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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: Of course, the big news this week as we sit

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Speaker 2: here in the studio. The US and Israel have been

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Speaker 2: engaging in coordinated attacks against Iran, and Iran, for its part,

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Speaker 2: has been retaliating with attacks across the region.

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Speaker 3: We're talking about a conflict that is very quickly spilling

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Speaker 3: over into the rest of the Middle East. According to

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Speaker 3: Iran's Red Crescent, there have been a huge number of casualties,

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Speaker 3: including nearly two hundred children under the age of ten

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Speaker 3: killed one thousand people. Here is Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath

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Speaker 3: speaking to the press on Wednesday, March fourth.

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Speaker 4: Iran cannot outlast us. We're going to ensure through violence

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Speaker 4: of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities.

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Speaker 4: As I said that, we at the tone and the

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Speaker 4: tempo of this fight, and that's why we don't talk

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Speaker 4: about We can say four weeks, but it could be six,

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Speaker 4: it could be eight, it could be three. Ultimately, we

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Speaker 4: set the pace in the tempo. The enemy is off

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Speaker 4: balance and we're going to keep them off balance.

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Speaker 2: The results of these attacks have been absolutely massive.

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Speaker 5: Across the globe.

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Speaker 2: Oil and gas prices if skyrocketed, travel out of the

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Speaker 2: Middle East has essentially been halted, and countries all over

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Speaker 2: the region have been holding their breath to see basically

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Speaker 2: how this conflict is going to roll out and affect

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Speaker 2: their economies and their daily lives.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there are two pieces of this ongoing war

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Speaker 3: that we here at everybody's business haven't fallen closely. The

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Speaker 3: first is a resource we all need to survive, and

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Speaker 3: the second is a technology that our society is increasingly

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Speaker 3: relying on.

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Speaker 6: Oil is very important and fundamental, But did you think

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Speaker 6: about the well being of the one hundred million people

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Speaker 6: that live on the east side of the Persian Gulf

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Speaker 6: Water is what really makes or break it.

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Speaker 7: There was a ton of people deleting chat GPT, So

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Speaker 7: the consumer public says, we like it when you say

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Speaker 7: we don't want to surveil the general public in this

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Speaker 7: way or decide where missiles go.

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Speaker 2: That was Javier Blast and Amanda Mule talking about drinking

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Speaker 2: water and AI two aspects that will make or break

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Speaker 2: further escalations between the US, Israel, and Iran.

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Speaker 5: From Bloomberg Business Week. This is everybody's business.

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Speaker 2: I'm Max Chafkin and I'm Stacey manack Smith. Stay with

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Speaker 2: us because At the end of the show, we have

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Speaker 2: a special guest joining us to share their underrated story

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Speaker 2: for the week and an essential weekend listen.

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Speaker 3: But first, Stacy, let's take a look at the headlines. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: we have the war in Iran, which we will get to,

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Speaker 3: but also it is an electioneer. It's a midterm season.

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Speaker 3: As of Tuesday, the midterms have begun. We had our

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Speaker 3: first primary Texas and North Carolina, and we got some results.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I've been hearing you making phone calls and reporting

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Speaker 2: about this, so walk us through what is going on.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So, in terms of what happened on Tuesday, the

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Speaker 3: big news was out of Texas, and I just want

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Speaker 3: to say, first of all, long election season, it is

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Speaker 3: very easy to get wrapped up into any of this stuff.

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Speaker 5: But the bottom line is.

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Speaker 3: Number one, big turnout numbers for the Democrats. So I've

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Speaker 3: been saying this on the podcast. There's a lot of

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Speaker 3: Democratic enthusiasm. You know, Democrats really don't like Trump. Also,

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Speaker 3: as we've talked about pretty much continuously, a lot of

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Speaker 3: Trump's sort of most popular issues have begun to backfire,

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Speaker 3: particularly on the economy. But also, you know Iran, like

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Speaker 3: this conflict is not popular. So in Texas, you know,

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Speaker 3: red state, you were seeing Democratic turnout ahead of Republican turnout.

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Speaker 3: On the on the Democratic side, James tallerco beat Jasmine

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Speaker 3: by about five percent.

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Speaker 5: She's constantly sort.

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Speaker 3: Of trolling, pushing the envelope, but her politics are not

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Speaker 3: that far left.

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Speaker 5: Talla Rico is the opposite.

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Speaker 3: He's like, he reads as very different, as sort of

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Speaker 3: more like a uniter or something like that, but his

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Speaker 3: politics are actually further probably a little bit further to

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Speaker 3: the left of Crockett.

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Speaker 5: But Democrats in.

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Speaker 3: General, I think are probably more optimistic in Texas than

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Speaker 3: they've been a long time because they're running against a

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Speaker 3: Republican field that is divided. You had John Corden, the

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Speaker 3: current center running against Ken Paxton, who is a very

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Speaker 3: controversial figure to say the least.

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Speaker 5: They're going to a runoff. That should be.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, sounds like it.

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Speaker 3: The other thing worth keeping an eye on are voting issues.

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Speaker 3: So in Texas there was this thing in Dallas County,

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Speaker 3: of course, one of the population center is also really

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Speaker 3: important center for Democrats, where a bunch of voters basically

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Speaker 3: showed up at the wrong precinct because there had been

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Speaker 3: a a change of rules with the state Republicans and

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Speaker 3: people got confused. It went all the way to the

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Speaker 3: Supreme Court, and you have basically an ongoing fight about

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Speaker 3: people's votes being counted. That fight looks like it will

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Speaker 3: not decide the Democratic primary. It looks like it's getting

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Speaker 3: ironed out. But I do think it's kind of a

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Speaker 3: preview of what.

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Speaker 5: Is to come.

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Speaker 3: The Republicans are including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, are

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Speaker 3: pushing this thing called the Save Act. It is a

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Speaker 3: voting like basically a voter ID law. It would require

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Speaker 3: voters to prove their citizenship when they register and have

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Speaker 3: photo ID when they vote. Republicans have traditionally pushed these

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Speaker 3: things because I think the view, well, there are two reasons.

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Speaker 3: One is they argue that, you know, we have to

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Speaker 3: stop non citizens, we have to stop voter fraud. But

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Speaker 3: there is a more cynical explanation, which has long been

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Speaker 3: that they are trying to suppress democratic turnout because historically

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Speaker 3: Democrats draw from more like working class people who don't

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Speaker 3: necessarily have their birth certificates, driver's licenses, et cetera handy,

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Speaker 3: and maybe also are not the most like regular voters.

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Speaker 3: So you have like high motivated voters, they've got their

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Speaker 3: voter card, they know their precinct, they know everything. They

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Speaker 3: show up no matter what the rules are. And then

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Speaker 3: you have this other coarter people who are like, ah,

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Speaker 3: I'll vote, but you know, I'm not gonna like go

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Speaker 3: way out of my way. And the thinking has been

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Speaker 3: that if you throw up a bunch of barriers, maybe

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Speaker 3: that affects the turnout. Now, one thing that's fascinating about

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Speaker 3: the Save Act is the voter makeup of the Republican

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Speaker 3: Party is shifting, and it is not clear that if

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Speaker 3: this thing passed, which it does not it got through

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Speaker 3: the House, I think it's chances in the Senate are unlikely.

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Speaker 5: Despite what Donald Trump.

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Speaker 3: Is doing, there is some chance it would hurt Republicans

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Speaker 3: more than Democrats because under Donald Trump, there is a

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Speaker 3: the Republicans have a higher percentage of you know, basically

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Speaker 3: people who do not vote every time. The kinds of

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Speaker 3: voters that traditionally voted Democrat, some of them have moved

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Speaker 3: over to Donald Trump. So it's kind of unclear how

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Speaker 3: this would play out, but I think it is absolutely

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Speaker 3: guaranteed that this will be an issue. We also have,

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Speaker 3: you know, in Kansas, the state is invalidating trans driver's licenses,

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Speaker 3: which could also impact voting. So there's just like a lot,

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of stuff here. It's going to be

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Speaker 3: a whole thing.

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Speaker 2: Well, we'll have to keep our eyes on it. About

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Speaker 2: the war in Iran, there is a lot of talk

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Speaker 2: about oil being completely central to how this conflict unfolds

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Speaker 2: and completely central to the impact this conflict is going

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Speaker 2: to have on all of us. But recently opinion columnist Bloomberg'

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Speaker 2: Javier Blass, who is the author of the World for Sale, Money, Power,

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Speaker 2: and the Traders who Barter the Earth's resources, makes the

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Speaker 2: case that there is actually a different commodity. We should

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Speaker 2: be keeping our eye on drinking water.

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Speaker 3: Well, right, and not only drinking water, but kind of

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Speaker 3: drinking water as a frame to understand just how significant

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Speaker 3: this conflict could be for the entire region and maybe

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Speaker 3: even the entire world. We have Javier piping in from

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Speaker 3: London to talk about this awesome, really fascinating take.

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Speaker 5: Javier, Welcome to everybody's business.

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Speaker 6: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 3: All right, so just to start, you want to just

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Speaker 3: take us through the argument, like why is water more

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Speaker 3: important than oil when you're looking at this conflict because

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Speaker 3: like if you're reading the news on a day to

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Speaker 3: day basis, it is entirely about straight up horn moves,

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Speaker 3: oil price, global markets, and so on.

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Speaker 5: But give us your perspective here.

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Speaker 6: Look, oil is very important and it's absolutely fundamental to

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Speaker 6: the well being of the global economy. But did you

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Speaker 6: think about the well being of the one hundred million

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Speaker 6: people that live on the eastern side of the person Golf.

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Speaker 6: I'm thinking about Kubeit, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Bahrain.

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Speaker 6: For them, water is what really makes or break it,

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Speaker 6: and all of those countries, the majority of the water

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Speaker 6: consumption doesn't come from aquifers or rivers. It comes from

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Speaker 6: the salinization. It's seawater, It goes through different physical processes.

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Speaker 6: They are very energy intensive. But if anything those countries

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Speaker 6: have is energy, cheap gas and cheap oil, and they

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Speaker 6: get water, drinking water, possable water. Without it, there is

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Speaker 6: no way to sustain live. Those countries don't expore oil

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Speaker 6: for a few days, a couple of weeks, say four weeks,

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Speaker 6: they can make it. They run out of water for

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Speaker 6: more than two or three days, they cannot make it.

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Speaker 6: And those water the salinization plants, they are spread all

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Speaker 6: around the Persian goals, about four hundred and fifty of them,

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Speaker 6: and they are absolutely key to destroy them. You have

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Speaker 6: a massive geopolitical problem that potentially could change I think

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Speaker 6: that it will change the conflict. I think that everyone

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Speaker 6: is looking at at a liquid in this world, and

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Speaker 6: I think that they're looking at one that makes a

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Speaker 6: lot of sense. Oil and I think that is very important.

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Speaker 6: Don't get me wrong, I spend my day writing about oil,

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Speaker 6: but I think that no attention is paide out water,

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Speaker 6: and I think that that could be critical.

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Speaker 2: There's been a lot of bombing of different countries around

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Speaker 2: the Gulf and different kinds of buildings, and you point

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Speaker 2: out one very important desalinization plant that feeds Saudi Arabia

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Speaker 2: and I think is responsible for something like ninety percent

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Speaker 2: of the country's drinking water. This does seem like a

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Speaker 2: very like a major point of vulnerability that Iran likely

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Speaker 2: knows about.

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Speaker 6: So Iran has already bombed two power plants that they

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Speaker 6: are associated with the salinization plants. So the typical desalinization

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Speaker 6: plan in the Middle East will have one power plant

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Speaker 6: that it will generate electricity, and then you have the

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Speaker 6: desalination plant Iran has already attacked two of those power

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Speaker 6: plants that they are literally attached wall against wall. The

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Speaker 6: plan that you are talking about is in the Persian

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Speaker 6: Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. It is called the Jubail

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Speaker 6: the Salinization Plan, and it supplies around ninety percent of

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Speaker 6: the water needs of REACT, the Saudi capital. The water

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Speaker 6: goes from the coast five hundred kilometers app into REACT

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Speaker 6: via a very complex pipeline system. And according we know

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Speaker 6: some of these details because there was a memo, a

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Speaker 6: diplomatic cable from the US embassy in REACT that got

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Speaker 6: disclosed on that massive release of documents, that the massive

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Speaker 6: leak of documents that was WikiLeaks, and in two thousand

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Speaker 6: and eight, the memo from the US embassy says an

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Speaker 6: I quote, REACT will have to evacuate within a week

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Speaker 6: if the plan, his pipelines or associated power infrastructure were

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Speaker 6: seriously damaged or destroyed. The current structure of the Saudi

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Speaker 6: government could not exist without the Jubaile Salinisasian plan. That's

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Speaker 6: not a conspiracy theory. That's not someone writing a blog

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Speaker 6: on the Internet. That is a cable from the US

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Speaker 6: Embassy in Saudi Arabia in two thousand and eight. That

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Speaker 6: is how central the Salinisasian plans are for not only

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Speaker 6: Saudi Arabia, have had other countries in the region. And

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Speaker 6: my aim was to highlight that we are reaching a

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Speaker 6: point in the war where we need to start thinking

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Speaker 6: about the unthinkable. And this was one of those unthinkables

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Speaker 6: that I am trying to put into the minds of everyone.

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Speaker 3: Says and I what was it like nine months ago

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Speaker 3: when Israel Bombaran in June? Had John author Is our

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Speaker 3: colleague gone, and he raised what sounded like the worst

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Speaker 3: case scenario, the worst case scenario at that point, because

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Speaker 3: of course the US had not really entered the war.

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Speaker 3: Trump was threatening regime change but not doing the regime change.

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Speaker 3: He was just truth so about it. But the worst

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Speaker 3: case scenario is laid out by Jean was like the

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Speaker 3: strait of horror moves is closed. You have Iran because

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Speaker 3: it's cornered, lashing out at its neighbors, shooting missiles at Dubai,

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Speaker 3: at basically US military bases in the region, trying to

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Speaker 3: create a sort of regional conflict rather than this than

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Speaker 3: one that's focused in Iran.

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Speaker 5: And of course like that's what's happening.

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Speaker 3: That's now that worst case scenario has come, and you're

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Speaker 3: laying out this even worst case scenario where you go

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Speaker 3: from scattered bombings to real attack on almost like trying

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Speaker 3: to create civilian casualties. And there are even worse outcomes

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Speaker 3: that you could contemplate, right, you could contemplate a civil

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Speaker 3: war in Iran and a massive refugee crisis, and on

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Speaker 3: and on. What do you make of the strategy here, Like,

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Speaker 3: insofar as there is a strategy, what do you see

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Speaker 3: as the strategy and are they achieving it?

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Speaker 6: I think that these they have a spend on the

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Speaker 6: run up to this talking to a lot of word

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Speaker 6: espers and Middle East and esper on a strategy, and

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Speaker 6: I think that everyone was expecting something similar to this.

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Speaker 6: I mean, to my surprise is that the White House

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Speaker 6: is surprise that Iran is playing the war like this.

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Speaker 6: I mean, it makes sense. That's the only way that

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Speaker 6: it can survive is it cannot really prevail on a

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Speaker 6: military base. His air force has no match whatsoever against

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Speaker 6: the American air force. Is at some point we are

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Speaker 6: beginning we're seeing Iran fighting the United States, which is

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Speaker 6: deploying the weapons of twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six

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Speaker 6: against planes that they were the science in the sixties.

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Speaker 6: It's just no much whatsoever. So they need to basically

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Speaker 6: increase economic costs, go after soft targets, et cetera. I

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Speaker 6: don't think that we are even remotely close to world

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Speaker 6: cases scenario. My worldt cases scenario is really somber. I'm

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Speaker 6: a kind of half class, empty kind of guy, so

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Speaker 6: I'm always thinking what can go wrong? And you know,

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Speaker 6: so Estrala Hormus has been closed, it has been six days.

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Speaker 6: What if it's closed sixty Iran has attack soon energy facilities,

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Speaker 6: but not anything important and not really with intensity. You know,

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Speaker 6: it's not attacking is not just one or two drones.

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Speaker 6: It will be like sending five hundred against oil fields,

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Speaker 6: oil terminals, et cetera, et cetera. My concern is that

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Speaker 6: these really properly escalate and then it's when you know,

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Speaker 6: the price of oil goes much higher, when the countries

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Speaker 6: can see troubles. You know, what if they attack the

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Speaker 6: water supplies readd itself is a city of seven million people.

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Speaker 6: It is one of the largest metropolis in the Middle East.

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Speaker 6: What if they lose supply? How do you evacuate a

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Speaker 6: city of seven million people today. Those are the kind

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Speaker 6: of things that I worry. I mean, when when when

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Speaker 6: a water starts, all old plants us basically have to

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Speaker 6: be thrown away, and we don't know how how that's

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Speaker 6: going to play out. On the other hand, we are

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Speaker 6: on day six.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's going feels like way longer.

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Speaker 6: It does, but is not going I mean, you look

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Speaker 6: at it. Iran is put in a good fight and

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Speaker 6: a good defense. It's not gonna win. I don't have

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Speaker 6: any question whatsoever that the US prevails here is how

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Speaker 6: much damage Iran can inflat in the neighboring countries before

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Speaker 6: that happens. And also, let's not forget President Trump has

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Speaker 6: a lot of rams at his hand. I mean, he

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Speaker 6: has achieved. You may agree or disagree with the White House,

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Speaker 6: but you look from a non political position what he

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Speaker 6: has achieved already. It has crushed the nuclear program of

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Speaker 6: Iran completely. It has significantly degraded the ability of Iran

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Speaker 6: to lounge ballistic missiles, and the stockpile of ballistic missiles

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Speaker 6: of Iran has been reduced. And he killed the Supreme

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Speaker 6: Leader and around forty to fifty other people of the

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Speaker 6: Iranian leadership. I mean President Trump can turn around any

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Speaker 6: day and say mission accomplished, we are gone, major combat

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Speaker 6: operations are over, and we're going to keep a watchful

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Speaker 6: eye Iran. Don't do anything silly because we will hit

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Speaker 6: you back. But this is over.

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Speaker 2: It struck me the idea of like what if the

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Speaker 2: Straits of Hormos are closed for sixty days? If that happens,

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Speaker 2: I know that the US and Europe are in kind

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Speaker 2: of different positions, Like what what does that look like

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Speaker 2: for the US and for Europe if the Strait of

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Speaker 2: Hormos is closed for sixty days?

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Speaker 5: Is it a.

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Speaker 2: Different I mean the US produces a lot of its

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Speaker 2: own oil. Europe is mostly a net importer. I don't

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Speaker 2: know what does that? How does that play out?

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Speaker 6: The US produces a lot of oil is another sported actually,

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Speaker 6: but the price of oil is set on the global market,

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Speaker 6: and a crisis anywhere is a crisis everywhere. Everyone is

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Speaker 6: going to feel the pain and the price is going

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Speaker 6: to go up for everyone. The oil market is not

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Speaker 6: really thinking about sixty days. I think thinking more about

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Speaker 6: six days. At the moment. It will mean a significant

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Speaker 6: oil shock. People say, oh, world cases scenario is one

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Speaker 6: hundred dollars oil. Truly worst cases scenario, what I will

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Speaker 6: call it, really worst cases scenario. I think that we

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Speaker 6: go north of two hundred dollars, we will need massive

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Speaker 6: demand destruction. It will it will imply an economic shock

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Speaker 6: of the size that the central banks will have to intervene,

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Speaker 6: et cetera. Ac It's very ugly, but that's one of

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Speaker 6: the reasons that I cannot see these lasting sixty days.

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Speaker 6: I think that the White House will will call it

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Speaker 6: over a lot earlier. And that's not like, you know,

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Speaker 6: there is a lot of cynicism on on Wall Street,

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Speaker 6: and there's all that will be Taco, you know, you know.

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Speaker 5: I think Taco's out the window here.

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Speaker 3: I mean Taco was he doesn't, you know, he doesn't

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Speaker 3: knock out the Supreme Leader. That was kind of where

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Speaker 3: we were nine months ago.

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Speaker 6: But that's that's what I That's why I said a

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Speaker 6: lot of citizens, I don't think I will be Taco.

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Speaker 6: I mean, like, you know, having achieved killing the Supreme Leader,

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Speaker 6: I think that President Trump can turn around and say

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Speaker 6: I'm done any day, and I still claim that he

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Speaker 6: achieved a lot. Again, we can't use questions whether actually

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Speaker 6: was achieved. Whether killing the Supreme Leader actually brings us

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Speaker 6: closer to have a prosperous, democratic and a stable Iran,

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Speaker 6: which I don't think it has, But I do believe

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Speaker 6: that the White House has a lot of rams that

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Speaker 6: they can't take. This really gets ugly, and they decided

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Speaker 6: that the economic price is not worth anymore.

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Speaker 5: Ja your blast, Thank you so much for being here.

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Speaker 5: We will have to stay in.

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Speaker 3: Touch as this conflict continues and check in with you

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Speaker 3: down the road.

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Speaker 5: Thanks a lot for the time.

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Speaker 6: Thank you, hopefully not in sixty days.

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Speaker 5: Say see.

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Speaker 3: One of the kind of interesting side alleys of what

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Speaker 3: is happening Iran is a question of a and in

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Speaker 3: particular these big AI companies that are now defense contractors,

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Speaker 3: and even the use of some of these chatbots, as

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Speaker 3: crazy as it sounds, in the planning and prosecution of

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Speaker 3: the war itself. But luckily we've got somebody great to

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Speaker 3: talk about it. It's a man and Mall Bloomberg columnist.

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Speaker 3: You know, Amanda normally writes about brand perceptions. But there

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Speaker 3: was this dispute between Anthropic, which one of the two

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Speaker 3: big chatbots, and the Pentagon. You want to just talk

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Speaker 3: us through what happened as well as the backlash that's

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Speaker 3: been brewing.

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Speaker 7: So Anthropic, up until quite recently was a active government contractor.

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Speaker 7: It had DoD contracts to allow the government to use

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Speaker 7: its AI models Claude.

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Speaker 5: I call them Claude Yes, Claude, yes.

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Speaker 7: Sir Claude in different types of defense applications. So and

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Speaker 7: Anthropic CEO and peteg Seth and their respective organizations have

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Speaker 7: been feuding for a little bit over exactly the details

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Speaker 7: of how those models were going to be used. Hegseth

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Speaker 7: and the DoD wanted to use them for quote unquote

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Speaker 7: all lawful purposes, and Anthropic wanted a slightly different implementation.

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Speaker 7: They specifically, they did not want to agree to allow

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Speaker 7: mass surveillance of American citizens, and they didn't want claud

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Speaker 7: to be used in the deployment of fully autonomous weapons.

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Speaker 7: And the DoD in Hegseth were arguing that this is

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Speaker 7: a lawful use and you can't tell us what to

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Speaker 7: do with your tools once we've bought your tools. At

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Speaker 7: the end of last week this sort of exploded. Anthropic

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Speaker 7: got dropped as a government contractor. The DoD labeled them

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Speaker 7: a supply chain threat, which means that other government contractors.

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Speaker 7: Other defense contractors are not allowed to use or do

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Speaker 7: business with Anthropic, which is a problem because all of

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Speaker 7: the tech companies are intermingled in their use of each

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Speaker 7: other's services, So Google, Amazon, et cetera can't be involved

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Speaker 7: with Anthropic anymore theoretically, And into this sort of vacuum

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Speaker 7: of government contracting came open AI and say Altman, and

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Speaker 7: essentially what he said is we'll do it, you know,

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Speaker 7: and because these companies are both consumer face.

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Speaker 2: It's okay with mass surveillance and we're okay with like

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Speaker 2: direct drones.

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Speaker 7: That's the thing. Nobody really knows exactly what open ayes

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Speaker 7: agreement with the Department of Defense is. We know what

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Speaker 7: Sam Altman has said publicly.

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Speaker 3: We also don't really know how these tools are being used.

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Speaker 3: I feel like anytime this comes up, I have to say, reminder,

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Speaker 3: these are tools for summarizing emails, like that is their

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Speaker 3: main use. That is how the Pentagon is using them.

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Speaker 3: That they're using them more or less the same way

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Speaker 3: that everybody else is using them. And even in the

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Speaker 3: back and forth with the Pentagon, there were Defense Apartment

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Speaker 3: sources saying essentially, we're not using it in the ways

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Speaker 3: that Anthropic is worried about we just want to keep

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Speaker 3: our options.

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Speaker 7: We just want to be able to do that in

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Speaker 7: the future if we feel like it, basically.

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Speaker 3: But there is an interesting brand perception here, right, Amanda.

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Speaker 7: With these AI companies, you have sort of an interesting

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Speaker 7: case where you know, open ai and Anthropic in particular,

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Speaker 7: are sort of hungry for revenue. They've got these very

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Speaker 7: expensive companies with very expensive data needs, very expensive development needs.

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Speaker 7: They've borrowed a lot of money, and they are looking

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Speaker 7: for ways to apply the technology they have in ways

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Speaker 7: that earn them revenue. So you've got them government contracting,

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Speaker 7: doing corporate contracting, doing consumer applications, and which means that

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Speaker 7: they are oddly exposed both to government whims and to

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Speaker 7: consumer perception, which is not the case with most government contractors.

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Speaker 3: But let's talk about the backlash because open ai steps

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Speaker 3: into the breach, says yeah, we'll do it, sure, and

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Speaker 3: immediately people start deleting Chatchiputa.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 7: This is where it gets real funny to be both

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Speaker 7: a defense contractor and a consumer company that is trying

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Speaker 7: to cultivate the sort of like warm, cudly friendly, maybe sycophantic,

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Speaker 7: depending on the attitude of the particular chat model. We're

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Speaker 7: talking about presence toward the general public. So Sam Altman said, yeah,

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Speaker 7: we'll do it, and what is it, we don't know,

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Speaker 7: but he sort of jumped into the breach with the company.

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Speaker 7: He leads to say that we'll take this revenue, you

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Speaker 7: can use our toles. And so the general public, having

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Speaker 7: many of them having some sort of financial relationship with

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Speaker 7: chat GPT, even if it's just a twenty dollars a

438
00:24:20,320 --> 00:24:22,959
Speaker 7: month user subscription, said we don't like that.

439
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 2: We don't want to be mass surveilled by our government.

440
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 6: In this way.

441
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:29,680
Speaker 5: It's a new hot thingia.

442
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 7: Yeah, So there was a ton of backlash online, people

443
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,840
Speaker 7: posting screenshots of themselves deleting chat GPT, getting rid of

444
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 7: their their subscription, and then downloading anthropics Claude. Basically, Claude

445
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 7: jumped to the top of the Apple app Store download list.

446
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 7: It remains there as of me talking right now. I

447
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 7: just checked it. Yeah, there was a huge surgeon downloads,

448
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:53,200
Speaker 7: a huge surgeon subscriptions. So the consumer public says, we

449
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 7: like it when you say we don't want to surveil

450
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 7: the general public in this way or decide where missiles go.

451
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 3: We wanted to maybe take a broader view of this.

452
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:08,199
Speaker 3: We sent producer Jasmine J. T Green out into New

453
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:10,440
Speaker 3: York City just to ask some people if they had

454
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 3: grocked this controversy.

455
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 6: Do y'all use AI currently?

456
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 8: Not?

457
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 6: Really?

458
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 9: Yes, I do.

459
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 5: I'll come.

460
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: If we teach the AI how to do things, it's

461
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: not going to do them as well as.

462
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 2: Like people could do it.

463
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 3: I use it when it first came out, like a

464
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 3: little bit, and I was like, this is ass like

465
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,360
Speaker 3: with the art stuff. Everything I can create, I can

466
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 3: create by myself.

467
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 9: I use it a lot when I'm traveling trying to

468
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 9: figure out where I am, what's happening today.

469
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 3: AI was like originally made to do menial tasks and

470
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:44,480
Speaker 3: now it's going the other way around, And I don't.

471
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:45,159
Speaker 6: Want to be part of that.

472
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 5: Open AI just took a contract with the Department of Defense.

473
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:50,719
Speaker 5: Were you guys like following any of that?

474
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 3: And I was following, But it's more like, why are

475
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 3: we using the robot to kill people?

476
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 5: AI should not be used for human surveillance? Really, we

477
00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 5: shouldn't have as human surveillance as we already have. It's

478
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 5: kind of like a whole crazy thing.

479
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 7: I'm gonna misread what humans are doing, so then it's gonna.

480
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 2: Missfire a lot, and in like trials.

481
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 4: Of like it thinking that it's doing the correct thing,

482
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 4: it's gonna it could just do a lot of damage.

483
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 9: I've been following the story and I'm kind of interested

484
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 9: in it in the sense that AI unsupervised without human

485
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 9: intervention is no better than a coin operated machine that

486
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 9: you used to get a candy ball out of and

487
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 9: it would get stuck. What happens when it gets stuck.

488
00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:37,320
Speaker 9: There's no way to record it.

489
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 6: I've never really seen the need for it.

490
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 5: Have we not read any dystopian like shit like It's

491
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 5: just this doesn't sound very good.

492
00:26:47,160 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 3: We are like halfway to like really good science fiction

493
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 3: story there, I feel. I mean, Amanda, do you think

494
00:26:54,400 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 3: there's the question about these chatbots and then becoming politicized?

495
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 3: And I was surprised. I started looking for this where

496
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 3: this quit GPT trend started actually started a month ago

497
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 3: during the just after the Alex Pretti killing, where you

498
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 3: had a bunch of liberals basically looking for conservative Trump

499
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 3: aligned companies to boycott and finding this one, which is

500
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 3: a pretty good target because the CEO, Greg Brockman has

501
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 3: given a large amount of money to Donald Trump in

502
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 3: this cycle, something like twenty five million dollars, and so

503
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 3: you could see why this is happening. I'm curious do

504
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 3: you think that any of these boycotts have any kind

505
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 3: of effect? Do they have a political effect? Do they

506
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 3: potentially have a business effect? Because it really hurt open AI.

507
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 7: I think that there's two interesting questions with public perception

508
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 7: of AI. Here you've got like public perception of AI

509
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 7: as like a class of tool and as like a

510
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 7: class of business, and how we want to integrate or

511
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 7: not integrate those tools into society, and how we want

512
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 7: to regulate those businesses long term. And then you've also

513
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 7: got the question of like how these particular companies are viewed.

514
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 7: And AI companies are in an interesting spot when it

515
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 7: comes to like brand perception because usually companies that become

516
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 7: as large as they are do so over like a

517
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 7: long period of time. Companies that have you know, the

518
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 7: amount of economic influence and social influence that these companies

519
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 7: have cultivated. Usually they've been around for a while, and

520
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 7: there's a lot of evidence of their political alignment, of

521
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 7: how their tools are used, what their products do, and

522
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 7: like what like particular political valence they might have with

523
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 7: Open AI and Anthropic and other large AI companies. We're

524
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 7: sort of figuring that out in real time after they've

525
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 7: already gained all of this influence. So I think consumers

526
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 7: have like an interesting opportunity to react to these companies

527
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 7: and like reward or punish them accordingly because they are

528
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 7: still building their place in public perception. And more broadly,

529
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 7: I think it's important to these companies like long term

530
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 7: viability how AI in general is perceived. So it might

531
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,920
Speaker 7: be good for Anthropic in its perception that it has

532
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 7: said no in some form to the Trump administration on things,

533
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 7: on things that are broadly unpopular with the public.

534
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 3: You know who work with large data sets, and this

535
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 3: is where the mass surveillance comes in, right is intelligence analysts.

536
00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 3: And I think that like people, people read these stories

537
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 3: and I think they imagine like Rock or it will

538
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 3: be Rock by the way, because now that Anthropics not

539
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 3: outs like Elon Musk's chatbody is.

540
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 5: The lane is open? Yeah exactly?

541
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, there no like you imagine like Rock, like telling

542
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 3: the missile like where to go?

543
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 5: But what's what? What is actually? I think what is

544
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 5: more realistic is massive data sets.

545
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 3: Whether you're asking, you're asking the LM to look at

546
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 3: a satellite photograph and say where are the targets? Or

547
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 3: you're just asking it to look over a bunch of

548
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 3: phone records or stuff.

549
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 5: And you can see why that's a little bit scared.

550
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 7: And I think that it's important to remember that whether

551
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 7: or not the models are like good at these functions

552
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 7: doesn't necessarily determine whether or not those functions are dangerous.

553
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: They're dangerous.

554
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 7: It's dangerous when they're not good at it, too, because

555
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 7: then you get all kinds of mistakes that her or

556
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 7: kill people potentially.

557
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should say, like, there's still this ongoing question

558
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 3: over how this Iranian school was destroyed, and I don't

559
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 3: know if it would make us feel better or worse

560
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 3: to know if AI had been involved, but it kind

561
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 3: of highlights just how high the stakes are.

562
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 7: Right, It's dangerous when the AI is great at these tasks,

563
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 7: and it's dangerous in a different way when it's terrible

564
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 7: at them but used anyway.

565
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 3: Stacy, you had asked about the businesses, like how big

566
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: a factor are consumers in a given AI platform?

567
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 5: And I think the answer is it depends on the

568
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 5: AI platform.

569
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 3: So one reason this matters a lot to open AI

570
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 3: is open AI, unlike Anthropic, has a ton of consumer

571
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 3: use because of the way that it happened. Right, they

572
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,959
Speaker 3: made this free demo called CHATCHYBT available to the public.

573
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 5: Lots of people signed up.

574
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 3: They have significant just normal people using it. Apps like

575
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 3: Claude and co Pilot are much more on the sort.

576
00:30:56,240 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 5: Of water tool thing. Grock is all the way over.

577
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 3: If there's a continue in between friend and colleague. Groc

578
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 3: is such a good friend that you're having sex with it,

579
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 3: and like co Pilot is not having.

580
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 5: Sex with you.

581
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 3: It's just like searching your emails and open Aiyes, somewhere

582
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 3: in the middle, and there's something more uncomfortable if you're

583
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: friends with your chatbot. There's something weird about your friend

584
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 3: also surveilling gazillions of Americans, whereas if your chatbot is

585
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 3: just helping you summarize your emails, I don't know that

586
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 3: it bothers you so much.

587
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 5: If they're working with the Pentagon.

588
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 7: Right, I think that Anthropic, in showing like a modicum

589
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 7: of backbone, I think did risk something real for the company.

590
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: It's quite refreshing, honestly.

591
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I think that was like why you saw

592
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 7: this surge in public sort of like desire to support

593
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 7: this company because there have been so few like major

594
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 7: companies that have been willing to publicly tech companies, yes,

595
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 7: especially chech companies, that have been willing to break with

596
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 7: the Trump administration on literally anything. And Anthropic is not

597
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 7: a boy scout like it partners with palenter, which does

598
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 7: a lot of data analysis and surveillance. It's my underlie

599
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 7: a lot of Palenteer's capabilities. It earlier this year, while

600
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 7: feuding with the Department of Defense, according to one of

601
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 7: our colleagues at Bloomberg News, put in a bid to

602
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 7: develop an autonomous drone swarm.

603
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 5: System for the Pentagon.

604
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 7: So like Anthropic does want to do some of this stuff,

605
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 7: it just doesn't want to do like a.

606
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 5: Couple very particular things.

607
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 7: One thing that I've been sort of waiting to see

608
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 7: happen is for some of these businesses, these big like

609
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 7: consumer exposed businesses in particular, till decide that they see

610
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 7: which way the wind is blowing, and like right now

611
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 7: it's blowing away from a bunch of these like highly

612
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 7: controversial Trump administration policies and toward more moderate, more progressive

613
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 7: ideas of how that some of this stuff should be handled.

614
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 7: We see that in issue polling, you see it in

615
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 7: how elections have gone thus far during the Trump presidency.

616
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 7: So I think that, like, if you're a company that

617
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 7: has consumer exposure and you have a brand name to burnish,

618
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 7: and you're looking at the long term, it might be

619
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 7: time to start taking the temperature on some of this

620
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 7: stuff and start taking what feel like short term risks

621
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 7: for long term avoidance of litigation or congressional hearings.

622
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 3: All right, Amanda, we're gonna let you go. We're gonna

623
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 3: keep following this listeners. If you have changed chatbots, if

624
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 3: you are now a grock person or a cheek person,

625
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 3: let us know everybody. Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.

626
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 5: And Amanda, thank you for being here. We'll have you

627
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 5: back soon.

628
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 7: Thanks so much for having me.

629
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 3: Stacey, it is that time. It's the time we talk

630
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 3: about under and we have a special guest. Fellow member

631
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 3: of the Bloomberg Audio Travers Drake Bennett, tech reporter at

632
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 3: Bloomberg and more importantly, co host of the new limited

633
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 3: series The six Bureau It Is Awesome, co hosted with

634
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 3: Jordan Robertson.

635
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 5: Is another reporter. Drake welcome to everybody's business.

636
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 8: Thanks guys.

637
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 2: So tell us about the sixth Bureau.

638
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 8: It's about the MSS, which is basically the the most

639
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 8: important intelligence agency that you've never heard of. It's a

640
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 8: Ministry of State Security, or most people have never heard of.

641
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 8: It's China's Ministry of State Security. It's sort of like

642
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 8: China's CIA and FBI combined. And we don't really know

643
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 8: a lot about it in the West. The guys who

644
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 8: work there are sort of like these ghosts. But we

645
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 8: were able to basically find out all this amazing detail

646
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 8: about this one MSS officer, and so we tell his story,

647
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 8: his rise and his fall.

648
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 2: Is he based in the US or in China?

649
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 8: Or he was based in China and if he had

650
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 8: stayed in China he would have been fine, but he

651
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 8: sort of makes a faithful decision to leave China at

652
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:36,399
Speaker 8: a certain point.

653
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 3: Wait, let's just hear a little bit a little clip

654
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,160
Speaker 3: from the show, just to give people a taste of

655
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 3: what they can look forward to.

656
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 10: This is Special Agent Regal Special Agent Bradley Hall. The

657
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 10: time is approximately eleven fifteen am, about to start consensual

658
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 10: telephone call with doctor Daiza.

659
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what is happening in this call like set.

660
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 8: The scene, Okay, So, Mike Riegel is one of the

661
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 8: two FBI agents who are at the center of this case,

662
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:12,800
Speaker 8: and Daiwa Jong is an engineer at ge Aviation who's

663
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 8: basically going about his business working on these very proprietary

664
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 8: technologies to make GE jet engines when the MSS reaches

665
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 8: out to him and says, we saw your LinkedIn page.

666
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 8: You look like a super prestigious smart guy. We'd like

667
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 8: you to come give a talk in China about what

668
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 8: you do, and that's often how these relationships start. So

669
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:36,960
Speaker 8: he goes over, he gives this talk. They asked some

670
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 8: sensitive questions. He's very conscientious about it, not answering anything

671
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 8: he shouldn't answer, but he did kind of like take

672
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 8: a couple of files with him. It's just something he

673
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 8: shouldn't have done. He didn't tell his bosses about it,

674
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 8: also something he shouldn't have done. So he comes back

675
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 8: and basically the FBI kind of like he pops onto

676
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 8: their radar. They've also already been kind of interested in

677
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 8: Shu Yun June, who's our main guy back in China

678
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 8: for a little while, so they see this as an

679
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 8: opportunity to try to put in a double agent. So

680
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 8: they basically use this g engineer. They sort of have

681
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 8: him seem really interested in working with the MSS and

682
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 8: giving up all these secrets, and so that's the lure

683
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 8: they use, and this call is kind of like part

684
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 8: of the process of trying to get Shoe the MSS

685
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 8: officer interested and hooked.

686
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 5: Fifth episode comes.

687
00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 8: Out tomorrow and then then there's two more weeks that

688
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:30,439
Speaker 8: people can catch up before the sixth episode.

689
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 2: And it sounds like very It's like a Spine novel.

690
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 5: It is like a Spye novel.

691
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:37,879
Speaker 8: I mean, the sort of amount of detail that we

692
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 8: were able to get about Shoe Yan June and recordings

693
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,280
Speaker 8: in Recordings amazing. He sort of seems to have compulsively

694
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 8: kept track of all the stuff in his life, stupidly

695
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 8: sort of secret stuff, but also like very personal stuff

696
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 8: about his like his gripes about his boss, like rejecting

697
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 8: his expense reports, his kind of like feelings about his marriage.

698
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,280
Speaker 8: It's just it's like all it's a very deep portrait

699
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 8: that we're able to sort of draw on Drake.

700
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 3: No one is underrating the sixth Bureau. Everyone's got to

701
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 3: go listen to that y hopefully by now their soul.

702
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 5: What is your underrated story for the week?

703
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 8: My underrated story, and it's partly because I have been

704
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 8: marinating in China stuff, is that there is this summit

705
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:23,760
Speaker 8: meeting coming up supposedly at the end of March between

706
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 8: Chijin paying and Donald Trump, and it's gotten kind of

707
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 8: lost in all the Iran news, but it is a

708
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:32,760
Speaker 8: really big deal and it's kind of an interesting summit

709
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 8: because Donald Trump is kind of not a president that

710
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 8: kind of fought like normally for these things. There's this

711
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 8: whole kind of like pre process that happens with these

712
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 8: career foreign service officers are sort of like laying the

713
00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:46,520
Speaker 8: groundwork for this, and that's not doesn't seem to be

714
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 8: exactly happening. I mean, Scott, I think it's Bessett. I

715
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 8: think it's best in't and the Vice Premier of China

716
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:54,839
Speaker 8: are sort of talking about stuff, but it's like it's

717
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 8: very focused on sort of trade stuff at the moment

718
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 8: for me like understandable reason, but there are other issues

719
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 8: like Taiwan, and you know, Trump kind of like freaked

720
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 8: everyone out in the kind of China foreign policy world

721
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,400
Speaker 8: in the US recently where he said, because it's all

722
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 8: about these kind of very carefully modulated half things you say,

723
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 8: and so someone like he basically said like, yes, I'm

724
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 8: consulting with China on whether to do this arms deal

725
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 8: with Taiwan, which is like this huge no no, And

726
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 8: so he's just.

727
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:25,320
Speaker 2: Sort of like, why is that a no no?

728
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,240
Speaker 8: Because you don't want to give China like a veto

729
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 8: over your relationship with Taiwan, Like it's you kind of

730
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 8: don't want to let them tell us how we should

731
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 8: be with Taiwan. And so that was seen as kind

732
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:38,280
Speaker 8: of this victory. But the other thing about Trump, obviously,

733
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 8: is like the outcome of these summit meetings is often

734
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 8: like some very carefully modulated statement, but Trump doesn't really

735
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 8: do that, and also like he'll say something.

736
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 2: Not a carefully modulated guy.

737
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 5: Go back on it.

738
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 8: So it's just like the whole summit apparatus is kind

739
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,839
Speaker 8: of like, in this interesting moment right now, what are some.

740
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 2: Of the possible outcomes that make this an underrated story?

741
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 8: Well, he could, you know, this arms deal that Taiwan

742
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 8: is like it's kind of unclear what's going to happen

743
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 8: with that. I mean, I think the things that people

744
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 8: are talking about more? Are these are the tariffs? You know?

745
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 8: Are these sort of chip restrictions soybeans? People talking about soybeans.

746
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 8: That's like a big market for US farmers.

747
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well definitely check out the sixth Bureau. So

748
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,399
Speaker 2: already five of the six episodes are up, so check

749
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 2: it out. Drake. Thank you so much for joining us,

750
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 2: and thank you for your underrated story.

751
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 5: Thanks guys.

752
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 2: This show is produced by Stacy Wong and Jasmine J. T.

753
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 5: Breen.

754
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer, Sam Rogan, Handle's engineering

755
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 2: and Dave Purcell factchecks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin,

756
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 2: and Maria Ling. If you have a minute, please rate

757
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 2: and review the show. It means a lot to us.

758
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 2: And if you have a story that should be our business,

759
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 2: email us. Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody's with

760
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 2: the nests at Bloomberg dot net. Thank you for listening,

761
00:39:59,120 --> 00:39:59,879
Speaker 2: See you next week.

762
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 3: The st