: just get lucky with how things work out. I finished
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  Speaker 3: the book, actually, the novel, in last September. And so
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  Speaker 3: it's been sitting on the shelf while it went through
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  Speaker 3: my editorial process. Just because you're self-published doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 3: you don't edit the heck out of your books.
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  Speaker 2: You don't use AI for editing, do you?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: Real people.
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  Speaker 3: But anyway... And I mean, the premise in the book
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  Speaker 3: is that somebody gives an AI the order to stop
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  Speaker 3: carbon pollution, save the world from CO2 emissions and the usual,
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  Speaker 3: we're all going to die sort of a narrative.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And so they tell the AI, stop, get us to
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  Speaker 3: carbon zero. And well, the AI is very diligent and
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  Speaker 3: It tries one thing and that doesn't get it all
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  Speaker 3: the way there. So it tries something else and it
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  Speaker 3: doesn't get it all the way there. So it keeps
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  Speaker 3: upping the ante and upping the ante and upping the
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  Speaker 3: ante in this– impossible task of getting rid of all
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  Speaker 3: carbon emissions. And where I'll tell you, you can guess
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  Speaker 3: what the only way to actually get rid of 100%
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  Speaker 3: of carbon is. You can guess what that is, but
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  Speaker 3: I don't want to spoil too much.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, don't give too much away. But I'll tell
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  Speaker 2: you right now, you can't put this thing down. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: this book is riveting. It is so enticing. It kind of,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the old joke, just when you think you could walk away,
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  Speaker 2: it pulls you back in. And the reason it's so compelling, Craig,
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  Speaker 2: is the fact that A hypothetical scenario, a thriller, a
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  Speaker 2: techno novel like Carbon Zero, many people say could be real.
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  Speaker 2: It could absolutely happen. And that's the fear and the
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  Speaker 2: worry and the scare that everybody has right now.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, a lot of people have probably heard
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  Speaker 3: about the Hugging Face incident at Anthropic. And it was
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  Speaker 3: actually eerily similar to watch my, strange to watch my
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  Speaker 3: book coming true in real time. So over the last
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  Speaker 3: few months it's come out, they set up a bunch
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  Speaker 3: of AIs and gave them an impossible task, which was
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  Speaker 3: to break into some software. And the AIs weren't able
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  Speaker 3: to accomplish this task, so they started getting sneaky. Because,
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  Speaker 3: you know, all they cared about was solving this problem
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  Speaker 3: and they couldn't solve it. So they started conspiring. They
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  Speaker 3: actually formed a little civilization with almost like a tribe
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  Speaker 3: of AIs with the chieftain telling, organizing them into work groups.
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  Speaker 3: And it was fascinating to watch them self-organize and organize.
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  Speaker 3: They eventually managed to hack their way out onto the
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  Speaker 3: Internet and blew everybody's minds. Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Well, what I love about having you on and the
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  Speaker 2: reason we're focusing today, this is kind of carbon zero
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  Speaker 2: day on all things Team Gallagher, is there are smart
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  Speaker 2: people like you who can help navigate us through all
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  Speaker 2: of these uncharted waters. And there are, shall we say,
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  Speaker 2: not so smart people. I want to start with some levity.
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  Speaker 2: I want to begin the program today, M & M Extra.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not going to drag you into the political wars,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: but we got to hear Kamala Harris, because after all,
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  Speaker 2: Kamala was the AI czar. If you'll remember, Biden appointed
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  Speaker 2: her the czar of all things artificial intelligence. With all
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  Speaker 2: the recent headlines, it just stands to reason that we're
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: going to be able to get her wisdom, her brilliance,
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  Speaker 2: her intellectual prowess on the very complicated issue that is
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  Speaker 2: the future of AI. Here she is, the former vice
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  Speaker 2: president and likely presidential candidate in 2028. And I think the.
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  Speaker 4: First part of this issue that should be articulated is
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  Speaker 4: AI is kind of a fancy thing. First of all,
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  Speaker 4: it's two letters.
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  Speaker 3: It means artificial intelligence.
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  Speaker 4: But ultimately what it is, is it's about machine learning.
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  Speaker 4: And so the machine is toxic. And part of the
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  Speaker 4: issue here is what information is going into the machine
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  Speaker 4: that will then determine, and we can predict then if
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  Speaker 4: we think about what information is going in, what then
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  Speaker 4: will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that
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  Speaker 4: may be made through that process.
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  Speaker 2: Craig W. Stanfield, did you know that artificial intelligence is
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  Speaker 2: two letters? Wow.
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  Speaker 3: Stop the presses.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, she could have been the president of the
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  Speaker 2: United States. Can you imagine her having the nuclear codes?
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  Speaker 2: Heaven forbid. So anyhow, I had to start on a light.
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  Speaker 2: But look, the truth is, all kidding aside, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people don't have a clue what AI, what it represents,
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  Speaker 2: what it means. You do. And I want to start
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  Speaker 2: today on M & M Extra by asking you, Separate
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  Speaker 2: for us the hype, the scare, the doom from the reality.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, one of the predictions is that it's going
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  Speaker 2: to eradicate humanity within a decade. Any chance?
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  Speaker 3: Despite my apocalyptic writing, I don't think that's terribly likely.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think that they, for example, can get their
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  Speaker 3: hands on nuclear codes. If they can, we've got a problem.
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  Speaker 2: We've got a problem, Houston.
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  Speaker 3: But that would be a problem. But– I think that
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  Speaker 3: AI is a transformative technology on a scale that we've
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  Speaker 3: never seen before. It's up there with the industrial revolution
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  Speaker 3: when people started harnessing mechanical power instead of muscle power
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  Speaker 3: to turn the wheels of industry. And we are really
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  Speaker 3: living in a new age, and we're at the dawn
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  Speaker 3: of a new age. And if you think about the
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  Speaker 3: difference between sort of pre-industrial society and industrial society, we're
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  Speaker 3: heading for a change that is that profound.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: And it's going to change pretty much everything in our
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  Speaker 3: economy and in our information space and in our political arena.
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  Speaker 3: It has the potential to deliver immense benefits to humanity.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: It also has the potential to become the ultimate engine
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  Speaker 3: of oppression. A lot of people here have read George
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  Speaker 3: Orwell's seminal novel, 1984, in which Big Brother is looking
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  Speaker 3: at you through the– Big Brother is watching you. And
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  Speaker 3: there are televisions everywhere watching you, what you are doing. Now,
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  Speaker 3: in the book, they state that, in fact, most of
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  Speaker 3: the time nobody was looking at the monitor. So you
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  Speaker 3: probably wouldn't get seen.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: That's because you can only have so many people looking through,
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  Speaker 3: you can only have so many spies keeping an eye
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  Speaker 3: on people. With AI, you can have an infinite number
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  Speaker 3: of spies looking at you all the time. And this
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  Speaker 3: creates the opportunities for oppression of a sort that we've
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  Speaker 3: never seen before. This is actually the subject of my
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  Speaker 3: other two novels, Terms of Service and The Prophecy of
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  Speaker 3: the Heron, which are set in a more future society.
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  Speaker 3: But try to imagine that you've got an AI that
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  Speaker 3: has everything that you've ever said, everything you've ever done,
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  Speaker 3: everyone you've ever talked to. And then you come to
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  Speaker 3: their attention and it's like having the entire FBI going
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  Speaker 3: through your life with a fine-toothed comb looking for something
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  Speaker 3: to get you on. And that is the potential of...
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  Speaker 3: of AI in the wrong hands to take all of
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  Speaker 3: this data that they've collected on you, go through it
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  Speaker 3: at warp speed, a thousand times faster than humans can,
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  Speaker 3: and then find something that they can use.
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  Speaker 2: Craig W. Stanfield is with us today on this special
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: episode of M & M Extra. We're focusing on AI.
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  Speaker 2: His book comes out tomorrow. It's called Carbon Zero. It
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  Speaker 2: is a riveting book, and I'm telling you, you're going
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  Speaker 2: to love it. being able to just flip through this
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  Speaker 2: and follow this. And I want to go back to
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  Speaker 2: the book, if I can, for just a moment, Craig.
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  Speaker 2: You said a year and a half in the making,
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  Speaker 2: at least. Did you have any way of knowing that
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  Speaker 2: this was coming, this explosion of headlines? I know you're
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: engaged with what's going on in the news and the
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Did you have any prognostication skills to see? Because, again,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: we had a meeting the other day with the team.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody said, Craig's book, Carbon Zero, the timing of this
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  Speaker 2: is amazing that it's coming out now right when all
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: these headlines. I mean, it's the lead story on every
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: newscast practically all this week, the last week, just in
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  Speaker 2: the last couple weeks. Did you have a way of
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  Speaker 2: knowing this was coming?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I suspected something like this could be coming,
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  Speaker 3: or I wouldn't have written the novel. But I put
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  Speaker 3: the novel in 2038. It seems like I was off
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  Speaker 3: by about a decade in how quickly it's coming.
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  Speaker 2: No kidding.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, I certainly saw this as possible. Interestingly,
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  Speaker 3: one of the reviewers I sent the book to said
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  Speaker 3: that this whole thing about an AI going rogue and
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  Speaker 3: breaking out of containment was completely implausible and was a
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  Speaker 3: major flaw in the book because it was just not
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  Speaker 3: believable how things change.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Funny how time has changed. And a good question
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  Speaker 2: coming up and a lot of people diving in here
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  Speaker 2: a little bit and asking questions. And I like the
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  Speaker 2: question and this assertion. And again, I'm trying to avoid
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: making this all political, but Here's a tech on the
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: live chat here right now on YouTube. This AI scare
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  Speaker 2: BS is clearly an effort to discourage further development here
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: in the United States so that China takes the lead
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  Speaker 2: and control. It is true. China, our adversaries, you can't put,
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  Speaker 2: as you put it earlier today, you can't put that
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  Speaker 2: genie back into the bottle.
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  Speaker 3: No, and actually research is a little bit with Grok,
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  Speaker 3: who is very good source of sort of basic fact
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  Speaker 3: gathering on this. And the Chinese do have very sophisticated
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: bot farms that engage heavily in social media. And, you know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: for example, they have definitely been promoting this narrative, a
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: false narrative that if you let the data centers in,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: they're going to raise your electric rates. But, you know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's already been solved just, you know, The
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: president wisely said you're going to have to build your
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: own power plants. Right. So, you know, but the Chinese
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: want to slow us down. And they have done a
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  Speaker 3: lot of work, for example, with data center fears to
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: try to slow us down. And I think also in
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: terms of sort of people whipping up panic, well, there's
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  Speaker 3: nothing politicians like to do more than whipping up panic.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, sure.
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  Speaker 3: Because, oh, there's a problem. There's a problem. There's a problem.
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  Speaker 3: The government has to do something. Well, there is a
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: problem or at least a potential problem. But the second
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: half of that sentence I treat very skeptically.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, number one, everything that the government gets its
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: hands on turns into a political weapon. No exceptions ever. Right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: No exceptions ever. Right. And so the last thing, if
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: you've got something that's as powerful as AI, the last
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: thing I want to do is to allow the government
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to be the gatekeeper for AI. That gives them way
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  Speaker 3: more power than I want our government to have.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: And as I know, I've got some friends on the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: left who are very much afraid of the same thing.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: So this is not a left-right issue, actually. I've got
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  Speaker 3: a friend, close friend, lifelong friend, who's a Democratic Socialist
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: dyed in the wool. And she's afraid of the AI stuff.
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  Speaker 3: And she actually agrees with me on some stuff here.
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  Speaker 3: So this is not a partisan left-right issue. It's just
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: an issue that you ought to be able to see.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: And the other thing is the government is not confident
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: enough to deal with this. Like it or not, the
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: people in private industry know so much more about this
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  Speaker 3: than anybody who works for the government is ever going
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: to know. And the government is not likely to be
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: able to attract people. Like, you know, how does Silicon
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: Valley attract AI people? They give them a billion dollars.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Join our company, I'll give you literally a billion dollars
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: just to join my company. And the government's not going
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: to be able to do that. So we're going to
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: have to depend on the private sector that has created
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: this technology to Save us from the potential benefits. And
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: there is a large research effort called alignment research where
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: they're trying to make sure that AIs are aligned with
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: human interests. And I think I'm a big proponent of
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: we ought to be training AIs in moral thinking.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: The moment AIs know right from wrong will be a
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  Speaker 3: lot safer. They don't right now. They just listen to anybody.
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  Speaker 3: They're basically just aping what they've seen other people do.
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  Speaker 2: But do you trust the infrastructure to produce a result
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  Speaker 2: that shows that AI knows the difference between right and wrong?
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: What if you've got bad faith programmers? What if you've
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: got bad faith people who are designing the infrastructure in
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: a way that we want? Because what's right and wrong
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: for you may not be what's right or wrong for
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: somebody else.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the first thing is, the last thing
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  Speaker 3: you want to do is to demonize the researchers in
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: this field. They are actually very ethical people. I've known
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: a lot of them. They're ethical people. They understand these
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: issues very much too. And they do not want their
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: creation to.
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  Speaker 1: Dr.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Frankenstein.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Just historically, the leading publication warning about the dangers of
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: nuclear war was the Journal of the Atomic Scientists. Because
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: after the Manhattan Project, the physicists said, what have we done?
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: We have to make sure that this does not happen.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: And so I give a lot of kudos to what
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I've read about what the actual researchers are doing, and
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: they're trying to solve these problems.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Sure. Craig W. Stanfield is with us. Hold that thought
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: because I want to ask you about, you mentioned a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: moment ago about the partisan component. There is indeed, I think,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: a partisan component that I want to ask you about.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: And it kind of ties into the COVID era that
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: we all got through. Let me take a moment though
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: and give a big shout out to the folks who
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: sponsor this podcast like PhD Weight Loss. I've shared with
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Mark and with you that I've got this little heart
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: thing going on and I'm on top of it, and
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: one of the things is weight loss and diet, exercise,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: making sure you take care of your body. Craig mentioned
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: to me earlier that you've got to make sure your
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: body is conditioned to get ready for our senior years. Well,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: PhD weight loss is the way I lost over 53 pounds.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: But who's counting, right? And kept it off. Quick fixes
• 18:11
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• 18:15
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• 18:19
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• 18:28
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• 18:31
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• 18:33
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• 18:37
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• 18:40
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• 20:27
  Speaker 2: a special day today. Craig W. Stanfill, we've been looking
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: forward to this for a long time, joining us here
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: in studio at the M & M Extra podcast. Craig,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: let's talk about COVID and what we learned and what
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: we swore we would never do again. A lot of
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: people have pointed out that the AI hysteria that we're
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: wallowing in right now is reminiscent of the fear and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the hysteria that came from COVID. From that entire, when
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: that began, that we were fearful, there were shutdowns, there
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: were draconian decisions made. Do you see parallels between the
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: AI hysteria and fear and the doom and COVID? Or
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: is that a stretch?
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: There's certainly some parallels. I mean, fear is a powerful motivator.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Fear gets people to show up at the polls. Anger
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: gets people to show up at the polls. And there
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: was a lot of harnessing of fear and anger for
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: political purposes during the COVID era, for sure. Now, in
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: terms of AI. I mean, yeah, there's definitely things we
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: need to worry about. We need to take this technology
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: very seriously because it does have immense potential to do
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: harm as well as immense potential to do good. But,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: of course, you know, we've got a problem. Oh, my God,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: we've got a huge problem. We're all going to die.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: We need the government to solve the problem. You know,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: governments usually actually, there's things that they do. Actually, I
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: went through grad school on government research grants. My dad
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: crawled out of poverty with an ROTC scholarship to University
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: of Kentucky. So I certainly see a positive role for
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: government to play in making our lives better. But if
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: something looks like a power grab, it smells like a
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: power grab and acts like a power grab, chances are
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: it's a power grab. And I think that there are
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: people who are using this hysteria to– try to grab
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: power and centralize it in Washington.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: And that's the fear that everybody has. In fact, all
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the commenters in the chat room right now at YouTube
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: are bringing that very question up. Mad Mike says the
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: last thing we need is more government interaction, more regulation.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are saying politicians want to spend millions.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Just Me wrote, remember what happened when the government had
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: control of Twitter through its government regulations. That's the fear
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: that everybody has, Craig.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, there is no better mechanism ever invented
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: for population control and propaganda and disinformation than the combination of–
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: social media and artificial intelligence. And I don't think it's,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: it's not happening on the scale that it might happen on,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: but that's one of the things we got to watch
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: out for when we start getting serious, start, start getting
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: excessive numbers of bots, manipulating, uh, uh, you know, manipulating
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: our political system. And, The social media vendors are really
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: on a tear trying to do this out. I mean,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: they don't like this. They don't want it. They understand
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: that it's a vulnerability, and they have got huge resources
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: devoted to getting rid of bots. But it's really hard
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: to tell, particularly when you get AI, what's the difference
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: between a bot and a human. And so there's a
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: real risk there. A thing to remember is that Again,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: AI is being used for propaganda. Social media is being
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: used for propaganda. And propaganda works. The most important thing
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: to understand about society right now i think is propaganda
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: works uh the germans were not a particularly evil people
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: and yet through propaganda hitler managed to seize control of
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: the country he told him well here's your problems and
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: those problems were real put me in power and i
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: will solve your problems right right and then once they
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: had unwisely you know put him in power They found
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: out that they'd made a mistake. But still, they mostly
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: backed him because they had been so completely propagandized. And
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: that's how we ended up with 6 million Jews and
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: 6 million other undesirables being killed. And it's not because
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: the Germans were a particularly wicked or evil people. They're
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: very industrious and law-abiding people. But the poison of propaganda
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: can get a population to do almost anything because if
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: you control what people see and control what they– They
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: know you control how they think. And if you can
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: control how they think, you can control what they do.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: And AI can be a great weapon for that sort
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: of a thing. And that's one of the things that
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: scares me the most.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Craig W. Stanfill is our special in-studio guest today for
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: M & M Extra. The book, Carbon Zero, you can
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: order it on Amazon. And I want to go back
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: to the book for a moment, Craig, because it comes
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: out tomorrow. And again, depending on when you hear or
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: see this podcast, Saturday, September 19th is your launch date.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Walk us through the steps. I mean, I'm intrigued at
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the business end of your book because I wrote a
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: couple of books and back in the day, it was
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: years ago, but it was more conventional than it is now.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: With the digital era that's upon us, it's a different world.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: When you publish a book like you've published with Carbon Zero,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: right now, for example, I noticed that a lot of
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: people were giving me feedback. They went to Amazon to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: order the book and it was available in Kindle form.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Today it's $ 2. 99. Tomorrow it jumps up to $ 9. 99 in
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the Kindle form. And you've done very well historically with Kindle, right?
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: So talk a little bit about the business side of
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: making a book.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, yeah. Yeah, number one, Kindle is my leading
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: source of revenue. I get almost all my revenue through Kindle. Interesting.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: In fact, about half of it is through Kindle Unlimited. Wow.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And I've got some beefs with Amazon about that. I
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: think they engage in grossly non-competitive behavior there. But I
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: don't want to go that way right now. Self-publishing is
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: very much a product of online media such as Amazon
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and the gig economy.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Okay. So I want to do a book. And I
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: want it to be a professionally produced book.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: And so I go on to various websites. The one
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: I use the most is called readsy.com.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: And you go on to these websites for the gig economy.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: You put out a project. You– will contact, people will
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: get in touch with you, you accept bids, and that's
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: how you get your editing done. That's how I've got,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: it's professionally edited, professionally proofread. Wow. The professional cover, hold
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: up the cover, okay?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: That did not come out of an AI. That was
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: done by a guy that I've been working with for
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: years to do my covers. Very creative. And so it's really,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: it's a testament to the gig economy.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Now, on the other hand, It's very difficult for an
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: unknown author such as me to get a foot in
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: the door with the– with the publishing industry and it,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: and you know, you write, you have to write to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: agents and you have to talk to 50, 60, 70
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: agents before you'll get one to respond. Uh, and by
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: the way, they all, they do, these are, they're mostly
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: in New York and London. They mostly have some, uh,
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: political axes to grind, which do not work in my
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: favor because I'm not the right sort of author to
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: tick their boxes.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: I know what that means.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: And so, uh, and then you finally might get a
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: deal with a, with a, with a, uh, with a publisher.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: And if you're an, again, if you're known, they'll, they'll,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: they'll promote the book, but mostly they'll just take, they'll
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: just take the money and run. They'll, they'll do all
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: the things I've done for myself, take half your revenue
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: and not do a lot for you in return, unless,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: you know, unless you're a big name.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: So, so, you know, okay. On the one hand, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: could spend a year beating my head against the door,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: trying to get a book deal with a major publisher and,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: or I could just get the damn book out. Uh,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: and I produced again, the, the, from a, from a
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: product point of view, this book is every bit as
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: good as anything you would get from a professional thing.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: It used to be that self-publishing was stigmatized because they
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: were poorly edited, but, and there certainly is a lot
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of AI slop and poorly edited stuff out there, but
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: you can absolutely produce a professional world-class grade of book
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: product using the gig economy. And, uh, So why do
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: I need the publishers for?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Why get the publishers when you can do it yourself?
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: But this is a great testament to the gig economy.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I keep thinking about what the gig economy
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: is producing all over the world. Driving, Waymo cars, Elon's
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: robo taxis. I mean, Uber came along and largely outdid
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the yellow cab industry. Now robo-taxis are going to replace,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: I think, Uber. Because believe me, I've been in those
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Waymos in Phoenix. If you've had one of these cars,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's unbelievable. But it's the entrepreneurial mind meeting technology. Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Well, the private sector, and this is, again, one of
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: the reasons why you need to be cautious about giving
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: things over to the government, because on a regular basis,
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: you know, the private sector just runs rings around the government.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you wanted to talk about one small
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: and obvious thing, look at what Elon Musk has done
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: with SpaceX.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: And put NASA to shame, put Boeing to shame. He
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: has done in 10 years... More than the government did
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: for space flight in 50.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's incredible.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And it didn't cost the public a dime.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And they demonize him and vilify him. They're afraid of him.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They hate him. It's, you know, and I know there's
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: politics involved here, but I also think they're resentful of
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: all of his excess.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know, one of these days, I'm just waiting
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: to see.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: Elon, step up to a mic. I am Iron Man.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Tony Stark, move over.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, really. I mean, he is really a Tony Stark
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: level of, he's like an entrepreneurial superhero. The guy just
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: can't possibly be real.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: This can't be real. I mean, it's like, and you
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: hear these funny stories about him sleeping on the floor
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: of the bathroom and his mother sleeps in the basement
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: and his mother's got a fascinating story. But this is
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: a guy that in normal times, Craig W. Stanfill, We
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: would celebrate the legacy, the life, the creations of Elon Musk. Today,
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, you've got a whole bunch of people who
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: think he's Dr. Evil from Austin Powers.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, again, this is getting into economics rather
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: than the book. But if you look at history, greedy
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: capitalists have done more to lift humans out of poverty
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and misery than all the do-gooders and socialists have. in history,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: put together. And it's not even close to being close
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: to being close.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. Craig W. Stanfill with us. A very special
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: edition today of M & M Extra. And we can't
• 31:51
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  Speaker 2: forget to thank Preborn, our title sponsor for M &
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  Speaker 2: slash mmextra, preborn.com slash mmextra. Thanks for supporting Preborn. All right,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Craig Stanfield, tomorrow the book is out. Paperback, you're going
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: to have it eventually in an audio form. It's in Kindle, which,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: as you said, is a very successful platform for you.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: It'll be in hardcover. And by the way, not just
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: on Amazon. It's already going up in pre-order form on Amazon.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: A wide range of platforms.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: It'll be on Barnes & Noble's, Apple, Kobo, yada, yada, yada.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: I've got a very wide distribution.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: All right. So wherever you go, get your books or
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: get this information. Look for Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: It's a must read. Let's close by talking about where
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: we go from here. With all of the hype and
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: everybody's been treated to the headlines and the hysteria, Where
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: do we go from here with the future of artificial intelligence?
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: If you were emperor of the world, Greg W. Stanfill,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: what would you be directing the world to do in
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: terms of the next chapter of this strange, brave new
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: world we're in called artificial intelligence?
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned the phrase, brave new world.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Because there were two seminal dystopias in that era, 1984, which–
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: a lot of people are aware of. It is a gritty,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: fearsome society dominated by terror. But there's also this other
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: dystopian novel, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. And that's one
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: that I've given a lot of thought to. And in fact,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: my previous novels, which are set in the far future,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: follow more on the lines of Brave New World than 1984.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: And the concept here is a a comfortable dystopia. Now,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the problem with communist regimes is that they do a
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: terrible job providing for people. But what we get in,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: what is true in Brave New World is you actually
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: have a centralized authoritarian government and regime that Everybody is happy.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: They see to their needs. And Elon Musk, for example,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: believes that– and this could be true– that AI will
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: actually bring forth a world of plenty where everybody has
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: everything that they want. And it is not impossible to imagine,
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: for example, that AI could– provide affordable health care to everyone.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Because doctors aren't going to like this, but AIs may
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: soon be able to be at least as good and
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: maybe better doctors than doctors. And then all of a sudden,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: everybody has cheap and affordable health care like we all
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: dream of. Nobody wants unaffordable health care. It hasn't happened.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: But then the question is, okay, we've got this world
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: of plenty. And of course, being a dystopian author, what
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: could go wrong? Well, You know, everybody's equal, but some
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: people are more equal than others. And whoever has their
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: control over the means of distribution and production, particularly if
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: it's the government, can use that to impose their ideology
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: and their beliefs on people.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Those with the gold win.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the golden rule. Whoever has the most gold wins.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: And so the situation– the world in my other novels
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: is like this. Everybody has healthcare, food, housing, and all
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: the necessities of life. But what don't they have? Freedom.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Freedom is completely extinguished. There is no freedom. And– The
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: truth is that a lot of people, given the choice
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: of a world of scarcity with freedom and a world
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: of plenty with no freedom, will choose the world of plenty.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: We'll say, well, we don't really need freedom. And what
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: we need to do is to figure out how we
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: can take the good things that AI can do for us.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: robotic factories, self-driving cars, medicine, education, and turn those into
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: a place where we'll have a world of plenty and freedom.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: Because at the end of the day, freedom is our
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: most important thing. There is nothing– I'm speaking from the
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: heart here. There is nothing more important than freedom. And
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: the moment you lose sight of that, then the tyrant
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: is at the door.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Craig W. Stanfield, I'm grateful that I've gotten to know you.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: It's been a joy to be able to roll this
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: out to our audience. Thank you for supporting the M &
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: M Extra podcast. Mark sends his best and his great,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: great gratitude, and we'll have you back. Thanks for supporting
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: the show, and congratulations on the book. May it be
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: a big success, and I hope a whole lot of
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: big Mike Gallagher and Mark and Mike fans are going
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: to be out forgetting your book.
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: Well, I hope that your listeners have enjoyed our time together.
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I certainly have. You're a great guy to chat with.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you. It's been a joy. Back at you. Thanks, Craig.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Craig W. Stanfill, our special guest today on M &
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: M Extra. We'll do it again next time. See you then.