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Language: en
I don't want Ukraine to be partitioned I
don't think it's fair I mean I'm an
American I support the underdog like I
like the 16 seed for March Madness
that's who I root for right the
ukrainians this little country that
didn't have much of a military and the
Russians just invaded them try to take
out their leader so I don't want them to
have to lose their country but it's
going to happen I mean at the very least
I I don't see the territory that
Russia's occupying now I I see no way
that they're going to be able to get it
back
now no one's going to force them to
accept that
publicly but the reality is they're
having a harder time fighting uh when
they started the war um the average
Ukrainian recruit was 26 years old today
it's
mid-40s whoa I don't think they're going
to be able to keep fighting for another
couple years this way if the Russians
assuming the Russians keep piling and
piling and piling you know people at
them Russia's a much bigger economy they
have a much bigger
population um and the ukrainians are
going to get more desperate they already
see that they're not getting the
additional support from the US they're
running out of like ammo they're running
out of missiles they still have air
defense which is really important uh but
you know so at a minimum they're stuck
with 18% of their territory that the
Russians are occupying and and
potentially it could get a lot worse
than that potentially the Russians
because the Russians have not said we're
prepared to sit there they're still able
to attack Russian ships in the Black Sea
Russians can say we're moving to Odessa
we're taking that we're securing the
Black Sea for ourselves we're going to
take more pot shots at the Ukrainian
leadership until zalinski is gone and
zalinski might well go if if he's not
able to keep fighting uh you already see
the fraying of the Ukrainian political
system opposition to zalinski from the
mayor of Kiev from the head of the Armed
Forces because things aren't going so
well so I mean the the risk is that the
risk is that this war that the United
States has taken the lead and has
Consolidated all of its allies to
provide support for Ukraine and Biden
said we will be there as long as it
takes and within months he he changes
that to well well we're going to do as
much as we
can that is a very different message for
zalinski it's also a very different
message for the Europeans the Frontline
Europeans who are going to have to deal
with Russian
disinformation um and infrastructure
attacks and cyber attacks and and have
all of these troops that are right there
on their border so this is a very
dangerous thing I don't think it's gonna
it's not World War II it doesn't lead to
Russia attacking NATO but it could lead
to Nato starting to fragment becoming
much weaker especially if Trump becomes
president but even if he doesn't if if
Biden is no longer able to provide
leadership that the Europeans can rely
on to ensure that Ukraine can defend
itself they're going to start falling
apart on this stuff so that's that's the
Russia Ukraine side middle east side
it's kind of a different story because
here Israel you know is is the more
powerful country like palestine's not a
country um and but Israel is the more
powerful uh player they're they're by
far the most powerful military player in
the region both offensive and
defensively not to mention their 100
nukes that they've never formally
admitted to but they have uh and so the
question here is to what extent is this
war going to expand because a lot of
people are getting angry because there's
an AIS of resistance that the houthis
are leading and they're continuing to
take shots including just a couple hours
ago against like a British vessel this
time around and so you can't actually
have ship
through the Red Sea and the Americans
are now hitting them in Yemen and that's
expanding as a separate kind of
auxiliary war and then you have the
Iranians providing Military Support um
to militants in Syria and Iraq who are
hitting American bases and so far there
haven't been any American servicemen or
women killed but if they do that's a red
line and the Americans will hit back
very hard and maybe Iran and the Israeli
are more likely to get involved in a war
with the Iranians they just engaged in
strikes that killed five Iranian members
of the Islamic revolutionary guard Corps
um in Syria and the Iranians said that's
unacceptable we're going to hit you back
so you know nanyu knows if he leaves
office he's going to jail so he'll do a
lot to keep the war going and the
Americans are trying to get him out so I
mean there's just lots of ways that this
can get worse not to mention the fact
that we're radicalizing Mill ions and
millions of Muslims around the world on
the basis of all this violence that is
happening so I mean this is this is a
tough one and and by the way Ju Just so
we don't only have a negative
conversation I mean the report is about
top risk so of course the bias is to
focus on the risks but there are ways
that both of these wars could be
resolved more
sustainably on
Ukraine if the Americans and Europeans
take the assets that have been frozen of
Russia and seize them and use them to
rebuild Ukraine helping Ukraine get into
the European Union which all 27 members
approved and the Americans and Europeans
provide some hard security guarantees
for the remaining 82% of the territory
that Russia has um before let's say the
75th NATO anniversary happening in
Washington in July then nothing is going
to make Ukraine whole they won't get
their land back but the ukrainians in
that rump state will have a better
future than they would have ever had
before Russia invaded again it doesn't
make up for the war crimes and the
ukrainians dead and displace nothing
will ever do that but Ukraine will have
a future that will be a win ultimately
ultimately longterm for Ukraine and with
Israel and Hamas I mean the Saudi still
want to normalize relations with Israel
Israel is in a very strong geopolitical
position if you can get rid of nanahu
who opposes a two-state solution and you
can degrade Hamas and Israel will have a
buffer zone with security inside Gaza
small but they'll Focus far more on
defense than Natan yahu ever did and
they promise the Palestinians have the
ability to get a state even if they
don't have an army so the the security
will be provided by a multinational
Force funded probably by the Gulf States
but they'll get a state they'll be able
to govern politically West Bank and Gaza
and in return the Saudis normalize their
relations with Israel and Israel becomes
stronger and wealthier and there is more
peace across the region now I I don't
unfortunately Tom I don't think either
of those are the Baseline scenarios and
the timing the window for those things
to happen is narrow right because the
more the violence happens the more the
likelihood is that it spirals out of
control um but both are possible and and
and even better people involved in these
conflicts at the highest levels know
that these things are possible and are
working to try to make them happen so
all is not Doom even when we talk about
these two major Wars that are causing so
much hardship um and and sorrow um in do
you think the odds are what what do you
think the odds are that the um the
Israel Hamas conflict spills outside of
Gaza oh I mean it's already happening so
that's 100% it give me give me a
narrower question that I can answer uh
so do you think that the us is going to
attack Yemen over the houthis they've
already done that um the Americans are
now attacking Yemen directly but they're
not yet attacking the leadership by the
time this comes out so today is what
we're taping this on the uh 26th so they
may well start attacking the leadership
by the time it comes out that is on the
deterrence is not working so it is
escalating um the real question I think
is what's the likelihood that the
Americans and Iran start getting
involved in a direct shooting war of
some sort will there be American attacks
on on Iran and you know also will
American servicemen and women get killed
on the back on the back of attacks that
Iran is supporting those are the those
are the big trip wires that that's what
gets you $150 oil Global recession Trump
becomes president no matter what in that
environment right what's the likelihood
of that let's put it this way it's not
50% it's not 5% uh if I were
handicapping it I'd probably say right
now 20 and but it's gone up in the last
two months because we've taken these
incremental steps in the region that
have brought us closer to that kind of
conflict that's that's I guess the best
way I can say what do you how do you see
this playing out so um young people the
world over seem very much to be on the
Palestinian side very much uh an
aggressor Victor mentality they're going
to take the side of the um the oppressed
people as they perceive it no matter
what right wrong and different doesn't
matter you've got a bully in in the I'm
obviously generalizing but you you have
that narrative playing out and it's
really captured the imagination of a lot
of people around the world um do you see
that playing out where every day young
people are gaining more power every day
the governments are having to um to
offer concessions to them how does that
play out in the US because I have to
imagine if the the US's support of
Israel faltered that would have huge
consequences in terms of how that plays
out in the region do you think that re
is right um do you think anything like
that could actually happen uh I it is
inconceivable to me that Biden would
materially reduce support for Israel uh
us supports about
12% of Israel's defense spend in peace
time so it's important but it's not
existential um Biden uh is a pro Zionist
and has been for decades so I mean he's
personally very committed to the state
of Israel though he can't stand nanahu
that's a different story there is um a
lot of reason for the us to have that
relationship that has nothing to do with
this war intelligent sharing for example
that's very important and uh engaging in
mutual efforts against wouldbe terrorist
organizations Rogues and the rest I mean
that is Israel is not an an unuseful
ally to the United States it's not all
take um but you are right uh that the
young people in the United States uh are
much more strongly supporting the
Palestinian cause and that the Democrats
are more inclined to support the
Palestinians not Hamas but the
Palestinians than they are to support
Israel and that is new um and and Biden
is losing support especially among Arab
Americans um voters in in States like um
Ohio and Michigan and
Pennsylvania um and that really matters
because in some of those States um the
the support he has lost is greater than
the margin of Victory he had in 2020
just from that constituency so he he
knows this is a problem for him so he
wants the war to be over soon uh over he
at least wants it to move
to a much lower intensity of day-to-day
fighting he's not calling for a
ceasefire but but he is calling for a
shift in operations and he also doesn't
believe that the Israeli government has
a strategic goal in mind when they say
destroy Hamas he's trying they're trying
to figure out well to what end like what
does it mean to destroy Hamas and the
Americans dealt with this after 911 a
war on terror what does it mean to win
against Terror right I mean just it's
very hard to destroy an idea and Hamas
is as much a movement a political
movement as it is a terrorist
organization um and it's really hard to
destroy you can kill the leaders though
they haven't yet um but it's really hard
to destroy Hamas and not have something
come up that is just as problematic with
even more supporters a year later or
three years later um now I I look I I
also understand that part of the reason
that there's so much um opposition to
Israel is because they're just a lot
more Muslims than Jews in the world I
mean you've got well over a billion
Muslims and you've got a you know what
is it 20 million Jews or whatever I mean
it's just not it ain't close and I mean
you know you look at the algorithms and
Tik Tok and you see what the young
people are digesting on social media and
it's overwhelmingly Pro Palestine it's
overwhelmingly anti-jewish and
anti-Semitism is a thing and it was
growing significantly even before all of
this and you a report
before before uh October 7th that I was
like what what uh it had not made my
radar why do you think it was going up
before their response to the attacks I
think social media um was a big
component of it I think would social
media though push an anti-semitic stance
TR traffic in white nationalism traffic
in um anti-Semitism making it so much
easier you're not going to physical
meeting you're digesting this
information yourself a lot of people
don't want to do this sort of stuff
publicly you're making it so much easier
for people to blame the Jews for stuff
people that might have some of those
thoughts occasionally internally that
they don't share and suddenly they have
a Reddit board that they can connect on
suddenly they have memes that they can
post and listen to there have people
they can follow I I do think that
matters a lot so I mean clearly um I
think that's a big piece of of it and I
mean you look at you know the the the uh
that crazy person behind the tree of
life Massacre and and what these what he
was digesting uh you look at you know
whenever you see um the manifestos that
are being put together uh by by so so
many of these people that are engaging
in mass shootings and you find that
their their minds have been filled with
this incredibly horrible disinformation
great replacement Theory and all of this
stuff and okay it's not all social media
well I guess Tucker Carlson's on social
media now but before that he was on Fox
he was part of it too there were a lot
of people that were traffing trafficking
um in in incredibly
antihuman um and and truly
dangerous um information um and and and
motivating angry young people um to
become far more toxic I I I I think
that's what we're looking at
okay so then um I have a really uh
simplistic take but I think this is
Bulletproof on um not how you get to um
stopping the current conflict between
Israel and Hamas but uh what the
solution must be I think by its nature
the following statement is true the only
way you're ever going to end that
conflict is to create a situation where
Palestinians have so much Economic
Opportunity that they believe their
children's future will be brighter than
theirs and I have a feeling I have a
belief a base assumption that the way
the human mind works when you believe
that to be true about your kids all the
sudden your focus just goes to that I'm
G to um help make sure that my kids life
is better now when you believe that the
only way to do that because you don't
have Economic Opportunity is to kill the
person that's holding you down then all
of a sudden the ideology of the
religions and all that stuff comes into
play and and you use that as a
galvanizing Force but it actually isn't
thinking through this in real time bear
with me everybody uh that actually isn't
the cause that is the the thing that you
use to um the story that you use to
bring everybody together to Galvanize on
but what's what's actually going on
under the
hood is that you don't believe your
children have a future and you need a
thing you can do to get you that and
when the when the right answer is
educate my kids work really hard give
them an opportunity you do that when the
answer is attack uh the person you
believe to be the oppressor then you do
that and so um I'm I read this book
called Silk Roads I don't know if you've
read it man you'd have a way better uh
take on it than me uh but it lays out a
really fascinating look at history and
it goes to this period I forget what
years but I think before a th000 ad uh
where um Jews and um Muslims got along
just fine and the way the author
explained it and forgive me I'm
forgetting his name but the way he
explained it was when a when a society
is confident in its own identity and
secure in its future it's completely
welcoming and tolerant and it is only
when it loses its sense of who they are
what they stand for and they become
insecure about their future that now all
of a sudden you need somebody to
hate man I really feel like that's right
now I get it that that is so simplistic
from a this is all we have to do doing
it will be brutally difficult but my
thing is if you put a plan on the table
that does not involve uh Economic
Opportunity that allows people to really
feel like oh my God if I really work my
kids life will be amazing if you don't
do that you will never solve this
problem yeah I look I I I think
that there were a lot of people that
believed that the Middle East was
getting resolved
uh because Israel had peace and broke
through with the UAE and Bahrain and
Morocco the Abraham Accords and then the
Chinese facilitated Iran and Saudi
Arabia opening and normalizing and then
the fight that happened between cter and
the UAE and the Saudis the gulf
cooperation Council splitting up that
got fixed so I mean people were feeling
hey the Middle East is like you know
we're seeing momentum we've got peace
and of course the problem was that those
millions of pal Palestinians were
feeling like everyone had forgotten
about them they had no future no
opportunity uh hunger in Gaza no proper
education no ability to travel no
ability to have a proper employment
certainly no opportunity for the kids
and in the West Bank the Palestinians
losing more and more and more territory
illegally settled by the Israelis um and
so you know we may have stopped talking
about the Palestinian but the
Palestinians didn't stop hurting in fact
they were getting angrier and angrier
and angrier and that does not in any way
justify anything that has happened uh in
terms of Hamas uh I mean that the the
acts of October 7th were heinous and
Hamas is a terrorist organization and I
agree they should be destroyed but
you're it's not
surprising that lots of Palestinians
will turn to violence when they have no
opportunities of to them and their
children so uh the the
future requires that the Palestinians
have a place that not only they can
govern but that they can make lives for
themselves and and that means the West
is going to have to invest and most
importantly the Gulf States who are
super rich are going to have to invest
but the politics have to be made
feasible for that invest investment to
take place and the Israelis have to have
security that allows that investment to
take place so there are a lot of moving
pieces and there's a lot more incentive
now for the Americans and the Gulf
States and even a lot of israelies to
take that seriously in a way that
everyone hadn't bothered I mean the
Saudis were about to normalize with
Israel before October 7th and they
didn't demand a two-state solution they
just wanted some window dressing let's
just give the Palestinians some money
because the view was hey it's not urgent
so as long as we show our people that
we're we're care about the Palestinians
we don't have to fix anything they're
not saying that now now they're saying
no we we've actually got to do some
serious work so that this doesn't happen
again like the Saudis are saying never
again right and that's important so if
you get everyone in the region saying
never again and they put their money
where their mouths are and they're
willing to expend some political Capital
then you have a solution but but you
know let's also keep in mind that the
Israelis have themselves been super
radicalized by October 7th a lot of
those young people that were tortured
and raped and killed were the most
Progressive they were in a dance rave
this wasn't these aren't the settler
populations these are the people that
most wanted peace with the Palestinians
and now you killed them and you killed
their kids and so they're they are super
angry and they are very strongly in
favor of more military action against
the radicals and if a bunch of a bunch
of civilians get caught up in it well
that's the fault of Hamas too and and
the Palestinians I mean when you've done
what you've done to them over the last
four months right I mean we're talking
about tens of thousands that have been
killed we're talking about you know over
a million that have been
displaced um I mean you've leveled big
pieces of Gaza completely
unlivable it's going to take a long time
to get over that
uh it's going to take a it's not just
about investing in Gaza it's also about
finding a way to build
trust um and connect bridges that have
been completely blown up so this is a
that's why I'm saying I'm not I think
there is a path but I don't pretend to
be optimistic about that
path yeah yeah that that makes ukra too
the Ukraine situation is very similar
like even if you give them a state that
works with and it's reconstructed
they're still going to hate the Russians
for a very long time and I mean like
hate in a genocidal kind of way hate the
way the Armenians hated the Turks after
the genocide right and that's a
dangerous when you radicalize that many
people that's a dangerous environment
like what's the likelihood that in five
years time there's going to be an IRA
type Ukrainian paramilitary organization
that's just trying to blow up Russians I
think it's fairly high that that's going
to happen given what's just occurred
over the last two
years yeah so uh then I share that
concern um I try to be optimistic I
think things rarely work out as poorly
as you fear they might and so um I will
pose a question knowing that somehow
some way I believe that we're going to
avoid it but I'd love to hear a
thoughtful take how what are the
potential guard rails that if um you get
Israel just will not back down uh
Ukraine let's say Trump comes into Power
Ukraine it gets divided uh NATO begins
to back off because they realized the US
is no longer um going to be the the big
dog there uh the houthis keep going and
so we end up bombing directly uh Yemen
uh we get into an open conflict with
Iran uh China sees their opportunity to
if the the I don't know if he got
elected or not but I know that there was
a pro-independence person running for
election in Taiwan like there there are
so many things on the table right now
that speak to instability what are the
guard rails that stop us from ending up
in World War II well I mean first of all
um one guard rail is that the Russians
are very uninterested in getting into a
fight with a NATO country directly and
and that's how you get real conflict
between nuclear armed Powers um when for
example uh when there was a a a rocket
that went just across the Ukrainian
border into Poland and killed two polish
um villagers I think they were farmers
um the it turned out that it was um a
Ukrainian uh defense air defense missile
that that misfired but the Russians did
everything they could immediately to
show photographs and whatnot to say heyy
hey this wasn't us this wasn't us where
you can imagine the Russians who are
angry that the polls are facilitating
all these weapons to be sent to Ukraine
um to use against Russians you know
might have said nothing or might have
even you know said said well so what I
mean you know this is what happens if
you're going to send all these missiles
and kill our citizens then you know
you're you're basically a belligerent in
the war they didn't do that they they've
been very careful not to get involved in
a direct war against NATO so I mean you
know the lessons should be learned is
Ukraine not in NATO that's why they're
vulnerable to the Russians killing them
it's why Finland and Sweden wanted to
join NATO uh is because they understand
that that actually means something that
after 2014 when the Russians came into
Crimea you know maybe the West should
have responded more seriously than they
did you know so that's a guardrail um a
second guardrail the two most powerful
countries in the world us and China
really don't want a crisis they just
don't they're trying very hard to keep
uh a a any any conflict limited from
escalation that's why you're seeing all
the military to military engagement that
has recently started up again um that's
why since mid October the uh Chinese
decided to stop with all of their near
Miss overflight next to American
aircraft uh that were doing exercises
and freedom of navigation patrols uh off
of the Chinese Border in International
airspace avoiding the potential for
direct conflict um part of that is
because the US knows that they're
dealing with two Wars and they don't
need any more fighting part of it is
because China has economic problems and
is trying to ensure that not everyone
leaves China in terms of investment and
geopolitically in Asia uh they're
driving a bunch of countries towards the
United States on security India
Indonesia uh Japan South Korea I mean
all of these things so um I think that's
a
guardrail um but those guard rails do
not prevent these wars from getting
worse they prevent World War III but
they don't prevent the wars from getting
worse so the US
conflict US versus itself in 2024
there's nothing preventing us
institutions from continuing to
deteriorate there's nothing stopping us
democracy from experiencing a much worse
crisis we don't have guardrails against
that unfortunately we should we don't um
there are no guard rails that are
preventing uh zalinski from losing power
for more of Ukraine being taken over by
Russia there are no guard rails right
now that are preventing the war between
Israel and Hamas from spilling over more
broadly into the Middle East so as much
as I think the likelihood of global war
is thankfully actually very low the
likelihood that these serious con
conflicts are going to continue to
intensify is actually very
hot yeah that is uh that's very
nerve-wracking and uh I am reminded why
you call this the Voldemort of years um
so let me
ask if Trump gets
elected is that an existential threat to
democracy
um I think that if Trump is elected
there will be a permanent amount of
damage done to the
US political system that will be very
hard to come back from uh I do not
believe the US will become a
dictatorship I certainly don't believe
we'll see Civil War but I think the US
political system will look more like
something between Poland and Hungary and
what I mean by that is that rule of law
will take a structural hit um the party
in power will end up with structural
advantages that will make it very hard
for the opposition to come back if
you're tired of trying to find the real
truth you have to strive to tell whether
the news that you're getting is actual
real reporting bias narratives trolling
selective reporting whatever the case
may be then you need to be using ground
news ground news compile stories from a
Ross the global political Spectrum
giving you every angle so that you can
get the full picture and aren't being
blindsided I especially like their
election page where you can learn more
about candidates sort news coverage by
key voting issues and get a specific
election related blind spot feed to make
sure you're not missing out on important
stories go to ground. news/ Tom or use
the link in the video description to
subscribe today if if you sign up
through my link you'll get 40% off the
same Vantage plan I use to get unlimited
access to all their features I really
like ground news I think you guys are
going to love it they are doing
important work and I hope you're going
to check them out and stay informed and
get rid of your blind spots and this is
a great way to do it with ground news it
will make it very hard to have free and
fair elections um that can be contested
effectively so right now we can have a
free and fair election
but the majority of American people have
questions and a significant minority of
the American people think it's
fake the people that lose but we can
still have them I think if Trump wins
there is a reasonable chance that it
will be materially harder to have a free
and fair election in the United States I
think that's a big
problem do you think that the government
is being
um weaponized against Trump right
now um I think that there are some
decisions that have been
made um that are politically
unjust against Trump um I think that it
is that does not describe a strategic
effort of the Biden Administration
across the board but for example example
um I believe that the uh felony case in
New York on financial charges brought
against Trump is an illegitimate case
and I've had that conversation with
highlevel Democratic attorneys who agree
uh a politicized case that would be a
misdemeanor if it was a regular US
citizen but because it's trump it has
been raised to a felony I think that is
unjust I think that is a weaponization
of the US judicial system against the
former
president um I think the Washington and
Georgia cases are completely just and
have
Merit um I think that uh there has been
a level of
disinformation um against Trump from
some political figures on the Democratic
party um that run with headlines without
doing research and then end up looking
stupid as a
consequence um and I think that
unfortunately like if you've got 91
indictments and most of the cas is
legitimate but one of them really isn't
um that really hurts your ability to
make the argument on the other cases
it's like you said before you know if
you're caught in a lie once in this
environment people are going to mistrust
you on all of those other cases even
though your reputation has been Sterling
in those other cases right um I think
that the Colorado decision um Supreme
Court decision to try to throw Trump off
the ballot and Maine as well I think was
illegitimate
um I mean it'll be overturned in the
Supreme Court in my view uh but I mean
Trump whether or not you considered
Trump an insurrectionist he was he was
indict he was impeached for
Insurrection he was not convicted that
was overturned and there are none of the
indictments that he is presently facing
are charging him for Insurrection so I
don't understand what the taking him off
the ballot for me that was politicized
um by the Colorado Supreme Court and I I
if I were a trump supporter um that
would seem unfair to me that would seem
like a Witch Hunt to me that would
motivate me to fight against these guys
right um but I also believe that Trump
did everything he could to actually
overturn a free and fair election did
everything he could and he failed but if
he could have succeeded he would have
succeeded and I I cannot I mean the fact
everything I just told you does not
compare these are not you know apples
and apples we're talking about I mean
you've got a guy the former president
that tried to overturn a free and fair
election that's foundational to American
democracy and in any well-functioning
democracy if that guy is trying to run
for president and looks like he's going
to win that should be the number one
issue you're
discussing right because it that's a
bigger deal than anything else bigger
deal than the economy it's a bigger deal
than the Border it's a bigger deal than
abortion it is literally the biggest
deal in a well-functioning democracy
there's only one problem that is that
the United States is not a
well-functioning democracy so it is not
the biggest deal because people don't
think it's the biggest deal that's a
problem they don't value the facts or
the Democracy the way they need to one
of the things that I feel like is is
really falling apart and this is the
thing I don't have a good solution for
this uh is shared narratives so um
you've all know a Harari talked about
this very eloquently and he said you
know look there are other species that
can coordinate in massive groups um as
big if not bigger than the way that
humans can do but we're the only ones
that can coordinate in these huge groups
flexibly and he said the way that we
create that flexibility is through
shared narratives now they have
historically come most compelling
through religion and as religion changes
I I resonate with the language that you
know God is dead nii sort of
interpretation of that that can Hackle
some people so I'll just say that that
the tenor of it is changing that in a
world where I think a lot of people have
alternate belief systems or things they
gravitate towards or not even
necessarily thinking about religion I
think there's a god-shaped hole in all
of us and and I am not a Believer as as
my longtime listeners will but I
acknowledge that I have a god-shaped
hole in me that I need to fill with
meaning and purpose
and as we fragment so going back to this
idea as we fragment this gets very scary
because we don't have shared narratives
anymore and so now we're not necessarily
cooperating in as large groups where at
least before we would have the The
Narrative of the nation and so we had
something that we could Galvanize around
um but obviously with the rise of
populism cyclically throughout history
it's not like just now um but whenever
that rears its ugly head then some very
dark things can happen um but on the
flip side of and so I'll say that's like
a a hyper um shared narrative right
something has an injustice has been done
to me and the other person did it and we
need to rise up against okay cool shared
narrative can get dark but you can also
have on the other side where there is no
shared narrative you are now to your
point about you're being pulled in a
direction that doesn't unite us but only
fragments us further um and I'll plug
into that the reason that I don't look
at that and go oh we just need to then
come up with a shared narrative in fact
I'm going to put this in the the framing
of your book you open your book The
Power of crisis with the story of Reagan
and gorbach and Reagan says to gorbachov
hey if I if the US this is like at the
height of the Cold War if the US were uh
invaded by an alien would you help us
and gorbachov said yes absolutely and
that idea of okay there are things that
we could rally around that take us out
of our smaller narrative into a larger
narrative hence the the title of the
book The Power of Crisis there is a
thing that that can bring us together
and give us that shared narrative but
what scares me is if you plug in AI bias
into this equation you can't get now I
yeah now I'm like whoa like like one who
gets to decide what the ai's value
system is what the ai's belief system is
how the AI interprets truth what the AI
reinforces and then if there are a lot
of AI which which is probably the thing
that protects us from uh an
authoritarian answer but at the same
time then you have all this competing
reinforcement that again just brings us
back to fragmentation so as you look at
that sweet of uh unnerving potential
problems what do you see is our path to
the other side of this to doing it
well yeah um so President Biden just uh
two weeks ago had a uh Group of Seven uh
AI Founders SL CEOs the most powerful
companies in this space as of right now
that will not be true in a year or two
there'll be vastly more some of them are
hyperscalers some of them are uh large
language model uh creators and some are
both um and uh it was very interesting
because those seven companies basically
agreed on a set of voluntary principles
that included things like um watermarks
on
AI um and uh you know was reporting on
on
vulnerabilities uh sharing best
practices uh on on testing the models
all of this stuff and the stuff that if
you looked at it carefully you'd say
those are all things we want those are
things that will help protect us from
the worst successes of of AI um
proliferation now on the one hand they
are not only were they voluntary but
they were super undefined in ways that
every company that was there could
already say we're doing all of those
things we don't need to spend any more
money on them um but um I am told those
seven companies are planning on creating
an institution that will meet together
um and will work on more advanced on
advancing those standards and defining
them more clearly uh we'll see uh where
that goes but also I mean as more
companies get in the space you're
creating an expectation in the media in
the government in the population that
these are things that they're committing
to and so increasingly other companies
will also want to show that they're
doing that and maybe there will be some
some backlash if they're not effective
at doing so but but you know what was
interesting to me about that initial
meeting is the White House convened it
but they didn't actually set the agenda
really at all because they don't have
the expertise they don't have the
technology they don't know what these
tools do I mean they're trying to get up
to speed and hire people as fast as they
can but they they're not going to be
anywhere close to these companies and
what I think needs to happen in short
order is that you're going to need to
create an approach that marries these
things you'll need the tech companies to
have these institutions that that they
are you know involved in standing up but
the governments are going to need to
work with them and and they're going to
need to have carrots and sticks they'll
need to be licensing regimes like we see
for financial institutions um there's
going to need to be uh deterrence
penalties they need to be responsible
for what's on their platforms and if
they're used in nefarious ways there's
going to have to be penalties that could
include shutting them down um and uh you
know there's also some carrots that they
should have as this becomes a field of
thousands and thousands of companies
there's proprietary data sets that the
US government and American universities
have access to that can you can drive
massive wealth with AI and maybe those
will become public data sets that any AI
company that's licensed can potentially
use I mean there all of this needs to be
created but we are nowhere on this right
now and and the AI like that we've been
hearing about for 40 years but suddenly
it's exponential and exponential is not
like Mo's law exponential it's not like
a doubling every 18 months it's like 10x
in terms of the size and the impact of
the data sets every year so we don't
have years on this um and that that's
why the urgency that's why I mean I've
completely rolled you know our knowledge
set to focus on what's the impact of AI
on geopolitics I mean in the last year
uh because I've never seen anything
that's had so much dramatic impact on
how I think about the world and how
geopolitics actually plays out and so
far you and I have only talked about the
disinformation piece and a little bit of
the job piece we haven't talked about
what's probably the most dangerous piece
which is the proliferation piece of
things like hackers and you know
developing bioweapons and you know
viruses that can kill I mean I don't I'm
sure you've heard this I've heard from
friends of mine that are coders um that
in past weeks that they cannot imagine
coding without using the most advanced
AI tools right now because it's just
like it's just a world changer for them
and how much they can do I I don't know
any hackers um but I'm sure criminal
malware developers are saying I can't
imagine developing criminal malware or
spear fishing without using these new AI
tools because I mean it's just going to
allow them to Target in such an
extraordinary and pinpoint way and also
to send out so much more you know sort
of capable malware that will elicit so
much more engagement and therefore you
know bring so much more money to them or
shut down so many more servers and give
them so much more more illicit data and
so much of the illicit data that they've
already collected from the hacks on you
know all of these companies that you've
heard about Target for example other
firms I mean so much of that so far is
just oh we're just selling that for
people that want to like use the credit
cards no now you're going to sell it to
people that are empowered with AI that
can generate malware against that
data and that again and that's that's
like we're going to develop all these
new vaccines and new Pharmaceuticals
that'll deal with uh Alzheimer's and
deal with Cancers and it's going to be
an incredible time for medicine but
we'll also be able to develop new
bioweapons that will kill people um and
that's not going to be just in the hands
of North Koreans or Russians in a lab
it's going to be in the hands of small
number of people that are intelligence
agencies are not yet preped to
effectively track right there's a reason
why we don't have nuclear weapons
everywhere it's because it's expensive
it's dangerous it's really hard I mean
imagine the biohackers thinking back to
the days when oh my God you know how
hard it was like you know you'd have to
actually mix this stuff in a lab you you
could die yourself I mean now we can do
all this on the computer the quaint old
days you know so yeah I I worry deeply
about the the the proliferation of these
incredible tools used in dangerous ways
and we are not going to be able to allow
the slippage that we have had um around
cyber tools that we have had around uh
terrorism and their capabilities we're
going to need to get like you know our
net our filter is going to have to be
incredibly incredibly uh robust do you
have a sense of how we pull that filter
off well um part of it is as I say a
hybrid organization um so there have
been some people that have spoken about
an international atomic energy agency
model so it' be an international AI I uh
agency uh model um I I think that won't
work because that implies a a state
agency with inspectors that have a small
number of targets that they're engaging
in those inspections on I don't think
that works I think what you're going to
need is an agency that involves the tech
companies themselves and so you know if
you're developing an AI um capacity in
your garage if you want to use that
anywhere it's going to have to be
licensed if you've got software that's
going to run AI it's going to have to be
licensed and and the tech companies that
are running these models are going to
have to police that in
conjunction with governments so this is
I think this is a new governance model I
don't think it will work with the
governments by themselves because they
won't have the ability to understand
what the capabilities of these
algorithms are how fast they can become
they can proliferate what they can do
how they can be used dangerously um but
the governments are the ones that are
going to be able to impose penalties
they will have the effective deterrent
measure I mean Microsoft Google Facebook
meta you know these these companies are
not what are they going to do they'll
throw you off their platform no no that
that can't be the penalty for developing
um you know a bioweapon um you're going
to need to be working together around
this and and together not just in the
company hands over the information to
the government the agencies are going to
need to be much more integrated so
here's one thing that I've been thinking
a lot about be very curious to get your
feedback on this
so um I am definitely somebody who is a
big believer in um Bitcoin and what's
going on in
cryptocurrency but as I look at it I'm
like oo like this is definitely if we
have it the the thing that makes me
believe in Bitcoin specifically is that
it's the closest thing to a digital
Recreation of an exploding star so for
people that understand uh for people
that understand how gold has become
across a bunch of cultures throughout
time the thing is because it uh it
doesn't mold it doesn't rot and it it
could only be generated from an
exploding star so there's no way to fake
it there's no way to make more I see
yeah got it so you you have this thing
um that's very good about carrying
wealth across time and space it isn't
that it is is um inherently like people
say oh but you can make jewelry and
stuff yeah but if we don't care about
jewelry then that never becomes a thing
and there's no reason that we should
care about gold jewelry I mean the
industrial uses of gold are utterly
marginal to its utility as a as a
currency I agree exactly so Along Comes
Bitcoin which same idea there is a
finite amount of it you can never make
more uh it's the sort of computer
equivalent of the exploding star and
it's better about uh going across space
so maybe it's equal to gold in terms of
across time but it's certainly much
easier in terms of going across space so
I'm like okay cool I really believe in
that but as you create that you now have
alternatives to government Fiat
currencies right and that is this slight
weakening of their power they're going
to obviously push back on that and so
we'll see how that sort of plays out
from a regulatory perspective whether
they just get in on it and and start
buying it or whether they're uh they get
very anti- I think that yet to be
determined um but when I think about the
the things that will weaken the
government's hold on things the next
thing that comes into the picture is
just the government's absolute inability
to stay on top of AI and so now you've
got oh we're already having to lean on
these companies um and so if it becomes
the most powerful tool the most
dangerous tool and it's not controllable
by governments in the way that nuclear
weapons is that's another weakening of
the power and so now you start getting
into this um two paths before you uh you
get bology if I don't know if you know
who bology is but you get his idea of
the network state where it's a
non-geographically bound grouping so
going back to that idea of shared
narratives so people share narratives
from all over the world they come
together they have digital currency uh
they can sort of make their own rules
and laws um and then the other one is
the authoritarian version where it's
like we just grab a hold of all of this
it is top down and you're going to
adhere or life is going to be brutal
obviously that would be China's take but
both of those aren't ideal for me as a
child of the 80s where it was just like
oh this is so stable and wonderful so um
one do you think that are are those the
sort of two most likely polls or is
there something in the middle that's
more likely yeah um so I I agree with
you that um you know Bitcoin and crypto
represent a similar kind of proliferated
decentralized threat to governments as
AI having said that crypto the amount of
crypto you know in in um in in uh in
existence compare and being used
compared to um Fiat currencies is di
Minimus and I do not think that there is
any
plausible uh threat of scale against
Fiat currencies in the next say five
years um and if it I do believe that if
it became a threat of scale every
government in the world that matters
would do everything they could to ensure
that they continue to have a regulatory
environment that maintains Fiat current
currency is dominant and they'll lean
into stable coins they'll lean into the
technology but they want they will want
to have control over it China obvious I
mean you've got you know we chat and
lots of digital currencies that are that
are work but you can you have to use the
digital R&B um you know they they
refused to have currency that they don't
have control over because they want the
information set they want the political
stability in the United States it's also
the importance of having the dominant
Reserve currency globally which matters
immensely to America's ability to
project power um to to maintain you know
our level of indebtedness uh all of
these things so uh to to to weaponize
finance to you know to declare sanctions
and tariffs to get other countries to do
what we want uh to align with us so
given that I think the timeline for AI
being fundamentally transformative in
governance is minimum two to three years
maximum 5 to 10 I only see one thing
here I'm mean even even climate change
which is huge and in front of us and
trillions and trillions of dollars of
impact and changing the way everybody
thinks about spending money and
governance and where they live and all
of that uh climate change in many ways
is slower moving and slower impact than
what we're going to see from AI like I
think AI is going to have much more
geopolitical impact in the next 5 to 10
years than even climate will and that
was you know what was one of the things
that when I wrote wrot the book The
Power of Crisis and that was before AI
really took off uh for me each of the
crises I was talking about were becoming
larger and more existential and I
started with the pandemic because I was
writing kind of in the middle of it and
then I moved to climate and then I moved
to disruptive Technologies and Ai and
people were saying how could you not put
climate you know as the big one I'm like
well because climate like is first of
all it's not existential like we are
actually on a path to responding to
climate it's just going to cause a lot
of damage um and we're going to end up
at like 2.5 degrees 2.7 degrees warming
and it's also going to happen like over
the next 75 years and will probably be
at Peak carbon in the atmosphere at
around 20 45 and then a majority of the
world's energy you know starts coming
from or PE Peak carbon energy use Excuse
me and then a majority of the world's
Energy starts coming from renewable
sources and that's a that that's an
exciting place to be where with AI
like we don't have 50 years for AI we
don't have 30 years for AI like you know
we have 5 10 years to figure out if
we're going to be able to regulate this
or not and if it's going to look more
techno utopian or if we're not here
anymore like I mean I I mean honestly I
don't I haven't really said this
publicly but we're having a broad enough
discussion like I'm how old are you
47 okay I'm 53 um I think that uh knock
on wood I don't think that either of us
are likely to die of natural
causes um I think at our age we are
probably either going to blow ourselves
up uh you know as as humans or we're
going to have such extraordinary
technological advances um that we will
be able to uh dramatically extend
lifespans to in in ways that are I mean
you know dealing with with cell death
and and molecular destru and genetic
engineering and I mean just looking at
what is ahead of us over the next 10 20
years this does not feel remotely
sustainable but that doesn't mean it's
horrible that means it's one of two tail
risks and I just can't tell if it's the
great one or the bad one but to the
extent that I have any role on this
planet I'd like to nudge us as I know
you would too in the better Direction
and that means getting a handle on this
technology and and working to to help it
work for Humanity with Humanity as as
opposed to IR you know not against it
but you know kind of um uh irrelevant to
it um we we don't want technology that
does not consider human beings as
relevant on the planet no I agree with
that the thing that um I think that
we're going to have to contend with
though is what is a governmental
response going to be to the potential of
their weakened power so that's we know
how we know how China is is dealing with
it
um so it was really amazing to watch
China open up the capital markets and
really just explode and in your book you
talk about this I and I found it a
really interesting Insight that that
forced me to reorient my thinking about
what China did and so um you know if
you've read ma the untold story it's
like it it's just devastating to see how
much death and destruction came out of
an authoritarian government and then at
the same time you're like I don't know
that America's approach is always the
right the most optimal answer I forget
the exact words you used to every
problem and what you pointed out with
China when they opened up like just the
growth rate was pure Insanity Ian it's
really pretty breathtaking but they
learned from the collapse of Russia
exactly what not to do and now they're
clamping back down now was somebody that
grew up in the US man I look at that and
I'm just like dude that I don't like
that that freaks me out the thought of
of always being on that Razor's Edge of
like the individual doesn't matter and
we can just completely obliterate you
but then I watch not even the government
necessarily in the US but the people in
the US giving up on Free Speech which as
I think about what what's like the one
thing that you just can't let go of if
you want the individual to matter and I
think if you want to get to the quote
unquote right answer uh you have to have
fre speech like even in my own company
where it would be very tempting to run
my company in an authoritarian way I
just know I have too many blind spots so
I'm constantly like trying to get the
team to be like hey say whatever you
need whatever you believe to be true if
what you believe to be true is that I'm
an [ __ ] and I do not know what I'm
doing you need to be able to say that
now I'm going to push you to articulate
why I don't want some emotional
statement I want like give me going back
to truth right what is our goal what's
the metric by which we determine whether
we're getting towards our goal what can
you show me in the math that shows that
I'm doing this the wrong way and then
you know what's your take and why do you
think it's going to work better
but when I look at just the the
instability of that on both sides so you
have authoritarian rule where we just
obliterate it as soon as we don't feel
like the government's in control we
kidnap those my words Jack ma re-educate
him and then put him back back forward
terrifying or on our side where it's
like no if you say something I don't
like you 100% should be canceled going
back to what you said about Trump
so how do we as two people that want to
nudge this in the right
direction what's the right pressure
point is it is it the government is it
the individual is it the algorithms is
it making sure that AI has um the right
biases like what what's the the right
pressure I don't I don't know that the
right biases are the issue um I mean you
know again there's a lot of whack-a-mole
going on tweaking these models as you
roll them out um I I think it is more in
trying to ensure that you have Clarity
and transparency in what these models
are doing um and then the data that's
being collected as it's being collected
that has to be shared this these are
experiments that are being run real time
on human beings
um and we wouldn't do that um with a
vaccine even in an emergency we would
have a lot more testing we wouldn't do
that um on on a new GMO food uh because
we'd be concerned about you know sort of
disease cancer you name it but we're
doing that with these algorithms it's
very interesting to me and a little
chilling that the Chinese who have done
everything they can in the last 20 years
to catch up and surpass in some areas to
the Americans in new technology ology
areas they look at Ai and large language
models and they've said okay we're we're
going to have control over these we're
going have full censorship over these
we're not going to give them data sets
that they can run on in the public
because they think it's too dangerous
and that means that the llms that the
Chinese are running right now are crap
they're they're they're nowhere near as
good as what the Americans presently
have and that's because the Chinese are
willing to accept the economic
disadvantage to ensure they have the
itical stability um and I I think that
the United States again we're not going
to be able to Simply stop this progress
the progress is going to happen there's
too much money it's too fast we don't
know what we're doing as a government in
response and also there there are too
many things we're focused on yes you're
focused on proliferation but what I say
is fake news and what I say is
disinformation someone else is saying
you're trying to politicize it right and
then you'll have a whole bunch of people
saying we can't slow down our companies
because we need to beat the Chinese who
are going to be the largest economy in
the world just like you know Zuckerberg
did with Facebook you know 10 years ago
um and for all of so for all of those
reasons I don't think you can slow this
I don't think you can stop it I think
what we need is a partnership between
the technology companies and the
governments and that is going to have to
be regulated at the national level it's
going to have to be regulated at the
global level by the way the financial
Marketplace is not so radically
different from this like you have
algorithms trading algorithms that run
and they need to be regulated because
you want to know that certain types of
trading is not allowed other types of
trading is and you know the 2008
financial crisis when it hit even though
it started in a small part of the
economy we were all worried oh my God
this could explode the whole economy
what happened all the banking CEOs and
the FED head and the the chairman of the
FED U the secretary treasury they got
together and they said okay what are we
going to do to ensure the system can
stay stable and in place and that real
time and one of the reasons it works
relatively well in the financial space
is because the Central Bank uh governers
are technocratic and somewhat
independent from government like they
know that you want to avoid a bad
depression a market collapse they know
that you have monetary and fiscal tools
that you can use to respond we're going
to need to create something like that in
the technology space we're going to have
to create regul ERS who are in
government but are working directly with
the tech companies as partners to avoid
contagion to respond immediately to
crises when they occur and they won't
just lead to Market collapse they could
lead to National Security destruction
they could lead to lots of people
getting killed but it's going to be the
same basic kind of model um and and we
got to start working on that now why are
we more likely to be easily divided than
Japan or Germany or anybody else yeah
well I mean I mean it's it's kind of the
Trump question see I don't see Trump as
the principal risk I see him as a
symptom so why is the United States the
country that has elected Trump and now
might elect him a second time why isn't
that happening in other Advanced
industrial democracies why do the
Americans talk about stop the steel and
none of that happened even after brexit
in the UK the domestic political system
basically runs the same way why why is
that happening um and there are a lot of
things that people talk about they talk
about inequality they talk about
identity politics but those things exist
demographics changing those things exist
in a lot of other countries maybe not to
the same degree the US is more unequal
uh economically today than the rest of
the oecd but not by a massive amount um
I think that the bigger issue is that
the United States is the country where
its social
institutions have most uh eroded so I
mean the US is a country that
historically has been by far the most
religious and
God-fearing and and yet in the last 40
years church membership has fallen off a
cliff in the United States uh belief in
the church trust in the church has gone
way down just like belief in in
Congress um the belief in the public
school system has gone way down in the
US just like belief um in the Judiciary
um and I think that the the fact that
those institutions have really eroded in
a country that is much more driven by
individualism and
Entrepreneurship and unfettered
capitalism which has driven incredible
growth in the US and it's why the US is
leading the world in Ai and other
countries are behind I mean we we're
we're the country with Elon Musk and and
he wasn't even born in the US but he
knew that this was the place he could
make it and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates we
have those people but we're also the one
where so many Americans feel unmowed
they feel like n nature got them they've
got they've got genetics but they don't
have nurture anymore whether it's the
atomized family um or it's the lack of
national service um or it's just the
Civic institutions all falling apart and
now in the last 10 years nurture has
been replaced by something it's been
replaced by algorithms and we have you
know we're the country that has all the
influencers we're the countries where
everybody wants to be a personal brand
um but we're also the country that has
so many of our young people uh wanting
to engage in SE self harm uh and even
suicide um because they're spending all
their time on social media where they're
they're being algorithmically
disintermediated from the rest of
society and only engaging with people
that they already agree with um or
things that make them angry um both of
which you know are great for the
corporate business model but are at
anathema to creating Civic adults to
raising a nation that connects with each
other I think if I had to point to one
thing that has really eroded American
democracy it it would be that I think
that that's where
thewhere are we just ahead of the Cur
or do you
thinki either cultural fabri of America
orse that has governmental policies that
have made us more vulnerable than
somebody else I I think it's both okay I
mean you see this happening I mean
Canada it's definitely happening too you
know you saw Ottawa and the truckers
riots and rebel news and there's a lot
of misinformation in Canada too and
democracy in Canada's eroded somewhat
nowhere near as much as the US
um
Japan uh almost not at all sense of
community in Japan is so much stronger
it's basically a single-party democracy
um I there was a very interesting uh um
event in Japan that you may have seen it
was a couple of months ago there was a
Japan
Airlines um uh aircraft uh that uh hit
um a I think it was a Japanese Coast
Guard smaller plane that was routed
right in front of where this plane was
about to to land or take off and and and
the plane caught on fire 300 30 plus
people passengers were on the plane
every single one of them got off within
like five minutes and not only did they
follow the instructions uh of the
stewards um and and stewardess is like
literally
immediately not one of them took a bag
off the plane because they were told not
to now yeah you that is inconceivable to
me on a United
flight I mean is it should I is it
unpopular for me to say that some of
this is cultural I mean am I going to
get canceled for that I travel to Japan
all the time I know that is different I
mean the Americans were just a really
individual oriented society and so I do
think that some of this is different
some of this is actually unique to what
make what makes Americans tick um and
and as a consequence when the social
contract starts eroding and when the
American political and economic system
starts doesn't work as well for a lot of
Americans they feel left behind they
feel forgotten it's going to hurt
American society a lot more right
because you just because that that
safety net and some of that safety net
is cognitive some of that safety net is
emotional um is just not there for
people in a way that I think it is in a
lot of other countries I think it is in
a more collectivist Germany for example
than it is in the United States yeah so
if you're going to get canceled for that
let me join you in the cancellation uh
it is self-evident to me that culture
plays a huge part in um everything just
life full stop period in general when we
talk about nature versus nurture that's
effectively what we're talking about the
nurture being the culture could be the
culture of your family the culture of
your City Town whatever or the thing
nobody is talking nearly enough about
the culture of the class that you were
born into and thusly raised in um if I
were to and I admittedly have not
thought about this before so I'll be
very interested to get your take on this
but as I was listening to you talk the
thing that jump to mind as to why uh
Japan which I I am I am just a literal
japanophile I I could not love them
anymore they are a hyper conservative
culture so I think that speaks a lot
about that they're also a more
collectivist culture you see yourself as
integrated into the whole more than
somebody that's going to stand out what
I think is happening in America right
now and again this is I'm thinking
through this in real time is that we are
an individualistic culture that has
really done extraordinarily well with um
capitalism but the Genny coefficient is
real and as the gap between the poorest
Among Us and the richest Among Us grows
wider you are going to get people even
though by global standards uh uh lower
income people in America are still way
better off than lower income people
elsewhere but it doesn't feel like that
if you're broke and you are cleaning
Jeff bezos's thirdd mega mansion and so
that that reality is what I think we're
watching play out now and you have some
people that are crying out for
collectivism and you have other people
that are still staunchly individualistic
now you've talked about something I've
I've not heard anybody else talk about
which is that one of the big concerns on
the global stage for what's happening in
America the division in America and why
it's so problematic is all of a sudden
uh identity politics is steering a lot
of the policy and the the sort of how
you can expect America to behave versus
economics and previously the rest of the
world could just go America's going to
do whatever is in their economic best
interest easy enough to predict cool I
know the script and I may hate it I may
be violently opposed but at least it's
predictable whereas now the instability
inside of our own country is causing our
politicians to really have to look
inward to be very cognizant of an
increasingly divided um constituency and
they now have to make policies that
maybe are not economically the best
policy but they soothe the most people
that vote for them absolutely I mean
industrial policy is has become a much
greater driver and it doesn't matter if
it's helping or hurting the American
economy and even that's even true when
you talk about American consumers and
taxpayers me think about how many folks
have been behind higher tariffs on
Chinese goods and Trump said they're
paying for that they're paying for that
no they're not American consumers are
paying for that but it is politically
completely toxic to talk about reducing
tariffs against Chinese exports to the
US and doesn't matter what the economic
sensibility of that happens to be and
and we can play that through in all I'm
all in favor of investing in American
human capital and infrastructure I think
the chips Act was great I'm glad we're
rebuilding Bridges again you know I mean
Lord knows we need to be you know have
have a high-speed rail system I I I I'd
like it to be private sector but if the
public sector can help make it happen
faster God bless those things are
happening but at the global level the
Americans are now politically throwing
all sorts of wrenches into
globalization and in part that's because
a lot of Americans feel like they didn't
benefit from globalization so why should
we support that you know you're going to
take my job and my livelihood and you're
going to send it to China screw you I'm
not going to support that and and it is
true that if the American economy grows
like
Topsy uh but the middle class and the
working class is treated like Canon
fodder um then they're not going to be
very interested in promoting your policy
so globalization is absolutely great for
the United States but globalism sucks
for the average American and and that is
where you see policy makers like Trump
and Bernie Sanders frankly in AOC it's
both sides of the spectrum making bank
in this environment because people out
there so many people say the system
doesn't work they're lying to me so I
want someone who's going to break
things I want someone who's going to
take the fight because otherwise it's
never going to get fixed and Trump is
someone who you know just by Dent of the
fact that he drives the establishment so
insane he drives the media so insane he
drives the political leaders so insane
that you know that he's really fighting
those guys so if you really feel like
things are broken in the US and all it
the only thing you see is a small small
pocket of people that keep benefiting
it's never hitting you you're willing to
have roll the dice on someone that's
going to be a Chaos Agent and and Trump
is that Trump is
that is the system broken and are they
lying to
us um I think that the American system
in many ways um is
unrepresentative of the average American
I mean just the fact that um the the US
is now of all of the oecd economies the
US country the us is the country where
you can best predict a person's
wealth as an adult on the basis of their
parents'
wealth more than any other oecd economy
and when you and I were kids that wasn't
true that is that's a sign of a broken
system um the I thought that the The
Varsity Blues case when we saw all of
these entitled adults doing everything
they could to make sure their kids were
getting into I League schools and
thinking they were doing nothing wrong
because that's the way the system works
that is in my mind the sign of an
unrepresentative system um you know I I
we see examples of that all the time and
and I I do think the fact that the
average American doesn't trust their
political institutions anymore um is not
the fault of the working class that
that's the fault of the people that have
been leaders and it's not just a
Communications failure it is an
execution failure they just haven't made
it work for enough Americans and people
are taking advantage of that and there's
a lot of
disinformation um and I I do believe
that I mean a number of policies we've
seen in the last few years are going to
move the needle over time I was a big
fan of the inflation reduction act and
by the way more red state jobs than blue
state jobs under the inflation reduction
act which was a bipartisan piece of
legislation but that will take 10 or 20
years before it actually starts to
change the way people think about their
opportunities doesn't happen overnight
not when for 40 50 years they've been on
the wrong side of that so you know I I
do think that there are big things you
look at how much money there is in the
American political system the billions
of dollars that are spent on Election
cycles that go for more than a year and
they are spending that money and a lot
of that money is dark money we can't
even find out who's behind it where it's
going and we know that the purpose of
that money is to perpetuate special
interests in their ability to capture
the regulatory process and make
politicians work for them and not the
average American I mean when we see
things even like the NRA and and we know
that the average American wants a
different policy but it can't happen
because there's too much money that pays
to ensure that it doesn't and that
happens by the way with teachers unions
and police unions too you know and
ensuring that the system is broken and
doesn't work properly for their kids
yeah that that is for me a sign of a
system that is deeply sclerotic that is
unrepresentative it's it's not
completely
unfunctional and and and partially
because we're so wealthy and we have so
much entrepreneurship and we're in such
a wonderful location geographically and
we have so many natural resources I mean
there's so many things that America has
going for it that you can tolerate a lot
of things that are really broken in your
political system and and the country can
still work but honestly is America's
political system in crisis yes I think
it is I think it is um and and I say
that as someone who has a lot of friends
in government Democrats and Republicans
who I think are trying to do the right
thing but the system is pretty broken
right now yeah I think it is all right
so are they lying to
us who's
they people are going to say the elites
the the government uh mainstream media
we'll start there those two uh I think
that a lot of the we must
consume um the the presumptions of what
goes behind
capitalism let let me give you an
example you know how how much young
people care about climate you know how
much they care about the
environment they've been lied to we've
been lied to for decades by very very
powerful organizations that had a lot to
lose by admitting that climate change
was happening that it was transformative
in bad ways and that they were
responsible for it yeah are they lying
to us yeah and then by the way when they
finally admitted it they still did
everything they could privately to
prevent us from taking action that would
have made this a lot cheaper to deal
with a lot less costly to deal with are
they lying to us yeah did the tobacco
companies lie to us um about the fact
that the products that they were selling
they were trying to addict us to um were
going to kill us yeah they lied they
lied to us were the food companies lying
to us when they did everything possible
to ensure the uction of salty and sweet
and fatty because that's what we would
buy more of for our short-term interest
and sell them in bigger and bigger
quantities were they lying to yeah they
were lying to us they're not taking care
of us they're treating us um as products
they're treating us as things that are
useful to them and were there members of
government that happily went along with
that because they were on the payroll of
those lobbies yes of course absolutely
and I think that like my mom raising me
she was aware of that she wasn't going
to make a sophisticated argument she
wasn't going to develop a documentary
but at base level she understood that
the advertisements that we were seeing
and the campaign speeches that we were
digesting were not good for her kids she
I think she fundamentally understood
that and she was angry about it she
accepted it that's the way the system
kind of worked that they were all trying
to screw each other but she also
recognized and you said it yourself how
how you were born in terms of class as
people didn't have the education didn't
have the network didn't have the money
that we were going to get screwed that's
not what America is supposed to be about
America's supposed to be the country
where everyone can make it it's what the
American dream is and fewer Americans
believe in the American dream today now
that's accurate it's harder to actually
have upward mobility in this environment
people a country that has been very
optimistic that historically large
majorities of Americans when pulled
would say I'm going to make it to the
top 10% and if I don't my kids will I
mean so many people saying that that it
wasn't conceivably true but they
believed it and and that made you
happier and and it made you happier in
part because you did kind of trust a lot
of those people that were Elites and and
that has gone away in my view absolutely
it has do you think the same they
lied to us about things like um masks
because they really believe that we have
to get people to believe this to protect
them I really really was disappointed
with
foui um I mean it was pretty clear that
he
was marketing to Americans because he
thought he knew better and that we
couldn't handle the truth um and of
course when you do that in the near-
term and you find out in the long term
what that does is it helps the
conspiracy theorists right I mean it's
true that there was a lot that Americans
really didn't know about this disease in
the early
stages but I mean you know saying hey an
n95 is the best thing to do but we don't
want you wearing those because we really
need those for the people that are in
you know sort of critical hospital care
and the rest like I think that's what he
should have said I I I don't think he
should have lied to Americans um in the
early days because I think it did
enormous damage especially because of
the political divisions in this country
I I think the CDC has taken a massive
hit of trust and has become politicized
in the United States and we need to be
able to believe our doctors and our
scientists we need that so yeah I I I
feel like um you know UT you know fouchi
I've been to fouche's office I
interviewed him a couple of times for my
own show and he's a very charismatic guy
and he's friendly and he's smart he
touches you and he talks and but I mean
his office was a shrine I I can't
remember the last time I had seen an
office that had so many commendations
and photos with him and every political
leader from every Walk of Life that he
had had like on every wall floor to
ceiling and you know look I that I've
seen that you know that that the fact
that you want to show off the fact that
you have a lot of access uh can can
serve many purposes and um you know if
as long as you're focused first and
foremost on content first and foremost
on the science but I fear uh that at
least the fouchi that I met um was
focusing more on the media the attention
the brand the power and less on the
outcomes and I think that did a lot of
damage this is just my personal
impression I'm not a doctor I'm not a
scientist right I'm just being honest
with you and telling you what I think
because you asked me the question um I
mean we went through this pandemic and
that should have been an opportunity for
us to invest more in early stage warning
um and in
education um and in strengthening the
World Health Organization for example
and none of that happened it it all it
did was breed more mistrust now thank
God we have some extraordin Ary
scientists in the private sector uh like
in Mna and like in fizer and others that
were able to develop vaccines like with
Incredible speed and are now using those
Technologies to do all sorts of new
things that are helping us with cancer
and Alzheimer's and you name it but but
the government um and and the mistrust
that average Americans average citizens
have in in what the doctors are telling
us especially those that are like on TV
and that have some level of you know
where we the elite doctors that you're
supposed to listen to I think that
you'll listen to your own
GC uh but you you won't uh I mean GP but
you you won't listen uh to those guys I
think it's a horrible thing how often
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scanning the QR code one of the things
that I I talk to people about a lot is
hey look you lying is powerful
tactic uh but be careful because if you
use it it will work sometimes and then
other times you will just become known
as a liar and when I look at the
division that we're going through right
now and what is it you know about this
moment and I can't speak to whether the
rest of the world is falling prey to the
same thing or not but um in in a world
where anybody can pick up their phone
and live stream to the rest of the world
your lies are going to be found out
terrifying in L fast and that is going
to absolutely erode your credibility and
on top of that um now you get into a
position where there's just the level of
disdain and distrust that people are
going to
have creates the the level of animosity
towards the government that we're seeing
now and that's where you get that powder
cake where all the sudden a country uh
which has a host of problems just all
coming together at one moment um really
starts to be super unnerving
but when I look out at at what I would
want people to take away because I I
have a I'm very much an individualistic
thinker in that I think at the level of
the individual so I'm not good at what
you're good at which is global uh
geopolitics like you see how all the
puzzle pieces add up what I understand
is is the person and so I will say look
everybody of course you know that people
are lying to you it is a tool in
everyone's Arsenal and the vast majority
of humans are going to deploy that tool
even if only to uh make you feel like
your ass doesn't look big in those jeans
right it's just th it it is going to be
used so the thing that you can do is not
be as gullible I never thought I would
be interviewing people on
geopolitics but once I started feeling
like uh Society is beginning to fray and
it's beginning to fray because people
are not building their own internal
model model of what they believe the
world is they're letting the algorithms
do that for them uh they don't
understand how they're being manipulated
and therefore they become easy to
manipulate and so the thing that I'm
hoping to do with the show because all
I've ever wanted to do is Empower people
to make decisions that make their life
better um and I suddenly realized that
people really need to understand how the
game works once you understand how the
game works hopefully you can stop being
mad about it and just start doing
something about it uh but speaking of
doing something about it when you look
at so we've got um two Wars that are
happening right now one potential war in
air quotes because you made it very
clear you don't actually think that
America's going to be in a hot Civil War
right um but how does this all play out
like I've heard you talk about Ukraine
is just going to have to accept that
that they are partitioned but also it
felt like you had some anxiety about
Trump coming in and just being like
you're going to have to accept that
you're partitioned um what is what is
the oh man you you talk about uh the
risk assessment that you guys do is
based on fact not preference so knowing
that you're not about to lay out your
preference what do you think is is the
actual path forward and and this also
that last Russia Ukraine and Israel
Hamas that last point just links so much
with what you were saying before like I
have no problem with being wrong at the
end of the year we go back and we see
how we did on all this stuff and we you
know see like how that affects when we
do get stuff wrong what do we why did we
get it wrong what how what lessons do we
take away from it but the authenticity
is absolutely critical you know I mean
for someone who's not a part of a
political party and and who travels all
over the world I I feel like you know
five 10 years ago I spent most of my
time talking with and engaging with
Elites because I thought well those are
the people with power and that's going
to have the biggest impact in affecting
change but in an environment as you say
Tom where so many people are being you
know driven by misinformation becoming
angry becoming polarized I feel like I
have to spend a lot more of my time just
talking to people right just like being
authentic about what's happening in the
world and you know it's not easy to you
know sort of ball that up into prot
Trump or Pro Biden or pro-american or
Pro anything frankly but we need more of
that we we need people that are prepared
to like meet people where they are
listen to them and talk about what we
think is really happening in the world
and it's okay if you don't agree with
all of it because it's not about
agreeing it's about understanding that's
all it is and so there you're right so
using my Words the book kind of wants
for a crisis hence the title The Power
of Crisis you call it you call it the
Goldilocks crisis something that is uh
devastating enough that people stop and
pay attention but not so devastating
that we can't respond well to it um
is that the only way to get people to
act to uh cooperate in the way that we
would need to cooperate and does it like
when you think about the ideal state of
the world is it globalized or sensibly
de
globalized um uh first of all it's a
great question and it's not like you can
never make progress outside of Crisis
progress happens all the time outside of
Crisis we see new legislation that gets
passed um we see you know new companies
that are started we see all sorts of we
see good works by people of other people
on the street you know um but but you
know it's one thing to say um can't we
get can't we get the progress we need um
in a family you can in a community you
can when you're working together well
with in an alliance you frequently can
in an in what I call a gzero world where
there's not a level of functional Global
Leadership where countries aren't
working together well they don't trust
each other they don't have you know the
institutions that align with the balance
of powers today so it's not a G7 or a
G20 it's really an absence of Global
Leadership I think in an environment
like that the the most like by far the
most likely way to get an effective resp
response just like with the Soviets
versus the Americans Reagan versus
gorbachov in the opening of my book is
if you have a crisis if the aliens come
down and you know it turned out that the
pandemic wasn't a big enough crisis
didn't kill young people uh it wasn't I
mean you know look at look at what
happened the Americans pull out of the
World Health Organization the Chinese
lie to everybody um about not about not
being transferred human to human the
relationship got worse between the two
countries the Americans we didn't
provide vaccines to the poor countries
around the world even though we had
people in the United States that didn't
need them and were waiting on that
already took them and were waiting on
boosters like it was it was a complete
cluster [ __ ] pardon my French um and
it's because it didn't feel like an
existential crisis it wasn't big enough
to force us um to cooperate to a greater
degree January 6 in the United States I
mean maybe if Pence had been hung maybe
if some some I mean God forbid uh maybe
if uh if you know members of the house
or senate had been killed or injured or
kidnapped for a period of time but as it
stood that evening a majority of
Republicans in the house voted not to
certify the outcome why not because
they're focused on the jobs because they
knew it wasn't a constitutional crisis
they knew it wasn't a coup so I do think
that in this environment in a in a
dysfunctional governance environment
where people don't trust each other at
the highest levels that are in power
where we don't have the institutions
that can work are proven to work to
respond to the crisis in front of us
yeah we need a crisis and the good news
is that climate is clearly not only a
big enough crisis but also one that
Humanity I think is up for and so that
is forcing US every year we actually are
exceeding radically exceeding in um in
uh uh renewable energy production and
reduced cost from what the International
Energy agency is predicting every year
for decades now we've been exceeding
that and that's because this crisis has
been big enough and it's affecting
everyone to mobilize our asses into
action and the question is is AI a
crisis that we can actually effectively
respond to there's no question the size
is suitably great that it should
motivate us and when I talk to
government leaders around the world
today they are focused they are focused
on it they're focused on it because of
the size of the crisis but also it's
very interesting so the US government
it's not just because they're suddenly
all experts in AI it's also because the
three things that they are most
concerned about is National Security
priorities which is confrontation with
China war between Russia and Ukraine and
proxy war with the Russians and threat
to the US democracy they think and
they're right that all of these are
dramatically transformed by AI
developments so not only is AI coming as
a big new thing but also all the things
they're already worried about spending a
a lot of time and money on and blood um
are things that are they better figure
this out or they're in trouble so I do
think the the the mo the
motivation um to get this right is going
to be there I just I hope we're up for
it and you know again I'm I'm I'm an
optimist I'm hopeful I mean at the end
of the day I mean the fact that we're
here and we're talking about it uh means
that we're capable of doing so my only
fear is that with global Waring you
can't win global warming and get a leg
up over China or Russia uh but you can
win Ai and get a leg up and be better
and I think that that one thing that
people aren't talking about enough for
sure is that AI is going to be an
adversarial system meaning bad guys are
going to have ai and they're going to
try to do things to hurt me with that Ai
and then um others are going to build AI
that is protective and try to stop the
bad guys and so you will have just like
with normal hacking you'll have an Ever
escalating arms race of AI and so even
if only with the best of intentions we
will end up getting to AI super
intelligence because we're trying to
stop somebody from doing a bad thing and
this is yeah go ahead I was gonna say
that's a really good point and I've
given a lot of thought to that because
look we don't trust the Chinese at all
they don't trust us they've invested
billions and tens of billions ions of
dollars
into next Generation nuclear wind uh
solar electric vehicles and the supply
chains for all of that now there are a
lot of people around the country that
are not particularly focused on climate
but they're focused on China and they're
saying hey we cannot let those guys
become the the energy superpower postc
carbon we've got to invest in it so that
we're going to be the energy superpower
but the good thing about that is hey
that's virtuous competition like if we
end up investing more so that we're the
dominant superpower that just means
cheaper postc carbon energy faster for
everybody but in the AI space it is
absolutely unclear that there is a
virtuous cycle of competition if we are
not working together the proliferation
risk is much much greater I couldn't
agree with you more on that
point yeah so now the question becomes
when when you look at what we get on the
other side of the crisis the cooperation
the banding together to focus on one
problem um does does that lead us back
to globalization so we we open this up
with globalization amazing create we
were lifting some ungod like 160 uh
thousand people out of poverty every day
for like 9 years or it's absolutely
crazy the number of people that we
pulled out out of poverty uh but you get
the Rust Belt push back rise of
popularism it's not good for everybody
and so needing to really be honest about
that um but in this world let's say that
we get the right crisis what are we
steering towards is it reglobalization
or is it what I'm calling thoughtful
deglobalization I think we are trying uh
to move back towards uh globalization
but thoughtful
globalization um where you are using the
resources you have to more effectively
take care of the people that are uh Left
Behind uh that you are constantly
retooling your institutions and
reforming them because the Technologies
are changing that fast and that's
something governments by themselves
won't be able to do again they'll have
to do in concert with these new
technology companies or governments will
have to change what they are they'll
have to integrate technology companies
into them and that's that scares you
that's more of an authoritarian model
frankly um but I I do think um that uh
one of the reasons you've steered me a
couple times now in a direction that
historically I'd be very easily steered
which is to talk about us versus China
and I've resisted it and the reason I've
resisted it even though us China is in a
horrible place right now and the
relationship is getting worse it's not
getting better but I I think it is more
likely within three five years that AI
companies Cutting Edge in all sorts of
fields will actually be all over the
world I don't I think this is going to
be a proliferating technology for good
and for bad so I'm more concerned about
individuals Rogue States terrorist
organizations doing crazy things as
opposed to the US versus China that
ultimately want stability in the system
right but I'm also
hopeful that it's not going to be a
small number of dominant companies in
the United States and China that control
all of the Next Generation AI actually
if you're at a position where you can
run a near Cutting Edge AI on your own
laptop or on your smartphone and
millions and millions of people have
access to that intelligence and they can
do things with it I don't think that a
small number of meate tech corporations
are going to control it I mean they may
have platforms that they'll be able to
charge taxes on basically tariffs on but
I think so much of both the value the
upside and the danger will be
distributed all over the world and
that's again very different than the way
we think about geopolitics today so I
don't think the u i don't on the AI
front I don't think the US China fight
is the principal concern to worry about
in the next five to 10
years okay well so this is very
interesting one of the things that you
talked about in the book is that when
Russia invaded the Ukraine one of the
things that they did to try to appease
the west and keep them calm was like hey
we know you're really worried about
hackers we're going to go round them up
arrest them um and what happens to the
ability to um use political means to get
these Bad actors in line if they are
proliferated everywhere and we have
varying degrees of ability to influence
yeah uh it it's one of the reasons why I
think you don't have an interpole motto
or an IAA model it's why I think it's
going to be it's going to have to be
much more inclusive with the technology
companies I keep coming back to this I
don't think that the US government by
itself or the Russian government would
be able to make that kind of a promise
as easily Russians are a little bit
different here right if you're a
authoritarian State and you have real
control of the information space you
know maybe the vast majority of people
working on hacking are under your
Authority maybe but if AI really becomes
as explosive and as decentralized as I
believe it will then the governments by
themselves and you know are going to
have a hard time even maintaining
control of the AI space I'm not sure the
Chinese model on this is going to work I
mean in five and 10 years time remember
they gave up on the great Chinese
firewall and instead because it was too
porous and instead what they did was
they used the surveillance mechanisms
and they had a whole bunch of people
that were online that were basically
nudging Chinese citizens towards better
behavior and towards certain things that
they should say and certain thing again
certain things they didn't say and that
turned out to be more effective um AI I
think is going to become if it becomes a
much more decentralized space it's going
to be much much harder for an
authoritarian state to do that but
certainly it'll be impossible for a
democratic state to do it now the
question you haven't asked me is does
that mean that democracy is sustainable
I mean the US government feels immediate
national security threat from all these
tech companies and they can't regulate
it you know might the Americans start
finding the Chinese model on AI much
more attractive I don't think so and I
don't think so because I think our
system because our system is so
entrenched it's so slow moving it's so
receptive to money the companies are so
wealthy they have the ability to capture
the regulatory environment like again I
mean never say never it can happen here
if things are incredibly dangerous yes I
mean you know you can take Desperate
Measures but short of the worst
scenarios I think that the United States
is closer to kleptocracy than it is to
authoritarian regime if there's a way
that the Americans are going to move
away from democracy it's probably not a
Chinese model right well that's
horrifying uh I my hope it's funny my
brain tried to fill in what you were
going to say and your answer is probably
more true than what I was hoping you
were going to say but what I was hoping
you were going to say was that we have
such a strong shared narrative around
Freedom that we wouldn't make those he
laughs ladies and gentlemen he laughs uh
yeah man oh my God that used to be true
when my dad was alive and after World
War II I just don't see it any anymore I
mean not unless everyone's lying to the
pollsters all the time I it just doesn't
feel that
way yeah I agree in the United States
what our country stands for I don't
think we do I don't think we know what
our country stands for there's such
incredible cynicism among young people
that they're just being lied to that
it's performative from their governments
from their corporations from everybody
from the media and some of it I some of
it is very understandable um you know
it's it's I it's painful but like our
econom is doing well so well our
technolog is doing so well we have the
reserve currency it's not being
threatened we are in a great geography
it's very safe it's very stable there
are so many things that are great I saw
that uh Jamie Diamond you know a few
minutes that everyone was talking about
standing up for America but he didn't
talk about our political system and our
political system is deteriorating and
people don't believe in it the way they
used to and there are no there I've not
seen any push back against that in in
the last 20 years it got worse under
Obama it got worse under Trump it's
gotten worse under Biden it's clearly
not just about those people it's
structural there a lot of things driving
it um and uh that that I don't see a I
mean God forbid it we had a 911 right
now I mean I was here I was in New York
at 911 I saw the second tower go down I
saw the way the New York City rallied I
saw the way the country rally there was
92% approval for Bush for Bush a month
young people will not understand how
crazy that is uh and and I don't think
that could happen today I don't think I
I don't think it could happen even with
someone who is as much of a unifier as
Biden has been historically and it
certainly couldn't happen under Trump um
and and that's that's really sad that's
really sad do you have a sense of how we
unwind that this is the one thing my
thesis has has been on this that until
there is enough pain and suffering which
unfortunately historically Means War um
you don't get the the country won't come
back together right so we've obviously
been more divided than we are now
because we've been in open Civil War in
the past but whoo I don't see how you
unwind these increasingly Divergent
narratives of left and right um without
real
suffering well I mean the there was this
great book that was written by a
Princeton historian about the the great
the three great levelers uh and it
talked about how in societies whatever
the governance mechanism historically
they tend to get um more unequal and
people with access to power get closer
access to power over time uh unless one
of three big things happen uh famine uh
Revolution or War um and you know uh
that's that's a little depressing
because that implies that you have to
have that kind of great like kind of
serious Crackdown crash uh before you
before you you know come out and and
create more opportunities for people but
um I also are am seeing um I mean coming
out of the pandemic there was an
enormous amount of money that was spent
um on on poor people it wasn't just like
after 2008 when you bailed out AIG and
Leman brothers and the bankers this time
around I mean you bailed out everybody
you bailed out working mothers you
bailed out small and medium Enterprises
and it made a difference and inflation
has hit hard but now finally working
class wages are actually growing faster
um than you know then inflation and then
the average wage um and that wasn't true
for decades so maybe there is a bit of a
lesson in that maybe there is a bit of a
lesson when people are seeing that you
know it's the wealthiest with their
legacy capabilities um that are getting
uh accepted to the major universities
the best universities and not others um
and there's a backlash against that and
maybe that forces greater transparency
maybe it turns out that AI becomes with
all the wealth it can generate uh
becomes more of a leveler um for people
in the United States that will have
access to Opportunities they hadn't had
before maybe it allows globalization to
pick up again and that not everybody's
boat will rise at the same speed but at
least everyone's boat will be rising for
a while look coming out of the pandemic
we had 50 years if we look at Humanity
as you know this little ball of eight
billion people we had 50 years where
overall we had extraordinary growth and
if you watch Step Pinker and Hans
rosling and all of these PR
globalization folks it is true we
created not just very very wealthy
people but also a global middle class
and anyone looking at the globe you know
without a national without a nationality
just like you're an average person you
don't know where you're going to be born
you don't know what family would you
want to be born in the last 50 years yes
yes you would and hopefully you win the
lottery and you're in the United States
like you and me but you know anywhere if
you could you that's the time you'd pick
but the last three years you wouldn't
because the last three years suddenly
human development indicators have gone
down more people are you know forced
migrants more people are you know born
uh into extreme poverty and and people
are getting angrier as a consequence of
that well I mean I think there's a good
chance that with AI we will have a new
globalization that will create far more
opportunities but we need to be very
careful about those negative
externalities and so far it's very early
days but we're not addressing them
yet so given all of that paint a picture
for me of the near- term let's call it
the next 10 years the the world is
Shifting and changing what does the
world order look like um as we look out
into the future and I'll contextualize
that with you've got um things we've
talked about here you've got the war in
Ukraine you've got a dynamic between the
US and China being radically upended by
the proliferation of AI creating
potentially powerful or at least
destructive entities anywhere which make
it harder for us to yank levers uh of
political persuasion um with all of the
unique cocktail that's Brewing now um
how does one begin to conceptualize
where the world is heading over the next
10 years well I can't imagine wanting to
be alive at any other time I mean we
talk about the anthropos scene where
human beings um first time in in history
we have the ability to actually shape
the future of it and uh our role on the
planet that we're on that's pretty
extraordinary um and you know what does
that mean uh I think that means that
governments and governance will look
radically different than anything that
we have lived with we've lived for all
of our lives for 50 years you and I on
average now we've lived in a fairly
stable system the Soviet Union collapsed
us was in charge China's had an
extraordinary rise but generally
speaking the global order today still
looks more or or less like the global
order you had 50 years ago Henry
Kissinger recognizes it right he was 50
now he's 100 but it it feels like
geopolitics still function the way they
used to you've got heads of state you
got governance you still have the UN you
know you've got the IMF you know you've
got the World Trade Organization you got
these big things that that more or less
I mean I was just at the security
Council Security Council is kind of the
same Security Council we had before from
the 70s but you know whatever it's not
it it's the the the the rules the UN
Charter it's all there we you know it's
it's you could have you could have been
born a long time ago in 10 years time I
think we'll still recognize the the
tectonics on the planet I think the
demographics we can talk about we can
talk about how Japan will be smaller and
how China's peaked out and how India's
growing and that we pretty good sense in
that climate we've got a pretty good
sense of what climate's going to look
like and extreme storms and the rest but
but government how government works how
the geopolitics work how the world is
ordered
ruled I think it's going to look
radically different in 10 years I really
do certainly in 20 but probably in 10 I
I think that a big piece of the power
that determines who we are and how we
interact with people will be driven by a
very small number of human beings that
control these tech companies that may or
may not know what they're doing and and
um may may not be with intentionality
and we don't really know what their
goals are and those goals can change
right I mean I I talked a little bit in
my TED Talk which I haven't really
talked much about which is kind of good
um is uh I talked a little bit about how
you know when you and I were raised it
was nature or nurture and and that
determined who we were and that now for
the first time in humanity we are being
raised by algorithm and that we a whole
generation of kids whose
principal understanding of how to
interact with Society will be
intermediated by programmed algorithms
that have no interest in the education
of that child that's a that is a
subsidiary impact of what they are
trying to do those algorithms it what it
is trying to do um and and a lot of the
interactions that will take place with
those kids will be AI interaction
not just intermediated but the actual
relationship will be with AI which by
the way if I could wave a magic wand and
do one regulation in the world today I
would say anyone under 16 cannot
interact with an AI directly at as as if
it were a human being unless it's under
human super direct human supervision
because I just don't want people to be
raised by anything other than people
until we understand what that
means I mean seems of
Education again inter I want that to be
directly controlled by supervised by a
person so yes I think education I think
a doctor I'd love to have ai being used
you know for medical you know on medical
apps for kids but I'm saying if you're
having a relationship with something
including with a teacher I don't want
kids to have a relationship with an AI
educator unless it's unless it's
overseen by an adult until we know what
it does to the kids
you know we just don't know we just
don't know and I I worry about that a
lot I wouldn't want I mean I don't have
kids if I had them i' I'd worry about
that I know my mom wouldn't have allowed
that and thank God for it so yeah I I
think that um I think that we're going
to be different as human beings I mean
you know you talked about you all um
know Harari recently who I I find very
inspirational as a thinker um and you
know this homo Deus concept that he
comes up with I think that young people
today are already something a little
different from Homo sapiens and I don't
know exactly what that is none of us do
because we're running the experiments on
them now um I'm not comfortable with
that in modern-day America could we
actually find ourselves in Civil War uh
no uh in in fact in fact since since
you're asking that question I I
literally just a few moments ago
responded to someone it was was
um David rothoff I did not have
full-fledged Civil War on my bingo card
for 2024 I think I need a new bingo card
and I wrote I would definitely stick
with your old bingo card so no uh I
understand that we have like 25
Governors that are all lined up saying
got to defend the border and don't want
to listen the Supreme Court uh this is
not about Civil War this is about a
democ Y in crisis uh this is about two
sides that are very antagonistic towards
each other um the stakes are very high
especially for the leaders of both of
these political parties um and there is
no effort to engage in diplomacy there's
no effort to see things from the
perspective of the other side and in
fact they really don't even share basic
understanding of political facts and
when you look at that and you compare it
to Russia versus Ukraine or Israel
versus Hamas then you start to see that
there is a real line through of
comparison uh and that that is
unfortunate it's it's not that we're
going to start blowing ourselves up it's
more that we aren't capable of having a
free and fair election that the entire
country believes in anymore and and
that's kind of foundational to a a well
functioning
democracy uh but uh but unfortunately
that's not where we are this year okay
definitely what I was hoping you were
going to say but now set the table for
us um when I read the report that you
put out you list the United States
against itself as the number one threat
that we face
um why walk me through the when you talk
about you've said social media is an
existential threat to
democracy um obviously we've got Trump
versus Biden as the likely race what are
the pieces that are on this maybe
chessboard is a better analogy um that
have you listing this as the number one
concern well well first let's let me
explain what it means to be number one
so what's the methodology behind my
madness right um and uh you know what
we're looking at we're measuring
likelihood imminence and impact
and and so I mean if you look at this
year's report Africa's not in it why not
I mean all sorts of horrible things that
are really risky are happening in Africa
but the economic and diplomatic and
security impact on the rest of the world
is negligible and and I'm you know I'm
sorry to have to say that but it it is
what it is like I can't make it other
than what it is um and where in the
United States you know the the fact that
the US Democratic process is pretty
broken and that that is having a
significant impact on policies that the
US enacts with massive implications for
the rest of the world because the US is
by far the strongest economy in the
world it's by far the strongest military
in the world like that's why there's
such outsized impact from the United
States it's a big deal so for example
Trump has not yet got the nom ation he
will right I mean I think that's pretty
much 100% short of a really unforeseen
Health event there's really no mechanism
for anyone to get for for Nikki Haley to
get a single state I expect that she'll
drop out before South Carolina because
she's not going to want to lose her home
state by 30 points I think she's
politically Savvy enough to avoid that
fate um but even before Trump gets the
nomination just by putting his thumb on
the scale
and saying I don't want a deal uh On the
Border in return for $61 billion of
Ukraine Aid because I want to run on
that issue against Biden who's failing
on the border right now and Mitch
McConnell who is no Trump fan but is now
loyal because Trump now owns the
Republican party again gets on board and
the Speaker of the House gets on board
and so what happens to Ukraine you're
not getting that 61 billion so is that a
risk of Ukraine or is that a risk of the
United States oh that's a risk of the
United States and you know I spend a lot
of my time talking to leaders of
different governments around the world
they are maximally concerned about this
Chinese leadership far more concerned
about the US election than the U than
the election in Taiwan for example where
so many people were saying oh it could
be War it could be confrontation no
they're worried about the US the
Europeans are worried about the US the
Mexicans and Canadians are worried about
the US so that that's why there are such
major knock-on implications from this
election all right when they say they're
worried what is the the Doomsday
scenario for people so there's assuming
that you're right there is Trump is
going to be running against Biden one of
the two is going to win uh if you were
to to play out the
scenarios uh one let me ask you if the
election were held today who would win
uh I'd say uh Trump would win today
fairly handily
uh I would say for in November right now
my view is 6040 Trump but I have very
low confidence in saying that because
there's so much that can happen in the
next nine months Fair okay so uh let's
run those scenarios what one talk to me
about the leadup because um that's the
thing I think is is a huge litmus test
if you were to ask me what I've spent
the most time thinking about it's what
does it look like in a world with AI at
the level that it's at in a an election
that is so contentious and so high
stakes globally what does that look like
uh but then also um I want to
specifically walk through the scenarios
of what does the world look like say in
the immediate six months after a trump
Victory what does the world look like in
an immediate six months after a Biden
Victory well so first of all um the
stakes are so much higher for these
individual leaders if Trump loses he's
going to jail uh and I mean we've got 91
indictments there will almost certainly
be convictions at least in the
Washington DC case before the election
though he'll be out on bail but so the
stakes for Trump are far higher than
they were before that means the
implications of him losing are is
something he needs to avoid at all costs
the efforts that he and many of his
supporters will take to avoid that and
maybe even to interfere with that um are
far greater than they would have been in
2020 or in 20
16 um and uh certainly the impact if
Biden wins of trump then going to jail
and taking the government taking that
action against him after you will have
heard the entire Republican party saying
that these cases are fake and they're
politicized and they're trumped up and
they're Witch Hunt and they will say
that because they will all be loyal to
and endorsing Trump has the potential to
have far more disruption
from saying that the election was riged
so assuming it's not a massive Landslide
where you can't get away with saying
that Trump would still say it but that
you can't doesn't make sense um then you
know I do think there's a much greater
likelihood that you will have Civil
Disobedience social instability violence
um in a lot of red States in a lot of
red cities and unwillingness to accept a
a Biden Administration as legitimate
president in 2025
I think that's a very big uh and real
possibility now if if Trump wins um
there are several things that are really
different this time around from
2016 uh one thing that is different is
his
priorities uh he is his first priority
has to be to end all of the
investigations against him to
politicize the doj and the FBI and the
IRS that he believes are already
politicized against him and and impose
um his own uh loyalists uh on those uh
in the bureaucracies of those
organizations uh so that he can go after
his enemies that want to lock him up
he's going to want to lock them up um
and and indeed there are many senior
advisers to Biden that feel like they're
likely to be imprisoned if Trump is able
to pull that off so we're talking here
something that looks a lot more like
Peru
or Hungary um then looks like Canada or
Japan or Germany right and and we're
we're normalizing all of this because
you know we're getting used to it over a
number of years like okay well now we
have presidents that get impeached a
couple times and the impeachment is kind
of broken it's only political so okay
that's the way it works and you know we
see what happened with the speaker of
the house who's thrown out by a small
number um of uh of of uh caucusing uh
members of his own party and that means
that you can't promote legislation that
they don't like that's the way it works
now that's not the way it's worked
historically and it's not the way a
functional democracy works but in this
environment if Trump wins that is what
we're looking at and then there's also
the international environment which is
very very different 2016 to 2020 there
really weren't any major Global crises
going on while Trump was President this
time around Trump will be president with
a minimum of two major Wars that are
going on um and he's promised he will
end the war in Ukraine on the first day
he says it's just the talking point he
says it all the time what he means is
that he will force the ukrainians to
accept the present delineation of land
and when they refuse um they will be cut
off they'll say you get a ceasefire for
that well they say no this is an
existential crisis for NATO and for the
EU because there are a lot of Frontline
countries that think that that is an
unacceptable outcome but there are
others like Hungary and Slovakia as well
as political movements um inside Europe
that are gaining in popularity like the
new National front in France or like the
alternatives for deuts land in Germany
that will be aligned with Trump not with
their governments um and Trump will
reach out to them in directly engaged
foreign policy something that absolutely
isn't happening right now under the
Biden Administration and we've had for
the last several years a very
coordinated NATO and transatlantic
relationship this suddenly becomes an
immediate crisis for the Europeans and
for NATO so I mean just to you know play
out a little bit of what that means
that's that's some of what we should be
thinking about and it's certainly a lot
of what American Allies are thinking
about um as we head into this election
season okay so I want to go back to the
civil unrest so if Biden is
elected um what do you like let's use
2020 as our Benchmark so we had a lot of
civil unrest uh in 2020 uh having lived
through it in LA where a lot of it was
popping off it it was serious um but
certainly seeing that sort of move
through the system obviously we were
nowhere near that spilling over into a
civil war that to me feels like Peak
sort of Tinder um pile
given that we had all been locked down
and so there was there was a just a a
sort of screaming sense of Injustice
everywhere and then you get to January
6th uh which I guess technically was
2021 um and again now we've been locked
up even longer and there there's a real
undercurrent of not only is there a
massive amount of social injustice but
there's also um the government may
actually becoming tyrannical and so that
felt like a a powdercake moment that I
don't feel like we will have in 2024's
election barring an economic
turn um so if you had to to gauge off of
the instability that we had in that
period versus what you expect after this
election um if if Biden wins where where
do you Peg that level of reaction yeah I
think first of all I think the global
challenges are much greater than the
domestic ones so you you mentioned the
point you know barrowing an economic uh
unforeseen issue in the US the US
performance of the US economy is
actually quite strong right now now
people don't necessarily feel that way
because the the leading indicator that
determines how you feel about the
economy in the US is what your political
affiliation is which is senseless but is
true um and and that gets to the problem
of democracy the you know completely
different different information
environments but you certainly do not
have people locked down under the
pandemic you certainly do not have an
economy that is in crisis but other
economies around the world are going to
get hit very badly by this this is this
is a US democracy in crisis is a much
bigger problem for the economies in
Europe for example or in Asia for
example uh than they are for the United
States uh and that is you know
meaningful but the report the risk
report that we write is a global report
it's not just a report that looks at the
United States domestically so I do think
it is the geopolitical backdrop of this
instability um and the erosion of
political institutions in the United
States that poses a big issue I mean
remember Trump came in last time around
and he pulls the us out of the
trans-pacific partnership this says ends
those negotiations pulls the us out of
the uh the Paris climate talks pulls the
us out of the Iranian nuclear deal um
all of these things but they happen in
peace time and so it doesn't really
matter that much that happens in Wartime
when people are feeling crisis and when
other countries are feeling major
economic stress after three years of
pandemic that's a very different story
so if anything this would make me more
structurally bullish on the
dollar um and on the US Stock Market
because in a world that is much more
unstable you're going to the cleanest
dirty shirt and and that's not crypto
cryto right I mean it's not
nfts and it's certainly not China dare
you Ian Bremer I'm sorry it's certainly
not China which is facing very serious e
so so serious economic challenges that
they they they really don't want Trump
and they they had no problem with Trump
in 2016 and this time around they're
saying we can't handle the chaos we just
want a stable election you know so that
that is really interesting I don't think
there'll be another January 6th because
everything will be locked down around
that they that the preparations for that
will be in place um I think it's much
more likely the kind of instability
we'll see will be much more like what we
had in Portland
Oregon um but again in red States uh
where you have large numbers of
disenfranchised magot types um who are
uh many of whom um are armed uh many of
whom uh will see a Administration as a
second Biden Administration as an
absolute destruction of everything that
they see as holy um and and they will
likely be supported by a lot of local
police uh and maybe some local members
of the Armed Forces uh and that uh
that's a fairly serious impact in my
view that's the biggest thing that I
think is likely to come about um in a in
a in a relatively narrow uh Biden when
there will where there will be massive
information that people that oppose
Biden will believe that the election was
stolen and was stolen badly and they'll
be and that disinformation will also be
magnified by artificial intelligence
which we've already seen with those
Biden fake Biden Robo calls in New
Hampshire just the tip of the iceberg
there were voters that were told with a
Biden voice uh and they were targeted
directly with their real phone numbers
and their real names you know you are um
not to go out we don't want you to go
and vote uh in the primary um because
that's we want you to vote in the
general election not in the primary that
that's artificial intelligence real
cheap and there are lots of Bad actors
in the country and outside of the
country that would love to foment chaos
um through through those
mechanisms yeah there there's no doubt
about that that uh in my Layman stance
where I putting out my report of risks
um AI causing just a massive
disinformation campaign in the buildup
to the 2024 election continuing to
bifurcate people into different camps uh
where we don't share any facts that that
is the thing that freaks me out and I
think that that's going to get better
before it gets worse sorry that's gonna
get worse before it gets better uh and
yeah so but the reason that we put that
in the US risk and not in the AI risk is
because uh it is the vulnerability of of
the US and the the the already the
willingness to believe conspiracy
theories the the dysfunction and
fragmentation of the political system
that makes the US election so singularly
vulnerable to those sorts of attacks
those attacks would not work in Japan
they would not work in Germany like
people would not go out onto the streets
with pitchforks and response to that the
United States increasingly different why
do you think big Tech Will become the
third superpower and what are the
dangers and opportunities if it does big
Tech is essentially Sovereign over the
digital world the fact that former
president Trump was
deplatformed from Facebook and from
Twitter uh when he was president you
know most powerful political figure on
the planet and he's just taken off of
those networks and as a consequence
hundreds of millions of people that
would be regularly engaging with him in
real time suddenly can't see it that
wasn't a decision that was made by a
government it wasn't a decision made by
a a judge or by a regulatory Authority
or even by a
multi-national organization um like you
know the UN it was made by
individuals uh that own tech companies
um the same thing is true in the
decision to help Ukraine uh in the war
in the early days the US didn't provide
much Military Support most of the
military capacity and the Cyber defenses
the ability to communicate on the ground
uh was stood up by some tech companies
that they're not allies of NATO they're
under no obligation to do that they've
got shareholders right but they still
decided to do it um I think that whether
we're talking about Society or the
economy or even National Security if it
touches the digital space technology
companies basically act with dominion
and that didn't matter much when the
internet was first founded because the
importance of the internet for those
things was pretty small but as the
importance of the digital world drives a
bigger and bigger piece of the global
economy a bigger and bigger piece of
Civil Society a bigger and bigger piece
of National Security and even
increasingly defines who we are as
people how we interact with other human
beings what we see what we decide what
we feel um how we emote uh that that is
an astonishing amount of power in the
hands of these tech companies and yes
there are some efforts to rein them in
to break them up um to regulate them but
when I look at artificial intelligence
in particular um I see these technology
companies and their
Technologies vastly outstripping the
capacity of governments to regulate in
that space so does that mean that
suddenly you're not going to be citizens
of the US you're going to be citizens of
a tech company no I'm not going that far
but certainly in terms of who wields the
most power over us as human beings
increasingly you would put those
companies in that category and that none
of us even five years ago were thinking
about this seriously and certainly when
I was studying as a political scientist
this is my entire career you know the
geopolitical space is determined by
governments right like them or hate them
and some of them are powerful some of
them are weak some of them are rich some
of are poor some are open some are
closed some are dictatorships right some
are democracy some are functional some
are dysfunctional but they're in charge
and that increasingly is not true as you
look at that potential or not potential
as you look at that growing reality how
does that play out does this become uh
the one thing when I look at that that I
really start getting paranoid about is
that that AI especially Quantum
Computing I'm maybe less familiar with
but sort of lingers in the back of my
mind become one of two things either
weapons used by governments um even even
if it's not against their own people
though I do especially with
authoritarian governments I get very
paranoid about that but even if they're
just used as Warfare against other um
countries that sort of quiet invisible
battle freaks me out and then also I
worry very very much about this becoming
the new battlefield for a cold war
between the US and China specifically do
you see us as moving towards that
because the tech will make that
increasingly easy to fight an invisible
War I I do think of course that all of
these Technologies are both enabling and
destructive and it all depends on the
intention of the user and in some cases
um you know it's someone who's just a
tinker
that makes a mistake or that's playing
around and you know it explodes I'm not
particularly worried that the robots are
going to take over I'm not particularly
worried that we're on the cusp of
developing a superhuman intelligence and
that we're suddenly irrelevant or we're
you know held hostage to it that's in
other words I I mean I know that you
love the Matrix we talked about that a
little bit before the show this is this
is not my 51 year concern um but the
idea that this technology is going to
proliferate explosively I mean vastly
beyond anything we ever were concerned
about with nuclear weapons we're 80
years on it's still just just a handful
of countries and no corporations no
terrorist groups no individuals that
have access to those nukes no no no AI
with both its productive and destructive
capacities will not just be in the hands
of rogue States but will also be in the
hands of people and and terrorists um
and corporations and and they'll have
Cutting Edge access to that so I mean it
would be easier to deal with if it was
just about the United States and China
and we can talk about the United States
and China and how they think about that
technology differently and how we're
fighting over it and how it has become a
technology Cold War I think that we can
say that that exists right now not a
cold War overall but a technology Cold
War I think that exists um but I think
the dangers of AI are far greater than
that it is precisely the fact that non-g
governments will act as principles in
determining the future of of dig of the
digital world and of society and
National Security as a consequence and
governments right now governments still
seem to think that they're going to be
the ones that will drive all this
regulation and in the most recent days
the United States is taking just a few
baby steps to show that maybe they
recognize that that's not the case um
but ultimately either we're going to
have to govern in new institutions with
technology companies as partners as
signatories or they're not going to be
regulated and I I think that that that
reality is not yet appreciated by
citizens it's not yet appreciated by
governments oh okay so tell me more
about that what does a world look like
where this technology is proliferating
like that and is not regulated um well
if it's not regulated at all um that
means that everyone has access to it so
let's look at the good side first let's
be let's be positive and optimistic
because I am a I'm a Believer in this
technology I think it does all sorts of
incredible things and and I'm not just
talking about chat
GPT I'm talking about the ability to
take any proprietary data set and be
Maxim efficient in
extracting uh value from it um helping
allowing workers to become AI adjacent
in ways that will make them more
productive and effective I look at my
own firm Eurasia group we've got about
250 employees and I we did a town hall
with them the other day we do one every
quarter and we were talking about Ai and
I said I don't think there's anyone in
any of these offices globally that will
be displaced by AI in the next 3 to five
years not one of my knowledge workers
but I said all of you will be AI
adjacent and if you're not if you're not
learning how to use AI to dramatically
improve your work whether you are an
analyst or whether you're on the
business side or you're in finance or
you're you know in on the it help desk
or you're a graphics person an editor
whatever it is you will become much less
productive than other employees that are
doing that and that will be a problem
for you so we need to get you the tools
and you need to learn so I and I think
that that's that's true in almost every
industry imaginable it's true in
education it's true in health care and
for new Pharma and vaccines it's true
for new energy and critical
infrastructure and what's so amazing
about it one of the reasons why it's
taking us so long to respond to climate
change even now that we all agree that
it's happening we all agree this 420
parts per million of carbon in the
atmosphere we all agree This 1.2 degre
Centigrade of warming like that's that's
no longer in dispute and yet it's really
taking us a long time to to get to the
point that we can reduce our carbon
emissions and the reason for that is
because you need to change the critical
infrastructure right you need to move
from one entire supply chain oriented
around carbon to another one oriented
around something new whether that's
solar or you know Green hydrogen or you
name it right um when you're talking
about
AI you're talking about cre first and
foremost creating efficiencies using
your existing critical infrastructure
which means you have no vested
corporations that are saying we don't
want that no every corporation is saying
how can we invest in that to create
greater profitability everyone every
every oil company is going to use AI
just like every post fossil fuel company
is going to use it every bank is going
to use it um every pharmaceutical
company whether they using whether
they're in mRNA or they're in
traditional uh uh you know uh vaccines
that are that are developed as we have
over decades now I I think that we truly
underestimate the impact that will have
in unlocking wealth in unlocking human
capital and it's going to happen fast
it's not decades as it took with
globalization to open markets and get
goods and services to to move across the
world it's years in some cases it's
months mons and that that to me is very
very exciting so that's the positive
side and uh frankly that's what the
positive side looks like without
regulation too because I mean look there
are trillions of dollars being spent on
this rollout and it's being spent by a
lot of people who are hyper smart they
are hyper competitive they want to get
their first before other companies that
are in that space and they don't need
any further incentive to ensure that
they can roll that out as fast as
possible so you and I can we can say
whatever we want but it's not you know
further subsidies are not required right
like that is just going to happen that
is GNA happen um but what they're not
doing and I'm sure what you want to
spend more time on with me is not the
everything's going to be great or you
know what they call this e dasac the you
know sort of exponential
accelerationists who just believe that
if we just put all this money in it then
we're going to we're going to all become
a greater species and it's just going to
happen but they going to be a lot of
negative
externalities and we know this from from
globalization I mean the miracle of your
and my lifetimes thus far before AI the
miracle was we managed to unlock access
to the global Marketplace for now eight
billion people trade and goods and
capital and investment and and the labor
force the workforce and that created
dislocations it meant that there were
whole bunch of people that were more
expensive in the west that lost their
jobs as inexpensive labor that was very
talented in China and India gained jobs
but but that led to unprecedented growth
for 50 years there were also negative
externalities and those negative
externalities played out over many
decades but it's when you take all of
this inexpensive coal and oil and gas
out of the ground and you don't realize
that you're actually using a limited
resource and you're affecting the
climate and so decades later we all
figure out oh wait a second this is a
really huge cost on humanity and on all
of these other species many of which are
already extinct and no one's bothered to
pay for them well with AI the negative
externalities will happen basically
simultaneously with all the positive
stuff I just talked about and just like
with climate none of the people that are
driving AI are spending their time or
resource figuring out how to deal with
those those problems they're spending
all their time trying to figure out how
to save Humanity how to accelerate this
technology so if we don't talk about
those negative externalities they're
just going to happen and they won't be
mitigated they won't be regulated and
there's a lot of them and you know we
can talk through what they are but I
mean there you know just just to put in
everyone's head here that kind of like
climate change right we all wanted
globalization I'm a huge fan of
globalization we all hate climate change
we wish it hadn't happened you cannot
have one without the other and you know
the fact that we were so focused on
growth and that all of the powerful
forces are let's have more stuff let's
get more GDP let's extend our lifespans
let's improve our education let's take
people out of abject poverty all of
which are you know laudable goals some
more some less but things that we all
like but there were there were
consequences that no one wanted no one
dealt with no one cared as much about
because they they're not as directly
relevant to us as the shiny Apple that's
right in front and that that is what is
about to happen exp in exponential
fashion with artificial intelligence all
right so we've got the shiny object
syndrome myself included I am I am
deploying AI in my company as fast as I
can but at the same time I am very
worried about how this plays out uh
you've already touched on job loss
you're not super worried about that and
the three 3 to 5 year time Horizon I may
be a little more worried about that than
you but I gave a same uh a similar
speech to my company which is I have
literally zero intention to get rid of
anybody uh but I do have the expectation
that all of you are going to be learning
how to use Ai and I know that that is is
going to mean I'm going to get
efficiencies out of my current Workforce
which means I won't be hiring additional
people so while the people I have are
safe uh it certainly creates instability
in people in terms of looking for a new
job the the kind of Mobility I don't
think people are going to be scaling as
quickly as possible but my real question
for you is given that you have a a
Global Perspective which which I've come
to late in the game and for a long time
viewers of mine I will just say the
reason I become so obsessed with this
you and I were talking about this before
we started rolling I come at everything
from the perspective of the individual
and I think that that culture and all
these knock on effects are all
Downstream of the individual and if we
want a good Society we have to be good
individuals but we have to take the time
to say what is that like what are we
aiming towards what's our Northstar what
are we trying to get out of this so for
me the punchline is human flourishing I
won't spend time in this interview
defining what that means certainly my
listeners have heard me talk about that
before but what do you think about I I
assume you will roughly given the the
talk that you just gave will roughly say
something similar we want good things we
want to pull people out of poverty we
want to clean up the environment there's
going to be a lot of things we want to
do that I think more or less are about
human
flourishing what then is the Collision
of a new technology like AI becoming so
ubiquitous in an unregulated fashion
that gives you pause is it us China is
it a rogue actor making bioweapons like
what's the thing that when you look near
term we'll say the three to five year
time Horizon um what gives you pause so
there are a few things um I and I I
don't even though I said I don't think
I'm going to um fire anyone because of
AI I I do worry that the same populist
trends that we have experienced in the
developed World in particular over the
last 20 years can grow faster if you are
um a rural um you know uh living in a
rural area or you're undereducated um
and uh you know you're not going to
become AI adjacent in the next 5 years
10 years in the United States in Europe
and those people will be left
farther behind by the knowledge workers
that have that opportunity um and so I'm
not saying they're going to have massive
unemployment but I worry about that what
do you think about like picking fruit
and stuff like that with robots that
make your radar for anything near term
again not not so much so I again I would
say no let me tell you why I say no
about that because when I think about
what CEOs do with their
workforces generally they take those
productivity gains they pocket them um
you know they pay out good bonuses to
themselves to their shareholders maybe
they invest more in growth but as long
as growth is moving they're not getting
rid of a whole bunch of people they like
the people that they have they want
they're always thinking the trees are
going to grow you know sort of to the
heavens and then when they face a sudden
contraction a recession or even worse a
depression then suddenly they look at
everything around them and say okay
where can we cut cost and if we've
suddenly if those workers if a lot of
those workers aren't as efficient as
they used to be and you've got new
technologies suddenly it's not like
you're incrementally getting rid of
people every year it's that you've taken
a huge swath out of the workplace so I
don't think that that's going to happen
suddenly um in the next few years
because we're coming out of a mild
narrow slowdown right now and the next
few years should look better um I I more
think about what happens the next time
we're in a major cyclical downturn and
and combining that with where we've
gotten to with the AI productivity build
up at that point but I but I still think
that in the interim you're going to have
people that aren't gaining the
productivity benefits from AI inside
Western economies and those are the same
people that have been hit by the fenel
crisis those are the same people that
haven't had good investments in their
Educational Systems then around the
world the people the digital have knots
the people that aren't even online so
they won't be able to use these new AI
tools to be a to improve their knowledge
to have access to better doctors so
they'll be left behind this new
turbocharge globalization and that's a
lot of subsaharan Africa first and
foremost so I do think that there are
two groups of people that even in the
next five years that will suffer
comparatively and will be angry
politically and will create social
discontent so I didn't mean to imply
that I didn't care about that or that I
thought it was off the screen it was
more that I don't see that as a firm of
literally 250 people like we're tiny
and if you tell me that we're going to
have a lot more efficiency I I wouldn't
actually hire less I'd hire more because
I want to get to 500 people faster like
there just more things that I want to do
without taking any outside investment um
but but that's a tiny tiny issue
compared to the other stuff we're
talking about the things that I'm
probably most worried about in the near
term three years let's say I'd say are
three
buckets um the first first is the
disinformation bucket the fact that
inside
democracies
increasingly especially with AI we as
Citizens cannot agree on what is true we
can't agree on facts and that that
delegitimizes the media it delegitimizes
our leaders and both political parties
or the many political parties that exist
in other developed countries de
legitimizes our Judicial System rule of
law it even delegitimizes our scientists
and you can't really have an effective
democracy if there is no longer a fact
space I mean we're seeing it right now
in a tiny way with all of these
indictments of trump and it doesn't
matter what the indictments are doesn't
matter how many they are doesn't matter
what he's being indicted for what
matters more to the political outcome is
whether or not you favor Trump
politically if you do then this is
politicized It's a Witch Hunt and you
know Biden should be indicted and if you
don't um then Trump is unfit and every
indictment doesn't matter what it is
before you even get a result of it uh
then you know he's guilty and and that
with AI becomes turbocharged I want to
get into why that happens so my first
question on that is pre it it's
definitely pre- AI because I think this
started breaking down with social media
agre um
how prior to social media do you think
that we were able to come to a consensus
on
Truth um well a couple reasons one uh is
that a lot of people got their media
from either the same Source or from
overlapping and adjacent sources so you
had more commonality to talk about
politics to the extent that you talked
about politics second it was mostly long
form so you would read a newspaper
article you would listen to a radio show
you would watch a television show you
weren't just getting the headline
because today if you go on CNN or Fox
News on their website and don't look at
the headlines just look at the pieces
the pieces actually overlap a fair
amount if you look at the headlines and
then if you look at what headlines
you're being filtered to then the news
that you're getting is completely
different so I think that's a reason too
um and and of course the fact that
people are spending so much more time in
intermediated by algorithms means
they're spending less time randomly just
meeting their fellow other um and that's
even true with the rise of things like
um dating apps right I mean as opposed
to Just Happening to date someone you
were in high school with or in college
with or you know you meet at a bar I
mean if you're meeting that person
through a dating app you're already
being sorted in ways that will reduce
the randomness of the the views that
you're exposed to so in all sorts of
tiny ways that add up that are mostly
technologically driven uh we become much
more sorted sorted not sorted though
sorted probably too um as as a
population um and and then you put AI
into this and and suddenly this is being
Max so give another example you'll
remember that I think it was David olgy
who the great advertising uh
entrepreneur who once said that we know
that 50% % of advertising dollars um are
you know are are useful 50% are useless
we just don't know what 50% and of
course now we know how to microt Target
now we know that when we're spending
money we are spending it to get the
eyeballs of the people who are going to
be affected by our message they will be
angered by it they will be titilated by
it they will be engaged by it they will
spend money they will become more
Addicted by it all of those things and
when you do that you more effectively
sort the population as opposed to
throwing a message at the wall but
everybody gets the message and so it is
not the intention to destroy democracy
it is not the intention to rip apart
Civil Society it is merely an unintended
s secondary effect of the fact that
we've been become so good at microt
targeting and sorting that people no
longer are together as a nation or as a
community and AI perfects that AI allows
you to take large language models and
predict with uncanny capacity um what
the next thing is and the next thing for
an advertising company is how I can
effectively Target and reach that person
and not the other person who who doesn't
care about my and keep them engaged so
let me give you my thesis on this this I
think is uh one of the most important
things for us to all wrap our heads
around I've thought a lot about why is
there a sudden breakdown in in truth and
the more I thought about okay what is
true how can we go about proving it the
reality is that so much of what we
perceive to be true is merely um your
interpretation of something so you're
going to get a perspective on something
built around what I call your frame of
reference so your frame of reference is
basically it's your beliefs and your
values that you've cobbled together sort
of unknowingly throughout the course of
your life it becomes a lens through
which you view everything but it is a
very distorted lens that is not making
an effort to give you what is true it's
making an effort to um conform to the
things you already believe are or ought
to be and so when people confuse that
for objective reality then you have a
problem and so when you introduce AI
what well one when you introduce
algorithms you get massive fragmentation
so now I can serve you just the things
you're interested in so like if you go
to my feed you're going to Niche into
like really weird things around uh video
game creation which is something that
I'm very passionate about that somebody
else isn't going to see and so you get
already that
fragmentation you layer that on top of
your perspective which you're coming
with those those pred distortions then
you layer that on top of the algorithm
has an agenda that may not match your
agenda and now all of a sudden you get
into these Echo chambers that are
feeding back to you your same
perspective they're eliminating
Nuance by giving you like you were
talking about headlines earlier by
giving you like this is the talking
point and so now you start everything
becomes predictable if I know you're on
the left I know what you're you know on
a basket of um Concepts I know where
you're going to fall if you're on the
right same basket of Concepts I know
where you're going to fall and so once
you get rid of that Nuance now all of a
sudden again we're not optimized for
truth we're optimized for party line and
because that then feeds into a a sense
of tribe and I belong and ease of
thought quite frankly which is one of
the things that scares me the most is
like oh I don't have to think through
that issue myself I just need to know
what my party line is cool got it and
and now I go yeah and as we get more and
more
fragmented now it becomes okay I know
what my party line is in my very deep
fragment here but I don't know what's
true and I no longer even know how to
assess what's true in fact I probably
think again because that Distortion
reads to me as objective reality so I
think it is true and so now you have all
these people who are like this is true
like there's not there's nothing you
could tell me that will make me think
any different because I believe this to
be true and so now the question becomes
if I'm right that truth is perspective
and
interpretation and and the you're you're
soaked in the the perspective and
interpretation of others so they they
reinforce so it becomes perspective
interpretation and reinforcement and so
that becomes quote unquote
truth outside
of science for lack no because even
science we run into the same problem so
what do we AB run the same problem in
science completely so so in a world
where uh the only way I can think to get
on the other side of this Quagmire is to
go I want to achieve this thing and I'm
going to State this is my achieve my my
um desired outcome this is the metric by
which I will determine whether I have
achieved said outcome and then instead
of asking what's true I just ask what
moved me closer to my
goal is there any way else around that
that you see or is this just a oneway
street to fragmented catastrophe no
there are lots of ways out of it we're
just not heading towards any of them uh
I mean
no you look at your Twitter feed or your
exfeed and you've got um the people
you're following and if you're willing
to spend the time you can curate a
following feed that has people of all
sorts of different backgrounds
inclinations from all over the world and
I do that um and but it takes a lot of
time and effort and you need expertise
to be able to do that you have to be
able to research and figure out who
those people are you have to know some
people in the field most people don't do
that um but of course the four you feed
is much more titillating the four you
feed is very entertaining it it engages
you it angers you um and and it and it
soothes you at the same time you want
more of that and that of course is
driving you exactly in the direction you
just suggested now a lot of people will
say well okay you watch CNN all the time
you should watch some Fox as well no
that's not the answer the answer is not
watching Fox because you will just hate
watch Fox because you've already been
programmed to realize that everything
that the people on the other side saying
is false and so they're all evil and so
all that's doing is validating your
existing truth no what you really need
to I tell I tell young people this all
the time you really want to understand
and get outside what's happening in the
United States ecosystem watch the
CBC or Al jazer or deuts chll or NHK in
Japan just watch their English language
news once a week for half an hour an
hour it's not for exciting but it's like
a completely external view of what the
hell is going on in the United States
and the rest of the world and that forc
you first of all it's long form right
it's not the headlines beating you down
and secondly it's like you don't
actually have your anchor of all of the
things that are stirring you up they're
not even playing with that they're just
kind of reporting on the best they can
tell what the hell is going on and then
they're occasionally talking to people
like that are locals and what whatnot
but from every side that that's very
valuable but the thing that worries me
about AI I don't believe that AI is
becoming much more like human beings
they're not faking us out by by Ju Just
being by being able to replicate me I
think what's actually happening is
technology companies are teaching us
more effectively how to engage like
computers I mean you and I in person in
a conversation in a
relationship um a work relationship a
friend relationship a sexual
relationship whatever it is there's
nothing a computer can do that can tear
us away from that but if we spend our
time increasingly in the digital world
where we are driven by where all of our
inputs are are algorithmic well
computers can replicate that very easily
and so if they can only make us more
like computers then no it's not like the
Matrix where you want to feed off Us in
terms of fuel it's much more that we're
very valuable in driving the economy if
you give us all of your attention and
data and and that is the way that you
create right a a maximal AI economy it
also happens to be completely
dehumanized and because we all know that
human beings are social animals we know
if you stick us in a room or you stick
us in a desert island we're going to
like engage with each other talk to each
other figure out things about each other
doesn't matter what color we are what
sexual orientation we are we will figure
it out if we're stuck if we have no
choice but if you if you take us and you
and you use our most base most reptilian
impulses and you and you monetize those
so that we're the product oh no no then
then you lose everything we built as
human beings all the governance all the
community all the social organiz ations
the churches the things of the family
the things that matter to us that we're
losing that we're losing the things that
make us rooted and make us sane and make
us care and make us love I mean
flourishing flourishing starts right
here it starts at home it doesn't start
online flourishing start those are tools
that we need to use to create wealth but
you can't flourish if you don't have
real relationships that takes away it
strips away the essence of who we are as
people and yet we are all all running
headlong away from flourishing if you
like this conversation check out this
episode to learn more where World War II
looks different than World War II is
that World War III is being fought
through these proxy wars Third Country
battles oftentimes poor or impoverished
battles