Speaker 1: You're listening to The Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure
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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Buck Sexton Show. Kara Frederick
Speaker 2: is with us now. She's formerly of Facebook, currently with
Speaker 2: the Heritage Foundation, where she's Director of Tech Policy. We're
Speaker 2: going to talk to her about AI, about government snooping
Speaker 2: on social media platforms, and all kinds of good stuff
Speaker 2: or bad stuff, but interesting stuff. Kara, welcome, Thanks for
Speaker 2: having me. So let's start with Elon Musk recently spoke
Speaker 2: to Tucker Carlson on Fox Tree saw it, and he said,
Speaker 2: not only was he Elon flabbergasted by how much access
Speaker 2: the government had to the communications and just the general
Speaker 2: stuff going on at the social media platform Twitter, I'm
Speaker 2: sure as true of other places, but that dms were
Speaker 2: easily accessible by the government to What do you think
Speaker 2: of that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this, you know, honestly, it's not surprising. I mean,
Speaker 3: especially given the backgrounds that you and I had there.
Speaker 3: We do know, first and foremost there are legitimate reasons,
Speaker 3: or at least there were legitimate reasons to you know,
Speaker 3: work with some federal entities when it comes to things
Speaker 3: like child sexual abuse material, you know.
Speaker 1: Sniffing out the bad guys.
Speaker 3: I worked on foreign Islamic terrorism when I was working
Speaker 3: for a big tech platform and before, so you know,
Speaker 3: there are times when you want the government that is
Speaker 3: ostensibly there to protect the security of Americans to maybe
Speaker 3: have some sort of access to these internal communications. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: over the past two to three years, we've seen that
Speaker 3: there's been a abject dereliction of duty when it comes
Speaker 3: to the you know, number one, keeping United citizens safe
Speaker 3: and number two really prioritizing the the security of Americans,
Speaker 3: especially from external hostile forces, and instead looking inward at
Speaker 3: the American populace and inflating the definition of domestic extremists
Speaker 3: and terrorism and whatnot. So, in my mind, the government
Speaker 3: has lost our trust and deservedly so, and they have
Speaker 3: been misprioritizing when they should be looking at real, actual threats.
Speaker 1: Then okay, maybe we can think about.
Speaker 3: Some of these surveillance capabilities, but that's all gone, that's
Speaker 3: been washed away, given especially what Elon exposed in the
Speaker 3: Twitter files, and it is very telling. I think that
Speaker 3: we at the Heritage Foundation, we published a report in
Speaker 3: February of twenty twenty two, and we said there's a
Speaker 3: symbiotic relationship between these big tech companies and the government.
Speaker 3: It goes as far as collusion and any sort of
Speaker 3: collusion between government actors and these big tech companies to
Speaker 3: silence the speech of Americans should be prohibited. And people
Speaker 3: were like, you are, Oh, come on, You're just a
Speaker 3: fear monger.
Speaker 1: What are you doing. But we've been I've proven right.
Speaker 3: So the fact that the government had full access to
Speaker 3: dms and Twitter. Again, we knew Twitter dms a long
Speaker 3: time ago were probably compromised, and this just proves it.
Speaker 3: And frankly, this proves a Heritage Foundation right yet again.
Speaker 2: So you worked at Facebook, I would assume, and tell
Speaker 2: me if it's an incorrect assumption that the very very
Speaker 2: cozy and all too close relationship between Twitter pre Elon
Speaker 2: and the government and as he described it, effectively, it
Speaker 2: was a bloated activist organization Twitter masquerading as a social
Speaker 2: media platform. I have to assume, and you tell me
Speaker 2: if it's not right that the politics of Facebook, Google,
Speaker 2: all the rest are basically the same and perhaps even worse.
Speaker 3: I would say, post twenty sixteen Trump elections, that's when
Speaker 3: everything became exacerbated. So you have you know, a cadre
Speaker 3: of US who went in before that election. I did
Speaker 3: there in twenty six sixteen, early twenty sixteen, and you know,
Speaker 3: we we were there to solve these big problems like
Speaker 3: the foreign as long terrorism issue, and you had really
Speaker 3: talented people, a lot of time patriots. I came right
Speaker 3: out of a naval special warfare command where I had
Speaker 3: been doing counter terrorism analysis as a targeter, and I
Speaker 3: went right into Facebook sort of thinking that, you know,
Speaker 3: we were going to do the same thing. We were
Speaker 3: going to protect Americans and their users from this you know,
Speaker 3: foreign Islamic menace, which was taking the form of ISIS
Speaker 3: at the time. And then I would say in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: something really changed and it was Trump's election, and they
Speaker 3: just went hysterical. And the people that they started recruiting
Speaker 3: post election, you know a lot of them went in
Speaker 3: sort of thinking that they had a mandate to stifle
Speaker 3: the conservative voices i'd say in America. You know, prior
Speaker 3: to that, we there were some interesting i would say
Speaker 3: data points when it came to the way that we
Speaker 3: did our analysis, for instance, and this is no secret.
Speaker 3: Now these companies have been using organizations and goos like
Speaker 3: the Southern Poverty Law Center to actually help them formulate
Speaker 3: their policies and help them formulate the way that they
Speaker 3: treated specific actors on these platforms, and they thought nothing
Speaker 3: of it. They thought, Okay, SBLC is an honest broker.
Speaker 3: So I think that part of it is ignorance. Part
Speaker 3: of it is, you know, the sea that they swim
Speaker 3: in in the Bay Area, and then the other part
Speaker 3: of it is the twenty sixteen election just really unhinging
Speaker 3: people and making them really come in with mission oriented
Speaker 3: to sort of stifle the voices of the people that
Speaker 3: they disagreed with.
Speaker 2: Is it fixable at these places? Like how would you
Speaker 2: actually if you were able to get you know, Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: and his top lieutenants in a room and they were
Speaker 2: willing to listen to reason. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: think Facebook has just turned I'm a man that there's
Speaker 2: still apparently as many people using it in America as
Speaker 2: there are. I find it to be like an unwieldy
Speaker 2: trash heap of nonsense, Like it's really hard to even
Speaker 2: figure out where anything is anymore. They've it all looks
Speaker 2: like it was made by a bunch of you know,
Speaker 2: computer engineers. And I don't mean that in a good way,
Speaker 2: Like it looks like it's just this kind of cobbled
Speaker 2: together thing and all of the original just the ease,
Speaker 2: and it's just they're throwing all this. I think it's
Speaker 2: turned into a bad user user experience and user interface.
Speaker 2: But anyway, forget about fixing that for a second. If
Speaker 2: you were just trying to fix the fact that Facebook
Speaker 2: is not fair to half of the country politically, is
Speaker 2: it possible or do we just have to build our
Speaker 2: own build our own thing. By the way, build your
Speaker 2: own Facebook doesn't sound as crazy. Maybe it's buy your
Speaker 2: own Facebook that's more expensive than Twitter. Not to call
Speaker 2: elon on that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I will say personally, and when I
Speaker 3: was in the company, I thought Mark Zuckerberg's instincts were
Speaker 3: more libertarian than you know, more leftists. So and that
Speaker 3: is sort of the old guard of the builders.
Speaker 1: In Silicon Valley.
Speaker 3: You know, these are engineers, and they think like engineers,
Speaker 3: they think like programmers. They want to solve problems and
Speaker 3: fix things. Unfortunately, I do think that he's he's been
Speaker 3: there for so long and he's been frankly led astray
Speaker 3: by others in the C suite and that other sort
Speaker 3: of layer of upper management as well, who are very
Speaker 3: concerned with pr fires. And clearly we know that public
Speaker 3: relations only goes one way, and that's against Conservatives at
Speaker 3: this point. So you look at that and sort of
Speaker 3: see how he's been co opted when his instincts were
Speaker 3: maybe initially good. I remember a speech that he gave
Speaker 3: in October of twenty nineteen at Georgetown University where he
Speaker 3: said Facebook had to be the alternative to an authoritarian
Speaker 3: China which was propagating its digital platforms here in the US.
Speaker 3: You know what happened to that that that gave me
Speaker 3: a little bit of hope. But since he since spent
Speaker 3: four hundred million dollars pushing certain Democrats in elections under
Speaker 3: the auspices of these out the vote measures, but we
Speaker 3: know that they were in blue states going to Democrat
Speaker 3: activist organizations who were then pushing only getting out the
Speaker 3: vote for Democrats. So unfortunately, I think those instincts that
Speaker 3: he previously had have been quashed, and I don't think
Speaker 3: there's any coming back from it. I do think it
Speaker 3: is too far gone at this point.
Speaker 2: Let's come back in a second, and talk about TikTok.
Speaker 2: Since you mentioned communist China, we'll get into that in
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Speaker 2: All right. So TikTok, I gotta tell you. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've I think that YouTube is much more concerning for
Speaker 2: American freedom and everything else than TikTok. And I've been
Speaker 2: saying this more and more people are saying it now.
Speaker 2: It seemed to be about a month ago and it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, TikTok, I'm sitting here. I'm like, what
Speaker 2: about the social media companies? They are already throwing elections anyway,
Speaker 2: We've put that aside for a second. I mean, how
Speaker 2: worried are you? Let's just look at TikTok. And I
Speaker 2: won't do the you know, the what about with YouTube, Google,
Speaker 2: Facebook or Instagram all that stuff, although I could. How
Speaker 2: bad is TikTok really? How big a problem is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think TikTok falls into three problem buckets. I would say,
Speaker 3: and The first and foremost is the most obvious one.
Speaker 3: It's that Byte Dances its parents parent company. It is
Speaker 3: headquartered in Beijing and therefore subject to the laws and
Speaker 3: policies of the People's Republic of China. One of the
Speaker 3: laws that we like to talk about is the twenty
Speaker 3: seventeen National Intelligence Law, which effectively compels private companies to
Speaker 3: do the work of the state. So if the Chinese state,
Speaker 3: the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, decides that they want
Speaker 3: specific data, they want access to this, they want access
Speaker 3: to that, then by virtue of this law, Byte Dance
Speaker 3: has to comply. And this is not my original phrasing,
Speaker 3: but I think it illustrates the problem pretty well. China
Speaker 3: doesn't have rule of law, they have rule by law.
Speaker 3: This if this is something if you're you know, the
Speaker 3: Bite Dance CEO, you're kind of powerless to resist at
Speaker 3: this point, and why would you. When you look at
Speaker 3: Byte Dance, they have one of three of their board
Speaker 3: members of the main domestic subsidiary of Byte Dance is
Speaker 3: a card carrying Chinese Communist government official. If you look
Speaker 3: at like some of the good reporting that Forbes has done,
Speaker 3: they scoured LinkedIn and found that three hundred plus profiles
Speaker 3: had either current or former links of these current byte
Speaker 3: Dance employees to a Chinese propaganda arm, to Chinese state media.
Speaker 3: So you have active and former members of the Chinese
Speaker 3: Communist Party, particularly in the information realm, working in byte Dance.
Speaker 3: And there's so many other data points that I could
Speaker 3: talk about, but that's the first one. Byte Dance very
Speaker 3: close links and infiltration frankly by the CCP. They have
Speaker 3: an internal committee, a DOJ report in September twenty twenty
Speaker 3: coming out of the Trump administration assessed as much, and
Speaker 3: we know that they are deeply involved in the inner
Speaker 3: workings of TikTok as well.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing, and again just tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3: We can go into just really how odious some of
Speaker 3: those connections are when it comes to the connection with
Speaker 3: American data as well, but I'll table that for now.
Speaker 3: And then number two there's that influence campaign aspect, and
Speaker 3: you know, we talk about the manipulation of the information environment.
Speaker 3: This is something that we were dealing with in the
Speaker 3: intelligence community and especially in big tech companies and looking
Speaker 3: at it now and what we've seen is pro CCP
Speaker 3: narratives pushed on these platforms. We've seen an actual Chinese
Speaker 3: state account come to TikTok and say, how can we
Speaker 3: push our information? And we've seen information from those accounts
Speaker 3: pushed and not labeled as state media as well. So
Speaker 3: we know that they're trying to do the proverbial sowing
Speaker 3: of discord, such as promoting Democratic candidates in the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two midterm election to the detriment of Republican candidates.
Speaker 3: They're trying to push stories about abortion and incendiary things
Speaker 3: to help so descent among the American populations, something everyone
Speaker 3: always accused sort.
Speaker 1: Of the Russians of doing.
Speaker 3: So that's another aspect of that information environment manipulation.
Speaker 1: And then third, you have the kids. You know what
Speaker 1: it's doing to children.
Speaker 3: And we know that TikTok, in particular with the four
Speaker 3: U algorithm, just lights a.
Speaker 1: Fire under these social contagions.
Speaker 3: We know that they're in bed with the transgender lobby,
Speaker 3: featuring you know, prominent transgender activists, prominent LGBTQ activists all
Speaker 3: over their websites raising awareness. They're very very open about
Speaker 3: doing this, and there are pediatric hospitals that are reporting
Speaker 3: actual physical manifestations coming out in patients because they use
Speaker 3: TikTok like things called TikTok tics, which most researchers are
Speaker 3: classifying as you know, pure social contagion movements. So you know,
Speaker 3: and this is again something that TikTok is very very
Speaker 3: efficient at that it doesn't necessarily distinguish it wholesale from
Speaker 3: the instagrams of the world. If you want to talk
Speaker 3: about what about is them. We know their staffs on
Speaker 3: that in terms of mental health harms. But TikTok is poised,
Speaker 3: especially because, as Christopher Ray says, directory of the FBI
Speaker 3: China controls the algorithm. That's even more problematic when they're
Speaker 3: feeding our kids this poison.
Speaker 2: But how much of the algorithm is the kids click
Speaker 2: on the things they click on and then it's reflected
Speaker 2: back to them, right, Like you know, I asked this
Speaker 2: because remember Russia, remember Russia collusion. Back in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: they're saying, oh, Hillary Clinton lost because Trump worked with Russia.
Speaker 2: And then they talked about the Facebook ads. I think
Speaker 2: there was like one hundred thousand dollars that were spent
Speaker 2: on these bogus you know, or Russian backed or whatever
Speaker 2: Facebook ads. And when you look at the ads, I
Speaker 2: mean a lot of them were ridiculous. I mean it
Speaker 2: looked like a guy named Yuri, you know know, working
Speaker 2: in like sub basement c of some you know fsb
Speaker 2: outpost you know, on the on the in the outer
Speaker 2: ring of Moscow was like looking at a you know,
Speaker 2: a little dictionary in English. I mean it was preposterous, right,
Speaker 2: I mean their understanding of US politics beyond lock her
Speaker 2: up for Hillary Clinton, which you know they got that right,
Speaker 2: but their understanding was very weak. I mean the idea
Speaker 2: that that I just hear all these people saying, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, you know, the Chinese are going to brainwash
Speaker 2: our kids and make them lazy or whatever. I look
Speaker 2: at them, like, what do you guys think Disney's door.
Speaker 2: I just this is the part of it that there's
Speaker 2: so much more upset about what's going on with the
Speaker 2: I understand the spying thing, and like if they can
Speaker 2: suck up your information and do create that that's a
Speaker 2: separate issue, but it sounds to me like there's also
Speaker 2: just a content component of this, and I I don't
Speaker 2: under I just feel like I feel like TikTok is
Speaker 2: the shiny object where people in politics and in power
Speaker 2: get to pretend that they're doing something that's like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're protecting the kids from the bad influences online. They're
Speaker 2: protecting them from one of dozens of major and endless
Speaker 2: minor influences online that are all being pushed by the
Speaker 2: Democrat Party anyway, like transgenderism. Beijing's not pushing transgenderism via
Speaker 2: TikTok on kids. The Democrat Disney is pushing transgenderism on kids.
Speaker 3: Well, number one, you know, you're right, But number two,
Speaker 3: we also don't know that Beijing isn't pushing this stuff,
Speaker 3: and that's you know, part of the problem too. If
Speaker 3: China is so intimately involved in the algorithm, which it
Speaker 3: says it won't. If there's a forced investiture to an
Speaker 3: American company of TikTok, it said, there's no way we're
Speaker 3: giving up the algorithm. So in my mind, that means, yeah,
Speaker 3: they want to retain control of it. There's a commercial
Speaker 3: element to it because it is really good, but there's
Speaker 3: also that information environment of manipulation potential there because they
Speaker 3: want to keep it in Chinese hands so badly, and
Speaker 3: they've said as much, which flies in the face of
Speaker 3: a lot of the assurances that these TikTok executives are
Speaker 3: providing to Congress members with their you know, Project Texas potential,
Speaker 3: you know, mollification of our representatives.
Speaker 1: But so I also I do want to address that.
Speaker 3: I think that when you have over sixty seven percent
Speaker 3: of American teenagers as of last year on a particular platform,
Speaker 3: and you have thirty percent, according to a pupil in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty of preteens nine to eleven year olds on
Speaker 3: a specific platform, and we have new data coming out
Speaker 3: of the UK saying a decent percentage of toddlers are
Speaker 3: now exposed to this content, then you.
Speaker 1: Have a problem.
Speaker 3: Then you have a the fact that you know, number one,
Speaker 3: all of these children are on it to a much
Speaker 3: greater degree than you know, Facebook, as you talked about,
Speaker 3: is hemorrhaging users, especially in this demographic Instagram as hemorrhaging
Speaker 3: users as well. Then then that becomes a source of information,
Speaker 3: and we know that they're getting it for their news
Speaker 3: now as well. They're not just looking at those cute videos.
Speaker 3: They're they're getting it to be informed about the world.
Speaker 3: Top Google executives said as much as well. In a
Speaker 3: tech conference. He said, when people young kids want their news,
Speaker 3: they go to TikTok and Google is very much aware
Speaker 3: of that, and you know, keeping their antenna up. And
Speaker 3: then you have American adults, so looking at the kid
Speaker 3: stuff that matters a lot, but American adults as well.
Speaker 3: So you know, in two years the amount of American
Speaker 3: adults that get their news from TikTok has tripled. That's problematic,
Speaker 3: I think from a civic perspective. I see you want
Speaker 3: to say something, but I want to say one more
Speaker 3: thing before I let you talk.
Speaker 2: I'm standing in the way of the train. By all means,
Speaker 2: go ahead, Sorry you were saying yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think the last thing is a number of
Speaker 3: enterprising journalists have taken it upon themselves to create their
Speaker 3: own TikTok accounts. And what they do is they register
Speaker 3: as users from around thirteen to fourteen, and they have found,
Speaker 3: to a man, within minutes, they are fed content that
Speaker 3: is composed of self harm content, suicidal content, eating disorder content,
Speaker 3: especially if they're registering as girls versus registering as boys.
Speaker 3: So we do know that there is something that isn't
Speaker 3: just responsive to shall we say.
Speaker 1: What the children want?
Speaker 3: Granted, the TikTok algorithm is based off your engagement, not
Speaker 3: necessarily your network, So how long your eyes linger over
Speaker 3: a specific video if you're interested in depression, Yes, it's
Speaker 3: more likely to feed you self harm content and suicidal content.
Speaker 3: But this appears to be pretty uniform across the board
Speaker 3: for a lot of these journalists experimenting anyway. So there's
Speaker 3: something in TikTok that is particularly I would say nefarious
Speaker 3: when it comes to our children and the noxious content
Speaker 3: they're being fed.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you ever go on TikTok because I
Speaker 2: gotta say, some of those shuffle dance moves very catchy.
Speaker 1: Fuck.
Speaker 3: No, I am not going on TikTok, nor will I
Speaker 3: ever go on Tiktokay.
Speaker 2: This is where I get to point it out all
Speaker 2: the other people in America, usually especially the Democrats, but
Speaker 2: I get to call them comedies and have fun with it.
Speaker 2: Apparently on this one, I've got like a soft spot
Speaker 2: for communist China. So I'm like, I think TikTok is
Speaker 2: super entertaining. I gotta tell you it's all for me.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it's it's how to how to sear like
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Speaker 2: pulldog videos like like, I was like, what is this?
Speaker 2: How is this supposedly in some way doing anything that
Speaker 2: is uh, you know, going to damage me? But then again,
Speaker 2: I'm an adult and things are different, and you know
Speaker 2: that can be a little bit of a challenge. And yeah,
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Speaker 2: Kara Frederick who is on the task force I believe
Speaker 2: at the Heritage Foundation for dealing with AI related matters,
Speaker 2: So you would you would have some insights into this.
Speaker 2: I I think that the AI is and look is
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, both wealthier and smarter than me. Yes, but
Speaker 2: I think all this stuff about how the world is
Speaker 2: going to end because of AI is pretty crazy. Like
Speaker 2: I'm looking at this, I'm like, how does this even happen?
Speaker 2: Everyone's getting all freaked out? Do I I'm usually actually no,
Speaker 2: I usually tell people everything's gonna be okay, because most
Speaker 2: hysteria is just people wanting attention. But is AI really?
Speaker 2: I know it's a big deal and it's gonna matter all.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it doesn't matter a lot, but as
Speaker 2: a threat, what is the threat from AI? That's the
Speaker 2: part of this that I still haven't No one's really
Speaker 2: been able to explain to me. It's like, oh, like
Speaker 2: it's going to hurt our democracy because of the disinformation.
Speaker 2: Watch CNN, look what they.
Speaker 1: Do, fair point.
Speaker 3: And I do think you stand in good company with
Speaker 3: with some of the skeptics.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the things, as you know, in the Intel community, though,
Speaker 3: there was always that person who was like everyone everyone
Speaker 3: China isn't ten feet tall, right, everyone everyone al Kaita
Speaker 3: is not looking at external operations, and they like are
Speaker 3: the naysayers and everyone kind.
Speaker 2: Of their whole thing is is they're the uh you know,
Speaker 2: they're they're playing the role of what's the what's the
Speaker 2: word we're looking for here. You know, when you're just
Speaker 2: being in opposition, to be in opposition, I forget what
Speaker 2: the word is. You know what I'm saying, contrarian. Thank you.
Speaker 2: They're playing the contrarian.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, so so you know there's that aspect
Speaker 3: of you know, the AI community as well. But I
Speaker 3: do think there's there there's reason to be worried. And
Speaker 3: I like to quote, you know, two authoritarians on this matter.
Speaker 3: And I thought this was commonplace, but apparently not. Many
Speaker 3: people know that Putin a few years ago said whoever
Speaker 3: is going to lead an AI is going to rule
Speaker 3: the world. I think that that's the significant discussion to
Speaker 3: be had, especially when Putin's saying that, and then she
Speaker 3: and China says, you know, we want to dominate in
Speaker 3: AI by twenty thirty. So, you know, if our adversaries
Speaker 3: have their eye on this and they see it as
Speaker 3: some geopolitical strategic key, then I think that it's important
Speaker 3: to sort of pay attention. And the reason why I
Speaker 3: think they know harnessing these technologies is really going to
Speaker 3: uh catapult them to the front of the line of
Speaker 3: global dominance is is because they're doing things at machine speed.
Speaker 3: Tends to be better than doing things that human speed.
Speaker 3: And when you're coming when you're talking about war fighting,
Speaker 3: when you're talking about things like even you know, the
Speaker 3: stuff that the Intel pukes like us used to do,
Speaker 3: that computer vision algorithms can do better, you know, instead
Speaker 3: of what project may even tried to do. Instead of
Speaker 3: a human being sitting in front of an FMV screen,
Speaker 3: you know, saying that's labeling a truck, labeling a rock,
Speaker 3: labeling a car, you have machines able to do that.
Speaker 3: And then when machines can make decisions, and again, you know,
Speaker 3: the autonomous weapons that we have are mostly semi autonomous,
Speaker 3: so there's always a human in the loop. At this point,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of debate and discussion about that. But
Speaker 3: when you get to the point that a machine is
Speaker 3: basically cutting out all of that analytical rigor that can
Speaker 3: be applied elsewhere to do things only humans can do,
Speaker 3: that's going to give the war fighter a massive advantage.
Speaker 3: So if you have a computer vision algorithm determining that
Speaker 3: that's a rock and that's a tree, and that you
Speaker 3: shouldn't you know, hit it with a with a kinetic strike,
Speaker 3: then that's going to be better. If you have another
Speaker 3: analyst sort of doing things like determining if there's a
Speaker 3: positive identification of that actual terrorist actor which would cause
Speaker 3: that hell fire to rain down. So I think that
Speaker 3: you know, it's offering specific advantages because of that machine
Speaker 3: speed vice human speed. People talk a lot about drone
Speaker 3: swarms too, so instead of you know, training up a
Speaker 3: human pilot necessarily these you know, what my old boss
Speaker 3: at the Center for an American Security used to say
Speaker 3: is that, you know, the human being sort of acts
Speaker 3: as the quarterback and you let your your smaller, you're
Speaker 3: cheaper systems do some of the other work for you,
Speaker 3: so you're not sort of wasting a human being in
Speaker 3: the human capital on that kind of thing too. So
Speaker 3: I think those are just two examples of what AI
Speaker 3: can help accomplish in war.
Speaker 1: And we know that she's on a war footing.
Speaker 3: We know that Putin is currently at war right now too,
Speaker 3: so so that's another thing. The information environment, like what
Speaker 3: you were talking about before, that's a whole nother kettle
Speaker 3: of worms, and we can talk about that all day
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, it seems to me like if
Speaker 2: there's a little machine that can clean up after me,
Speaker 2: and tell me how great I am all the time,
Speaker 2: and you know, not ask any questions beyond that sounds good.
Speaker 2: I'm not that worried about it, like turning into the
Speaker 2: terminator and deciding that you know, it has feelings too,
Speaker 2: and it's self aware at all. This I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess I do think it's it's definitely
Speaker 2: going to be interesting for high school kids who want
Speaker 2: to have some program that can easily write there, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of B minus level term paper for them that
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Speaker 2: b U c K for thirty five percent off. So, Caro,
Speaker 2: when you're not trying to save the Internet for the
Speaker 2: purposes of freedom, humanity and world peace and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: what else? What do we need to have a Cara Fredder?
Speaker 2: You were a Navy intel analyst. Is that what I'm getting?
Speaker 2: Because you said vice in a way only people from
Speaker 2: the intelligence community ever say vice like that, meaning instead
Speaker 2: you know that no one else You'll never come across
Speaker 2: anybody who did not work in the IC who will
Speaker 2: be like, well, I think that's a good idea of vice.
Speaker 2: This other idea you're like, wait, what, we're the only
Speaker 2: ones who do that.
Speaker 1: No way, Oh man about Habita.
Speaker 2: Oh I'll give you more. I'll give you more optics.
Speaker 2: Only people from DC talking about well from this optic
Speaker 2: or from that optic or whatever. There there are some
Speaker 2: things that the the Intel people in particular, we have
Speaker 2: this weird nerd vernacular. And I caught you doing some
Speaker 2: nerd vernacular during this podcast. So at least I know
Speaker 2: you're the real deal. At least I know that you know,
Speaker 2: you were pouring over those reports eight cups of coffee deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny, you know, get smart with Steve Carell
Speaker 3: and Anne Hathaway. It's a it's a movie. It's like
Speaker 3: a I don't know, spy caper. And you have the
Speaker 3: Intel analyst who like finally gets this chance to like
Speaker 3: be in operations officer in the field and he's you know,
Speaker 3: talking to some operator types and he's like, wait, did
Speaker 3: nobody read my report?
Speaker 1: Like that was me. I was like, did nobody read
Speaker 1: my report?
Speaker 3: That person who would would go out with the guys
Speaker 3: and special Operations forces and sort of be.
Speaker 1: Like, hey, everybody, this is what we should be thinking about.
Speaker 1: Here's the target. You should go there.
Speaker 3: Uh So I was always a civilian, a civilian intelligence officer,
Speaker 3: and we called him Targeters when I was working with
Speaker 3: Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
Speaker 1: But that was, yeah, that was my job.
Speaker 3: I was an Al Qaida analyst first and foremost and
Speaker 3: all sorcers.
Speaker 2: So what they did was they like original original gangster
Speaker 2: old school al Qaeda or the uh a Qi. Because
Speaker 2: I was a q I, Oh you were, they brought
Speaker 2: me in to do CDC a QI and then I
Speaker 2: got moved to OI uh o I A and and
Speaker 2: uh and a q I basically so no way, yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I was.
Speaker 3: I was looking at guys over yeah, the original guys.
Speaker 3: Some of the guys been hiding in Iran for a
Speaker 3: little bit that is now in the open. And yeah,
Speaker 3: when I deployed a couple of times, that was my
Speaker 3: that was my thing, looking at Al Kaida external operations operatives.
Speaker 2: So what did you think of Thirteen Hours the movie,
Speaker 2: by the way, because I always thought it was so
Speaker 2: funny that the case officers in that were like so smug,
Speaker 2: which is just great. It was just great. The analyst
Speaker 2: were all sitting there like yeah, maybe we were just
Speaker 2: back at headquarters making coffee, but like at least we
Speaker 2: respected the paramilitary guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh don't. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of OGA friends when I was
Speaker 3: out there, so you know, you got to you gotta.
Speaker 1: Keep those relationships warm. So I was I liked your
Speaker 1: side of the.
Speaker 2: You know, but did you notice in the movie for
Speaker 2: some reason, just to really hammer it home, like one
Speaker 2: of the American case officers in Thirteen Hours just randomly
Speaker 2: has kind of like a French accent and he's turning
Speaker 2: around to like he's turning around to uh, you know,
Speaker 2: what's his name? John Krasinsky, And like all these guys
Speaker 2: were all, you know, jacked and these badasses there and
Speaker 2: he's like he's like, IDA had to do fancy things, dude,
Speaker 2: Like I am so cool. They're like where did this?
Speaker 2: Where did Why is is his name? Like like Jacques Couston,
Speaker 2: Like where did this guy? He's an Emeritan? Like they
Speaker 2: just I love it because those guys.
Speaker 1: Uh, the the the.
Speaker 2: GRS guys in the movie, like, oh, it's funny the
Speaker 2: things they would say about the case officer. I'm just sorry.
Speaker 2: I just was observing. I'm just observing.
Speaker 1: Fuck.
Speaker 3: Every time I left when we were forward, every time
Speaker 3: I left the tactical Operations Center.
Speaker 1: All the guys in a chorus would go beat it NERD.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a yeah, but you guys were like.
Speaker 2: He had, we had our reports and are our cool stuff,
Speaker 2: you know in the meetings that we did too? So interesting?
Speaker 2: All right? Well, Cara, where should people go to check
Speaker 2: out your work and the stuff that you're up to
Speaker 2: and all that good stuff?
Speaker 3: Yeah, first and foremost, go to Heritage dot org. So
Speaker 3: all of our work is on the Heritage website. I
Speaker 3: direct the Tech Policy Center there and yeah, we're we're
Speaker 3: looking at you know, five big lines of efforts. So
Speaker 3: go to that website to see what we're up to. Personally,
Speaker 3: I'm again kind of in the belly of the beast.
Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter Kara A Frederick and on Instagram as
Speaker 3: Karafred with two DS, so you can check out my work.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of some personal but mostly.
Speaker 2: And you got a tiny you got a tiny baby too,
Speaker 2: right right now you're like a yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So she's an infant and I don't hear her, but
Speaker 3: she's probably gonna start crying a little bit.
Speaker 2: So this is I'm glad we didn't get the form
Speaker 2: where you pretend you hear the infant crying so you
Speaker 2: can end the interview early. So that's good. That means
Speaker 2: we kept it moving here. Check out Karra stuff everybody.
Speaker 2: Kara Frederick, thank you so much. Appreciate you joining us