Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count US Saturdays
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This week we
Speaker 2: look at artificial intelligence. After a year of mass layoffs,
Speaker 2: AI has put the tech industry back in the hiring mood,
Speaker 2: and later we'll look at the health effects of loneliness.
Speaker 2: Turns out being with each other may be just as
Speaker 2: important for your health as diet and exercise. Plus, the
Speaker 2: war in Ukraine continues, but will the support There may
Speaker 2: be shifting public opinion over how much money and equipment
Speaker 2: to send to Ukraine. We begin with the economy. Chief
Speaker 2: economist Vincent Reinhardt at Melon Asset Management tells Bloomberg Surveillance
Speaker 2: that the latest CPI data show some momentum in services inflation,
Speaker 2: a key indicator that the Federal Reserve monitors and that
Speaker 2: could trigger further tightening. In June, Chair.
Speaker 3: Paddell Is indicated that the forward looking indicators of sheltered
Speaker 3: prices that he looks at suggests there's going to be
Speaker 3: good news soon, but it doesn't change the core problem.
Speaker 3: There's some momentum there. The core question to ask is
Speaker 3: was today's print disqualifying for FED action in June?
Speaker 4: Make the answers.
Speaker 2: No, Let's turn out a Bloomberg opinion columnist Jonathan Levin. Jonathan,
Speaker 2: you have a terrific column on the Bloomberg terminal this week.
Speaker 2: It really helps put these things into perspective, featuring the
Speaker 2: cautious optimism one might find on the deck of a
Speaker 2: cruise ship. If people are willing to fill up these
Speaker 2: city sized party ships, how bad could the economy be? Really?
Speaker 5: Yeah, right now, I don't think the economy is very
Speaker 5: bad at all. In fact, you know, we saw this
Speaker 5: in the GDP report recently. Consumer spending has looked strong,
Speaker 5: up three point seven percent quoter on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Speaker 5: You know, it's easy to understand why things are still
Speaker 5: pretty good right now. The unemployment rate is still extremely,
Speaker 5: extremely low. There is still a ton of excess savings
Speaker 5: in this economy leftover from the sort of pandemic stay
Speaker 5: at home months. Economists estimated to be anywhere between you know,
Speaker 5: just four hundred billion and five hundred billion still in
Speaker 5: excess savings, and so you know, you have this phenomenon
Speaker 5: where a lot of people are still projecting recession. There
Speaker 5: are a lot of bears in the stock market. But
Speaker 5: you go on a cruise ship and people are just
Speaker 5: doing the electric slide like there's no.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow it's right. So is that an anomaly?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 2: I mean my question being is this more like pent
Speaker 2: up demand? Is this sort of a snap back from
Speaker 2: having to shut down because of the pandemic?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Well, so a couple of things. I think the pent
Speaker 5: up demand doesn't necessarily preclude a recession. In fact, it
Speaker 5: certainly doesn't, but it makes it a lot harder to
Speaker 5: topple this US consumer, which of course is two thirds
Speaker 5: of the US economy, And as long as there is
Speaker 5: that strength, that's going to be that much harder to
Speaker 5: go into a downturn. So is it anomaly? I think
Speaker 5: maybe yes and maybe no. So what is anomalous? The
Speaker 5: cruise industry is in the very unique situation that they
Speaker 5: essentially shut off supply for about fifteen months, right so
Speaker 5: starting in March twenty twenty and they're going through about
Speaker 5: June twenty twenty one. You couldn't get on a cruise ship,
Speaker 5: no matter how badly you wanted to do it. And
Speaker 5: then they slowly, slowly ramped it back up. There were
Speaker 5: some capacity caps for a while for safety reasons. And
Speaker 5: so this is an industry that does about thirty million
Speaker 5: passengers globally a year, and that if you just average
Speaker 5: out what happened from twenty twenty to twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: you ended up getting far far less than that. So
Speaker 5: I estimate. I estimate that there's something like unmet demand
Speaker 5: of around sixty million passengers. So if you just were
Speaker 5: to spread that out over a couple of years, that
Speaker 5: is really something that could keep this industry going even
Speaker 5: as other industries suffer. So that is a bit of
Speaker 5: an anomaly. But what's interesting about this post pandemic economy
Speaker 5: is you find somewhat similar stories in other key industries
Speaker 5: as well. Right, you could tell a similar story about
Speaker 5: auto where you know a certain amount of people just
Speaker 5: need to buy a new automobile every single year, but
Speaker 5: during the pandemic a lot of people couldn't get them.
Speaker 5: So people say, well, you know, economic outlook is getting
Speaker 5: kind of dicey. Why isn't auto demand falling off a cliff? More?
Speaker 5: And I think again, pent up demand is part of
Speaker 5: that story.
Speaker 2: Are you seeing similar reflections in the reports that we've
Speaker 2: been getting out, particularly in this past week, like in
Speaker 2: the earnings reports or CPI numbers. Let's just take them
Speaker 2: apart one by one. What did the earnings reports tell you?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 5: So, going back to the cruise thing, and the reason
Speaker 5: that I got on this whole kick about services and
Speaker 5: pent up demand is Royal Caribbean and Norwegian just had
Speaker 5: absolutely blowout quarters, like completely inconsistent with the idea that
Speaker 5: we're heading into a recession. And I said to myself, Wow,
Speaker 5: how is this possible? Because these are sort of like
Speaker 5: raw indications of where discretionary spending is. There's no business
Speaker 5: spending on a cruise ship, really, you know, the quarters
Speaker 5: were nothing short of spectacular. So I'll just highlight two indicators.
Speaker 5: Number One, bookings look absolutely phenomenal, either close close to
Speaker 5: or exceeding twenty nineteen levels, right, And so that's sort
Speaker 5: of your forward looking indicator. What's you know, how many
Speaker 5: people are looking to get on a cruise ship through
Speaker 5: the rest of the year and into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: And then what I think is maybe even more interesting
Speaker 5: is you're seeing record amounts of onboard spend, which I
Speaker 5: see as sort of like sort of a raw kind
Speaker 5: of sentiment indicator. These are your your bar tabs, these
Speaker 5: are your casino bills, you know, the gifts store, which
Speaker 5: we know those can be pretty overpriced. But people are
Speaker 5: people are are spending like they're not very apprehensive about
Speaker 5: maybe losing their jobs or going into a downturn.
Speaker 2: Is that reflected in the CPI as well?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you could, you could sort of see that.
Speaker 5: I think what we have seen in the CPI recently,
Speaker 5: certainly going back to the last three or four quarters,
Speaker 5: is this idea that it's not rolling over like some
Speaker 5: people had thought. It's this resiliency, which sort of a
Speaker 5: word that I and a lot of people probably overuse
Speaker 5: in this context. But what I really mean is, you know,
Speaker 5: CPI went up really fast in twenty twenty one, sort
Speaker 5: of early twenty twenty two. It did roll over, It
Speaker 5: has peaked, but it's if you just look at like
Speaker 5: a three month annualized basis, it's basically just been going sideways.
Speaker 5: So is this, you know, the hottest inflation readings that
Speaker 5: we've gotten in the cycle. No, No, it isn't. But
Speaker 5: it's still pretty dog on warm out there.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that means then, just basically taking what you've
Speaker 2: explained just now, it sounds like we've seen a post
Speaker 2: pandemic recovery, something of a boon. I'm wondering if that's ending.
Speaker 2: Are we watching this taper off now? Does this have
Speaker 2: momentum behind it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it all depends on a couple of factors. I mean,
Speaker 5: like I said, I think there is something self sustaining
Speaker 5: in some of these pockets of the economy with a
Speaker 5: lot of pent up demand. I think you can't underestimate
Speaker 5: the story that I told earlier in the broadcast about
Speaker 5: excess savings. Five hundred billion dollars is still a lot
Speaker 5: of money, and it could easily take you through the
Speaker 5: fourth quarter, maybe into the first quarter of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: None of this means that the economy is bulletproof. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't want to give anybody that impression either. I just
Speaker 5: think that it would take a much bigger shock or
Speaker 5: perhaps much more tightening of credit to really knock this
Speaker 5: economy off balance. I think that's basically.
Speaker 4: Where we are.
Speaker 2: How unusual is what we're seeing. We have these people,
Speaker 2: by these people, I mean, all of us, you know,
Speaker 2: going out and spending and not really worrying so much
Speaker 2: about a coming recession. And at the same time, the
Speaker 2: Fed is standing pat and they keep raising rights a
Speaker 2: little bit here, a little bit there. Have we seen
Speaker 2: this before where the mentality of the public doesn't quite
Speaker 2: match up with what may be happening, or what may
Speaker 2: be happening doesn't quite mesh with the emotion that we're
Speaker 2: seeing on Wall Street.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's no underestimating how strange this environment is.
Speaker 5: I really do think that, you know, the pandemic created
Speaker 5: a completely unique set of circumstances, and you know, I
Speaker 5: would again point to that excess savings that makes it
Speaker 5: such that sort of consumer sentiment could come off quite
Speaker 5: a bit. But there's going to be this difference between
Speaker 5: what people are saying and what they're actually doing until
Speaker 5: they're really feeling it in their pocketbooks. The other thing is,
Speaker 5: you know, it all really comes down at the end
Speaker 5: of the day to what happens with unemployment. People talk
Speaker 5: about unemployment being a lagging indicator, and it is, but
Speaker 5: the real impacts on the consumer side are not going
Speaker 5: to be felt, especially in this unique environment with the
Speaker 5: excess savings scenario until until you start to see an
Speaker 5: uptick in unemployment, and we absolutely have not seen that.
Speaker 5: We've seen a slow down in the amount by which
Speaker 5: companies are adding to their payrolls. But with the momentum
Speaker 5: being what it is, it's hard to think that unemployment
Speaker 5: is going to shoot up immediately in the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Jonathan Levin coming up on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 2: I'll look at the war and you and which way
Speaker 2: public opinion may be turning. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
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Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This past
Speaker 2: week we got reports that Russia attacked the Kiv region
Speaker 2: in Ukraine with dozens of Iranian made drones. This as
Speaker 2: the European Commission has reportedly proposed sanctions on seven Chinese
Speaker 2: companies accused of selling equipment that could be used as
Speaker 2: weapons in Russia's war in Ukraine. A Secretary of State
Speaker 2: Anthony Blincoln says that between the military aid and the
Speaker 2: financial support plus training that many nations are giving to
Speaker 2: Ukraine's forces, he believes Ukraine can regain some of the
Speaker 2: territory that's been lost.
Speaker 6: My own estimation is that they have in place across
Speaker 6: all of those dimensions what they need to continue to
Speaker 6: be successful in regaining territory that was seized by force
Speaker 6: by Russia over the last fourteen months.
Speaker 2: But public opinion could be shifting on this. Throughout the West,
Speaker 2: support for supplying Ukraine with weapons is starting to waver,
Speaker 2: and in the US more people are starting to say
Speaker 2: that the government is doing too much for Ukraine. In Germany,
Speaker 2: a steady majority contends that diplomatic efforts are not sufficient.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about all of this with Bloomberg Opinion columnist
Speaker 2: Leonid Burshidsky with the Bloomberg News Automation team. Here's a
Speaker 2: column on the Bloomberg terminal about this very issue, and
Speaker 2: he joins us, now, so let's just get down to it.
Speaker 2: How is public support waning for Ukraine?
Speaker 4: Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars. It is
Speaker 4: now the greatest the biggest recipient of US military aid
Speaker 4: in history. You know, these are huge amounts of money,
Speaker 4: and they're hard to justify to the kind of taxpayer
Speaker 4: who wants the government to act solely in hazer her
Speaker 4: economic interest. So when you discard emotional arguments and those
Speaker 4: of solidarity with Ukraine as a country that faces an
Speaker 4: invasion and basically a war of choice, you know, there's
Speaker 4: enormous human suffering for people who don't really care about that,
Speaker 4: who mainly care about where their tax dollars are going.
Speaker 4: Such huge amounts of help are suspect. Both in the
Speaker 4: US and in Europe. There are, if not majorities in
Speaker 4: most countries, then at least sizeable numbers of such people.
Speaker 2: You know, That's what I wanted to talk to you about.
Speaker 2: If this is a matter of cost and these astronomical
Speaker 2: numbers sort of make people give them pause, or if
Speaker 2: there are also concerns that this is a zero sum game.
Speaker 2: If you're giving all of this money and all of
Speaker 2: these weapons to Ukraine, then over here I am being
Speaker 2: left out. I am somehow not getting my fair share.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 4: To these people, this is money that is not going
Speaker 4: to that is not being spent on domestic means a
Speaker 4: lot of people, if not majorities again, but then sizable
Speaker 4: numbers of people do not understand why a foreign country
Speaker 4: quite far away. Even though Ukraine is a European country,
Speaker 4: it is about as far from Spain as Sudan in
Speaker 4: terms of sheer distance. So people don't understand why a
Speaker 4: distant country is getting all that money while there are
Speaker 4: all these domestic issues. There's high inflation, high energy prices
Speaker 4: that are being caused by the war. Well, they'll understand
Speaker 4: why they should be paying for Ukraine to defend itself
Speaker 4: against Russia. They don't really care. A lot of these
Speaker 4: people don't really care who wins in this war ultimately,
Speaker 4: as long as they don't have to pay.
Speaker 2: I actually experienced that firsthand quite recently with someone in
Speaker 2: this country in the United States, and it sort of
Speaker 2: surprised me. This person said to me, Ukraine is traditionally
Speaker 2: a corrupt country anyway, they have scandals going on even now.
Speaker 2: Why should we send our American tax dollars to them
Speaker 2: to help them when they are just as corrupt as
Speaker 2: any other country? Or are they wrong?
Speaker 4: There are There have been a number of corruption scandals
Speaker 4: in Ukraine since the invasion began, But that I think
Speaker 4: is actually a healthy sign because even in a country
Speaker 4: at war like Ukraine, they've got functioning media, a functioning
Speaker 4: free press that is exposing these cases of care option.
Speaker 4: And actually, like the Ukrainian society has been growing less
Speaker 4: and less tolerant of corruption in the last ten years,
Speaker 4: and during the war, I would say they've become especially intolerant.
Speaker 4: So I guess the degree of corruption in today's Ukraine
Speaker 4: is probably not as high as you would expect from
Speaker 4: a country like Ukraine in peace time. So that is
Speaker 4: perhaps not a very strong argument that this money is
Speaker 4: getting stolen. It's probably most of it is probably getting
Speaker 4: spent actually on strengthening the Ukrainian military. But to some people,
Speaker 4: you know, why should we strengthen the Ukrainian military, Why
Speaker 4: do we even care? And you know, I don't think
Speaker 4: governments in the US and in Europe and in other
Speaker 4: Western countries like Canada, Australia, I don't think the governments
Speaker 4: are doing enough to explain to these voters why they
Speaker 4: are also affected by this war and why they should
Speaker 4: want Ukraine to win and not want Russia to win.
Speaker 2: And let's get into that. We're talking with Bloomberg opinion
Speaker 2: columnist leon Ed Barshinsky about how to shore up more
Speaker 2: public support for Ukraine and what governments need to do
Speaker 2: to make that happen. Okay, tell us what should they
Speaker 2: be doing? What are they leaving out that people are
Speaker 2: not getting?
Speaker 4: In the column, I laid out a number of potential
Speaker 4: selfish arguments that the governments would make for voters who
Speaker 4: only care about, you know, basically themselves and how this
Speaker 4: affects them. It's quite a strong argument for that kind
Speaker 4: of person. The money is actually going toward. Well, it's expensive,
Speaker 4: of course, but it's very useful defense research and rearmament
Speaker 4: for the donor countries as well as Ukraine. A lot
Speaker 4: of new weaponry and a lot of new military tactics
Speaker 4: and strategies are being tried out in that war. It
Speaker 4: becomes clear on the battlefield with which technologies work well
Speaker 4: and which don't. That obviously, the military strategists in the
Speaker 4: West who have not really dealt with wars like this
Speaker 4: between very strong rivals such as Russia and Ukraine, they
Speaker 4: have not really seen you know, such uses of equipment
Speaker 4: and such fears fighting in years. So now they realize
Speaker 4: what works and what doesn't. That is extremely valuable. There's
Speaker 4: also the boost to the defense industries that are very
Speaker 4: important employers in many Western countries, in the US certainly
Speaker 4: and in countries like France and Germany. Then there's also
Speaker 4: the sort of the contribution that the whole war and
Speaker 4: helping Ukraine is having on the resilience and the flexibility
Speaker 4: of Western economies like for Germany, for example, shedding the
Speaker 4: dependence on Russian energy was a forced move caused by
Speaker 4: the war.
Speaker 2: When those who don't seem to care now, who have
Speaker 2: not been won over yet, say what do I care
Speaker 2: if Ukraine ceases to exist?
Speaker 4: What do you say as a Russian? I say, like
Speaker 4: Mputin is not going to stop if he wins this.
Speaker 4: This is not going to be the last country that
Speaker 4: he attacks. If he manages to destroy Ukraine as a nation.
Speaker 4: There are other targets. Some of them are natal members
Speaker 4: the Baltic States, especially because of their vulnerable geographic position,
Speaker 4: because of the uncertainty of whether the West is actually
Speaker 4: going to defend them in case they're attacked, The decision
Speaker 4: to de send them on the parts of the US
Speaker 4: and the West is going to be costlier, and if
Speaker 4: support for Ukraine ceases, and it's allewed to lose. There's
Speaker 4: also the matter of China versus Taiwan. If Putune wins this,
Speaker 4: China will be encouraged to make a move in Taiwan.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg opinion columnist and member of the Bloomberg News Automation team,
Speaker 2: Leonid Bershinski, after a year of mass layoffs, fear of
Speaker 2: missing out on the artificial intelligence wave is boosting jobs
Speaker 2: in Silicon Valley. Companies and investors hyped up about what
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence could mean for future profits and worried about
Speaker 2: what that would mean if they're left behind, and all
Speaker 2: of that could wind up being good news for the
Speaker 2: entire economy. Bloomberg opinion columnist Connor Sen joins us now
Speaker 2: with some insight. Connor, as always, thanks for taking the
Speaker 2: time with us today. I have to say your column
Speaker 2: is about how AI could ultimately help not just the
Speaker 2: tech industry, but the entire economy. Rising tide lifts all boats,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But the conventional wisdom with AI
Speaker 2: is you don't really think of job creation. Most most
Speaker 2: people would think of job killer. So set us straight
Speaker 2: on this.
Speaker 7: Sure, So I think it's possible that one day in
Speaker 7: the future. I don't know how long it's going to
Speaker 7: be that sure, maybe it will disrupt millions of people
Speaker 7: in their jobs and we'll have to figure out what
Speaker 7: to do about that. But those products and services don't
Speaker 7: exist yet, and we don't know yet what those should be,
Speaker 7: And so tech companies are really caught up in this frenzy,
Speaker 7: and both they and their investors feel like they have
Speaker 7: to make bets to be a part of this, and
Speaker 7: that means for now, at least, hiring and spending, hiring
Speaker 7: a lot of people, spending a lot of money to
Speaker 7: figure out if they've caught the winning lottery tickets, so
Speaker 7: to speak, or just prove that they're not the ones
Speaker 7: being left behind by the people who seem to be
Speaker 7: doing well.
Speaker 2: Have we seen this before?
Speaker 7: You could talk about any sort of boom we've seen before,
Speaker 7: whether it's dot com boom in the late night, maybe
Speaker 7: crypto in the twenty tens, thin mobile. Yeah, and I
Speaker 7: think most people would agree that there's more to this
Speaker 7: than there was to crypto, But we don't really know
Speaker 7: yet what it's going to be, and so for now
Speaker 7: it's just let's spend a lot of money and try
Speaker 7: to figure it out and our stock prices are now
Speaker 7: going up, So maybe that means investors want us to
Speaker 7: do this rather than to continue to cut costs.
Speaker 2: Does spending a lot of money and hiring and going
Speaker 2: on these hiring blitzes to stop staff up for AI?
Speaker 2: Does that create a destabilization within the tech industry as
Speaker 2: far as employment is concerned, or do you see it
Speaker 2: more stabilizing, Like where does the employment part of this stand.
Speaker 7: I think it's a stabilization from an employment standpoint, because
Speaker 7: really for the past year, we've seen the tech industry
Speaker 7: get caught by first the pandemic boom and demand kind
Speaker 7: of receded and that eroded profitability, made stock prices go down.
Speaker 7: Obviously higher interest rates are a part of that as well,
Speaker 7: and so tech companies got the message from their investors
Speaker 7: that just cut spending because we just need to see
Speaker 7: higher profit margins and a belief that you guys are
Speaker 7: are focused on cost consciousness, and that really persisted through
Speaker 7: the first quarter. But at some point a cost cutting
Speaker 7: cycle ends, and it's really been about a year now
Speaker 7: for most of the tech companies, and then now you
Speaker 7: have this big shiny AI thing to chase, and so
Speaker 7: I think it's kind of an interesting timing where maybe
Speaker 7: the cost cutting cycle was winding down anyway, but now
Speaker 7: there's actually a reason for it beyond Okay, we've cut.
Speaker 2: Enough, you know that. And that's what makes me a
Speaker 2: little bit nervous, this big shiny AI thing to chase to,
Speaker 2: if I can quote you for a second, because if
Speaker 2: they're if the cuts can come to an end, so
Speaker 2: can the hiring blitzes, so can the surges. It seems
Speaker 2: like the pendulum is swinging kind of radically and there's
Speaker 2: no real balance yet, but you say, we're finding.
Speaker 7: It for now, and you can see it in the
Speaker 7: sort of leading indicators or job openings I'm mentioned in
Speaker 7: my calm. The website. The job website indeed has really
Speaker 7: great real time data for job postings and for software developers.
Speaker 7: It's really spiked since in the middle of April, and
Speaker 7: that's coincided with tech companies reported earnings talking about AI,
Speaker 7: how much they're doing. And it's not just your Microsofts
Speaker 7: and your Googles who were talking about it. I saw
Speaker 7: Uber was talking about AI Zilo talking about what AI
Speaker 7: can do for them, So it's really everybody feel like
Speaker 7: Wendy's I think this morning talked about how AI can
Speaker 7: improve ordering for hamburgers at drive through windows. So everybody
Speaker 7: feels like it's there in their interest to talk it
Speaker 7: up and do something to move in that direction.
Speaker 2: And you touched on it just now. I'll want to
Speaker 2: get into it a little bit deeper about how this
Speaker 2: shift from the job cuts to investing in AI is
Speaker 2: already showing up in the labor market data. What are
Speaker 2: you seeing right?
Speaker 7: So indeed has a metric that they look at the
Speaker 7: number of job postings that were just posted in the
Speaker 7: past seven days. So in theory, this sort of accounts
Speaker 7: for stale postings that aren't real, and those were declining
Speaker 7: for the software development industry through the middle of April,
Speaker 7: and they've been declining since early in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 7: and then since then they've they're up about thirty percent.
Speaker 7: And this is we don't know how many jobs that is.
Speaker 7: It could be something with their index, but it's a
Speaker 7: meaningful spike that's not just noise. And we'll see how
Speaker 7: long it lasts for we'll see if those postings turned
Speaker 7: into hires. But to me, it shows that there's been
Speaker 7: a sentiment shift really just in the past month. And
Speaker 7: I'm skeptical about how effective this spending and hiring will be,
Speaker 7: but it just shows that these companies have decided it's
Speaker 7: in their interest to try.
Speaker 2: We are learning about how AI can be a job generator.
Speaker 2: Our guest is Bloomberg opinion columnist Connor sin Connor, your
Speaker 2: column about this on the Bloomberg Terminal is taking a
Speaker 2: decidedly short term view. Right as you were just explaining,
Speaker 2: could it eventually still be a job killer or a
Speaker 2: job transformer?
Speaker 7: I think it depends on where this goes a year
Speaker 7: from now. So right now, AI is new, it's buzzy,
Speaker 7: everyone wants it, but we don't really know what we're
Speaker 7: looking for. So is it profits, is it users? Is
Speaker 7: it productivity? I think everybody's just like, let's spend some
Speaker 7: money and see if we can make something cool that
Speaker 7: people like. And the question is how long that period
Speaker 7: will last for My guess is at least through the year,
Speaker 7: and we'll see someone will probably get traction, just because
Speaker 7: if you try enough stuff, something will stick. And then
Speaker 7: we'll have to see a few quarters from now. How
Speaker 7: to tech companies, the broader investment world, the business world
Speaker 7: think about how we're doing and is this money being
Speaker 7: well spent. Or is it just another thing that didn't
Speaker 7: pan out and it's time for Wendy's to go back
Speaker 7: and focus on hamburgers rather than AI.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a great point. I got to say. Part
Speaker 2: of this whole AI revolution revelation, depending on your point
Speaker 2: of view, is that it's moved so fast. Or am
Speaker 2: I just a lady of a certain age and I'm
Speaker 2: not used to the fast technology moving forward? But does
Speaker 2: it surprise you to see how it went from this
Speaker 2: idea and this thought and this occasional tweet and this,
Speaker 2: oh look, this is something new that's coming down the
Speaker 2: pike to this now a big chunk of the industry.
Speaker 2: I mean, it took no time.
Speaker 7: I think the hype really built fast, and it really
Speaker 7: kicked off, I guess with the release of GPT for
Speaker 7: one of the open AI tools at the end of
Speaker 7: last year. And you know a lot of people have
Speaker 7: played with it. I've played with it, and it can
Speaker 7: do funny stuff. You can say, write me a limerick
Speaker 7: about hamburgers and it will do that, and it's very clever,
Speaker 7: and so you can just see like, well this can
Speaker 7: do lots of things, and voice assistants and all these things,
Speaker 7: and I think to some extent, maybe it's the fact
Speaker 7: that the broader tech industry doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 7: other stories to tell right now because Crypto kind of
Speaker 7: panned out, the metaverse are, you know, fizzled out? The
Speaker 7: metaverse hasn't seemed to stick. So it's to some extent
Speaker 7: it's like they need something, and this is the biggest
Speaker 7: thing you can talk about, the most interesting one, and
Speaker 7: so everybody's kind of putting their bets on this hoping
Speaker 7: it works, because if it doesn't, it's not clear what
Speaker 7: the other thing they should be focused on is.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: Where's it going? Do you see AI becoming ubiquitous like Facebook, book,
Speaker 2: like Twitter?
Speaker 7: I feel like the sort of easiest analogy for me
Speaker 7: to think about as spreadsheets, where spreadsheets took off in
Speaker 7: the early nineteen days, and they're definitely a valuable productivity
Speaker 7: tool that I use.
Speaker 6: All the time.
Speaker 7: A lot of people do. I am a little more
Speaker 7: skeptical about it's going to change everything overnight, and you know,
Speaker 7: if you're not doing it now, you're gonna be left behind.
Speaker 7: I think we have more time than that, and it's
Speaker 7: going to be the kind of thing that rolls out
Speaker 7: through society over time, and it makes sense that people
Speaker 7: are investing and spending in it. But I think we
Speaker 7: have time for this to play out, and it's not
Speaker 7: the kind of thing that six months from now our
Speaker 7: whole world will be different.
Speaker 2: Connor, let's briefly before I let you go, let's take
Speaker 2: a big, thirty thousand foot view of this, because one
Speaker 2: of the points of your column is this is really
Speaker 2: going to save the industry. It's going to help with
Speaker 2: the economy. How is a stable tech market? How is
Speaker 2: AI good for staving off a potential recession?
Speaker 7: Well, I think the tech industry is such an important
Speaker 7: bell weather for just broad business sentiment if nothing else.
Speaker 7: And when the biggest tech companies in the world are
Speaker 7: cutting ten thousand people at a time, it's hard not
Speaker 7: to wonder is that are those layoffs going to spread
Speaker 7: to everything else? And so if that industry is done
Speaker 7: with its layoffs and it's hiring again, you can start
Speaker 7: to feel more confident that an important leg of the
Speaker 7: economy is stabilized. And then it just becomes much harder
Speaker 7: to create a recession if you don't have that area
Speaker 7: of weakness spreading elsewhere.
Speaker 2: All right, Connor, what are you going to be watching
Speaker 2: for now with this going on.
Speaker 7: I think it'll be sort of how the stock prices
Speaker 7: react and do you actually get traction in terms of
Speaker 7: a product that people are responding to. We've seen the
Speaker 7: hype really boost the stock prices of Microsoft and Nvidia.
Speaker 7: We're seeing the spending, I believe, and you're certainly seeing
Speaker 7: corporations talk about it. But will that be sustained or
Speaker 7: will people sour on it the way they have on
Speaker 7: other sort of buzzy things in the past.
Speaker 2: Connor, thank you for taking the time with us.
Speaker 7: Thanks Amy, Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Opinion columnist Connor. Since stay with us, Bloomberg Opinion continues
Speaker 2: will take a look at how loneliness can actually be
Speaker 2: hazardous for your health. And don't forget We're available as
Speaker 2: a podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast cotch us Saturdays
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Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I Mami Morris the US
Speaker 2: is experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. The US Surgeon General
Speaker 2: Vivek Murphy says loneliness and isolation can be as detrimental
Speaker 2: to your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Lisa
Speaker 2: Jarvis is a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering biotech, healthcare, and
Speaker 2: the pharmaceutical industry, and she joins us now of all things,
Speaker 2: for taking the time with us. But I want to
Speaker 2: clarify something in your column. Being lonely is as bad
Speaker 2: for you as smoking.
Speaker 8: I know it's a hard thing to wrap your mind
Speaker 8: around this idea that loneliness in social isolation affects not
Speaker 8: only our mental health but our physical health. It's so
Speaker 8: it's become so clear that there's this connection between being
Speaker 8: socially connected and our health that even the American Heart
Speaker 8: Association put out an alert a year ago noting that
Speaker 8: there's a connection between loneliness and heart disease and strokes.
Speaker 8: There's a whole list of kind of health consequences to
Speaker 8: not having that kind of supportive environment.
Speaker 2: Now, are we lonely because of the pandemic or are
Speaker 2: we aware of our loneliness because of the pandemic.
Speaker 8: That's such a good question. So we were lowly before
Speaker 8: the pandemic, and the numbers probably got worse during the pandemic,
Speaker 8: and I think a lot of us became more aware
Speaker 8: of the challenges of isolation and loneliness. Maybe people who
Speaker 8: hadn't experienced that before really now understand how that can
Speaker 8: affect your well being. And I think one of the
Speaker 8: researchers that I spoke to, Julianne holtlund Lundstad, who is
Speaker 8: at Brigham Young University and she's done a lot of
Speaker 8: the work connecting loneliness to physical health, said to me,
Speaker 8: you know, I think we really need to understand that
Speaker 8: when we go back to normal, normal was still not okay.
Speaker 8: We need to go back to something that's better than
Speaker 8: we were before the pandemic. When it comes to social connectedness.
Speaker 2: You know, during the pandemic, I sort of went eyeball
Speaker 2: deep into social media, and I'm wondering if that makes
Speaker 2: it kind of worse.
Speaker 8: I think there's really mixed evidence on that front, and
Speaker 8: it's hard right now to par when it is good
Speaker 8: and when it is bad. Certainly for certain communities that
Speaker 8: may not have some you know, a connection in their area,
Speaker 8: like if you're a part of a minoritized group, and
Speaker 8: you live in some place, a rural area where there's
Speaker 8: just one of you or a handful of you. Having
Speaker 8: social media to make connections to others can be really
Speaker 8: important and supportive. But then there's a flip side to that,
Speaker 8: of course, and so I think, you know, on balance,
Speaker 8: it's been hard to tell whether it's a bigger risk
Speaker 8: or you know, can be a benefit. And I think
Speaker 8: the answer is, really it depends.
Speaker 2: So how does one overcome loneliness? What are some ways
Speaker 2: to do that? Did they give you some hints and suggestions.
Speaker 8: Some of it is just being kinder to each other,
Speaker 8: looking someone in the eye and saying hi to your
Speaker 8: neighbor when you walk by them. Resisting I put this
Speaker 8: in my calm because I thought it was an important one,
Speaker 8: Resisting the urge to say the negative comment. You know,
Speaker 8: I think, especially in a politicized environment, we've grown used
Speaker 8: to that, you know, reactivity, but just resisting that urge.
Speaker 8: But then I think some things that are like trying
Speaker 8: to become involved in your community, because community connectedness is
Speaker 8: really important, So that could be by volunteering. That's something
Speaker 8: I decided to do during the pandemic when I was
Speaker 8: feeling a little isolated. It could be joining a class,
Speaker 8: you know, finding something that helps you feel like you
Speaker 8: have a wider, broader community. And then really basic things
Speaker 8: texting your friends regularly. You know. I yesterday texted my
Speaker 8: college WhatsApp group and said, thank you for being the
Speaker 8: group that helps me not feel alone on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 8: So I know that sounds very basic, but it's things
Speaker 8: that we can quickly lose track of, you know, in
Speaker 8: a busy life, in a busy society.
Speaker 2: Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, healthcare,
Speaker 2: and the pharmaceutical industry. And that does it for this
Speaker 2: week's Bloomberg Opinion. We're produced by Eric mollow. You can
Speaker 2: find all of these columns on the Bloomberg terminal, and
Speaker 2: we're available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your
Speaker 2: favorite podcast platform. Stay with us. Today's top stories and
Speaker 2: global business headlines are coming up. I Mammy Morris, This
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg.