Speaker 1: The content that does the best online is the content
Speaker 1: that feeds these fears, and that sells people.
Speaker 2: Sell And I know, if we just.
Speaker 1: Got on here every single day and said the most
Speaker 1: inflammatory stuff and scared everyone and said there's no benefit
Speaker 1: and it's a bubble and you're gonna everything's a fake
Speaker 1: and it's you know, we would honestly probably make a
Speaker 1: million dollars at least. I mean, there are people doing
Speaker 1: that right that are making that kind of money.
Speaker 3: I'm Laur Siegel, and you're listening to Mostly Human, a
Speaker 3: tech podcast through a human lens.
Speaker 2: Taylor.
Speaker 3: I've wanted to interview you for so long because I
Speaker 3: think you cover the edges before they become the center.
Speaker 2: You're also kind of just like in Internet culture.
Speaker 3: You are Internet culture to some degree and have been
Speaker 3: doing this long before so many others.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, thank you for being on.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, and I think I've.
Speaker 2: Always been looking.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, what is There's so many things that
Speaker 3: I want to talk to you about.
Speaker 2: But something happened last I think.
Speaker 3: It was last week that I was like this screams
Speaker 3: like a hot take from Taylor Lorenz and that was
Speaker 3: open AI's backlash for their brand trip with creators, which
Speaker 3: I think might sound kind of inside baseball to folks
Speaker 3: who are kind of like, Okay, I'm interested in Ai,
Speaker 3: Why on earth should I care about like a brand
Speaker 3: trip for open Ai? But I think it represented something
Speaker 3: so much larger which you touched on, which is just
Speaker 3: the disconnect of technology and reality and how that's playing
Speaker 3: out from an Internet culture standpoint. And Internet culture is
Speaker 3: culture now, and so no one better than you to
Speaker 3: talk about it, and I think and kind of what
Speaker 3: it represents.
Speaker 2: So can you start out a little.
Speaker 3: Bit with just explaining what happened and why the backlash?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so open Ai obviously, Chatchypet launches in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: becomes the fastest growing consumer product of all time, hugely
Speaker 1: popular product, right, So millions and millions of people are
Speaker 1: using these tools that they're creating. But there's this disconnect.
Speaker 1: Especially as these tools become more pervasive, people start to
Speaker 1: learn who Sam Altman is, they start to have a
Speaker 1: pr problem on their hands where suddenly people are like, Hey,
Speaker 1: Chockchipt's amazing, but why is my boss making me use it?
Speaker 1: Why is there all this say?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 4: So what happened. Suddenly AI is all over.
Speaker 1: It's invading my life, and like open aiy is this
Speaker 1: company that I hear about doing all of it. Also,
Speaker 1: Sam's of course on this media tour. So a few
Speaker 1: maybe a year ago, six months ago, they decide to
Speaker 1: kind of engage in this like pr effort. They hire
Speaker 1: Charles Porch, who's truly like built Instagram into the brand
Speaker 1: that it is today. He was head of partnerships, like
Speaker 1: you remember laur probably in the twenty ten, Charles Porch
Speaker 1: was just getting every single like internet influencer or celebrity
Speaker 1: on Instagram.
Speaker 4: I guarantee Charles Porch he set up their account.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: This guy is like legendary. So they hire him. They
Speaker 1: start to build out this like their comms team, their
Speaker 1: marketing team, and they start to engage with influencers. First
Speaker 1: they invite a few influencers to some of their sort
Speaker 1: of corporate developer facing events, and then they decide a
Speaker 1: couple weeks ago to host their first ever influencer brand trip.
Speaker 1: And this brand trip was at this like pastoral estate.
Speaker 1: It was in upstate New York. Everybody had their own
Speaker 1: kind of beautiful cabin. It was this like really it.
Speaker 1: I heard people comparing it to Midsomar. Did you see
Speaker 1: any of that?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And open ai brings about two dozen influencers up to
Speaker 1: this beautiful, you know, idyllic landscape and upstate New York
Speaker 1: where they have this weekend where they do things like
Speaker 1: bee keeping, hiking, walking. Also some would say getting propagandized
Speaker 1: about AI. Some would say sort of learning about AI.
Speaker 1: But they have these sessions where open ai staff is
Speaker 1: sort of explaining the tools to them and and educating
Speaker 1: these lifestyle influencers. It's important to note that while open
Speaker 1: ai has engaged with tech content creators for a while,
Speaker 1: like developers and sort of developers that also have you
Speaker 1: know that are sort of vibe coding maybe and they
Speaker 1: have a platform on TikTok, this is the first time
Speaker 1: they've really engaged like the lifestyle influencer community. So these
Speaker 1: are you know, sort of women. One woman that was
Speaker 1: getting a lot of backlash. She teaches like soft skills,
Speaker 1: she says, or whatever. But they're they're the one. They're
Speaker 1: the type of influencers that are going to vlog you know,
Speaker 1: their experience, and so that's what sort of kicked off
Speaker 1: the backlash and I think.
Speaker 3: It represented such an important moment in tech and the
Speaker 3: disconnect with society. You know, well, we've been covering technology
Speaker 3: like in dog years, like for like one hundred years,
Speaker 3: you know, for a very long time. And it used
Speaker 3: to be, at least when I was covering over the
Speaker 3: last ten years, it used to be very much like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like entrepreneurs were like you know, on
Speaker 3: the on posters in the subway, they were the heroes.
Speaker 3: Like Silicon Valley was sold as a meritocraphcy like, whereas
Speaker 3: like you could work hard and if you worked hard enough,
Speaker 3: you could potentially also build out a multimillion dollar company,
Speaker 3: and you know, and all of this stuff. And I
Speaker 3: think that culture, the culture and the viewpoint of that
Speaker 3: has changed because the reality is very different now.
Speaker 2: And what's been really interesting is.
Speaker 3: To look at I'm going to say this and I
Speaker 3: sound like an old person, but like how young people
Speaker 3: are viewing artificial intelligence. And I think, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't blame them to some degree, right, people booing commencement speakers.
Speaker 3: You know a lot of people graduating and the jobs
Speaker 3: that they spent years preparing for might not even exist.
Speaker 2: Right, They're looking at the field no to go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, there is this like huge anti AI sentiment,
Speaker 1: But I would caution people against thinking it's an age issue,
Speaker 1: because I think this is something that is affecting broad
Speaker 1: swaths of the American public, and I think it's something
Speaker 1: that's terrifying to college graduates, but also the forty five
Speaker 1: year old with two young kids at home that might
Speaker 1: lose his job or is being asked to use AI
Speaker 1: tools that you know are ultimately going to be trained
Speaker 1: to replace him. Like AI is sort of like infecting
Speaker 1: every single area of life, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: skepticism sort of across the age or ages.
Speaker 3: I would say, yeah, and I think it's a good
Speaker 3: call out. And when I was looking at this and
Speaker 3: you did a video that folks should watch because you
Speaker 3: stated so eloquently like we are not in really kind
Speaker 3: of like the same moment and time as we were
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago. Now we're looking at a world where
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley and politics are really intertwined. When the wealth
Speaker 3: disparity is growing. You know, I have spent time as
Speaker 3: you have in Silicon Valley, and there's this bubble and
Speaker 3: this promise that artificial intelligence and by the way I
Speaker 3: should get it out of the way, like I love technology,
Speaker 3: like I'm such a gey gun text.
Speaker 4: That's why we're tech reporters.
Speaker 2: Like so I'm I.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a part of me that that you know,
Speaker 3: understands innovation and the inevitability of it and what can
Speaker 3: happen when it works for you. And I remember thinking
Speaker 3: this after I interviewed Sam Sam Altman, and I remember
Speaker 3: walking away from that interview thinking that thing that made
Speaker 3: Sam really special as an entrepreneur back in the day,
Speaker 3: right like he was you know, he was someone who
Speaker 3: uh really built out entrepreneurship when he was at y Combinator.
Speaker 3: He was early and like the mobile landscape of like
Speaker 3: telling people iPads we're going to be a thing and
Speaker 3: like so.
Speaker 2: Like not to get like super inside baseball on it.
Speaker 3: But there was something like, really, I want to say,
Speaker 3: insane about entrepreneurs that they said, this is what the
Speaker 3: world is going to look like. You're going to sleep
Speaker 3: in a stranger's home Airbnb, You're going to get in
Speaker 3: a stranger's car, and we are going to affest the
Speaker 3: hell out of that, and you just don't see it yet.
Speaker 3: And to some degree they were correct, right that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean it didn't come with a lot of complications, right
Speaker 3: with the rise of social media and the lack of guardrails,
Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera. But now it feels to me
Speaker 3: different because they're promising abundance with artificial intelligence and saying
Speaker 3: that this is going to be a layer that democratizes
Speaker 3: healthcare and education, gives personalized education, and helps cure cancer.
Speaker 3: But if you're in Silicon Valley where they've got AI
Speaker 3: agents running all the time and doing all their stuff
Speaker 3: and they're able to kind of sit in the woods
Speaker 3: sometimes and just enjoy that feels like they're the ones
Speaker 3: living that future that they're talking about. But increasingly there's
Speaker 3: a disparity between the reality that we live in, which
Speaker 3: doesn't mean some of the things they're talking about can't
Speaker 3: come true and aren't going to help society. But something
Speaker 3: about this brand trip and this idea of lifestyle influencing
Speaker 3: when it came.
Speaker 2: To artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3: We're back in the day we used to like love
Speaker 3: to watch people who had aspirational lives on Instagram. Now
Speaker 3: I'm tired, you know what I'm saying, And I think
Speaker 3: and now it feels like the world is on fire.
Speaker 3: So this is that was my ted talk. You didn't
Speaker 3: ask for, but I'm for your thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: I think we make a really good point when you say, like,
Speaker 1: now the world is on fire, right, Like everyone is
Speaker 1: facing a huge amount of economic anxiety. There's record while disparity,
Speaker 1: people are concerned about climate change. I live out here
Speaker 1: in la where we're constantly dealing with the thread of wildfires.
Speaker 4: So are my parents in Colorado? Like it feels tough, right, I.
Speaker 1: Would say, it's you know, we're in the midst of
Speaker 1: this second Trump presidency where there's lots of chaos.
Speaker 4: So people are struggling in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And so Rebecca Jennings were at a really great pace
Speaker 1: in New York Magazine recently. Everything she writes it so
Speaker 1: good about actually this backlash lifestyle influencers generally overall the
Speaker 1: lifestyle like influencing industry. What you could sort of build
Speaker 1: an audience off of in maybe twenty eighteen, which is
Speaker 1: like living this lavish life like show, you know, driving
Speaker 1: around with your latte. Like people now are frustrated and angry,
Speaker 1: and thanks to algorithms, there's a lot higher chance that
Speaker 1: your content is actually going to end up on somebody's feed,
Speaker 1: who doesn't follow you, who hates you, who actually has
Speaker 1: no context about you, who might know that, like actually
Speaker 1: to get there, like you really had to struggle, and
Speaker 1: like maybe your life is not perfect. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: just this couple video. Maybe you just decided to do
Speaker 1: this one trip, right, I'm sympathetic to that. I talked
Speaker 1: to one of the creators that went on this trip
Speaker 1: that was like, ma'am, like I've been this is a
Speaker 1: young person that's been grinding. It was like, I worked
Speaker 1: so hard. I'm trying to get a job in tech,
Speaker 1: like I couldn't, so I built my platform. I finally
Speaker 1: get this brand trip, and now I'm getting all this backlash,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I'm sympathetic to kind of everyone involved.
Speaker 1: But I think what's so interesting to me is like
Speaker 1: why open ai and this is what I made my
Speaker 1: video about it too, is like why open ai has
Speaker 1: kind of become the face and like when we look
Speaker 1: at sort of like these companies that become symbolic of
Speaker 1: some larger cultural issue, whether or not it's based in reality,
Speaker 1: you can even look at something like meta, right, and
Speaker 1: the way that people are so angry about social media
Speaker 1: addiction and meta and stuff. Meanwhile, Spotify has far more
Speaker 1: addictive features on their apps. Spotify actually has less content moderation.
Speaker 1: Spotify's got short form video, long form video like but
Speaker 1: there's no moral panic about Spotify because they don't have
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg at the helm being, you know, saying terrible
Speaker 1: things like being irresponsible. Right, So I think with Open AI,
Speaker 1: people are really angry at Sam Altman, and this company
Speaker 1: has become representative of all of the bad things that
Speaker 1: AI is doing. And trust me, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: bad uses of AI right now. So it just seemed
Speaker 1: frustrating to see these influencers, these life sylen facers coming
Speaker 1: and putting this like sheen of like come with me
Speaker 1: to go be keeping as I promote, you know, this
Speaker 1: company that you probably think is destroying the world, and
Speaker 1: we're going to do it all amidst climate collapse in
Speaker 1: this pastoral kind of like beautiful nature scenery. While by
Speaker 1: the way, we're also the AI industry is like building
Speaker 1: data centers that are obliterating, you know, potentially our public lands.
Speaker 1: So I think there's just a lot of contradictions at
Speaker 1: play there, and when that makes its way onto the Internet,
Speaker 1: obviously it's like fine, yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean very well put.
Speaker 3: And I think about it and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: if I were to argue the other side, right, I'm like,
Speaker 3: tech has a real education problem, Like in order for
Speaker 3: AI to work for.
Speaker 2: Everybody, folks have to understand it.
Speaker 3: And if there's a way in one of the biggest ways,
Speaker 3: because as we know, traditional media is collapsing, you have
Speaker 3: the rise of the creator world, which you have been
Speaker 3: in for a very long time, but that the loudest
Speaker 3: voices don't necessarily.
Speaker 2: Mean the most credible.
Speaker 3: And so if you're a creator who has the ability
Speaker 3: to go in and have access to the people creating
Speaker 3: the technology that is fundamentally for better info worst transforming
Speaker 3: the world, why.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you take it? So it's a both and and
Speaker 2: I think that's like a course nuance on the internet
Speaker 2: is such a joke.
Speaker 3: But I think, what when you say you talk to
Speaker 3: some of these influencers who are going there and getting
Speaker 3: this backlash, it's really important, I think for technology to
Speaker 3: be able to communicate with the people it is supposed
Speaker 3: to serve, because the more we divide that, the less
Speaker 3: these people get a seat at the table.
Speaker 2: I don't know absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I mean, one big problem I have with this
Speaker 1: AI backlash is like a lot of these people refuse
Speaker 1: to acknowledge any benefits of this technology. They refuse to
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. And if you can't acknowledge the benefits of
Speaker 1: a new technology, you actually can't ensure those benefits are
Speaker 1: equally distributed or fairly distributed. And that's a huge problem. Grace,
Speaker 1: I forgot her last name, but there was this one
Speaker 1: life style influencer named Grace who kind of became the
Speaker 1: face of the backlash because she actually doubled down publicly
Speaker 1: and all these people that were like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is morally wrong. She said, I didn't violate my moral code.
Speaker 1: You are basically projecting your moral code onto me. I'm
Speaker 1: not against the concept of AI. I'm not against going
Speaker 1: into these rooms learning more about it. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I'm necessarily like compromised or not going to you know,
Speaker 1: it's effectively a press trip. It's really important for people
Speaker 1: to understand open AI did not pay these creators to
Speaker 1: be there. Yes, they got a free hotel room, but
Speaker 1: again it's it's talk to any magazine fashion journalist. You know,
Speaker 1: they're doing this all day long with the fashion industry,
Speaker 1: which I would argue is just as exploitative and harmful
Speaker 1: to our environment if you want to talk about.
Speaker 4: Sort of irresponsible industries.
Speaker 1: Right, But they're still going on the Balenciaga, you know,
Speaker 1: press trip to Paris or whatever. So I think this
Speaker 1: is the way that comm's PR works, marketing works, media
Speaker 1: and press relations work.
Speaker 4: We know that influencers are effectively the new media.
Speaker 1: So I totally understand why they would go honestly, but
Speaker 1: I also understand why it would play so poorly online.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of it again has to
Speaker 1: do with open AI because Anthropic and we can get
Speaker 1: into this has been doing tons of influencer marketing for
Speaker 1: a year and there has been none of this discussion
Speaker 1: around them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's what's actually what's so in
Speaker 3: interesting is And when I look at it, I'm not
Speaker 3: a defender of one or the other as much as
Speaker 3: more of like a person who tries to just take
Speaker 3: all the facts and put them in together, put them
Speaker 3: in a place where it kind of makes sense to me.
Speaker 3: And so much about this moment makes sense, and then
Speaker 3: so much doesn't, you know, make sense, And I think
Speaker 3: more this moment is a feeling, right, It's a feeling
Speaker 3: of an ease, And you're right, I think Opening Eye
Speaker 3: has become this kind of poster child for the things
Speaker 3: that are scary about the future and some of the
Speaker 3: things that seem to be happening to people and not
Speaker 3: with people, even though AI to some degree is this inevitability.
Speaker 3: With the correct guardrails, with the correct you know, with
Speaker 3: the correct regulation, with the correct participation, it could do
Speaker 3: incredible things for society. And Sam Altman like did become
Speaker 3: very much the face of it, especially when like Sora
Speaker 3: launched and he kind of made himself this face of it,
Speaker 3: and it becomes kind of this meme culture. So I
Speaker 3: think people do associate it with with with Sam. So
Speaker 3: it is a very fascinating moment. And then you look
Speaker 3: at Anthropic, like Anthropic has such like your point, which
Speaker 3: I thought was a really important point, was, you know, Anthropic,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of criticism for Open Eyes that they,
Speaker 3: you know, are doing business with the Department of War.
Speaker 3: Anthropic has done business with the Department of War, and
Speaker 3: so have a lot of tech companies. So as you
Speaker 3: are someone who translates internet culture to us, So why
Speaker 3: why isn't that a part of it? Why not you know,
Speaker 3: fight against Anthropic if that's if that's your cause, what's
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 4: I guess like yes.
Speaker 1: And my point to point out some of this is
Speaker 1: like I as somebody that reports a lot on sort
Speaker 1: of like these backlash cycles, they're not based in reality
Speaker 1: there there, it's all as you said, it's emotion. There's
Speaker 1: no moral consistency because if you are morally outraged about
Speaker 1: a content creator going on one single press weekend with
Speaker 1: open aye, where is that energy for alex Earl when
Speaker 1: she did her huge Microsoft partnership. Microsoft, which is a
Speaker 1: key player in the military industrial complex and is like
Speaker 1: heavily embedded with the Department of War, right, and as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Anthropic as well, is very eager to work
Speaker 1: with the Department of War. They obviously have a sort
Speaker 1: of disagreement with the government now, but it's not even
Speaker 1: that they're saying we don't want to work with you.
Speaker 1: They're saying, hey, yes, we're totally down to make these
Speaker 1: autonomous weapons. We just don't think they're ready yet, but
Speaker 1: they will be one day, and don't worry, we will
Speaker 1: do that business. So you know, none of these tech
Speaker 1: companies I would argue have like the moral high ground necessarily,
Speaker 1: like they're all kind of doing government work, they're all
Speaker 1: embedded in our military industrial complex, Like this is kind
Speaker 1: of how things go.
Speaker 4: And I think it's really important to call that stuff out.
Speaker 1: But I think driving just an obscene level of hate
Speaker 1: at some person with forty thousand followers for going on
Speaker 1: a glorified brand trip, Like I don't know that that's productive.
Speaker 1: I think that's coming from a place of emotion, and
Speaker 1: I think it's also like again, how the companies have
Speaker 1: positioned themselves. Open Ai is a really popular consumer product,
Speaker 1: so it's what people are more familiar with. Claude is
Speaker 1: seen as more elevated. It has the Sarah font. It's
Speaker 1: seen there's people that like will shit on Chatchy bet
Speaker 1: all day, but then like and.
Speaker 4: Say, oh it's evil, it's using up all the water.
Speaker 1: It's well by the way in topics like eating open
Speaker 1: AI's lunch right now. Right. This is a massive corporation
Speaker 1: that I would argue also pushes tech policies that are
Speaker 1: incredibly harmful, way more irresponsible than open Ai in my opinion,
Speaker 1: But they're not as familiar with it, and it's seen
Speaker 1: as this sort of elite consumer product.
Speaker 4: It's elevated.
Speaker 1: Part of it reminds me I covered the Tinder Bumble
Speaker 1: war back in the day, and it's it's similar dynamics
Speaker 1: where you see and honestly, Uber and Lyft could be
Speaker 1: seen in a similar light right where there's usually this
Speaker 1: first mover to the market Uber Tinder that's like a
Speaker 1: category defining that they release a category defining product.
Speaker 4: They then sort of often.
Speaker 1: Have a crazy you know, they all have like some
Speaker 1: man at the hell that probably says some things that
Speaker 1: maybe you know, people don't like or whatever. There's some scandal,
Speaker 1: there's negative press coverage, there should be that we should
Speaker 1: scrutinize the attach companies, and then you have their biggest
Speaker 1: competitor coming around and saying, oh, don't worry, we're the
Speaker 1: good one. We're going to basically do the exact same thing,
Speaker 1: but we're going to sort of be responsible. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be Lyft, We're going to be the responsible Uber, We're
Speaker 1: going to be Bumble, We're gonna be the responsible tender. Functionally,
Speaker 1: these platforms function the same way. They're exploiting the same people,
Speaker 1: they're doing all the same things, but it's a pr
Speaker 1: battle at the end of the day, and Anthropic is
Speaker 1: playing that game very well.
Speaker 3: I have to say, like I really do I agree
Speaker 3: with you on this, Like then it really is a
Speaker 3: narrative battle right now, and against a backdrop of a
Speaker 3: popular you said, it's like a populist revolution right where
Speaker 3: where it's a narrative battle where sometimes I think the
Speaker 3: players who are winning are the ones who understand on
Speaker 3: a sidal note, like what's happening beyond Silicon Valley. It's
Speaker 3: not the papers about abundance that are being written. It's
Speaker 3: not the like pontification from like some of these founders,
Speaker 3: like I know, Zuckerberg just wrote a big thing like
Speaker 3: it really.
Speaker 2: I think is folks who really.
Speaker 3: Maybe are in the Silicon Valley bubble but have a
Speaker 3: little bit more of an understanding of what's happening on
Speaker 3: the outside, which is fear anger, you know, wealth, disparity, climate,
Speaker 3: all of these things, like you know, a political environment
Speaker 3: that a lot of folks have grown up with and
Speaker 3: and so I think it's it's I remember when looking
Speaker 3: at Anthropic and just having covered kind of and you
Speaker 3: know this, like people will pr people will say things
Speaker 3: to you you kind of you're always trying to figure
Speaker 3: out like, well, what is the angle? What is the truth? Like,
Speaker 3: what is the what are the facts? And how do
Speaker 3: I present this in the best way? And I remember
Speaker 3: looking at a lot of anthropics, uh the pr that
Speaker 3: they were doing, and I think and I and I
Speaker 3: thought to myself, Oh, that's really good. Good like Dario
Speaker 3: coming out and saying things like and I'm paraphrasing and whatever,
Speaker 3: but like, I's going to ruin the world if we're
Speaker 3: not careful. Really positions him as someone who's trustworthy, someone
Speaker 3: who's saying things are about to get really, really really bad.
Speaker 2: Here's why we have this kind of thing like that.
Speaker 1: And while pushing some of the most invalent, invasive mass
Speaker 1: surveillance laws of our time. Like I just want to
Speaker 1: be clear, Like if when I look at the I
Speaker 1: write a lot about tech policy, it's scary what anthropic
Speaker 1: is proposing. They are not some like you know company
Speaker 1: that is like they are also operating a multi billion
Speaker 1: dollar business.
Speaker 3: What scares you most about anthropic Because we hear a
Speaker 3: lot about what scares folks about open ai we don't
Speaker 3: hear as much about anthropic.
Speaker 1: Anthropic is everything that open Aiye is doing Anthropic is
Speaker 1: doing everything. The problem is, in my opinion, is this
Speaker 1: effect of altruist kind of mentality and a deeply paternalist
Speaker 1: view of technology where it's on everything they accuse Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: of I would argue, like Dario is truly that right.
Speaker 1: He has this elon musk even like a mentality where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I am going to be the
Speaker 1: one I only I am a safe steward of this technology.
Speaker 1: I mean I covered the recent sort of battle against
Speaker 1: open weight Chinese models, which are incredibly valuable, which will
Speaker 1: undeniably help.
Speaker 4: You know, cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: It will they will help startups like it lowers the
Speaker 1: cost of compute, it allows for more innovation, like these
Speaker 1: are things that we should support. But Anthropic really wants
Speaker 1: a close They want to do regulatory capture, and they
Speaker 1: want this closed ecosystem where they are the ones that
Speaker 1: control AI. They are the ones that bring super intelligence
Speaker 1: to everyone, and their scheme, you know, controls everything. They
Speaker 1: are basically the arbiters of our AI ecosystem. And that
Speaker 1: is a monopoly. I mean, that is everything that we
Speaker 1: know that Mark zuckerbrig did. I just Anthropic is constantly
Speaker 1: running the meta playbook and you know what else they're
Speaker 1: doing that is very much the meta playbook. They're doing
Speaker 1: the whole sort of like fake like safety thing, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we care so much about children's safety and children, so
Speaker 1: we just need everyone's government ID and we're just going
Speaker 1: to completely We're going to enact mass surveillance on the Internet,
Speaker 1: and it's all for your safety. If you guys are
Speaker 1: so worried about safety, why are you building autonomous weapons?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? Like this is just in
Speaker 1: your business interest. And I think instead of looking at
Speaker 1: these companies and drinking the kool aid, we need to
Speaker 1: recognize that anthropics fight against like open aye. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not that they worry about the safety, it's because
Speaker 1: it is in their interest. Maybe some of them are
Speaker 1: true believers. Dario is a true believer in terms of
Speaker 1: the EI stuff. But like it's just it's very meta
Speaker 1: because Metall makes all the same claims and does all
Speaker 1: the same things, and you know, we just need to
Speaker 1: have some skepticism here around these companies.
Speaker 3: I think, like the hard part is and maybe this
Speaker 3: is what this influencer trip kind of triggered for me,
Speaker 3: was like I understand a backlash, I really do because
Speaker 3: I think if I were sitting at the table, I
Speaker 3: would say, you know, here are the things that people
Speaker 3: really care about, and these are the things they're afraid about.
Speaker 3: How do we utilize voices who capture Internet culture to
Speaker 3: be able to talk to them and address those fears?
Speaker 2: Right? And how do we educate people?
Speaker 3: And maybe the backdrop of luxury when folks are wondering
Speaker 3: should AIB a utility or and I think that was
Speaker 3: in your comment someone actually said that in your comments.
Speaker 1: There's this idea on the left that we should nationalize AI,
Speaker 1: which is fascinating to me because it's coming amidst Donald
Speaker 1: Trump literally leveraging the FTC to try to censor the
Speaker 1: content that AI models can can give. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of these things are misguided. But I think
Speaker 1: while they might not be able to articulate like clear
Speaker 1: and coherent policy proposals like the vibes are very much
Speaker 1: like why don't we the public have more control?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's say you were sitting there, it's Charles Porch,
Speaker 3: it's Sam Oltman, it's their brand people now and their
Speaker 3: influencer strategy, and they're sitting here being like, well, I
Speaker 3: think this backfired. I hope they understand it backfired. We
Speaker 3: know we need to reach people. We know that the
Speaker 3: internet and the creator world is the future in many ways.
Speaker 2: What would you say to them?
Speaker 1: Another friend of mine who's very plugged into the AI world,
Speaker 1: I believe, told open Ai or some big company this,
Speaker 1: and I think about it all the time because it's
Speaker 1: the same thing I would say too, which is start
Speaker 1: giving away money, start a fund, start investing in public spaces.
Speaker 1: Like you see what Mamdani's doing where he's like out
Speaker 1: being like I did that. Look at what I did,
Speaker 1: like go build a park, fun thing. Do public charity
Speaker 1: do like a like? I mean, this is what the
Speaker 1: friend of mine who was suggesting that they have like
Speaker 1: a mister Beasts style thing where it's like they are
Speaker 1: just giving people vast amounts of money.
Speaker 4: I mean, look at what it's done for mister Beat's career.
Speaker 1: Mister Beasts is not exactly like you know, He's built
Speaker 1: his entire career on like being this like charitable guy.
Speaker 1: I think people, and I don't think it means I
Speaker 1: don't think it means paying influencers for content. I think
Speaker 1: it means truly giving away money. People think you have
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. You do have billions of dollars. I mean,
Speaker 1: I understand why the financials are not so easy, but
Speaker 1: I think if people see like, wow, you just built that, Wow,
Speaker 1: you just funded that theater that was going to close. Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh but like and you're just doing like you have
Speaker 1: to win back some public good, especially among the left
Speaker 1: sort of internet, because in progressive spaces now, like you
Speaker 1: cannot be like you are not welcome basically, and that's
Speaker 1: not going to work out for you long long term.
Speaker 1: You know, the Democrats are going to be in power again.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get regulated. Bernie Sanders is out there giving
Speaker 1: his policies on pausing all technological development or whatever he
Speaker 1: wants to do like it. So, yeah, that's what I
Speaker 1: would tell them. I would just say, like start giving
Speaker 1: away money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and I love that idea of like
Speaker 3: investing in maybe kind of like IRL places too, and
Speaker 3: places that are are going to become even more premium
Speaker 3: and a rise of AI where you know, jobs are
Speaker 3: going to go away, places are going to go away.
Speaker 2: In human connection is also something that's really.
Speaker 4: Important, Laurie.
Speaker 1: If they had rented out some space in upstate New
Speaker 1: York and said like, this is going to be free
Speaker 1: for the public. This is free for the public all weekend,
Speaker 1: and we're paying for it. You know, this is like
Speaker 1: that would generate good well and by the way, we'll
Speaker 1: have some kiosks and we're going to explain AI to
Speaker 1: you in the corner here, but like we want like
Speaker 1: then it comes from this like place of charity. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's this idea that the marketing that they're
Speaker 1: doing now is like nefarious and like as an this
Speaker 1: elite kind of group of influencers is sel like there's
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and I think they just need to
Speaker 1: be a lot more open and engaged.
Speaker 3: The thing that you kind of ended on that I
Speaker 3: think kind of captures it is this was a luxury
Speaker 3: brand experience, which, by the way, tons of people do.
Speaker 3: But I think it's like about accessibility at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, right, I think when it comes to
Speaker 3: artificial intelligence and so many of these companies, they're selling
Speaker 3: us this idea of accessibility and that these systems in
Speaker 3: many ways, and by the way, they've been super helpful
Speaker 3: to me in so many ways, and I'm sure and
Speaker 3: they are also there are some real questions on a
Speaker 3: societal level of how we actually utilize these in the
Speaker 3: best types of way that, as they like to say
Speaker 3: in Silicon Valley, aids human flourishing. But I think it's
Speaker 3: accessibility and it's hypocrisy. I think that's the thing that
Speaker 3: people can sniff out, you know, pretty much pretty quickly
Speaker 3: these days, especially on the Internet. And that is to
Speaker 3: your point, Taylor. I would love to see so many
Speaker 3: of these places open up in hubs where people a
Speaker 3: lot of people are losing jobs, where things aren't easy,
Speaker 3: and show people how they can have an I co
Speaker 3: founder and turn their small business into a you know,
Speaker 3: into something that's helping them make money, or someone who
Speaker 3: can actually you know, be in these communities. And I'm
Speaker 3: sure they're doing programs and whatnot, but like so, I
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Don't don't call me if they already are.
Speaker 3: But I think what you're talking about is really important,
Speaker 3: which is being in the communities that are being impacted
Speaker 3: by this and being on the ground and understanding.
Speaker 2: And I think the narrative war of the.
Speaker 3: AI companies will be one by the folks who are
Speaker 3: able to leave the bubble and understand where we are
Speaker 3: as a society and how to speak that and also
Speaker 3: how to put your money where your mouth is and
Speaker 3: maybe put those money money into the community.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I know it'll be it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1: I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: and talking to people, and a lot of people are
Speaker 1: just like, we just have to wait it out.
Speaker 4: We're just going to wait it out, and in.
Speaker 1: Two to three years, definitely five years, these people will
Speaker 1: be irrelevant. Also a lot of these people that are
Speaker 1: so anti AI, they're effectively making themselves irrelevant, like they
Speaker 1: refuse to engage with this technology. They're just these are
Speaker 1: not going to be people that are movers and shakers
Speaker 1: in the world, super employable in the world. And it's
Speaker 1: frustrating though, because I will say, and you work in
Speaker 1: media too, It's like the content that does the best
Speaker 1: online is the content that feeds these fears and that
Speaker 1: sells people.
Speaker 2: Sell And if we just got.
Speaker 1: On here every single day and said the most inflammatory
Speaker 1: stuff and scared everyone and said there's no benefit and
Speaker 1: it's a bubble and you're gonna everything's a fake and
Speaker 1: it's you know, we would honestly probably make a million
Speaker 1: dollars at least. I mean, there are people doing that right,
Speaker 1: that are making that kind of money, and you will
Speaker 1: be funded as well by a lot of these groups
Speaker 1: that are that are funded in many cases by billionaires themselves,
Speaker 1: that are like special interest groups trying to get their
Speaker 1: sort of AI regulation pass. So it's a really broken ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and it's really frustrating because I feel like we're in
Speaker 1: this sort of messy middle right now and I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen next.
Speaker 3: I really agree with that, I think in a world
Speaker 3: because I am I don't know if I'm an optimist
Speaker 3: as much as like, I just feel like, to some degree,
Speaker 3: like I got into tech because I loved technology. I
Speaker 3: loved people who didn't fit in the box. I loved
Speaker 3: people who looked at things and said, well, it works
Speaker 3: this way, but what if it worked this way? You know,
Speaker 3: And things got very complicated. But that didn't mean that
Speaker 3: tech is like the big bad wolf. I mean it really,
Speaker 3: you know a lot of these things. I think about
Speaker 3: a family member of mine who's been really sick, and
Speaker 3: how much AI and chat, GPT and what not enabled
Speaker 3: me to be able to speak to the doctor. I
Speaker 3: didn't let it obviously didn't diagnose her, but enabled me
Speaker 3: to have a conversation I wouldn't have been able to
Speaker 3: have had I, you know, and that wasn't available to
Speaker 3: me in this like insane healthcare system.
Speaker 1: And there are laws right now that would destroy your
Speaker 1: ability to do that. That's what scares me is that
Speaker 1: these people have gotten on board with a fundamentally reactionary movement.
Speaker 1: There was a great piece by Molly Taft and why
Speaker 1: heard about this organization called Humans First, one of these
Speaker 1: ANTIAI organizations that's funded by an acolyte of Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: and it is a far right extremist group that is,
Speaker 1: you know, doing a lot with leftist organizers and had
Speaker 1: an event in Brooklyn, and it's getting all of these
Speaker 1: people on board with this like trad lifestyle of like
Speaker 1: let's destroy technology, let's go back to the eighteen hundred, Like, guys, No,
Speaker 1: let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We
Speaker 1: can have smart laws. No one thinks that we need
Speaker 1: no regulation. Maybe the people running the companies, but certainly
Speaker 1: there can be you know, we can try to use
Speaker 1: technology to build a better world.
Speaker 3: But what you're saying is so true because I have
Speaker 3: seen the people, like a lot of dudes like a
Speaker 3: lot of these. I mean, I just have to say
Speaker 3: some of it as dudes, like kind of pontificating on
Speaker 3: the end of the world and being very dramatic about it, and.
Speaker 2: It makes people fearful.
Speaker 3: And I understand there are a lot of things we
Speaker 3: need to be confronting with the rise of AI. But
Speaker 3: the way it's done is it is packaged. It does
Speaker 3: well the algorithms. The algorithms pick it up and it
Speaker 3: becomes culture, and it impacts a cultural conversation. You know,
Speaker 3: I think like someone throwing a Molotov cocktail at Sam
Speaker 3: Altman's home. I don't care how like, I just, you know,
Speaker 3: I really do believe that to some degree, the culture
Speaker 3: of this and what's bolstered online is also dangerous if
Speaker 3: not countered with real agency driven educational content, which honestly
Speaker 3: is harder to do well online, which creates this whole weird,
Speaker 3: fractured ecosystem that doesn't put humans in the front seat.
Speaker 2: And I worry about it sometimes.
Speaker 3: But my hope is that you know, maybe it is
Speaker 3: what you say that and that we kind of we
Speaker 3: ride this wave. We've ridden other waves before, you know,
Speaker 3: and we see the narratives change and we see technology
Speaker 3: work and not work, and promises be delivered and not delivered.
Speaker 3: And so my hope is that we'll fall somewhere in
Speaker 3: the middle.