Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: My AI detector is better than my colleagues because they
Speaker 2: were fooled by a video a couple days ago, and
Speaker 2: I was like, that's AI.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, that's exactly where I want to go with
Speaker 3: our next guest. DONW. Bradford is Henry el Moses, Professor
Speaker 3: of Law, an international organization at Columbia Law School. She
Speaker 3: was last on with us just over two years ago
Speaker 3: when the Will Smith eating spaghetti test looked not realistic
Speaker 3: at all, just to show how far things have come.
Speaker 3: She's the author of several books, including most recently, Digital Empires,
Speaker 3: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology. This was published back
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three. And that's exactly what I want
Speaker 3: to start where I want to start with you, Professor Bradford.
Speaker 3: I got an invite today to try out Sora from
Speaker 3: a friend of mine. I think he's a paying subscriber
Speaker 3: of open ais GPT and that's why he has an invitation.
Speaker 3: And I was watching some of the videos that he
Speaker 3: made and I'm thinking to myself, we are so cooked
Speaker 3: are we.
Speaker 4: So? Thanks so much for having me, Tim and Emily.
Speaker 4: We may well be cooked. But the question is what
Speaker 4: are we most worried about. I think there are many
Speaker 4: exciting developments. I think we're certainly more entertained in many ways.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, I think those who warned
Speaker 4: us early on that this is not the kind of
Speaker 4: AI revolution that we should be just leaving for the
Speaker 4: tech companies to govern to manage. We do need governments involved.
Speaker 4: We need some guardrails, we need some regulation to make
Speaker 4: sure that these fast advances that we are witnessing are
Speaker 4: moving to the direction that we're comfortable with.
Speaker 3: It seems like it's too late, though.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's too late. I think we certainly
Speaker 4: are not at the point where we can say that
Speaker 4: AI is done. I think we will continue to see
Speaker 4: massive developments in coming years. And we already have AI
Speaker 4: governance regulation on the rada of many lawmakers. And obviously
Speaker 4: the Europeans have been most proactive, as they usually are,
Speaker 4: and they have the AI Act, a comprehensive piece of
Speaker 4: legislation that is already in force. And now it's then
Speaker 4: the matter of implementing it effectively, and then we also
Speaker 4: need to see what happens in the United States at
Speaker 4: the state level. China is definitely interested in governing AI.
Speaker 4: We have many other jurisdictions, so I think there is
Speaker 4: a lot that is happening and a lot more that
Speaker 4: needs to be done.
Speaker 2: In your new book Digital Empires, you break apart how
Speaker 2: basically different regimes across the globe are governing and regulating
Speaker 2: AI differently. So there's a US, there's Europe, there's China.
Speaker 2: In your research, have you found one need is kind
Speaker 2: of doing that balancing act the best so far in
Speaker 2: terms of balancing out They don't want to stifle innovation,
Speaker 2: but they also want to protect users of AI, consumers
Speaker 2: of AI, companies that are getting involved with AI. Who's
Speaker 2: doing the balancing act the best in your view?
Speaker 4: So I think any regulator really needs to think about
Speaker 4: this balancing to make sure that we harness these tremendous
Speaker 4: benefits that are associated with AI, but also really safeguard
Speaker 4: our citizens and societies from various risks. And in many ways,
Speaker 4: there is a perception that the Europeans are airing on
Speaker 4: the side or preemptively protecting against these risks and maybe
Speaker 4: then foregoing some of the innovation benefits, whereas the Americans
Speaker 4: would be airing on the side of maybe being very
Speaker 4: techno optimists and not thinking about all those potential downsides.
Speaker 4: I think in many ways I do like and endorse
Speaker 4: the European model in the sense that, in my view,
Speaker 4: that best safeguards the public interest and really takes seriously
Speaker 4: the fundamental rights of individuals and democratic structures of the society.
Speaker 4: But there is always I really reject this notion that
Speaker 4: this comes at the cost of innovation. There definitely is
Speaker 4: a gap where the Americans are doing much better in
Speaker 4: generating AI innovations compared to the Europeans. But the reason
Speaker 4: is not that the Europeans are so keen on regulating.
Speaker 4: I think there are many other reasons that explain why.
Speaker 4: There are just fundamental pillars of the tech ecosystem in
Speaker 4: the US that are much stronger and the Europeans have
Speaker 4: fallen short in replicating that. So regulation as such, the
Speaker 4: protection of those rights is not a choice that needs
Speaker 4: to come at the cost of making beneficial progress in
Speaker 4: this space.
Speaker 3: So, you know, going back to our conversation that I
Speaker 3: had with you two years ago, because the world has
Speaker 3: changed so much since then. Two years ago, Joe Biden
Speaker 3: was president, there were a lot of folks who didn't
Speaker 3: think that Donald Trump would win another term. Fast forward
Speaker 3: two years, Donald Trump is the president, David Sachs is
Speaker 3: crypto and aizar. The regime is thinks about this completely
Speaker 3: differently than I think it's fair to say the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: What do you think the US needs to be doing
Speaker 3: right now to regulate this technology? What would you like
Speaker 3: to see David Sachs do?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you're so right. There has been a complete
Speaker 4: U turn in many ways. Towards the end of the
Speaker 4: Biden administration, there was closer alignment between the traditional Transatlantic allies,
Speaker 4: where the US was really moving closer to the European
Speaker 4: view that technology like AI needs guardrails, and there was
Speaker 4: a genuine attempt to join force among the world's techno
Speaker 4: democracies in order to halt the advances of Chinese digital
Speaker 4: authoritarian views of governing technology. So I really saw this
Speaker 4: potential for the US and the EU to join forces
Speaker 4: to bring about a very beneficial chase in this space.
Speaker 4: But now the US is doing I think two things.
Speaker 4: So it's first of all, giving a lot more power
Speaker 4: to the tech companies walking away from regulation, impraising these
Speaker 4: deregulatory zeal That really reflects the very strong form of
Speaker 4: techno libertarian, techno optimist firl wheel. But in many ways,
Speaker 4: the US is also playing Beijing's game and becoming very
Speaker 4: state driven. We see our massive state investment in some
Speaker 4: of these leading tech companies. We see our export controls,
Speaker 4: investment restrictions, we see subsidies. So the US is to
Speaker 4: me are losing some of its own And if you
Speaker 4: think about how that will also impact the US's adamant
Speaker 4: goal of being a leader in AI, what is happening
Speaker 4: in the space of immigration, I think that is really
Speaker 4: counterproductive if you think about where all those AI innovation comes,
Speaker 4: innovations come from the US. So what the US would
Speaker 4: need to do first? The US would need to regulate
Speaker 4: this space. We need to make sure that fundamental rights
Speaker 4: are protected, we need to make sure that those societal
Speaker 4: risks are under control, and we need to also at
Speaker 4: the same time make sure that we will continue to
Speaker 4: invest in the development of the AI by retaining the
Speaker 4: world's best talent, which often is immigrant talent, including then
Speaker 4: Chinese data scientists who have been contributing to advances in
Speaker 4: the space in the US.
Speaker 2: Is there any specific regulation that comes to mind that
Speaker 2: you would want to see in the US that would
Speaker 2: prevent this kind of idea that ten percent in the
Speaker 2: beginning of the segment about this the spaghetti test. It
Speaker 2: sounds silly, the will Smith spaghetti test, but it gets
Speaker 2: at the heart. Yeah, concerned that people have that suddenly
Speaker 2: the Internet is going to be, you know, filled with
Speaker 2: these videos.
Speaker 3: We're not and it's the end.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Well, maybe we can have a professor help.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 3: She said, it's not the end already, which I'm great, right, it's.
Speaker 1: Not the end.
Speaker 2: Is there a specific piece of regulation that that comes
Speaker 2: to mind? Is it about I don't know, digital privacy,
Speaker 2: people needing disclaimers on top of every video that you
Speaker 2: see on the Internet.
Speaker 4: So I think there are many aspects, and there's no
Speaker 4: easy way to say that you just need to do
Speaker 4: one thing in order to then address this multitude of
Speaker 4: different hams. But one thing. It does start from the
Speaker 4: protection of privacy and our agency and our ability to
Speaker 4: be able to tell what is fiction and what is not,
Speaker 4: and our ability to engage in conversation based on real
Speaker 4: information that is not manipulated by our AI and this
Speaker 4: information obviously existed even without JUDGPT type of tools, but
Speaker 4: they are now fueled with this AI driven ability to
Speaker 4: manipulate our sense of reality. So in many ways, I
Speaker 4: think it does need labeling. It does need the kind
Speaker 4: of transparency and accountability that we have a sense of
Speaker 4: how these AI systems are built and how we engage
Speaker 4: with them. But then there are also risks around and
Speaker 4: just protecting content content creators. We need to take copyright
Speaker 4: seriously and the idea of how we actually train these
Speaker 4: models with the data that has been generated by individual authors,
Speaker 4: by journalists, and that needs to be also compensated well
Speaker 4: so that we still have the incentive to engage in
Speaker 4: that kind of content production. But privacy is obviously very
Speaker 4: high on my list, This information is very high on
Speaker 4: my list. Then there are questions that are more about
Speaker 4: existential risks, more about systemic risks, and even if it's
Speaker 4: hard to sometimes know the probabilities of some of the
Speaker 4: most severe risks and how likely they are to materialize,
Speaker 4: we still need to be prepared to also as a
Speaker 4: society to confront that kind of reality when AI advance
Speaker 4: is really fast and we reach the point when we
Speaker 4: find even harder to govern that technology. So I think
Speaker 4: there are all these layers and we are not even
Speaker 4: really having, at least at the better level, a real
Speaker 4: conversation in how we go about regulating this space.
Speaker 3: Professor ONW brad for Henry el Moses, Professor of Law
Speaker 3: and an International Organization at Columbia Law School. She's the author
Speaker 3: of several books, including her most recent, Digital Empires, The
Speaker 3: Global Battle to Regulate Technology, published back in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: but as relevant right now as it was to years ago.
Speaker 3: M