Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Rich DeMuro, Host of ‘Rich on Tech’ on WOR Sundays, interview

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Rich DeMuro, Host of ‘Rich on Tech’ on WOR Sundays, interview · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

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  Speaker 1: Right now, Rich DeMuro, Rich on Tech, which is heard
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  Speaker 1: Sunday nights from 8 to 11 p.m. right here on
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  Speaker 1: the most listened to talk radio station in New York, 710WOR.
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  Speaker 1: It was a big initiative on the ballot that affected
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  Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and all the billionaires there. And we will
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  Speaker 1: talk about the California vote later in this show, but
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  Speaker 1: the big one was the Wealth tax, the billionaire tax
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  Speaker 1: that even Newsom at the last minute decided to lead
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  Speaker 1: the opposition against, it did not pass. So Rich DeMuro,
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  Speaker 1: all those billionaires out there, are they going to stay
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  Speaker 1: put or are they going to follow Musk to Texas,
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  Speaker 1: Zuckerberg to Florida, or Peter Thiel to Argentina?
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I don't think they're going to Texas at this point.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's going to be any better
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  Speaker 2: over there now. You know, they had some big changes there, too.
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  Speaker 2: But this was, you know, this was the people saying, OK,
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  Speaker 2: we don't know if this is the best thing for
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  Speaker 2: our state, even though it sounded good. One time, five
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  Speaker 2: percent wealth tax on people worth more than one billion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: That money was going to go to health care, also
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  Speaker 2: towards some food assistance and education. But like you said,
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  Speaker 2: did not pass. Because I think people in California are
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  Speaker 2: probably worried. They're probably worried that we would see more
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  Speaker 2: industry drive out of this state, even though California is
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  Speaker 2: still a huge leader when it comes to tech and AI.
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  Speaker 2: But I don't think at this point people want to
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  Speaker 2: lose that momentum by changing this.
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  Speaker 3: You know, AI was used extensively. I know in industries
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  Speaker 3: across the country, they're worried about AI taking over some jobs.
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  Speaker 3: But AI was used by campaigns more than ever before,
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  Speaker 3: especially online. And many of the times, they were making
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  Speaker 3: candidates say things they normally wouldn't say. Now, in the
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  Speaker 3: bigger races that were watched, there was a scrutiny on
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  Speaker 3: that type of stuff. So it didn't happen as much.
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  Speaker 3: But in some of the smaller races, they could change
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  Speaker 3: the effects of the election and the results of the election.
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  Speaker 3: And so I know the politicians are concerned about this.
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  Speaker 3: So when you add this, please add this to your
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  Speaker 3: list of things that AI is affecting to be concerned about,
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  Speaker 3: because there's going to be a major push apparently in
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  Speaker 3: Washington to to crack down on these AI ads. And
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  Speaker 3: I'm not even sure if there's a solution, Rich.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, as you're telling me this and I'm thinking about
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  Speaker 2: it in a bigger picture of things, like I think
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  Speaker 2: about how I go through my day and I'm exposed
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  Speaker 2: to so much information online, right? Especially if you're scrolling
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  Speaker 2: social media, right? If you're just going to the main
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  Speaker 2: websites for the news stations and the newspapers, you should
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  Speaker 2: be okay for the most part. But if you are
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  Speaker 2: scrolling on social media, if you are watching these short
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  Speaker 2: videos online, seeing these pictures, you don't know what's real
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  Speaker 2: and you don't know what's fake. And not just that,
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  Speaker 2: but people discuss, they have entire discussions over material that
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  Speaker 2: has been created by AI that is fake. And so
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  Speaker 2: if you're not regularly fact checking this stuff, it can
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  Speaker 2: be a problem. And I'll be honest, it's not easy
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  Speaker 2: to fact check it. There's not one single place where
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  Speaker 2: you can just pop in a link or you can
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  Speaker 2: just pop in a picture and it tells you everything
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  Speaker 2: you need to know. So it really comes down to
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  Speaker 2: the individual doing the work, which We all know that's
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  Speaker 2: not very easy. It's much easier to just scroll, to screenshot,
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  Speaker 2: to share. And so I see this as a huge issue,
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  Speaker 2: especially for trust, especially for just the average person dealing
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  Speaker 2: with it. And I don't have a solution today. You
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  Speaker 2: just have to do your research. If you're going to
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  Speaker 2: have an opinion on something, let's put it that way.
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  Speaker 3: By the way, there's a new term for this called slopaganda,
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  Speaker 3: which I love. Slopaganda that's been making it on the internet.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Rich.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, my kids and I talk about AI slop all
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  Speaker 2: day long because it's especially if you have kids, they're
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  Speaker 2: exposed to a lot of it.
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk, the big guy in the room, spent half
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  Speaker 1: a billion dollars openly to defeat the Democrats. He was
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  Speaker 1: a big loser. Some of the congresspeople have already said
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  Speaker 1: to Elon Musk, lawyer up. You're going to be in
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  Speaker 1: a lot of our committee hearings. How does his businesses
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  Speaker 1: run without his day to day involvement?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, at this point, I think Tesla's in a
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  Speaker 2: pretty good place. I think that when you look at SpaceX,
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  Speaker 2: that's probably the one that needs him the most right now.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think he can be without these companies. He
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  Speaker 2: needs to be there because they're all in a place
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  Speaker 2: where they're leaders in their spaces, but because he is
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  Speaker 2: a hands-on guy. He is a guy that is giving
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  Speaker 2: them instructions on a daily basis. I remember Tesla in
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  Speaker 2: the early days when people were worried about whether it
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  Speaker 2: was going to survive or fail, he would sleep there,
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  Speaker 2: days on end. And he would sleep under a desk.
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  Speaker 2: And people thought he was crazy, but it worked out
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  Speaker 2: in the end for Tesla. Now, with Elon, I think
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  Speaker 2: that he's probably, I think in general, getting a gut
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  Speaker 2: check this morning, because like you said, he did put
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  Speaker 2: a lot of money. And Texas was sort of this
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  Speaker 2: place where people like him could say, okay, well, at
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  Speaker 2: least we have Texas, right? And now you wake up
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  Speaker 2: this morning, you see for the first time in 30 years,
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  Speaker 2: things have changed there. You have now a Democrat for governor.
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  Speaker 2: His main guy packs in loss to a Democrat. So
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  Speaker 2: this is a huge gut check for this guy in
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  Speaker 2: a state that he has put so much into. And
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  Speaker 2: by the way, I don't know if you saw his
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  Speaker 2: joke on X that he said is... My election interfering
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  Speaker 2: space lasers, I guess they didn't work.
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  Speaker 3: He is a funny guy. Real quickly, there's a New
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  Speaker 3: York Times report that schools that block Google's AI tools
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  Speaker 3: entirely could lose Google search. Is that true?
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  Speaker 2: This is very confusing because, yes, this New York Times
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  Speaker 2: report came out and they basically had this bombshell report
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  Speaker 2: that said Google is going to turn off search for
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  Speaker 2: any school that refuses AI. to include its AI in
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  Speaker 2: their search, like when kids go on their computers. And so,
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  Speaker 2: of course, people went, wait, what? Google, why would you
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  Speaker 2: do this? We want less AI in schools because kids
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  Speaker 2: need to learn. And so I don't know if Google
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  Speaker 2: backtracked or they changed their mind or they just flat
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  Speaker 2: out lied, but basically they said, oh, no, no, no.
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  Speaker 2: This is what we meant. We meant that there's Gemini,
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  Speaker 2: there's Gemini Notebook, and there's Search. Those will all be
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  Speaker 2: off by default in K-12 schools, teachers and administrators are
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  Speaker 2: now in control. They can choose to turn one, two,
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  Speaker 2: or all three of these services on individually. So I
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  Speaker 2: think this is one of those stories that Google kind
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  Speaker 2: of saw the reaction and said, uh-oh, what do we
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  Speaker 2: do to fix this? Because we don't want to be
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  Speaker 2: out of schools, obviously. And so we'll see. This is
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  Speaker 2: supposed to start in 2027. But I think if what
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  Speaker 2: Google is saying in their tweet and their blog post
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  Speaker 2: about how they have individual switches to turn these three
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  Speaker 2: things on and off, That's probably the best case scenario.
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  Speaker 3: Rich DeMuro, thanks so much. Rich DeMuro, Rich on Tech,
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  Speaker 3: is heard Sunday nights from 8 to 11 p.m.