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Pope Leo's AI Encyclical: An Anthropic Founder Stood Beside Him and Agreed the Money Bends People · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Pope just released a letter about artificial intelligence, and it wasn't a tweet or a podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was a formal teaching document, the kind the Catholic Church has only issued a handful of times in living history.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And standing next to him at the Vatican was a 33-year-old who helped build one of the most powerful AI companies on the planet.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: A Pope and an AI founder.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like the setup to a great joke.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Same stage, same microphone, talking about whether the machines we are building are going to lift everybody up or grind most of us down.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if that doesn't stop you cold, you're probably not paying attention.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get into that one.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is the biggest story of the day, and it lands right in the middle of everything we talk about on the show.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But first, the money, because the money is moving in a way we have never seen.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Three of the biggest companies in artificial intelligence are getting ready to go public.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: SpaceX filed its paperwork on May 20th.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Ticker SPCX.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Shares could start trading in late June.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's what these companies are worth right now before any of this happens.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: OpenAI sits around$750 billion.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anthropic around$350 billion.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: SpaceX in the trillions.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let me translate what an IPO initial public offering actually is, because the news makes it sound complicated and it's not.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right now you can't buy a piece of these companies, well, unless you're special people.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are private.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The money inside them comes from a small circle of very rich investors.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, those are the special people.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And a few giant corporations, more special, the ones that are building out all the AI technology.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Going public means anybody with a brokerage account can buy a share.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It also means these companies suddenly answer to a public market.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Every 90 days they have to show growth.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's real growth, revenue, and profit, or the stock gets punished.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So why does that matter to you?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Reading this on your lunch break between jobs and between school pickups, it does matter.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It matters because the tool you use changes the second the company selling it has to please Wall Street.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it like a restaurant that was family owned and then got bought by a chain.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Same sign out front, different rules in the kitchen.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Portions change, prices change.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: The thing you loved gets optimized for somebody who isn't actually you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the risk here.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when OpenAI and Anthropic have to report growth every quarter, two things can happen.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: They raise prices to shore more revenue, or they squeeze the free tier to push you into the paid one.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen this movie, we've watched streaming do it.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Cheap and ad-free until everybody was hooked, then that price crept up and the ads came back in.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here is the other side, and this is the part the Doom headlines actually skip.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are about to be three or four publicly traded AI giants all fighting for the same consumer base.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Google is already in the ring swinging.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: When that many heavyweights start to compete, prices actually drop instead of rise.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Google rolled out aggressive pricing on its top tier, and that puts pressure on everybody.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we do not panic, we watch.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The lesson for anybody running a business or using these tools is simple.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do not build your whole operation on one provider you can't live without.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Always keep a backup, keep your data portable.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: The same way you would not give one supplier the power to bury you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to hand one AI company the keys to your entire shop.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is the leverage.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Leverage is the only thing that protects the little guy when the giants go public.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, speaking of the Giants, one of them just made a move that tells you where this whole race is going to be headed.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anthropic locked in a massive computing deal.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Microsoft and Nvidia committed up to$15 billion into the company, and that Anthropic committed to a huge amount of cloud computing in return.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are also reports in its reaching towards satellites in space, towards infrastructure-based infrastructure to get around something most people never think about, and that's power.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's the thing nobody's going to tell you.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: These AI models do not run on magic, they run on electricity.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you probably knew that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I actually knew that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Enormous amounts of electricity, though data centers the size of small towns, pulling power off the same grid that runs your air conditioner.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The grids, but they're starting to become maxed out.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the biggest players are looking up space satellites, anywhere they can find power that is not already spoken for.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean for you?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that means the AI you use is going to get faster and more available.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it also means a handful of companies are about to control the equivalent of digital power plants.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: When a few players own the infrastructure everybody depends on, that's worth keeping an eye on.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: We watch what happens when a few companies own the pipes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me bring this all the way down to the kitchen table because this is one that matters most today.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the Pope, on Monday, May 25th, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's the highest form of teaching document in the Catholic Church, the highest one that it produces.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The title is Magnifica Human Itas.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's entirely about artificial intelligence and protecting human dignity.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the timing is not by accident.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: He released it exactly 135 days after a Pope wrote the famous letter defending factory workers during the Industrial Revolution.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Back then the machines were steam and steel, and they were chewing up working people.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today the machine is artificial intelligence.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Same fight, new century, well, and must fast, much faster moving.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Pope didn't hold back.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: He warned that the AI left unchecked could create new forms of slavery.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He went straight at the concentration of power and data in the hands of a few private companies and called it danger, especially to children, especially to the most vulnerable.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: The leader of 1.4 billion Catholics looked at the AI industry and said the danger is that a tiny number of people will own the power and everyone else will be at their mercy.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the exact thing we talk about on this show every single day.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what makes this storyland even harder.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Standing next to the Pope was Chris Olah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a co-founder of Anthropic.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Olaf, I'm thinking of a series of unfortunate events.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Count Olaf, but anyway, we won't go there.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Co-founder of Anthropic, an atheist tech leader on a Vatican stage, agreeing with the Pope.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't soften it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said that there is a real possibility that AI displaces human labor at very large scale.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said the world needs informed critics who will tell the AI labs when they are failing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said the line I can't stop thinking about.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said we need moral voices, that the incentives cannot bend.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sit with that.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: A man who helped build the technology stood in the most moral building on earth and admitted the money is so big it bends people, that the incentives are so powerful the people inside cannot always be trusted to stop themselves.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a conspiracy theory.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a founder saying it out loud in front of the Pope on the record.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we do this, not because AI is evil.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tool, the most powerful tool any of us will ever touch.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the people building it have admitted on the biggest stage in the world they need somebody watching.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: When they need the plumber and the teacher and the single mom to understand this stuff, well, that's enough to push back.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: The people building these things aren't thinking about you.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is not because they are villains.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: It happens to be the math.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: The incentives point at scale and profit, not at the family in Santa Clarita trying to keep up.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we think about us.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: We learn the tools, we use them, and we try not to hand over the keys.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: AI for everyone, not just the wealthy.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the whole mission.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this week the Pope said it louder than we ever could.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get a shift now because some of you are not here for the philosophy.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're here because you're trying to buy or sell a house, and the ground is moving under your feet.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Mortgage rates just hit a nine-month high.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Average 30-year rate climbed around 6 and 3 quarters percent.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bond markets had a rough open and rates followed.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, it's gonna depend on credit score and all this, just generalities, these are what's happening to the rates.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, everybody hears this and panics.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't panic, just understand it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: High rates, they do scare buyers off.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fewer buyers means less competition.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Less competition means buyers who are still standing have something they have not had in years.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: That word is leverage.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're sitting on some cash or you're a strong buyer, this isn't a bad market for you.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is your market.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: When everybody else steps back, you step forward and you negotiate.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the local numbers back this up.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Reports out of Southern California show available inventory for attached homes jumped close to 19% compared to last year.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Homes are sitting on the market longer.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the twist: prices are holding steady, even ticking up slightly because of the lacking inventory.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we have more homes available and they're sitting longer, but sellers have not dropped their prices yet.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is a standoff, so it's kind of a double-edged sword, if you will, a tug of war.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: The standoffs do not last.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Something eventually will give.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a seller, that means the days of just throwing up a sign in the yard and getting 10 offers and over-asking, no, that's over.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to compete now.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you price it right, you show it right, have it presented correctly.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: The market's rewarding the sellers who treat it like a real sale, not a lottery ticket.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And builders are reading the same tea leaves.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: New construction starts just hit their fastest pace in two years.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even with rates this high, developers are building straight through the affordability crisis.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: That means a wave of new homes is coming later this year.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: More supply eventually cools the real estate market.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Relief is coming for families who got priced out, but it's not going to happen overnight.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the real story hiding inside the AI story, and most agents are completely missing it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: At a major mortgage industry conference this week, the hallway talk was not just about rates.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was about AI moving into the loan process.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lenders are racing to use AI for processing, for verification, for cutting the overhead on every loan.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean for you when you go to get approved?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It means the approval is becoming an algorithm, a program, less human judgment, less wiggle room, and when your situation is a little unusual.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: But also potentially faster closings, fewer delays, less of the black hole where your file sits for three weeks.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: The smart move is to walk in with your paperwork airtight, clean documents, clear income, because the machine doesn't do you any favors.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't hear your story.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: It reads your file.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So make the file perfect.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Blast beat for today, and this one is personal for a lot of us.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: The weight loss drugs, GLP1 shots, semaglotide, the other ones everybody is on and on or thinking about.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Two pieces of research broke this week and they tell two very different stories.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Good news first, researchers at the National Institutes of Health figured out exactly how these drugs trigger weight loss in the brain.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: They tracked the signaling molecules and found a kind of switch.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that by adjusting that switch, they can stop the drug from actually wearing off.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been one of those, one of these and hit a wall where the weight just stopped moving, that plateau, this research points at the override.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: The way to keep the fat loss going instead of stalling out after a few months, this is a big deal for millions of people, but here's the other study, and this is the one nobody wants to hear.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: A massive look at over 330,000 patients found that when people stop taking these drugs, even for just six months, the heart protections vanish fast.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: The benefit to your heart builds up slowly while you take it and disappears almost immediately when you quit.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now we'll read what that actually means.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: These are not a temporary diet you do for a season and stop.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: For the heart benefits, they're turning into a lifetime commitment, a subscription, not for a streaming service, but for your body.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you that if you take them or not to take them, that's your choice.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is between you and your doctor, but I am here to tell you that the truth that the ads will not.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's there's no free lunch.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: The shot that melts the weight may be the thing you're on for the rest of your life.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the cost of that, that real cost, monthly, forever, is something you need to do the math on before you start.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because that same pattern keeps showing up everywhere where we look today.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's AI subscriptions, a streaming service, or a drug for your heart, the thing that is cheap and easy at the start becomes the thing you cannot live without.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the people selling it know what's going on.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to get the math done.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I try to keep that leverage.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: We learn how the tools work before we need to depend on them, and we never hand anybody the keys to our entire life.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the true line today.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Pope said it, the AI founder said it standing next to him.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: The mortgage market is saying it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even the weight loss research is saying it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Knowledge is the lever.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: People who understand the tool get to keep their freedom.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: The people who do not get optimized.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we're here to help you keep yours.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: AI for everyone, not just the people who can afford to be careless.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Connor.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you tomorrow.