WEBVTT - What the AI Backlash is Really About - Week in Tech 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.480 Honestly. One thing. Sometimes people are saying peptides because they 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:15.920 just want to take a zempic, but they want to 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.160 make it sound more biohackery. Like I think this is 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.440 a super common phenomenon in the tech world, like peoplere 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:22.680 experimenting with other ones, but fundamentally a lot of them 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:23.720 are guys who want to diet. 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.800 Yeah, yeah, it doesn't even mean anything. It's just like you, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:29.560 I know. 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.680 It's like fifty or less amino acids in a chain 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.000 or something like that, Like insulin is a peptide, like 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:37.440 our diabetes patient saying like, oh yeah, I'm indructing my peptides. 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.920 Right, I got invited to the peptide party at the 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.360 AGI house. That was what I thought to me, that 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:45.200 was like the peak. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.080 But it is interesting, like I mean, I feel like 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:48.800 so much of it, but also like with the AI 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.600 belief of like this superhuman you know, like we have 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.880 to compete with the machines, Like it's all sort of 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:54.640 tied up in that. 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.800 Whole other episode peptides, but very tense. 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:06.039 Fir, Welcome to tech stuff. I'm os Va Loosen and 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.280 this is the week in tech where I'm joined by 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.720 three of the world's most plugged in reporters to break 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.840 down what's really happening in tech right now. Today, we're 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.760 joined by Taylor lorenz if use a mag read, Albigotti, 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:20.520 tech edit of Semipore, and Jasmine Son, whose excellent substack 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:21.760 is a tech stuff favorite. 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.280 Welcome all, Thanks for having us. Great to be here, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.680 Thanks for having us read. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.319 Last time you and I saw each other was in 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:33.679 can at the Marketing Lions Festival where you interviewed Demis 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.920 Hassabis on the Google stage. That was only just over 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:39.319 a month ago, and now he's stepped down as CEO 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.679 of Deep Mind. Did you have any inking about what 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.800 was coming? I? You know, I have to say I 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:47.080 had it. There was a there. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.200 I had this gut feeling that he had there was 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.160 a real change in him. I've interviewed him a few 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.880 times over the last few years, and when I first 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.720 interviewed him, like sort of soon after the chat GPT moment, 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.040 he was so excited, like Google was going to battle, 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.080 you know, against everyone again in this AI race and 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.360 they're building these new models and they were behind and 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.400 he was really the person in charge of that, and 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:11.960 that you could tell he was like, you know, he 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.760 was in he was into it when we talked about 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.160 that sort of thing, like the actual productization of Google models, 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.440 et cetera. He just wasn't that passionate about that. Ken 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.080 and I and I came away from that week. That 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.920 week and Ken thinking like man like demis is not 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.520 like he's this part of the AI race is just 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.120 not what he's passionate. He's passionate about the science. So 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.240 I should have had the scoop is the boort on 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.239 that he was stepping down. But obviously I'm a terrible 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.320 reporter for not getting that. But no, I mean I wasn't. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.800 It was a shocking announcement, but at the same time 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:54.080 was not surprised like very few Nobel Prize winning scientists 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.680 you know, are are passionate or great like you know, 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.200 business leaders right at major corporation, Like it just isn't 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.040 those two skill sets. I always thought of him as 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.160 kind of unicorn for having those two things, but I 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.440 think he was like a temporary unicorn, Like he just temporary. 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:09.840 During that time. 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.080 It was probably really interesting for him because he is 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.520 very competitive, but it's not anymore. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.440 Now it's just a horse again. Jasmine Special, first time, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.720 welcome to you. Thank you so much for joining us 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.639 hot off the heels of a huge EZRA client interview 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.120 earlier this week. Very excited to have you on the 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.160 show and to hear about your reporting about what's really 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.680 going on with the data center backlash. You went on 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.520 a kind of cross country road trip to report this. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.880 But what made you go out into the field and 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:38.760 what you in search of? 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.000 Oh? Yeah, so I spent about ten days in Wisconsin 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.880 and Michigan visiting a bunch of different data center sites, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:51.720 four different ones, and talking to folks, whether it's local officials, activists, residents, workers, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.240 about data centers and the backlash around them. And the 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.240 reason I went was, you know, I'd been tracking the 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.640 AI backlash like a lot of folks have for several months, 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.080 most of the past six months or whatever. You see 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.000 these the booing at college graduations, you see assassination attempts 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.680 at both tech CEOs and government officials. You look at 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.080 the polls and it's like people are not excited about AI, 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:15.800 They're worried it's going to take their job. They do 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.839 not want a data center in their community. And this 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.960 is incredibly bipartisan as a backlashing ways that are very 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.200 unusual but at the same time, you know, I'm based 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.279 in San Francisco and I do most of my reporting 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.039 on the AI industry, and people here, myself included, just 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.240 did not understand what it was that was making the 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.000 public so incensed about data centers. Like we did not 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.320 know if it was a water story or I hate 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.320 AI story or a you know, electricity prices story. And 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:45.560 I was reading the news, but I just never got 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.800 a clear sense of what exactly was driving things. And 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:49.400 I felt like the only way to do it was 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:52.080 to get on the road and just talk to people myself. 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.560 There's a parenthetical in your story. By the end of 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:57.960 this trip, my friends and I felt slightly embarrassed at 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.960 the caricatures we originally believed in. In general, one should 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.080 be cautious about assuming your opponents are just reading fake news. 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.159 What was the moment where in your reporting you kind 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.440 of the pieces start to click, And what do you 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.839 think other people in Silicon Valley are missing and what 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:13.400 do you hope to communicate to them with the story. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.239 Yeah, I mean, there's kind of an assumption in Silicon 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.400 Valley that a lot of folks in the AI industry 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.400 have that the main reason people hate data centers is 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.000 because they watch too many tiktoks about like water and 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:26.359 draining the ocean. And there's definitely a set of people 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.640 who have in back watched too many tiktoks about chattpt 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:31.880 draining the ocean, right, Like, you're not saying that's not real. 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:34.400 But you know, as soon as I started talking to 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.880 these activists and having long conversations with them, a few 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.080 things became clear. One was just like a lot of 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.560 these folks are a lot more informed than the caricatures 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.280 would assume. People knew the difference between an AI data 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.440 center and these old data centers for storing like hospital data. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.800 People could tell you the difference between a closed loop 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.159 and an open loop cooling system. The other thing was 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:58.080 that while environmental impacts were certainly one thing that people 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.839 were worried about, actually like the focus on government process 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.520 and the total lack of transparency with these NDAs, the 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.160 way that these data center deals were done in back rooms, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:10.680 with this feeling of oh, these big tech companies are 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.640 paying off your small town officials to like introduce this 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.960 gigantic project without your consent. That was actually what I 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.479 saw to be driving the backlash A lot more and again, 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:22.279 these activists I was talking to, they were actually incredibly 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.520 informed about the details of municipal finance and the city 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.599 tax system, and it was just very clear quite quickly 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:30.880 that you know, I think that there's a way where 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.320 you can assume, in a lot of different contexts that 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.240 your political opponents are just reading fake news or maybe 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.400 there's a foreign influence operation, Like I think OpenAI published 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.000 this report that was like, actually, it's a CCP, like 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.600 the reason people hate data centers, it's like CCP propaganda, 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.200 and like this idea is just like frankly ridiculous to me, 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.760 Like it kind of reminds me of twenty sixteen and 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.919 sort of russiagaate and the idea that anyone who might 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.880 vote for Donald Trump was just like reading Russian syops. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:56.839 And like, I'm not saying that foreign influence is not 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.039 any factor whatsoever, but I think it's a way to 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.040 get out of reckoning like the very real reasons that 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.479 people are upset about something like a data center coming 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:05.280 into their community. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.760 Taylor Reed, I know you both read the story and 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.840 and and what Jasmin on as your clients, so I'm 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.120 curious for your feel questions for Jasmine as we have 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:13.280 a special guest today. 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.280 Great reporting. I love I love it. I mean it's 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.040 it's so interesting. I think what I wonder is like, 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.880 is the data center kind of one issue and then 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.560 this overall kind of like hatred for AI and really 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.480 maybe technology really large, is that another issue? Like because 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:32.400 I've always thought I mean, I see they're sort of 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:34.320 bleeding into one another, but I've always thought that data 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.960 centers is like these are kind of local issues that 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:38.480 these these tech companies are going to. 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.800 Have physical manifestations, right, which makes them easy to. 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.560 Totally But at the same time, like I think, as 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.600 Jasmine's I think getting at like these people have real, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:52.160 like legitimate, real practical concerns about like the municipal finance 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:55.960 and like the noise pollution, the energy prices. They I 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.240 think there are like these real worries and those are 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.680 local issues that I think tech companies have to have 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.520 to sort of in each individual case solve, right, this 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.560 is like there's no solution that scales here but at this. 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.680 But then there is this like broader problem that the 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.480 tech industry has that it's very bad at pr. 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:15.200 Like it's image around the world is horrible. 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:17.920 I mean, like I was walking through France, like, you know, 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:19.920 when we were in France, I was like, you know, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.480 I saw spray painted you know, sort of murals about 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.360 AI and how horrible I mean, which. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.640 How to be good at pr when you live in 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:28.920 the echo chain. But that's the thing, like you personally, 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.920 I mean, just maic, curious toy you reflect on this actually. 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.000 I mean, you know, read and I both live in 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:35.920 San Francisco and spend a lot of time with folks 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.280 in the industry, and I feel like what happens so 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.839 often is I'll be having a normal, like social conversation 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.319 with people in tech or AI who are perfectly pleasant, curious, lovely, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.760 very smart people, and they'll just start saying things and 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:49.400 in my mind, I'm just hearing the screaming. Do you 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.520 hear yourself? Like, I think there's a thing where a 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.280 lot of these people in the industry, they never leave 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:55.960 San Francisco, all of their friends work in the AI industry. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.480 They don't realize what sort of values gap has emerged 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.480 between the things that they believe are true and the 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.760 rest of the world. Another thing that I heard a 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:04.839 lot of and was even again myself, like I live 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.280 in this bubble too. Was a bit surprised by is 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.960 in San Francisco, very few people think that AI is 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.520 a bubble. They're all receiving this like immense like productivity 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.960 uplift from using cod coding agents or design agents or whatever, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.400 and so if anything, they're like, I can't get enough compute. 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.760 There's two there's too little AI available for how much 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.320 my company wants to use. Whereas you know, you go 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.240 to the rest of the country, a lot of people 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.320 are very worried that this is a high risk industry, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:30.920 that it's a bubble, and the way that crypto is 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:32.840 a bubble, and I think that really informed a lot 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:34.800 of the data center backlash too, is that this is 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.600 seen as a high risk industry and like if it 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.880 does pop, let's say, there's a twenty percent chances is 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:41.880 a bubble. People aren't really sure. Am I going to 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.640 be left with this gigantic stranded asset in my community like. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.280 A new rust belt essentially of abandoned data centers. 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:47.600 Yes. 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.400 And I think that it was really salient that a 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:51.760 lot of the places that I visited, the data centers 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.439 were being built in cities and in towns and sometimes 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.240 on the literal sites of abandoned like GM factories or whatever. 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.600 And so the sort of raw lived experience of seeing 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.720 what happens when a company comes in, goes bankrupt and 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.400 sort of leaves you with a contaminated brown field like 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:09.559 that is very salient to people and sort of informs 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.480 the way that they think about do I want this 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.600 new high risk industry coming in and building in my community? 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.040 But justin how did you pick those communities that you've visited? 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.120 I mean, there are so many places where data centers 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.839 are emerging and where opposition is brewing, Like what made 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:22.800 you go to the Midwest? 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:24.840 A couple of things. So one was I really was 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.000 interested in this sort of de industrialization history. Some folks 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.959 I talked to imagine that maybe, you know, data centers 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.040 are a rein industrialization of America. They are bringing back 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:35.800 the skilled trades. A lot of the union folks and 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.640 technicians I talked to were really excited. Some people are saying, like, 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.800 you know, America can't build, but we can build data centers. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:43.840 And so I was pretty interested in that side of 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:45.600 the story. And then the other thing was that politics 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.280 are really interesting. So both Wisconsin and Michigan are obviously 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.640 very influential swing states, right, you have very competitive races 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.439 all the time. You also had two very interesting primaries 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.720 going on where AI was playing a big role. And so, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.960 for example, in Michigan, as folks probably know by now, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.360 Abdul sayad this sort of progressive insurgeant just be Hailey Stevens, 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.480 the moderate in the center race. And you know, in 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.600 that race, maybe Israel was probably the biggest issue a 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.800 pack spending, but that was something that Abdul linked very 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.559 directly to the idea of say big tech spending or 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.240 DT spending in these races, the sense of how do 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:18.600 we get money out of politics? 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.720 And he and Bernie and AOC came together to really 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.959 kind of bash big tech as part of his campaign 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:24.280 right now. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.280 Yeah, And in Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, who is I think 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.240 that elections on the eleventh, But she's a DSA candidate, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:34.720 frontrunner in the front runner Democratic frontrunner for governor in Wisconsin, 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:37.320 and she is running on a data center moratorium and 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.360 her case for how are you going to win over 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.120 like rural farmers in you know, deep purple Wisconsin, in 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.520 the deep red parts of the state, are I'm going 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.240 to be the only one who's going to advocate for 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.559 a data center moratorium. And so I found that fascinating 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.400 and I got to talk with both Francesca and Abduel 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:51.880 a little bit. 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.160 This is something that Rob Flaherty, who's the former head 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:59.240 of Digital and a big strategist for Kamala Harris. You know, 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.760 he's just been a big advocate of these, like Democrat 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.920 candidates leaning really hard into the anti data center rhetoric, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.520 the data center moratorium, all of that, because it plays 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.439 so well with voters, and I think voters, like working 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:14.600 class voters that they are. The Democratic Party large has 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:16.800 sort of lost over the past few years. 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:17.720 Jasmine. 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:20.000 You also heard from some people though, in these communities 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:24.360 who are like obvious beneficiaries, right, and so how did 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.520 some of the conflict play out in terms of like 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.400 pro and con on the data centers? And I guess, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:33.400 you know, my connective question is around with this phrase 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.439 as week benefits. And I remember, you know, during the 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.720 Brixit campaign in England. In Britain, you know, the only 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.640 kind of pro remain argument was like you'll be poor 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.880 if you leave, and that wasn't very galvanizing. In fact, 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.200 it made people angry, and so I'm sort of curious 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.440 as to obviously, on a local level, people who are 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.120 contractors and doing construction stuff of feeling the benefits. But 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.280 is that is there a sense in these communities as 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.320 a true debate over the pros and cons of the 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:02.440 economic stimulus? 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:04.960 Yeah, I mean, I think the main case that these 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.079 AI data center developers are making to communities is tax revenue, 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:11.200 right like, we will pay a lot of property taxes. 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.839 And I think the problem here is that American culture 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:16.320 right now, and I know Taylor's done a bunch of 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:18.600 reporting on this kind of thing. It's like suffuse with 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:23.080 this sense of people are really worried about distribution and 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.640 all concerns, right Like people have a felt sense based 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.840 on the past few decades of the economy that just 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.520 because you know, unemployment numbers look low and GDP goes 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:33.640 up and like the stock market's doing really well, that 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.839 does not mean that most Americans. That doesn't mean that 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:38.160 working class Americans are going to feel the benefits of that. 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.000 And so when people see things like Okay, maybe in 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.280 ten years after like this tax incentive district shuts down, 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.640 if the data center is still around by then, it 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.640 will start pouring property taxes into my city coffers, But 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.160 do I also trust my city officials to spend out 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.000 on the issues that matter to me? What are they 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.920 going to do with that money. I think this sort 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:58.720 of growth in the abstract like revenue and the abstract, 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.560 is something that people have become a lot more skeptical of, 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.640 and especially when that tax revenue is being positioned against 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:07.720 like all of these much more tangible and sort of 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.600 concrete sounding harms, whether it is like construction is really annoying, 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.360 or whether it's you know, what happens if this becomes 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.360 a stranded asset. But I think I felt a lot 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.120 of frustration from local officials in these communities because they're 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.760 trying to figure out how do I run the city 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.800 and pay for public services like firefighters and like you know, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:32.280 like traffic services and whatever without continuing to raise taxes, right, 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.280 And so everything's becoming more expensive to run. Education is expensive, 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.960 like infrastructure is expensive. But people don't want to pay 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.240 higher taxes, and so they're thinking, let's bring in this 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.600 data center. This is going to solve for cities tax problems. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.680 But again, that promise has not been as compelling to 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:49.640 residents as many of the city officials would hope. And 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.160 I think that's been kind of a yeah, it's been 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.680 a frustrating experience because actually when I asked folk's like, hey, 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.880 are you excited about the tax benefits, A lot of 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.640 anti data center people say, well, like I don't believe 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:01.640 they're going to hit, or like maybe that only starts 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.120 again in ten years when the tax subsidy district closes, 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.040 and maybe the data center is not even going to 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.400 be around by then. Just like the phrase I don't 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.800 believe them. I think this is just speculative with something 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:12.080 I heard over and over and over. 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.480 One idea that's been thrown out there is that maybe 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.480 people could be paid individually like they do in Alaska, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.600 right or New Mexico or where there's a sovereign wealth fund. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.960 And I think opening eyes even flow to this idea. 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:26.680 I mean that, and that there's a reason they go 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.960 to these stranded power you know, rest belt areas, because 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.880 they have all this power infrastructure already there to build 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.720 these data centers. So you know, the one idea is 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.760 like we'll take the you know, somehow take that revenue 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:41.200 and distribute it to the people. 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.440 Did that come up? But all like, are people asking 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:43.960 for that. 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.120 I don't think I heard anyone ask for it is 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.240 something I've had talked to folks in the AI industry 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.640 about as a potential solution as well. I think it 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:54.880 would be more effective than I think the current strategy. 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.840 But fundamentally there's also a lot of folks just feel 0:15:57.840 --> 0:15:58.600 like they're being bribed. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.560 I think, like one going to say of a UBI, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:02.120 like I think, like. 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.120 In Silicon Valid, there's assumption that if you just like 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.640 make the checks bigger, then people will be happy about it. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:08.480 But actually the thing that's going on now, which has 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.480 been a bit of a cultural vibe shift, is you 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.640 make the checks bigger and people get more suspicious. Right, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.280 Like Abdul's like number one hit against Haley Stevens is 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.680 look up all of this money she's getting from APAC. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.120 It has actually become advantageous in some races, like the 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.040 Alex Bores race in New York, even though he ended 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.440 up losing, Like the fact that Leading the Future was 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.880 spending money on against him actually like helped his campaign, right, 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:30.840 And so I think people have become just a little 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.960 bit more suspicious of getting corporate paychecks. And to me, 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:35.640 it's not that I think that there's no way to 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.160 build a data center, right. I think that there definitely 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.640 is a way to make these like good deals for communities, 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:42.520 but you have to deal with the public trust stuff, 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.120 and like the process transparency I think really. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.160 Matters well, and how do you how do you do that? 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.560 I mean, how do you deal Is there any way 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:51.680 to deal with the public trust stuff that comes from 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:52.560 the private sector or. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.080 I mean, like I was talking to somebody in you know, 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:56.760 the AI industry, who is like, why don't you look 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.280 at this open a ideal in Effington County, Georgia. Right, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.920 they had one of the biggest community benefits packages that 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:05.879 I've seen, frankly for a data center. And so in 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:07.919 a way you might say, well, these community benefits are 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.240 so tangible, they're so concrete, this is so much money. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.359 But they also sort of announced the deal after it 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.119 was already done, and then how one public hearing after 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.200 all the negotiations were over and no one had heard 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.440 about it, right, And so people were furious. Thousands of 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:22.600 people like showed up to protests. And to me, I'm 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.240 not saying that the community benefits don't help, but it 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.760 feels much worse when it's like we've already made this 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.520 decision for you, and here's like a little here's a 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:32.640 cookie to sort of shut you up. And I think 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.040 that's the sort of sense of you didn't even care 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.080 to ask, is really what's bothering people? 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.000 Well, it feels like people also blame big tech with 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.080 like a loss of agency. You hear this a lot. Obviously. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.080 This is how they feel about social media, this is 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.160 how they feel about AI. They worry about being sort 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.200 of controlled by these algorithms. They feel like these big 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.200 tech companies are sort of above us and controlling everything. 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:55.760 And I think, I mean, I was just also reading 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.840 about the Time story about the Louisiana deal that met 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.120 I made too, and it's like, if you ask people 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.679 about that, the backlash is basically like, we didn't have 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.960 a say, we didn't have our we don't have any 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.919 agency in this process because, as Jasmine was saying, it's 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.280 sort of a predetermined outcome. 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.520 Yeah, you had this line in your piece, Jasmine. My 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.640 conversations made me wonder if the technical content of data 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.320 center deals is mostly beside the point, what does that mean? 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.600 So before I left for this trip, I asked some 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.200 folks I knew who were more in the Silicon Valley side. 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.720 What questions should I ask people? And they would tell 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.679 me to say things like, if we promised that electricity 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.359 rates wouldn't go up, would you be okay with the 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:36.879 data center deal? If you've got to check in the 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.040 mail personally, would you be okay with the data center deal? 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:40.960 If you were sure that this wouldn't use any water 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:42.520 from the Great Lakes? Would you be okay with the 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.720 data center? And so I asked these questions to people, 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:46.359 but it was very clear, very quickly that I was 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:49.520 operating on the totally wrong level of abstraction, because one 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.399 was people were familiar with the whole host of issues 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.399 with data centers, and they'd say, well, like, you know, 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.080 even if that one's not a big deal, what about this? 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.280 What about this? And then the other thing was again 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.280 that sort of reflexive I don't believe them. And so, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.760 you know, a company can make these promises about how 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.080 much tax revenue they're going to deliver, but if there's 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:08.280 no trust that it's going to happen, then it kind 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:10.159 of doesn't matter what the terms of the deal are, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:13.600 because people feel this power. A symmetry where a giant 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.680 corporation can write a carve out into a contract. Your 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.000 part time city aldermen are not going to be able 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:22.119 to be on a fair negotiating ground with this gigantic, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.040 mega corporation that's worth a trillion dollars, right, And so 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.639 I think that sense is making people very suspicious. I mean, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.760 think about the fox Con fiasco and Wisconsin. That really 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:32.480 informs the way that a lot of people think about 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.439 these things. Fox Conn and Trump sort of and Scott 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.640 Walker announced this, these thirteen thousand jobs that were going 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.440 to come to Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and they pulled out 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.119 and left the city in like over one hundred million 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.840 dollars of debt they had taken out for infrastructure improvements. 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.000 They said those jobs were coming, and they just weren't. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.199 And so I do sort of understand. I empathize with 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.040 the fact that these people don't want to believe those 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.040 promises again because they've been burned before. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.240 Yeah, there's also a scene in your piece that I 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:00.720 loved where you're in I can't remember if it was 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.680 Wisconsin or Michigan, but there's a kind of concreted over 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.040 former industrial. 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:06.880 The GM plant in Janesville. 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.080 Yeah, and the soil is toxic and it's the cleanup 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.720 operation is something that nobody can afford. And you sort 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:16.359 of pose this question, would the local residents prefer to 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:18.960 keep just concrete over toxic soil where this is or 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.439 have a data center and they might prefer the former, 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.840 which just shows you how incredibly stark this is. 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.240 Yeah, I mean that one surprised me because to me, 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.879 I actually thought in that case, like this data center 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.520 is promising to do the thirty million dollar cleanup project 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.439 that nobody else has that is environmentally destructive to have 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.320 all this contamination in the soil. The city was saying, 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:41.719 this will help us remove our wheel taxes. We are 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.080 going to see immediate benefits. And there are definitely some 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.239 folks like this real estate broker who were on that 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:49.960 side of the case. But ultimately, like the letter of 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:53.440 intent from the data center developer in Janesville expired because 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.520 there was so much opposition from local residents because what 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:59.600 the GM story taught them was not, Okay, let's like 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.159 bring a new corporation to build our economy around, but 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.720 we should never have our city be that dependent on 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.200 like a big company who can just up and leave 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:10.879 ever again. And so that level of distrust which I 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:13.680 think is baked into much broader questions than AI, much 0:21:13.680 --> 0:21:16.320 broader questions in technology is sort of informing the way 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:17.680 that people think about data centers. 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.040 Well, if to me, there's only one thing missing from 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:22.720 your piece, and that was a quote from Aaron Brockovic. 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.280 Yeah, I should have gone one. 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.280 When we come back, controversy over open AI's first brand 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:47.439 trip stay with us. Welcome back, Taylor. You also covered 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.320 the ai backlash this week, and in particular the reaction 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.840 to open AI's first ever brand trip. 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:54.600 What went down? 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:59.359 So open ai took a couple dozen content creators to 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:04.160 this really beautiful getaway in upstate New York where they 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.879 all had these sort of luxury cabins. It was very pastoral. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.000 I heard people comparing it to Midsomar, where it was 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:12.160 just kind of very curated. 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.800 Also horror film, though it is a horror. 0:22:14.480 --> 0:22:17.800 Film, which I think is the joke. But yeah, they 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.000 had this event where basically these content creators were brought 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.199 They were not paid to be there, but it was 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.520 effectively kind of like a media trip, right where they 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:27.919 bring a bunch of people up, they put them up 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:29.840 in these really nice digs, they feed them, you know, 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.679 these really nice dinners, and they have open AI people 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.840 come and talk about new technology, teach them how to 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:40.280 use these products. They also did things like beatkeeping and 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:44.320 hiking and you know, kind of other fun activities. It 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.119 felt very similar to a lot of the stuff that 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.720 Apple's been doing in terms of like cultivating these lifestyle influencers. 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:53.200 You know, this is not a new thing for brands, 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.800 but the backlash was so intense. A lot of these 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:00.000 creators have taken down their videos not posted about it, 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:04.840 yet you know, been receiving just like an enormous amount 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:05.600 of heat. 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.760 Let's play some tape from the backlash. 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.320 People in what appear to be five star hotels lexing 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.639 about being on a chat GPT brand trip is so 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:20.600 deeply disgusting and embarrassing and why we are truly in 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:23.639 the end times. This chick Grace is like, this. 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.680 Trip is so amazing, it's so the seating is thoughtful, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.040 the activities are thoughtful. Yeah, you know, it's not thoughtful 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:32.640 the way that, because of what is needed for data centers, 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.080 places like this have to go in and infiltrate communities 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:38.239 that you probably don't even think about, Grace while you're 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:40.399 filling your baptob up with I think I need a 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:42.480 little more crystal Sea salt in here. 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.080 Well, Gracie has been the most like, she's really been 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:51.120 their strongest soldier. She's this content creator who who does 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.000 a lot of work with tech companies. If you look 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:55.439 in her bio, she's talking about her consulting work with 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:59.600 Amazon Uber. So this is clearly somebody that is in 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:03.760 the techa. Gracie basically provides sort of like leadership skills 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:07.120 for women especially and kind of what she calls soft skills, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.600 basically executive coaching. But yeah, she she received a lot 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:13.720 of a lot of hate and she doubled down. 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:14.040 You know. 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:16.239 I think while a lot of other influencers kind of 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:21.119 paved and got nervous, Gracie was one of the few 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:23.560 that kind of doubled down and said, listen, I didn't 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.480 violate my moral code. I violated maybe your moral code, 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:29.879 but I feel completely fine about going on this trip. 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:32.959 But yeah, a lot of the criticism directed at her 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.000 it was basically the data center stuff. It was I 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:39.880 think the juxtaposition of this idea that data centers are 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:43.360 destroying our environment, ruining the climate data DA and then 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:47.280 that against this very sort of pastoral, beautiful upstate New 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:49.240 York background where it was that so much of the 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:53.439 trip was about experiencing nature, it felt I think, you know, 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:55.280 it just triggered a lot of people in that to 0:24:55.359 --> 0:24:56.960 sort of leave those comments. And then also there was 0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.960 a lot of discussion about you know, open Eyes were 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.399 with the Department of War and this idea of you know, 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:05.159 there was this other person that made this parody version 0:25:05.200 --> 0:25:08.080 of it like come with me on a Palenteer brand trip, 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.720 which is ironic because Palenteer is also doing influencer marketing 0:25:11.760 --> 0:25:12.160 as well. 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.359 Jasmine you and audience smiling, How did you? What was 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:16.280 your take on this story? 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:18.480 Yeah, I mean so I had in tracked this, but 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:20.760 then I was watching the video that Taylor made and 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:22.840 I do feel like it was you know, we're studying 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:25.120 the AI backlash from different angles. I do think that 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:27.880 one of the things that struck me most was when 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:32.040 open AI is sort of constructing this idyllic, utopian like 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:36.640 aspirational experience. There is, as Taylor mentioned, so little tech 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:39.960 and AI in that experience, right, Like, it's really interesting 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:42.159 that when they sort of design like what do we 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:43.560 want the world to look like? What do we want 0:25:43.560 --> 0:25:45.959 a brand to be about it's like nature and like 0:25:46.080 --> 0:25:50.719 very physical, tactile activities and socialization in person with like 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:54.000 other human beings. And I think people probably felt that 0:25:54.000 --> 0:25:56.840 dissonance pretty strongly. But anyway, I just thought that was 0:25:56.840 --> 0:25:58.840 like a really interesting bit of reporting because I hadn't 0:25:58.840 --> 0:25:59.720 heard about the brand. 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:01.600 Trip read what about You? 0:26:01.600 --> 0:26:04.880 You know, I think I think this, as I said earlier, 0:26:04.880 --> 0:26:08.560 the pr strategy of tech just has not worked. And 0:26:08.560 --> 0:26:11.240 and like it's kind of too late because now, you know, 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:15.560 is Taylor's point, Like it's it's influencers, it's so fragmented, 0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:19.080 and it's and you cannot control the message. There is 0:26:19.200 --> 0:26:21.959 nothing tech is going to do to control the message. 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:25.359 But I would actually point to Anthropic as a case study. 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:31.040 Anthropic has they hired this woman who has been really 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:33.840 building out their influencers. She's an influencer marketer, and she 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:36.240 has built out their influencers strategy over the past year. 0:26:36.640 --> 0:26:39.720 I have never seen this level of backlash even remotely 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:43.800 towards any of Anthropics activations, and they do a lot, 0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:47.119 actually they do these dinners. They actually also work, you know. 0:26:47.200 --> 0:26:48.439 I saw a lot of people saying, oh, well, it 0:26:48.440 --> 0:26:50.680 was just the influencers they invited. There's these vapid life 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.879 silent influencers. Anthropic has done tons of work with. I mean, 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:58.320 I wouldn't call these women vapid, but life soil influencers 0:26:58.359 --> 0:26:59.920 that are sort of the you know, the West Village 0:27:00.080 --> 0:27:04.160 early archetype, right, Like Claude is this like elevated product. 0:27:04.200 --> 0:27:05.639 I think it a lot has to do with the 0:27:05.680 --> 0:27:09.359 brand positioning as well. And this idea of like using 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:12.240 Claude is smart, it's elevated. You're wearing your little Claude 0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:14.920 thinking cap, you know, like it actually has done well 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:17.679 for them, And a lot of these other companies have 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:19.960 done influencer marketing as well. I mean I point to 0:27:20.000 --> 0:27:22.040 like Google, Amazon, et cetera. These are companies that have 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:25.040 just I think Microsoft like Legacy. I mean Microsoft worked 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:29.480 with Alex Earl. Microsoft also has a very deep partnership 0:27:29.520 --> 0:27:33.520 with the Department of War. Literally that is how you know. 0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:36.679 I think through the partnership with Microsoft is how the 0:27:36.720 --> 0:27:38.960 Pentagon is able to continue to access a bunch of 0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:42.040 these AI services. So I'm not saying that it's hypocritical, 0:27:42.080 --> 0:27:45.200 but I think it's interesting kind of how brand perception 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:49.280 around these corporations is shifting and just the the real 0:27:49.359 --> 0:27:50.679 negativity around open it. 0:27:50.680 --> 0:27:53.960 There's something about opening particulous? Is is it? 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:55.639 Because they got their first. 0:27:55.400 --> 0:27:58.879 They're the winner in consumer chatbots, right, Like Claude doesn't 0:27:58.920 --> 0:28:02.920 even register it's not on the map, and like and yeah, 0:28:03.040 --> 0:28:05.400 Anthropics up. They you know, they had some good press 0:28:05.440 --> 0:28:08.440 around the Pentagon thing like just give it time to. 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:12.239 I know, but I just I don't I agree with you. 0:28:12.320 --> 0:28:15.160 But you know, there's a lot of people that will 0:28:15.160 --> 0:28:17.960 be very anti AI, but they are okay with Claude, 0:28:18.000 --> 0:28:18.800 and I seem. 0:28:18.640 --> 0:28:21.160 Weird to me, Like do you think that Anthropic did 0:28:21.200 --> 0:28:23.359 something right or was it just that open AI screwed 0:28:23.440 --> 0:28:23.960 up that bad. 0:28:24.680 --> 0:28:26.200 I think there's a couple of things. Number One, I 0:28:26.200 --> 0:28:28.160 think it's also important to look at like, okay, who's 0:28:28.160 --> 0:28:30.119 on the team at open AI. We have Charles Porch, 0:28:30.160 --> 0:28:33.400 who is the one who built Instagram into the cultural 0:28:33.440 --> 0:28:36.399 force that is today. But and you know, Charles is 0:28:36.840 --> 0:28:39.400 very senior leader at open ay now, but his job 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:41.760 is to kind of change this positioning. I think he's 0:28:41.760 --> 0:28:43.840 mostly known for celebrity partnerships. 0:28:43.400 --> 0:28:45.840 The Kylie, the Kylie Metup. What did he strike that 0:28:45.880 --> 0:28:47.840 before he left the Metro Ray Bounds partnership. 0:28:47.960 --> 0:28:54.280 Yeah, exactly. Yes, So he's very into this like aspirational positioning, 0:28:54.360 --> 0:28:56.640 and I don't know that that's going to translate with 0:28:56.680 --> 0:28:59.240 a company like open Ai, because they're their public image 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:01.840 is so belue Girn sam Altman is so reviled, almost 0:29:01.840 --> 0:29:04.040 in a way that Mark Zuckerberg was too. Though, But 0:29:05.000 --> 0:29:06.920 I think a couple of things that Anthropic has done 0:29:06.960 --> 0:29:11.080 right is Number one, Dario is coded as like liberal 0:29:11.280 --> 0:29:14.440 kind of and I think that like insulates him from 0:29:14.560 --> 0:29:17.000 backlash from large parts of the left, or at least 0:29:17.000 --> 0:29:18.640 the center left. They sort of view it as a 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:22.560 responsible tech company, and I think just generally it is 0:29:22.680 --> 0:29:25.880 seen as I think the B to B positioning. People 0:29:26.000 --> 0:29:28.640 experience these products a little bit more, I think it's 0:29:28.680 --> 0:29:31.680 seen as just this like more elevated company. You'll note 0:29:31.680 --> 0:29:36.400 that even though Anthropic again has a chatbot that consumers use, 0:29:36.400 --> 0:29:38.040 as read said, it's not as popular, but if you 0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:41.200 look at the headlines around these lawsuits of chatbots or 0:29:41.280 --> 0:29:44.080 killing children, it's always open Ai. And so I think 0:29:44.120 --> 0:29:46.960 open Ai is just seen as this sort of unique villain. 0:29:47.080 --> 0:29:50.840 Anthropics had plenty of public relations black eyes too, though. Right, 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:52.680 there's the whole open source thing. 0:29:52.840 --> 0:29:57.360 Right, there was these like policy folds fighting with the 0:29:57.400 --> 0:29:59.280 White House. They're fighting with Jensen. 0:29:59.560 --> 0:30:01.000 What about burning the books? 0:30:01.560 --> 0:30:04.600 That's the only thing, that's the only thing, interestingly, and 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:06.160 you know what, I just made a video about that, 0:30:06.560 --> 0:30:09.120 and people continue to say that it is open. 0:30:08.840 --> 0:30:09.960 AI doing that way. 0:30:09.960 --> 0:30:11.160 Explain what happened, Taylor. 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:15.840 So Anthropic basically was there was this viral video of 0:30:15.840 --> 0:30:18.280 this like what looks like a book guillotine. It's really 0:30:18.360 --> 0:30:20.120 just the way that they slice off the spine of 0:30:20.120 --> 0:30:22.080 a book in order to feed the pages into an 0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:25.640 AI scanner. Anthropic is doing this to millions of books. Now, 0:30:25.800 --> 0:30:28.360 these are books that have that are that they buy 0:30:28.400 --> 0:30:31.120 buy the palette for like cents on the dollar, and 0:30:31.360 --> 0:30:33.760 they are books that are going into the trash. I 0:30:33.800 --> 0:30:37.400 personally think that it's better to have books scanned before 0:30:38.120 --> 0:30:39.120 going into the landfill. 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:41.120 Some of them were rare books, right like that. 0:30:41.360 --> 0:30:43.680 You know, no, no, no, none of them were written. No, 0:30:44.000 --> 0:30:48.520 let's be clear. You cannot buy rare Yes, you cannot 0:30:48.520 --> 0:30:52.000 buy rare books, buy the palette, right, and so this 0:30:52.120 --> 0:30:55.640 is just a ridiculous sort of conspiracy. Also, rare books 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:58.120 are not protected by copyright because most of them are old, right, 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:00.280 so it wouldn't. So this is basically books from the 0:31:00.320 --> 0:31:03.080 twentieth century that are not rare, that are out of 0:31:03.120 --> 0:31:05.520 print some of them because they're just like an old 0:31:05.560 --> 0:31:08.120 training manual for Microsoft ninety five or something. Right, it's 0:31:08.160 --> 0:31:11.160 not something people miss. Somebody made the adjudication to throw 0:31:11.240 --> 0:31:14.680 that book away, is my point. So I just put 0:31:14.720 --> 0:31:16.800 a video about this this week and I've gotten multiple 0:31:16.800 --> 0:31:19.000 messages about it, and it's driving me crazy because I'm like, 0:31:19.080 --> 0:31:21.160 it's anthropic. It says aanthropic in the video. 0:31:21.840 --> 0:31:24.360 It's a meme though, right, And it's interesting that they're 0:31:24.400 --> 0:31:26.440 confusing them with Opening Eye, but I think that gets 0:31:26.560 --> 0:31:29.440 this point, like, yeah, anthropic could do a better job 0:31:29.440 --> 0:31:32.280 of pr than Opening Like they're not. It's not having 0:31:32.280 --> 0:31:36.040 an effect on the overall perception of AI and tech, right, 0:31:36.120 --> 0:31:38.400 and that's that's an issue. 0:31:38.640 --> 0:31:40.440 Well, what's the influence a piece of all this though, 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:43.600 because Taylor, you alluded to the Nantucket no Influencers sign 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:47.040 in your video as well, and I feel like there's 0:31:47.160 --> 0:31:50.440 kind of like error when it was like quite acceptable 0:31:50.440 --> 0:31:53.160 and aspirational to get loads of free stuff and unbox 0:31:53.200 --> 0:31:57.440 it from the like fashion influencer industry world, which somehow 0:31:57.480 --> 0:32:01.360 when it's like juxtaposed or superimposed onto the tech industry 0:32:01.400 --> 0:32:04.800 like makes it kind of particularly inflammatory perhaps, Or do 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:07.719 you think just the social modes are changing, like what 0:32:07.840 --> 0:32:09.760 is the influence a piece of this and how does 0:32:09.800 --> 0:32:11.000 it relate to the tech piece. 0:32:11.320 --> 0:32:13.960 I think the influencer piece to me, because it's not 0:32:14.000 --> 0:32:18.040 just they're not just getting backlashed for the tech partnerships, 0:32:18.040 --> 0:32:21.360 although that is sort of unique, but I think overall, 0:32:21.760 --> 0:32:24.800 it's this feeling of inequality and I think a lot 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:28.120 of people are struggling. Jazz Jasmine was mentioned earlier. You 0:32:28.120 --> 0:32:30.120 can tell people, Look, the GDP is going up, Look 0:32:30.160 --> 0:32:32.320 these you know this is happening, but they feel this 0:32:33.560 --> 0:32:36.720 visceral frustration with our economy and the way that things 0:32:36.720 --> 0:32:39.240 are sort of unevenly distributed. And so when you see 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:43.680 these lifestyle influencers living this very aspirational life online, of 0:32:43.720 --> 0:32:45.600 course they're going to be a target of people's ire 0:32:45.760 --> 0:32:48.520 because it's like, well why does this person get like 0:32:48.560 --> 0:32:50.880 all they're doing is flying around and getting free brand trips, 0:32:50.880 --> 0:32:54.600 free opportunities, and I'm here struggling. And so I think 0:32:54.640 --> 0:32:57.120 we've seen a shift whereas like previously so much of 0:32:57.160 --> 0:33:00.440 the influencer industry was built around aspirational lifestyle. Now it's 0:33:00.480 --> 0:33:03.520 built a lot more. You see the rise of commentary influencers. 0:33:03.360 --> 0:33:06.360 It's people that you have to have a little bit more. 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:09.920 I think, Jasmine, this is your kind of second big, 0:33:10.280 --> 0:33:12.400 big media moment of the year. The first one was 0:33:12.440 --> 0:33:16.560 your Permanent Underclass piece for The New York Times a 0:33:16.640 --> 0:33:20.520 couple of months ago. Does how do you see all 0:33:20.560 --> 0:33:22.960 of this tying in to what you wrote about the 0:33:23.000 --> 0:33:26.840 concepts of permanent underclass and how it's understood and perpetuated 0:33:26.880 --> 0:33:28.000 by Silicon Valley. 0:33:28.720 --> 0:33:32.400 Yeah. I mean one thing that is weird about the 0:33:32.440 --> 0:33:35.760 AI industry, and in particular, probably anthropic more so than 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:39.400 the other companies, is that they talk constantly about the 0:33:39.520 --> 0:33:43.240 mass job displacement that their products, their coding agents, their 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:46.040 enterprise agents are going to cause. And they do this 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:48.959 handbringing thing that's like, oh, we're so worried about it, 0:33:48.960 --> 0:33:51.880 Like Dario will write these twenty thousand word essays about 0:33:52.080 --> 0:33:55.040 how AI might lead to I mean, sal molment does 0:33:55.040 --> 0:33:57.640 the same thing. Might shift power from capital to or 0:33:57.680 --> 0:34:01.160 from labor to capital, might increase in equality, might concentrate 0:34:01.200 --> 0:34:03.280 power in the hands of a few companies might create 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:07.000 an underclass of people of quote unquote lower intellectual ability, 0:34:07.440 --> 0:34:10.600 and there's this very strange dynamic where people see that 0:34:10.640 --> 0:34:12.560 and they're like, Okay, you're doing all this hand ringing, 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:14.920 but why are you building the technology to put us 0:34:14.920 --> 0:34:17.359 all out of work? Right? And so there's this sense 0:34:17.400 --> 0:34:19.879 of like, oh, these companies they don't even care about 0:34:19.920 --> 0:34:21.960 their impacts, right, They don't care about the kind of 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:24.960 destruction they're causing. And of course people already have a 0:34:25.000 --> 0:34:27.640 sense that the economy is quote unquote rigged against them 0:34:27.719 --> 0:34:29.759 or something like that, and so the fact that the 0:34:29.800 --> 0:34:33.719 AI industry both seems aware of this and is the 0:34:33.800 --> 0:34:36.200 kind of indifferent to it or not slowing down in 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:38.920 any way really freaks people out. I mean, I also 0:34:38.960 --> 0:34:42.120 have this sense, for example, that with there the creative stuff, 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:44.480 like with fiction authors and writers who tend to be 0:34:44.640 --> 0:34:49.440 very anti AI, for example, people will talk about like, oh, 0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:51.719 AI like can't really write, like it doesn't have like 0:34:51.840 --> 0:34:54.440 the true essence of art or something like that. But 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:56.480 I think a lot of the creative criticism is really 0:34:56.520 --> 0:34:59.719 economic anxiety, and a lot of the general backlash to 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:03.160 AI is actually rooted in economic anxiety. You might say 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:06.279 like AI is actually not very good at writing, but 0:35:06.400 --> 0:35:08.960 really there's like an underlying fear, which is like I'm 0:35:09.000 --> 0:35:11.880 a freelance illustrator and I'm getting fewer gigs now, Like 0:35:12.280 --> 0:35:15.320 this thing poses a threat to my livelihood, to my work. 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:17.799 I think if the technology was not one that was 0:35:17.880 --> 0:35:20.440 taking away people's jobs, it would be a very different story. 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:24.120 I mean, even when I talked to Kathy Hochel about 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:26.759 her data center moratorium, one thing that was really surprising 0:35:26.800 --> 0:35:29.200 about how she thought about it was she thought about 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:31.959 it as almost like jobs for megawaw or something, which 0:35:32.000 --> 0:35:34.600 is like these data centers, sure they create like five 0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:37.279 hundred or one thousand temporary jobs, but the number of 0:35:37.400 --> 0:35:40.480 jobs for megawah is not good enough, and so it's 0:35:40.560 --> 0:35:42.680 not a good trade off for people when this thing 0:35:42.760 --> 0:35:44.800 is going to put them out of work or threatening 0:35:44.800 --> 0:35:46.600 to put them out of work, and you're bringing it 0:35:46.600 --> 0:35:48.719 into your community to use your resources. 0:35:51.440 --> 0:35:55.360 When we come back at night, my scenario losing billions 0:35:55.560 --> 0:36:10.480 while you greet your wedding guests. Stay with us, Welcome back. 0:36:10.920 --> 0:36:12.759 Read for our final story this week. I feel a 0:36:12.760 --> 0:36:15.560 little bit like I'd put my TMZ hat on because 0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:19.040 there was a major drama last weekend at a wedding 0:36:19.280 --> 0:36:19.920 in Carmel. 0:36:20.520 --> 0:36:21.080 What happened? 0:36:21.400 --> 0:36:25.919 Yeah, so Leopold Ashton Brenner, who was a former open 0:36:25.960 --> 0:36:29.759 Ai employee who kind of blew the whistle on security 0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:33.440 concerns there, got fired and then he writes this essay 0:36:33.480 --> 0:36:36.640 called Situational Awareness, which is all about how, you know, 0:36:36.719 --> 0:36:39.760 AI is essentially going to take over the world faster 0:36:39.840 --> 0:36:43.200 than anybody thinks it goes. You know, everyone is reading 0:36:43.239 --> 0:36:45.839 this thing. He's hailed as sort of this genius, right. 0:36:45.880 --> 0:36:47.680 I feel like that was the first like hot take, 0:36:47.800 --> 0:36:50.759 viral essay that permeated my about AI. I mean, there 0:36:50.800 --> 0:36:52.440 was a deluge to them after us, but I feel 0:36:52.440 --> 0:36:55.000 like that was like the kind of a moment of 0:36:55.080 --> 0:36:55.560 these like. 0:36:55.520 --> 0:36:56.319 Yeah, that's right. 0:36:56.560 --> 0:36:58.960 There was like AI twenty twenty seven and things like that, 0:36:59.000 --> 0:37:01.600 but this one was really, you know, was the big one. 0:37:01.640 --> 0:37:03.279 And he's going you know, he went on like the 0:37:03.360 --> 0:37:06.480 Duarkesh podcast, which is super influential in the tech industry 0:37:06.600 --> 0:37:09.560 and sort of became this like stage about you know, 0:37:09.840 --> 0:37:12.600 the development of AI and like a true believer, right, 0:37:12.920 --> 0:37:16.360 but he's also an effective altruist, an effective aultra. You know, 0:37:16.440 --> 0:37:20.200 he worked for FTX like they love sort of making 0:37:20.280 --> 0:37:23.719 market bets and huge risky market bets based on these 0:37:23.800 --> 0:37:26.120 like these beliefs about what's gonna happen, and you know, 0:37:26.440 --> 0:37:29.040 sort of throwing caution to the wind. And that's exactly 0:37:29.080 --> 0:37:31.600 what he did. And he starts a fund which is 0:37:31.760 --> 0:37:35.279 you know, called Situational Awareness based on this idea that 0:37:35.400 --> 0:37:37.680 the AI boom is is, you know, we're getting to 0:37:37.719 --> 0:37:41.640 agi faster than anybody thinks. And if you just invest 0:37:41.680 --> 0:37:43.880 in all the companies in the stack, from you know, 0:37:44.000 --> 0:37:47.120 chips to memory to data center provider, you know, to 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:50.120 to neo clouds, you're gonna make a ton of money. 0:37:50.400 --> 0:37:52.239 And a lot of people invested in this thing. He 0:37:52.360 --> 0:37:55.239 was making a huge amount of money. Like his story, 0:37:55.280 --> 0:37:56.800 I mean, I think it's the Wall Street Journal and 0:37:56.920 --> 0:37:59.680 a huge profile on him. It was, you know, this 0:37:59.680 --> 0:38:05.600 this amazing investor. At some point like an insane it 0:38:05.719 --> 0:38:07.799 was like, you know, of course, if you if you 0:38:07.880 --> 0:38:10.400 bet on this hot area, you put all all this 0:38:10.480 --> 0:38:12.480 money into it, you're going to do really well in 0:38:12.520 --> 0:38:15.279 the short term. He was also betting on margin, right, 0:38:15.320 --> 0:38:18.560 which is like you know we all remember from history 0:38:18.560 --> 0:38:22.279 class in school, right, the nineteen twenty nine crash was 0:38:22.280 --> 0:38:24.759 all about this, right, So if you borrow a bunch 0:38:24.840 --> 0:38:26.560 of money and you and you bet it and you 0:38:26.600 --> 0:38:28.520 bet it all and then the market goes down and 0:38:28.560 --> 0:38:31.960 you have to the you cover those loans, things turn 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:34.920 out badly. So the market has been down and so 0:38:35.239 --> 0:38:39.640 his fund basically nearly imploded while he was at his wedding. 0:38:39.760 --> 0:38:42.319 This was a great detail. And I think another Wall 0:38:42.360 --> 0:38:44.799 Street Journal article that you know, his wedding where they 0:38:44.840 --> 0:38:47.040 were by the way they were, like the most important, 0:38:47.080 --> 0:38:49.120 I think interesting detail in that story was that they 0:38:49.120 --> 0:38:53.560 were having breakout sessions for discussions at his wedding and 0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:56.040 he's like, but he's dealing with like, you know, essentially 0:38:56.520 --> 0:38:59.759 his fund about to you know, implode, you know, while 0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:03.000 this is all going on, and he eventually sells all 0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:08.040 these positions to Citadel. But actually, remarkably, he's not it's 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:10.520 not his fund didn't implode. Like he's actually still up 0:39:10.560 --> 0:39:14.360 apparently eighty percent on the year, which is which is incredible. 0:39:14.440 --> 0:39:17.160 Like he's he's still He's going to actually be fine. 0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:19.400 It seems like, yeah, but he had to sell all 0:39:19.440 --> 0:39:22.200 that all those assets off to Citadel. 0:39:22.120 --> 0:39:23.920 But he got to keep his androp his big position 0:39:23.960 --> 0:39:26.080 in anthropic, I think, which was the key metel ground. 0:39:26.239 --> 0:39:28.439 Yeah, he got to keep his anthropic position. But I'm 0:39:28.440 --> 0:39:32.680 just saying, like the fund is like significantly weakened. 0:39:32.719 --> 0:39:36.799 I was smaller, but it's still it's still positive though, 0:39:36.840 --> 0:39:39.480 like he didn't like it didn't implode, Like his investors 0:39:39.480 --> 0:39:42.480 are are on paper making money right now in his 0:39:42.560 --> 0:39:46.040 fun which is like in which is crazy. But you know, 0:39:46.160 --> 0:39:49.239 I think, to me, what was so interesting, Like and 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:52.680 your your TMZ joke oz is like perfectly illustrates this 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:56.320 is like since when does the TMZ crowd care about, 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:58.880 you know, some fund manager going bust. It's it's the 0:39:58.960 --> 0:40:01.840 cultural significant. It's like what he represents that made this 0:40:01.880 --> 0:40:05.759 story really interesting. Both I think from the outside world perspectively, 0:40:05.800 --> 0:40:07.759 he's this tech industry person and there's a lot of 0:40:07.800 --> 0:40:11.080 shot and freud, but also within the tech industry there 0:40:11.160 --> 0:40:13.960 was a lot of like anti EA, like anti effective 0:40:14.000 --> 0:40:18.120 altruist sentiment that I saw on Twitter, and I'd be curious, 0:40:18.280 --> 0:40:21.120 you know, you get Taylor and Jasmine's opinion on this 0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.480 as well, but like it just kind of showed that 0:40:23.560 --> 0:40:27.759 like this is he represents this sort of culture that 0:40:28.000 --> 0:40:30.400 I think, you know wants it. It gets back to 0:40:30.440 --> 0:40:32.640 like the broader discussion we've been having on this whole show, 0:40:32.680 --> 0:40:35.799 which is like people just want to see people like 0:40:35.840 --> 0:40:36.360 this fail. 0:40:36.719 --> 0:40:40.280 Oh yeah, it's it's it's like he represents billionaire Hubris. 0:40:40.280 --> 0:40:42.480 He's also super young. I think, like that's worth mentioning. 0:40:42.480 --> 0:40:46.719 He's like in his mid twenties. His Beyonce wife, I 0:40:46.800 --> 0:40:50.160 suppose now, is the chief of staff Ta Dario at Anthropics, 0:40:50.160 --> 0:40:53.440 So she's also a very very influential AI person, right, 0:40:53.840 --> 0:40:57.160 and he was taking these crazy bats, got fired and 0:40:57.200 --> 0:41:01.000 somehow build this gigantic fund. People want to see the 0:41:01.040 --> 0:41:05.480 avatar of sort of tech bro billionaire wonder can fail, right, 0:41:05.520 --> 0:41:06.879 And so I think people had a lot of fun 0:41:06.920 --> 0:41:09.200 with that. One fund detail is I heard that at 0:41:09.200 --> 0:41:12.800 his wedding during during the ceremony, they first think guests 0:41:12.800 --> 0:41:14.200 and then they thanked Ken Griffin. 0:41:17.640 --> 0:41:21.919 It sounds like a Semiphore event. They were also great, Yeah, 0:41:22.560 --> 0:41:24.040 we did have Ken Griffin in an event. 0:41:24.520 --> 0:41:26.720 You know, there are all these like great conspiracy theories 0:41:26.719 --> 0:41:30.000 too that like that somehow Sitadet like tanked the market 0:41:30.040 --> 0:41:30.600 on purpose. 0:41:30.800 --> 0:41:32.719 I mean to me, Ken Griffin is the big winner 0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:34.680 in the situation, and you're right read it's talking that 0:41:34.719 --> 0:41:36.359 his fund is even on life support. But I would 0:41:36.360 --> 0:41:39.239 say that's because, like I think this kid should have 0:41:39.239 --> 0:41:42.080 just gone into like VC, because then it doesn't really matter. 0:41:42.160 --> 0:41:44.040 You don't have to worry so much. And also people 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:48.320 are comfortable with these like long term bets and they'll 0:41:48.320 --> 0:41:50.240 give lots of money to like twenty five year olds, 0:41:50.360 --> 0:41:52.239 I think in the hedge fund world. I mean the 0:41:52.239 --> 0:41:54.120 fact that he got all these like margin calls. I 0:41:54.160 --> 0:41:56.800 think that it's just like a shark your kind of environment. 0:41:57.120 --> 0:41:59.320 It's tough for someone to navigate like that, and I 0:41:59.320 --> 0:42:01.560 think he actually is quite underqualified for that. 0:42:02.239 --> 0:42:04.560 But they love that right like they love being like again, 0:42:04.600 --> 0:42:06.600 he worked for sam bankmuin free. The whole thing is 0:42:06.680 --> 0:42:09.759 not making these crazy high risk, crazy high expected value 0:42:09.800 --> 0:42:12.239 bets that could totally go bus. But man, it must 0:42:12.280 --> 0:42:13.880 feel so good to succeed, you know. 0:42:14.440 --> 0:42:16.880 It's part of like the EA ethos to like to 0:42:17.040 --> 0:42:19.439 just bet it all. Like it's like better to take 0:42:19.560 --> 0:42:23.360 like high risk on some great outcome than sort of 0:42:23.400 --> 0:42:24.120 head your bets. 0:42:24.360 --> 0:42:26.480 There is a crazy thing here that he literally worked 0:42:26.520 --> 0:42:29.480 for SBF. We all know FDx ended and then people, 0:42:29.800 --> 0:42:31.320 I don't know how much of the forty five billion 0:42:31.360 --> 0:42:33.520 was actually cash people put in. How much of that 0:42:33.560 --> 0:42:36.080 was appreciation on the cash they put in. But even so, 0:42:36.360 --> 0:42:39.040 like it's kind of it's kind of remarkable that like people, 0:42:39.560 --> 0:42:42.120 as much as some people want to like tear this down, 0:42:42.239 --> 0:42:44.440 tear this down and oppose it in every way and 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:47.680 like find you know, data centers and Leopold Ashan Brenner's 0:42:47.760 --> 0:42:51.439 and opening our influencer trips to like object to there's 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:55.440 another group of people who just want to absolutely whatever 0:42:55.520 --> 0:42:56.839 the risk be associated with this. 0:42:57.160 --> 0:43:00.200 Well, those are the rich silicon value people, right, those 0:43:00.200 --> 0:43:02.520 are the investors, Like, those are the people that is like, 0:43:02.760 --> 0:43:05.440 it is the existence of that class of people that 0:43:05.719 --> 0:43:09.320 I think makes the rest of the public so angry. 0:43:09.560 --> 0:43:11.920 And all these young people in Silicon Valley they're thinking 0:43:12.040 --> 0:43:14.000 AGI is going to come in three years. It's going 0:43:14.040 --> 0:43:16.520 to eliminate all of the jobs and freeze everyone in 0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:19.279 their current economic positions. That's the permanent underclass belief that 0:43:19.320 --> 0:43:22.440 folks like Leopold believe. And so I better accumulate as 0:43:22.520 --> 0:43:25.600 much capital as fast as possible in the next two 0:43:25.600 --> 0:43:28.120 to three years, like starting this crazy high risk catch fund. 0:43:28.120 --> 0:43:31.000 I mean I talk to folks, to other twenty somethings 0:43:31.000 --> 0:43:33.920 in Silicon Valley all the time who have this mindset, 0:43:33.920 --> 0:43:36.359 who look to people like Leopold of Yeah, if we 0:43:36.400 --> 0:43:38.080 think that the world is going to get frozen into 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:40.759 a permanent overclass of people with capital from AI and 0:43:40.800 --> 0:43:43.640 a permanent underclass, my only goal is to make sure 0:43:43.640 --> 0:43:45.080 I'm going to be on top. And if the whole 0:43:45.120 --> 0:43:47.719 economy goes crazy in two years anyway, it's okay for 0:43:47.760 --> 0:43:48.960 me to take these high riskpects. 0:43:49.280 --> 0:43:52.600 It's the classic it's the classic mistake that everybody makes. 0:43:52.600 --> 0:43:55.719 It's almost a cliche that people, you know, overestimate the 0:43:55.719 --> 0:43:58.920 short term, underestimate the long term, and it's like it 0:43:59.160 --> 0:44:02.879 never ever isn't true. And like the market right now, 0:44:02.880 --> 0:44:06.000 look at the rewarding people, the rewarding the companies like 0:44:06.120 --> 0:44:08.840 Microsoft that are taking like the long term bet that 0:44:08.880 --> 0:44:11.239 this technology is gonna it's going to take a while 0:44:11.280 --> 0:44:14.040 for adoption to occur, you know, to build the data centers, 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:16.920 et cetera. So you know, it's it's funny that they 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:19.680 just that just people keep making the same mistakes. 0:44:19.680 --> 0:44:22.960 Jasmin, do you know Leopold? And I guess I'm curious. 0:44:23.040 --> 0:44:25.960 We had Theo Baker on the show a few weeks ago, 0:44:26.160 --> 0:44:29.520 and it was interesting to hear him sort of reflect 0:44:29.600 --> 0:44:32.160 him being a kind of participant observer in this in 0:44:32.200 --> 0:44:34.440 this world, which I guess in some ways, I'm not 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:36.600 sure if you would feel like that describes you as well, 0:44:36.640 --> 0:44:38.760 but like, what's it like to move through this world 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:42.280 while also documenting it? And yeah, do you know Leopold 0:44:42.640 --> 0:44:44.680 And what's the kind of what should we know about him? 0:44:44.680 --> 0:44:45.440 Were you at the wedding? 0:44:45.800 --> 0:44:47.760 Was not at the wedding. I had friends at the wedding. 0:44:47.800 --> 0:44:50.680 I heard reports from the wedding they put all their 0:44:50.680 --> 0:44:53.040 phones in a bag, so there are no photos. Also 0:44:53.280 --> 0:44:55.640 big gen Z trend. I think it's a good one, 0:44:55.640 --> 0:44:58.120 to be clear, So not a lot of photos from 0:44:58.160 --> 0:45:01.000 the wedding. I don't I don't know Leo. We've met before, 0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:03.400 but I would not say that I know him or 0:45:03.520 --> 0:45:06.160 am friends with him. But yeah, I mean it's really interesting. 0:45:06.239 --> 0:45:08.800 I like THEO. I went to Stanford. I had a 0:45:08.840 --> 0:45:10.600 lot of friends in the tech industry who are now 0:45:10.640 --> 0:45:15.200 AI millionaires, multimilliaires, DECA millionaires. It's interesting right now to 0:45:15.200 --> 0:45:17.839 be in the city because you have this again wealth 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:21.360 bifurcation where two people like me and my old classmate 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:25.920 from undergrad whatever. We were roughly as smart as hard working, 0:45:26.719 --> 0:45:28.799 took the same path. And then one person goes and 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:31.680 works at open AI in twenty eighteen or something, and 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:34.080 the other doesn't like learned. I started learning about and 0:45:34.120 --> 0:45:36.239 following the AI industry in twenty eighteen. That was when 0:45:36.480 --> 0:45:39.240 GBT two came out and the LM started seeming really interesting. 0:45:39.320 --> 0:45:40.759 Was already very clear this was going to be a 0:45:40.760 --> 0:45:42.160 big deal, and I was like, no, I'm going to 0:45:42.160 --> 0:45:45.360 become a journalist question mark. And so all of a sudden, 0:45:45.440 --> 0:45:47.719 you have this thing where in your friend group half 0:45:47.719 --> 0:45:49.520 of the people are like one hundred times as wealthy 0:45:49.520 --> 0:45:51.200 as the other half of the friend group, and it 0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:54.640 really causes a bunch of like strange psychologies. It's a 0:45:54.760 --> 0:45:57.760 very odd experience, I think for people. You know, Silicon 0:45:57.840 --> 0:45:59.520 Valley has always been a place where some people end 0:45:59.600 --> 0:46:02.440 up found me wealthy for a mix of like skill, 0:46:02.560 --> 0:46:06.239 luck and privilege, and AI has magnified those gaps. And 0:46:06.280 --> 0:46:11.400 so yeah, it's a very strange time to be uh 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:14.120 in this city. As sort of like a young person 0:46:14.400 --> 0:46:15.360 in the Chechamlio. 0:46:15.800 --> 0:46:16.760 I have advice. 0:46:16.960 --> 0:46:18.480 I want to hear Read's advice. 0:46:19.320 --> 0:46:20.840 Yeah, I got I need some advice. 0:46:20.960 --> 0:46:22.880 I have some advice as someone who also made the 0:46:22.880 --> 0:46:25.920 mistake of becoming a journalist, is just don't marry another journalist. 0:46:25.960 --> 0:46:28.239 I married a lawyer so I can survive in the 0:46:28.280 --> 0:46:28.760 Bay Area. 0:46:29.800 --> 0:46:31.280 Oh god, that is good advice. 0:46:34.120 --> 0:46:36.120 It's just interesting, how like I mean, it's Jasm said, 0:46:36.120 --> 0:46:39.400 I feel like there's this it like San Francisco is 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:42.000 so small, and there's all these quite small like social 0:46:42.000 --> 0:46:43.880 scenes as well, and I feel like there's that Stanford 0:46:43.960 --> 0:46:46.719 social scene, but also the EA world. Like it's just 0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:48.720 so funny to look at like the degrees of connection 0:46:48.760 --> 0:46:52.080 between Leopold and all these other major figures in AI 0:46:52.480 --> 0:46:54.440 and it's it's like one degree. 0:46:54.600 --> 0:46:57.480 Oh yeah, I mean everyone knows each other like again, 0:46:57.520 --> 0:47:00.000 like it's like, oh, Leopold went to the door Cash podcast. 0:47:00.000 --> 0:47:01.880 They're very good friends. They do a happy hour every Friday. 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:04.879 I've been to the happy hour, like like Dorkush lives 0:47:04.880 --> 0:47:08.279 with Dylan Patel and Sholto Douglas and like this third 0:47:08.680 --> 0:47:11.319 or fourth other guy. You know, Like everyone knows each other. 0:47:11.360 --> 0:47:14.879 It's an extremely small city. Everyone knows everybody's business. And 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:16.640 I think, like to the point about like Sanford and 0:47:16.680 --> 0:47:18.719 Tec journalists or whatever. I think a lot of it 0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:20.600 is like, at least for me, you show up at 0:47:20.640 --> 0:47:23.160 this crazy world of Silicon Valley. All of a sudden, 0:47:23.200 --> 0:47:25.560 the frat boy down the hall is raising like millions 0:47:25.600 --> 0:47:27.880 of dollars from Marissa Mayor for a startup that he 0:47:27.960 --> 0:47:30.000 knows is fake, and everyone knows his fake. He's waving 0:47:30.040 --> 0:47:32.440 around his Brex card, buying everyone tequila shots. You're like, 0:47:32.600 --> 0:47:35.040 what the hell? Like that guy's just like another like 0:47:35.160 --> 0:47:37.640 freaking like nineteen year old brack eye, Like what are 0:47:37.680 --> 0:47:41.040 we doing here? And you developed this anthropological fascination with 0:47:41.080 --> 0:47:42.959 like what is going on here? I have to write 0:47:43.000 --> 0:47:43.399 about it? 0:47:43.719 --> 0:47:45.680 But at the same time, it's like nothing compared to 0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:47.719 what it was when when like I got out here 0:47:47.920 --> 0:47:51.080 in twenty third the end of twenty thirteen. Yeah, more 0:47:51.200 --> 0:47:54.279 like that, Like I just and probably even more in 0:47:54.320 --> 0:47:57.719 the nineties, right, like people were just going nuts and 0:47:57.880 --> 0:48:00.840 for with all these startups, and I feel like that 0:48:01.480 --> 0:48:04.200 aspect of it like hasn't even happened yet with AI, 0:48:04.320 --> 0:48:06.239 Like I think we're gonna see more of that. It's 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:07.319 gonna be insane, and. 0:48:07.360 --> 0:48:09.400 They don't drink anymore. They're less fun. 0:48:10.640 --> 0:48:11.840 Maybe that's the issue. 0:48:11.920 --> 0:48:13.919 The frat guy is injecting peptides. 0:48:14.440 --> 0:48:15.920 Nobody eats, nobody drinks. 0:48:16.040 --> 0:48:18.040 Oh yeah yeah, I mean literally. 0:48:27.360 --> 0:48:30.560 For tech stuff, I'm as Voloshin. This episode was produced 0:48:30.560 --> 0:48:33.799 by Eliza Dennis. It was executive produced by me and 0:48:33.920 --> 0:48:38.200 Julian Nutta for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts. 0:48:38.719 --> 0:48:42.000 Jack Insley makes this episode and Kyle Murdoch rotel theme song. 0:48:42.800 --> 0:48:45.560 A special thank you to Jasmine's son Taylor Lorenz and 0:48:45.640 --> 0:48:48.799 read Albergotti. Please check out all the work they put 0:48:48.840 --> 0:48:50.919 into the world. We're very lucky to call them friends 0:48:50.920 --> 0:48:51.719 at the pod