Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Remembering 9/11/2001 25 Years Later
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM 640, the Bill Handel Show
- 0:04Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeartRadio app. Handel Morning Crew on
- 0:09Speaker 1: a Friday morning, September 11th, 25 years today since the
- 0:14Speaker 1: 9-11 attacks. And we're seeing wall-to-wall coverage, remembering what happened.
- 0:20Speaker 1: And a little bit later on, I'm going to talk
- 0:22Speaker 1: about remembering what happened and how it has changed for
- 0:26Speaker 1: a whole lot of people today. And for those of
- 0:30Speaker 1: us that remember, you're going to go, it's a whole
- 0:31Speaker 1: different world for sure.
- 0:33Speaker 2: All right.
- 0:35Speaker 1: Last couple of days, and I'm going to move away
- 0:37Speaker 1: from 9-11 for a few minutes. And the last couple
- 0:40Speaker 1: of days, there was that Republican primary convention that the
- 0:44Speaker 1: president had put together. And a primary convention has never
- 0:49Speaker 1: been put together. It's usually only presidential conventions that are
- 0:55Speaker 1: on a national level. And so what happened? Well, it was, well,
- 1:01Speaker 1: here's the bottom line. And that is this was for
- 1:04Speaker 1: Republicans only. And the only way Republicans are going to
- 1:08Speaker 1: win this, and everybody knows that they're in a lot
- 1:11Speaker 1: of trouble at this point, is to light up the base,
- 1:16Speaker 1: invigorate the base. Because if you get enough people that excited,
- 1:22Speaker 1: then you can win. And that's exactly what happened with
- 1:26Speaker 1: President Trump.
- 1:27Speaker 2: We're much more engaged.
- 1:29Speaker 1: The Republicans, the conservatives, far more engaged than were the
- 1:33Speaker 1: Democrats and the liberals the last time out because no
- 1:36Speaker 1: one was excited about Joe Biden anymore.
- 1:38Speaker 2: That's for sure.
- 1:39Speaker 1: OK, so here was the convention and it was science fiction.
- 1:45Speaker 2: It really was. The president spoke.
- 1:47Speaker 1: He was the hero. It was really about him. I mean,
- 1:50Speaker 1: that's not a shocker. They called it a Trumpalooza. He
- 1:54Speaker 1: was the keynote both nights.
- 1:55Speaker 2: Of course he was. And Vance was also a big
- 1:59Speaker 2: part of it, sort of.
- 2:01Speaker 1: OK, he made his final pitch of the convention to
- 2:06Speaker 1: keep Republicans in power. But, you know, I mean, Trump
- 2:11Speaker 1: wasn't very impressed with it at all. Sort of shoot
- 2:14Speaker 1: him off the stage. And at one point, this is
- 2:17Speaker 1: where this is where it gets really entertaining. Trump asked attendees,
- 2:23Speaker 1: raise your right hands and pledge that you are going
- 2:28Speaker 1: to vote Republican with your family, with your friends.
- 2:32Speaker 2: Go ahead, raise your hands and say, I do. Yes,
- 2:35Speaker 2: we do.
- 2:35Speaker 1: I'm surprised the hand didn't go straight out and.
- 2:37Speaker 2: Up in the air, but it didn't. So they raised
- 2:41Speaker 2: their right.
- 2:41Speaker 1: Hand, everybody in the room, in the arena, and then says,
- 2:46Speaker 1: you know what happens if you don't vote?
- 2:48Speaker 2: You go to hell.
- 2:51Speaker 3: All right.
- 2:51Speaker 1: Now, here is the problem, why the base has to
- 2:54Speaker 1: be engaged, because if you look at his general numbers,
- 2:58Speaker 1: he is at the lowest point.
- 2:59Speaker 2: I mean, he is barely above 30 percent. He's in
- 3:02Speaker 2: the low 30s.
- 3:04Speaker 1: The only time that you're in trouble as a president
- 3:08Speaker 1: or a presidential nominee or as a party is when
- 3:12Speaker 1: you drop below 50 percent.
- 3:14Speaker 2: He's in the 30s.
- 3:16Speaker 1: And so they are legitimately frightened that this may be
- 3:20Speaker 1: a slaughter. We don't know what happens in November. And Vance,
- 3:25Speaker 1: widely considered to be the frontrunner, and his speech offered
- 3:29Speaker 1: some early clues. Restoring the primacy of the traditional nuclear family.
- 3:34Speaker 1: Women should be at home. And he said this a bunch.
- 3:38Speaker 1: He didn't mention the war in Iran at all. uh
- 3:42Speaker 1: he did issue a plea for conservatives not to abandon
- 3:46Speaker 1: the white house over policy do not throw out the
- 3:48Speaker 1: baby with the bath water now what does that mean
- 3:51Speaker 1: when you go don't throw out the baby with the
- 3:53Speaker 1: bath water to me it means okay we screwed it
- 3:56Speaker 1: up but don't uh you know even though we did
- 3:59Speaker 1: do not get us out of office.
- 4:01Speaker 2: Because it's far worse to put the democrats.
- 4:03Speaker 1: In all right uh fair enough So when the balloons
- 4:08Speaker 1: fell down, who was on the stage?
- 4:11Speaker 2: By himself, whatever. Exactly.
- 4:13Speaker 1: And then here's a point I want to make. And Amy,
- 4:16Speaker 1: I think you'll appreciate this. And that when the president
- 4:20Speaker 1: announced $ 5, 000, a dividend of $ 5, 000 to every American, if
- 4:28Speaker 1: the Republicans hold on to the Senate and the Democrats.
- 4:33Speaker 1: I was sitting back and going, oh, no, no, please,
- 4:39Speaker 1: please don't miss the opportunity to call this the Trump dividend.
- 4:42Speaker 1: Are you really only going to cost us the American dividend? Well,
- 4:46Speaker 1: he came through. Thank goodness he came through. And it
- 4:51Speaker 1: is the Trump dividend.
- 4:52Speaker 2: Is it really? I hadn't even heard that. Yes.
- 4:55Speaker 1: Yes.
- 4:56Speaker 2: Why not? Of course it was.
- 4:57Speaker 3: He could pay it with Trump gold coins.
- 5:00Speaker 2: That's true. He's the only one talking about it.
- 5:03Speaker 1: $ 1. 3 trillion.
- 5:06Speaker 2: Donald Trump Jr. didn't mention it.
- 5:10Speaker 1: The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who was up
- 5:13Speaker 1: there being his lapdog, didn't mention it. The Vice President
- 5:17Speaker 1: didn't mention it because it is, how about this, completely crazy.
- 5:24Speaker 2: I mean, I go through the list and I am
- 5:26Speaker 2: not exaggerating. The number of.
- 5:31Speaker 1: Times that Trump has either obfuscated, outright lied, statements that
- 5:40Speaker 1: were wrongly applied, missed opportunities to tell the truth are
- 5:45Speaker 1: in the thousands with President Trump, in the thousands.
- 5:50Speaker 2: And this was last night. He's going to give.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Everybody a dividend. Do you remember the dividend with the tariffs?
- 5:58Speaker 1: Have you gotten your check yet?
- 6:00Speaker 2: I haven't. And how about the other dividends? And oh,
- 6:04Speaker 2: and he said, and here we go. Where was this?
- 6:09Speaker 2: And he repeated, there is no inflation at all. Okay,
- 6:12Speaker 2: fair enough.
- 6:14Speaker 1: And a big deal was made out of the Democrats
- 6:18Speaker 1: being communists. and left-wing wackos. That's another part of the
- 6:23Speaker 1: philosophy and the policy of the Republicans to scare their
- 6:28Speaker 1: own people, to scare the base, thinking if you don't,
- 6:31Speaker 1: if Republicans don't win, this country is going communist.
- 6:37Speaker 2: And if not communist, socialist. Okay, we're done with that.
- 6:41Speaker 2: Have a great time. It was a fun convention. It
- 6:43Speaker 2: really was. And it was, you know, $ 1. 3 trillion. Nobody
- 6:46Speaker 2: knows where it's coming from.
- 6:47Speaker 1: Even The honchos in Congress who are Republicans, no one
- 6:53Speaker 1: is jumping on this and saying, oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
- 6:56Speaker 2: Except the base, the base. If you turn on the.
- 7:02Speaker 1: TV or listen to the radio or just listen to
- 7:06Speaker 1: what's going on out there, you're going to hear a
- 7:08Speaker 1: lot about 9-11. When I come in the studio in
- 7:11Speaker 1: the morning at 415. I always turn on the various
- 7:16Speaker 1: news outlets. And right now I'm looking at Fox and
- 7:19Speaker 1: I'm looking at CNN.
- 7:20Speaker 2: I'm looking at BBC.
- 7:21Speaker 1: I just turned on MSNOW, you know, the super liberal,
- 7:25Speaker 1: insanely pro-communist, okay, that's not fair, but damn close, news station.
- 7:31Speaker 1: And it is wall-to-wall coverage of the 9-11 remembrance. And
- 7:38Speaker 1: right now the president is speaking at the Pentagon in
- 7:41Speaker 1: on this anniversary. I have no idea what he's saying
- 7:43Speaker 1: because obviously I'm talking and I'm listening to the show.
- 7:46Speaker 1: So I'm just seeing what's going up on the screen.
- 7:50Speaker 1: And the Department of Justice, and I want to share
- 7:52Speaker 1: this because first of all, I think they had to
- 7:54Speaker 1: do it. Second of all, I shake my head and go,
- 7:58Speaker 1: you know, really? So they issued their press release And
- 8:04Speaker 1: this is some of the stuff they're saying.
- 8:08Speaker 2: And it's appropriate, I think, in many ways. It just
- 8:10Speaker 2: leaves out a lot.
- 8:12Speaker 1: At the Department of Justice, we pause to remember those
- 8:14Speaker 1: we lost, the victims, the first responders, the heroes. We
- 8:18Speaker 1: stand with their families and loved one whose grief remains
- 8:22Speaker 1: as real today as it was a quarter century ago.
- 8:25Speaker 1: The next segment, I'm going to talk about remembering 9-11
- 8:28Speaker 1: and who does remember. And who doesn't and in what way?
- 8:33Speaker 1: And I'm going to give you a little bit of
- 8:34Speaker 1: history at the time of what happened throughout the history
- 8:37Speaker 1: of the United States. So in the aftermath of the attacks,
- 8:41Speaker 1: I read, preventing terrorism has become a central priority. I
- 8:46Speaker 1: have some questions about that as far as what the
- 8:49Speaker 1: DOJ is about.
- 8:51Speaker 2: But the DOJ is, as is.
- 8:54Speaker 1: Being said, fundamentally reorganized in how we approach threats to
- 8:57Speaker 1: our homeland. breaking down barriers between intelligence and law enforcement.
- 9:02Speaker 1: And again, I think the DOJ has done a lot
- 9:05Speaker 1: more than just that. But today is not a day
- 9:07Speaker 1: to talk about that. And the press release goes on
- 9:12Speaker 1: talking about the creation of the National Security Division in 2006,
- 9:15Speaker 1: which puts together counterterrorism, counterintelligence, foreign investments, all under one roof.
- 9:27Speaker 1: And in the years following 9-11, It also brought forth
- 9:30Speaker 1: profound questions about how to keep Americans safe while preserving
- 9:35Speaker 1: civil liberties and constitutional rights. Again, I question that. But
- 9:41Speaker 1: what are they going to say? I think you're going
- 9:44Speaker 1: to hear today a lot of, well, to be honest
- 9:48Speaker 1: with you, pablum from a lot of people. I think
- 9:51Speaker 1: you're going to be hearing stuff that has to be
- 9:53Speaker 1: said and should be said and leaving out everything else. Uh,
- 10:00Speaker 1: One of them, and I haven't heard about this so far,
- 10:02Speaker 1: but we should. And part of this, we have to
- 10:05Speaker 1: attack the intelligence community because of what happened with 9-11.
- 10:10Speaker 1: There was information out there. The intelligence could have put
- 10:16Speaker 1: it together. It's just that you weren't talking to each other.
- 10:19Speaker 1: The FBI, the CIA wouldn't talk to each other. They
- 10:22Speaker 1: hated each other. Wouldn't share information, a complete utter failure.
- 10:26Speaker 1: That's changed as it should. But the terrorists who took
- 10:33Speaker 1: those flight lessons, I think it was in Phoenix, how
- 10:38Speaker 1: to fly an airplane, not how to take off, not
- 10:43Speaker 1: how to stay on course.
- 10:45Speaker 2: Basically, not how to land, just fly. Now, do you
- 10:50Speaker 2: think that's a little suspect?
- 10:53Speaker 1: And by the way, they were foreign nationals, Saudi Arabians
- 10:59Speaker 1: for the most part, Saudis. And we knew Al-Qaeda because
- 11:04Speaker 1: in 1993, the World Trade Center was attacked. Attacked to
- 11:10Speaker 1: do the same things, to bring down the building. And
- 11:12Speaker 1: what they did is put a bomb under in the
- 11:15Speaker 1: basement in the parking structure, and it was a massive,
- 11:19Speaker 1: massive bomb. If you look at the photos, the video
- 11:23Speaker 1: of what it looked like under there, I mean, it
- 11:26Speaker 1: was just horrific, massive in scale, and it didn't bring
- 11:30Speaker 1: down the building because the buildings were built so strongly. Well,
- 11:37Speaker 1: the buildings were built to code, and no one figured out,
- 11:41Speaker 1: look what we can do. And we're talking about terrorists
- 11:43Speaker 1: talking to each other. If we put an airplane into
- 11:48Speaker 1: those buildings, we can cause far more havoc. And it
- 11:52Speaker 1: went beyond their wildest dreams what they could do. Kidnapping
- 11:56Speaker 1: or accosting pilots, hijacking an airplane with box cutters.
- 12:03Speaker 2: Look at it.
- 12:04Speaker 1: Pick up a pair of box cutters. Go to Home
- 12:06Speaker 1: Depot and look at that little package that has a
- 12:08Speaker 1: box cutter in it.
- 12:10Speaker 2: And say, with this.
- 12:12Speaker 1: they brought down the world trade center, which is why today, uh,
- 12:19Speaker 1: naturally you can't get.
- 12:20Speaker 2: Into a cockpit.
- 12:21Speaker 1: And if anybody tries, I mean, those so secure, even
- 12:24Speaker 1: to the point when the, uh, the pilot goes into
- 12:26Speaker 1: the bathroom outcomes, uh, the, uh, little cart, the drink
- 12:31Speaker 1: cart that blocks anybody from going near that bathroom. I mean,
- 12:35Speaker 1: today the security is, uh, insane, which By the way,
- 12:39Speaker 1: before that, would I have thought that was going to happen?
- 12:42Speaker 1: I don't think so, because these terrorists have come up
- 12:44Speaker 1: with ways of attacking us.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Although we haven't seen one in an airplane yet.
- 12:51Speaker 1: We have not seen a hijacking. We haven't seen, you know,
- 12:56Speaker 1: bombs being brought aboard an airplane from the Czech area
- 12:59Speaker 1: or from the gate. Although there have been some lapses
- 13:02Speaker 1: of security big time. The bottom line is we are much,
- 13:06Speaker 1: much better at it. But it's as a result of
- 13:11Speaker 1: what happened, 9-11, and the Department of Justice is coming
- 13:14Speaker 1: out and saying, we've learned, we care, we're on your side,
- 13:18Speaker 1: we are deeply, deeply.
- 13:20Speaker 2: Moved by this, which I think they are.
- 13:21Speaker 1: You know, maybe today's not the day to talk about
- 13:26Speaker 1: the failures. I think it is, but that's me. As
- 13:32Speaker 1: you would imagine, 25 years ago is when the attack
- 13:35Speaker 1: in New York happened by al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
- 13:39Speaker 1: and his crowd. And it's a big, big remembrance day,
- 13:44Speaker 1: 25 years. And so it's wall-to-wall coverage and the remembrance.
- 13:50Speaker 1: The president speaking at the Pentagon. You had speakers and
- 13:57Speaker 1: the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- 14:00Speaker 2: Speaking, and it just, well, everybody just remembers.
- 14:04Speaker 1: And talking about remembering, and I want to make a
- 14:06Speaker 1: point here about remembering, and that is, this is obviously
- 14:11Speaker 1: a very, very important part of American history.
- 14:14Speaker 2: If you look at days that.
- 14:18Speaker 1: Really have impacted our history, and if you look at,
- 14:22Speaker 1: let's talk about the 20th century, okay, from 1900 on,
- 14:25Speaker 1: because you had the Civil War, obviously the founding of
- 14:29Speaker 1: the United States. You also have the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
- 14:33Speaker 1: And I want to make a point about the assassination
- 14:36Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln and what we remember. We have no
- 14:41Speaker 1: idea what the country was like. We have no idea.
- 14:45Speaker 1: There are newspaper articles. There are certainly firsthand experiences that
- 14:50Speaker 1: were written about the utter devastation of what the morning
- 14:54Speaker 1: that This M-O-U-R, the morning that occurred right after the
- 15:00Speaker 1: assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which incidentally, everybody loved Abraham Lincoln
- 15:05Speaker 1: right after he died.
- 15:07Speaker 2: It's like John F. Kennedy. Everybody voted for JFK after
- 15:11Speaker 2: he was assassinated. Everybody. There was no one who voted
- 15:14Speaker 2: for Richard Nixon.
- 15:15Speaker 1: It was the closest presidential race until Bush-Gore.
- 15:20Speaker 2: And that's how we remember history.
- 15:25Speaker 1: Goes farther back, it no longer is something that really
- 15:31Speaker 1: affects us. I mean, keep in mind, 100 million people
- 15:35Speaker 1: in the U.S. weren't even alive at 9-11. Millions more
- 15:40Speaker 1: were just starting to learn or starting to walk or
- 15:43Speaker 1: starting preschool on that day.
- 15:45Speaker 2: And for those folks, September 11 only exists in other
- 15:49Speaker 2: people's tellings.
- 15:51Speaker 1: Now, those of us who were around and could appreciate
- 15:55Speaker 1: what happened, we knew exactly where we were when we
- 15:59Speaker 1: first heard about what happened at 8.46 a.m., and that
- 16:04Speaker 1: was Eastern Time.
- 16:06Speaker 2: Pacific Time, it was 5.46, and that was broadcasting.
- 16:09Speaker 1: And we're going to play part of that broadcast at
- 16:13Speaker 1: 8.30 as this panned out.
- 16:17Speaker 2: So, teenagers... are trying to.
- 16:20Speaker 1: See September 11th as monumental, or they're being told to,
- 16:23Speaker 1: but that's not their jam. I mean, it's much more
- 16:28Speaker 1: the mass shootings and the pandemic that killed 1.2 million Americans.
- 16:32Speaker 1: And when you look at sheer numbers, 3,000 Americans died,
- 16:36Speaker 1: as horrific as that was. Pandemic killed 1.2 million. As
- 16:43Speaker 1: a result of the terrorist attacks in New York... There
- 16:49Speaker 1: was a major, major inroads have been made in dealing
- 16:55Speaker 1: with terrorism. Security has exploded. As a result of the pandemic,
- 17:02Speaker 1: vaccines have gone down. And it killed 1.2 million people.
- 17:10Speaker 1: History teachers in their first year at middle school learned
- 17:15Speaker 1: about September.
- 17:16Speaker 2: 11th as history.
- 17:19Speaker 1: The youngest candidates for Congress never knew airplanes without security lines.
- 17:25Speaker 1: If students were taught about September 11th, it was often
- 17:28Speaker 1: a brief mention. It's history.
- 17:32Speaker 2: It's past.
- 17:34Speaker 1: And where are they getting their information today? Well, stories
- 17:39Speaker 1: from parents and older siblings, Twitch streamers, podcasts, memes, photos.
- 17:46Speaker 1: But that doesn't really hit home. I mean, that is
- 17:49Speaker 1: not the same. For example, for those of you that
- 17:52Speaker 1: are around for the assassination of JFK, do you think
- 17:56Speaker 1: you feel differently if you were there, if you knew
- 17:59Speaker 1: the mood of the country, if your mood was there?
- 18:01Speaker 1: I was pretty young, but I was young enough to
- 18:04Speaker 1: appreciate the assassination of JFK or at least appreciate the
- 18:09Speaker 1: way other people were feeling about it.
- 18:11Speaker 2: I didn't realize the importance of it. And certainly Pearl Harbor.
- 18:16Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a bit of history to us.
- 18:19Speaker 1: And certainly the, the, the civil war. I mean, we
- 18:24Speaker 1: go back a ways, obviously, but I think the same
- 18:27Speaker 1: feeling went through this country and the same kind of
- 18:29Speaker 1: importance was given to that and understood how it affected people.
- 18:36Speaker 1: Not historically, historically, we understand historically major changes happen as
- 18:41Speaker 1: a result of what happens September 11th. However, It has
- 18:47Speaker 1: somehow morphed into, oh, it happened then.
- 18:50Speaker 2: It's a bit of history. That's all it is. And
- 18:53Speaker 2: everybody remembers. I remember I was here on the air
- 18:56Speaker 2: when I first heard about it. Amy, you were on
- 18:59Speaker 2: the air when you first heard about the attack? Yes,
- 19:03Speaker 2: we were.
- 19:04Speaker 3: Our show started at six and we found out about
- 19:06Speaker 3: it right after the first plane hit. So that was
- 19:09Speaker 3: part of my first newscast. As we were still trying
- 19:13Speaker 3: to figure out what was going on because we thought
- 19:14Speaker 3: it was an accident and we thought it was a
- 19:15Speaker 3: small plane.
- 19:17Speaker 2: Neil, do you remember where you were? Are you old
- 19:20Speaker 2: enough to remember?
- 19:21Speaker 4: I was in bed and I was listening to you.
- 19:25Speaker 4: The Tim and Neil show had just been canceled in August.
- 19:30Speaker 4: My dad died in August and I was going through
- 19:32Speaker 4: a divorce in August. All canceled. all the month before
- 19:37Speaker 4: all this went down.
- 19:38Speaker 1: Okay, so 9-11 was an up story for you. It
- 19:42Speaker 1: was actually a pleasant story.
- 19:44Speaker 4: I was in bed listening to you, and I remember
- 19:46Speaker 4: getting all these calls, and it was... was weird not
- 19:50Speaker 4: being on the radio you know not being called into
- 19:53Speaker 4: the station i mean you know all hands on deck
- 19:56Speaker 4: kind of thing and the first thing i thought of
- 19:58Speaker 4: was thank god my dad was dead it would have
- 20:01Speaker 4: crushed him he he just loved America so much as
- 20:08Speaker 4: a Chicano. He was a very proud Mexican, but a
- 20:11Speaker 4: very proud American. And I think that would have crushed
- 20:14Speaker 4: him that we were attacked like that.
- 20:17Speaker 2: Will, do you remember where you were? You were thinking
- 20:20Speaker 2: about traffic, right?
- 20:22Speaker 5: Actually, I was working as a news writer for Fox 11,
- 20:26Speaker 5: and I'd been up all night already working on the
- 20:29Speaker 5: morning show. And, yeah, the feeds just start. I told
- 20:31Speaker 5: Amy this. The pictures came across the raw feeds to
- 20:34Speaker 5: the stations. We didn't have any information at the beginning.
- 20:37Speaker 2: But, yeah, that's where I was, in the newsroom. And
- 20:40Speaker 2: we all remember.
- 20:41Speaker 1: And Anne certainly remembers, and she's running around someplace. So, Kono,
- 20:47Speaker 1: you weren't around, or you were very young on 9-11, right?
- 20:50Speaker 2: I was on my way to eighth grade listening to
- 20:52Speaker 2: you break the news. So you are a key factor.
- 20:57Speaker 3: In my recollection of this.
- 21:00Speaker 2: Boy, that's a problem. It was prime bill handle. All right.
- 21:04Speaker 1: Usually the United States is at the forefront, leads the
- 21:08Speaker 1: world in virtually everything, certainly technology and industry, et cetera,
- 21:14Speaker 1: except in many cases, the Chinese are are taking over
- 21:17Speaker 1: because they are, frankly, evolving faster than we are in
- 21:20Speaker 1: many areas. Robotics, certainly, and some forms of computer-generated technology.
- 21:28Speaker 1: And in the world of AI, we're still way ahead
- 21:30Speaker 1: of the game. In the world of AI and entertainment,
- 21:36Speaker 1: the Chinese are way ahead of us because Chinese film
- 21:40Speaker 1: and video industry is right in the middle of an
- 21:42Speaker 1: AI revolution. how micro dramas that are watched on smartphones,
- 21:53Speaker 1: they are the ones that created this. They are the
- 21:56Speaker 1: ones that are taking this to a whole new level.
- 22:00Speaker 1: There's an actor by the name of Chin Yee Long.
- 22:02Speaker 1: He's been around forever there, two decades. And his work
- 22:06Speaker 1: is getting so much scarce that he actually signed a
- 22:08Speaker 1: contract a couple months ago to license the image of
- 22:12Speaker 1: his face to a production studio. So he sits in
- 22:16Speaker 1: front of a video camera, makes facial expressions, a neutral stare,
- 22:21Speaker 1: an angry glare, a look.
- 22:22Speaker 2: Of, oh, surprise.
- 22:24Speaker 1: And using AI, the studio then grabs images of his face,
- 22:28Speaker 1: generates an avatar, and makes a film. Wow. So the
- 22:35Speaker 1: Chinese film and video industry is being completely transformed by
- 22:39Speaker 1: AI-driven storytelling. And the reason I'm sharing this with you
- 22:42Speaker 1: is because this is our future. I mean, it is there.
- 22:46Speaker 1: There is no question. Typically, these videos are a minute
- 22:50Speaker 1: or two in length.
- 22:51Speaker 2: That's it.
- 22:53Speaker 1: Devoured by hundreds of millions of Chinese micro-dramas. And what
- 23:01Speaker 1: makes AI so good with micro dramas and people are
- 23:04Speaker 1: watching them on their devices, they don't demand the top
- 23:08Speaker 1: notch acting. They don't demand the high quality resolution, the
- 23:12Speaker 1: way movies and TV mandates. They're an ideal vehicle for
- 23:16Speaker 1: AI generated content.
- 23:18Speaker 2: And you can.
- 23:19Speaker 1: Imagine the cost of doing those relative to the cost
- 23:21Speaker 1: of doing a real production that we know is.
- 23:25Speaker 2: Nothing.
- 23:26Speaker 1: It's a tiny little fraction. So in the first three
- 23:29Speaker 1: months of this year, the number of these micro dramas
- 23:33Speaker 1: was 128,000 of them. 95% were made with AI. Anyone
- 23:41Speaker 1: with a laptop can produce entertainment with AI today.
- 23:46Speaker 2: There is a studio.
- 23:48Speaker 1: In China, Head Gideon World Studios, known as the Chinese
- 23:52Speaker 1: Hollywood or China's Hollywood. lavish sets, it's like Universal, back,
- 23:57Speaker 1: you know, the backlots and backdrops.
- 24:00Speaker 2: And sound stages. You know how they're making money today? Tourism.
- 24:05Speaker 1: Tourists. You go to see what movies were like when
- 24:09Speaker 1: they used to make them. Chen, this actor, says he
- 24:13Speaker 1: figures about 60% of work by actors have disappeared this
- 24:17Speaker 1: last year. And then the issue of, and we're going
- 24:21Speaker 1: to have this problem, And that is infringement, right?
- 24:27Speaker 2: Trademark. Filing lawsuit when someone uses your image.
- 24:34Speaker 1: That happens here. And even in China, it was straightforward.
- 24:37Speaker 1: You know, someone, a company grabbed your image and used it.
- 24:41Speaker 1: And okay, you sued and you won. It wasn't that difficult.
- 24:44Speaker 1: But what happens when a company grabs your image and
- 24:46Speaker 1: changes it slightly? Where does your image really become not
- 24:55Speaker 1: your image? Where's that line? A lookalike, for example, using lookalikes,
- 25:03Speaker 1: that's a lookalike. You're not using someone's image. So where
- 25:09Speaker 1: does that stop and where does that start?
- 25:12Speaker 2: No one knows.
- 25:14Speaker 1: There is their union, the Actors Committee of the China
- 25:19Speaker 1: Federation of Radio and Television, associations.
- 25:22Speaker 2: Why not?
- 25:24Speaker 1: And condemn what they call this infringement and say AI
- 25:28Speaker 1: platforms need to comply with the laws.
- 25:30Speaker 2: What laws?
- 25:32Speaker 1: That's the point. We have the same issue. And that
- 25:35Speaker 1: is where does it stop and where does it start?
- 25:37Speaker 1: We know that technology, how often have I said technology
- 25:40Speaker 1: moves ahead at an unbelievable pace and then we have
- 25:42Speaker 1: to deal with it afterwards. So now we have AI
- 25:45Speaker 1: producing content and there is one of these filmmakers who
- 25:50Speaker 1: was interviewed for this story. And here's what she does.
- 25:55Speaker 1: Her team uses Chinese video generation models, inputs, scenes, backgrounds, performers,
- 26:03Speaker 1: and the AI generating 15 seconds of footage every time.
- 26:08Speaker 1: Entire productions are made. And her team can put together
- 26:12Speaker 1: a 90-minute AI film.
- 26:14Speaker 2: Suitable for release. I mean, sort of, you know, it
- 26:18Speaker 2: works enough. And she can do that for $ 500, 000.
- 26:22Speaker 1: If you were to do this as a regular television series,
- 26:30Speaker 1: it would be around $ 30 million. And she pops it
- 26:34Speaker 1: for half a million dollars. And the technology is still
- 26:41Speaker 1: galloping ahead.
- 26:42Speaker 2: It's not that wonderful.
- 26:44Speaker 1: She says her team takes about 10 attempts to create
- 26:46Speaker 1: a satisfactory 15-second clip.
- 26:49Speaker 2: Sometimes the faces are a little different, the background inconsistent.
- 26:52Speaker 1: Neil has talked about that, how you can tell where
- 26:55Speaker 1: there's AI, but Neil, it's getting harder, isn't it?
- 26:59Speaker 4: Yeah, you know what's funny, though, is my nine-year-old son
- 27:02Speaker 4: can spot it even better than I can, or more quickly, rather,
- 27:05Speaker 4: than I can, because they're kind of growing up around
- 27:10Speaker 4: it and seeing it differently. But yeah, you know, I
- 27:13Speaker 4: used to do photo manipulation and stuff like that.
- 27:15Speaker 2: And it's the....
- 27:18Speaker 4: The videos are what's getting pretty crazy.
- 27:22Speaker 2: But there's telltale signs. Yeah, but it's getting better and better.
- 27:25Speaker 1: And the point is, when you're looking at your device
- 27:29Speaker 1: with a fleeting two-minute video or 90-second video, you can't tell,
- 27:34Speaker 1: nor do you want to tell. You just want the entertainment. Well,
- 27:37Speaker 1: that blows apart the studios. Hey, that's the wave, guys.
- 27:40Speaker 1: That's what the future is bringing. For those of you
- 27:42Speaker 1: that are thinking of going into Hollywood, enjoy yourselves. Big
- 27:46Speaker 1: future ahead of you. Unfortunately.
- 27:50Speaker 2: Okay.
- 27:50Speaker 1: Coming back and Neil comes back with foodie Friday and
- 27:54Speaker 1: we will talk food. And at the bottom of the hour,
- 27:56Speaker 1: the rebroadcast of nine 11, the morning that had happened.
- 28:02Speaker 1: And it was me and I was broadcasting. I'll share
- 28:06Speaker 1: that with you.
- 28:07Speaker 2: Let's check. Oh no, this is KFI AM six 40.
- 28:11Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Bill Handel Show. Catch my
- 28:13Speaker 1: show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and
- 28:17Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.