Nicolle and Chris: If YOU ranted like Trump on social media you’d be fired

0:00 I really think this comes down

0:02 to something super fundamental about us as humans.

0:06 We're the only species that can live in the Amazon and the Arctic.

0:10 And the reason we can do that is we can acclimate to anything.

0:14 It's the superpower of our species.

0:16 Put us wherever and we will acclimate.

0:19 People acclimate to famine and to war.

0:22 Part of our job in the discourse is to resist that normalization.

0:30 Hi everyone, this is huge.

0:31 My guest this week is my other half on big nights at this network.

0:35 We make up one of television's odd couples,

0:37 but there is no one who captures my attention

0:40 more completely when the news is rolling in.

0:43 Chris Hayes also plays a role off camera as sort

0:46 of an intellectual and emotional center for a lot of us.

0:50 On the work front, his book, The Sirens Call,

0:53 is all about the fight for the most precious commodity these days,

0:57 our attention spans, critical in this moment when we're drinking

1:01 from a fire hose of content and news.

1:03 In his podcast, Why is this happening?

1:06 Chris asks the smartest people, the experts,

1:08 the questions we all want answered about the biggest issues of our time.

1:13 Now he's taking his big brain

1:15 and his big platform to tackle artificial intelligence AI,

1:18 the technology that is poised to transform

1:21 every facet of our lives and the world.

1:23 So without any further ado, this is the best people and this is Chris Hayes.

1:28 Thank you my friend.

1:29 Oh, it's great to be here.

1:30 Thanks for having me on.

1:31 I used to always want to know what was in your thought

1:34 bubble when you got plopped next to me on these sets.

1:36 Like how the[ __] did this happen that I'm

1:40 sitting next to the Bush Cheney spokes gal?

1:42 No, I mean I think it's funny like I think one of the things that's been

1:45 so wild about the last 10 years of American

1:48 politics is how much all of that scrambled.

1:51 Um and also how I think it's forced me I

1:54 don't I obviously you have had a trajectory of your own.

1:56 I think it's forced me to think about what is the you know think

2:01 about like Maslo's hierarchy of needs right so like what is you might think

2:06 before you're in a situation where like you don't have food that like you

2:10 take food for granted right and one of the things about the last 10

2:14 years of American political life is like there's sort of lower and lower

2:18 in the Maslo's hierarchy of needs it's

2:19 like will we keep the constitution exactly will

2:22 we keep a constitution for that do we have a functional democracy and then

2:26 it's like okay well what's what what's our feeling about a marginal tax rate?

2:29 What's our feel like all these things

2:30 that were sort of up higher on the pyramid?

2:33 And I think we've been sort of pushed lower and lower and lower.

2:36 But it's also I think in some ways it's reconnected me

2:40 with the fact that you know most of political life in most

2:44 places across the world and even in this country's history have been

2:49 pretty elemental struggles to kind of keep to preserve the the mechanics

2:55 of democratic representation and there are periods where you can become

3:00 inured to how precious that is and one of the gifts

3:05 in a weird way I think of this period in its

3:08 own perverse way is is reminding yourself about how important that is.

3:13 What do you think we're in right now?

3:16 Like I feel like you are on live TV sort of able

3:21 to see the moment with this like hyper clear focus as it's coming in.

3:27 Like as Rachel's setting it up and I'm sort of like, you know,

3:31 staring and and reminding myself not to let my jaw hit the table.

3:34 You can like you can really crystallize this and if this ends

3:37 up in a time capsule and people watch it in a hundred years,

3:40 we're now at the Trump mocking small children

3:42 in the Oval Office part of the second term

3:45 while he undermines like a 90minute Marco Rubio

3:47 presser 90 minutes later about the war in Iran.

3:51 Um and his approval ratings plunges further and further.

3:55 So where are we?

3:57 I think there's a few sort of fundamental realities right now.

4:02 The first is is the is the low popularity.

4:04 I really think that matters.

4:06 I mean when people talk a lot about Orban or they talk about Erdogan um

4:09 in Turkey and I think actually Erdogan some ways is even a more closer analog.

4:13 You know it really was a fundamental part of what they were able to do that they

4:18 were genuinely popular in the beginning as they

4:21 were consolidating these sort of um authoritarian regimes.

4:24 It's it just is harder to do that from 38% approval.

4:29 if he was at 60% approval, the country would be in a lot of way more trouble.

4:35 So that that fundamental political gravity matters.

4:38 Adjacent to that is the fact that and he doesn't

4:42 care about his broad popular approval or the median voter.

4:45 Do you have a theory on why?

4:47 Yes.

4:48 I think there's basically I think of it this way.

4:50 There's two possibilities.

4:51 One possibility is he's a lame duck and he's going

4:54 to leave after the second term because he's term limited out.

4:57 The other is that they're going to attempt some

5:00 extra constitutional and extra legal means of staying in power.

5:03 In both of those scenarios, the median voter doesn't matter that much.

5:07 Right.

5:08 So, in either of those futures, either he leaves and it's like or I crawl down

5:14 into the bunker and you guys have to under my new ballroom.

5:17 Yes.

5:18 Exactly.

5:18 Like I think literally actually I do think that's actually one of the ideas.

5:22 um in either of those scenarios, you don't really care about the median voter.

5:27 And so because of that, you know,

5:29 that that lack of popularity is both exacerbated by the fact

5:33 that and also I think personally he's just bored with the job.

5:36 He's obviously bored.

5:36 I mean, you're talking about the kids,

5:38 they did this very strange thing with a bunch of kids,

5:40 physical fitness, and he's there and like he always is.

5:42 He's, you know, his eyes look down and people say he's falling asleep.

5:46 He's not falling asleep.

5:47 Sometimes he is, but sometimes he isn't.

5:49 He's just bored out of his gourd.

5:51 Mhm.

5:51 very evidently could not be more bored by the job.

5:56 The job more.

5:57 Yeah.

5:57 And so I think all those things are true.

6:01 And then I think the final thing that's true

6:05 is it remains the case that Trump and the kind

6:09 of party that he has captured is committed to rule

6:14 by any means necessary and will use every possible strategim legal,

6:20 illegal, constitutional, extra constitutional,

6:23 normal politics and abnormal politics to try

6:26 to retain power when the ex Republicans that Democrats have very very um like

6:34 earnestly welcomed into the coalition get together.

6:38 They marvel at how selfexamining and self-critical Democrats are and it's

6:45 like an earnestness that Republicans still cannot get their brain around.

6:50 Like we always sucked, but we went balls to the walls.

6:53 You guys have always like been more earnest

6:56 and more honest and have been so self-critical.

7:00 Do you do you is that just unchangeable?

7:02 Is that like in the DNA?

7:03 Like like you can end up with ex Republicans as being

7:06 like more evangelical about the Democratic side than the Democrats?

7:11 Yes.

7:11 Okay.

7:11 You you're pointing towards something that I've been working

7:14 out in my head and I haven't quite um concretized.

7:17 I think personality type has a lot to do with the way our politics function.

7:22 Um and there's some ev there's a fair amount of evidence

7:24 and one of the main metrics I've been thinking about

7:26 this and this happened a lot with co is you

7:29 can think of a access of what we might call conscientiousness

7:32 or less charitably neuroticism right and I think that like

7:37 the personality of the modern sort of progressive liberal left is highly

7:44 conscientious and also highly neurotic and again it's a it's

7:49 a fine line between those two because like conscientiousness is awesome, right?

7:52 Like, hey, wait, that thing you said actually is a little insulting

7:55 to that person over there is a is a cool instinct, right?

7:58 Right.

7:59 It's also the case of like it can it can become you can't we can't say anything.

8:05 We can't agree about anything.

8:07 We're constantly questioning ourselves.

8:08 And I think this is kind of the core of the engine in the sort

8:12 of inner sanctum of what drives

8:13 the kind of collective discourse around Democratic politics,

8:17 Democratic party, progressive politics is this constant

8:21 battle between between what's conscientious and what's neurotic.

8:25 But like I have strategists on who like I don't

8:28 even remember or and I'm not mad at them anymore about

8:31 the campaign and they're like now one of the things

8:33 we did wrong and I'm like what why are you still

8:36 why do you are you still platform like like everyone

8:39 70% of the country is down on Trump like we're all

8:42 over it like like 70% of the country wishes you won

8:45 like like move on and figure out how to win next.

8:49 like there is such a and I guess the contrast is is is not a a you

8:54 know it's still better than what we've got but it makes me nervous about 28.

8:59 It's a really interesting question.

9:01 I mean I think there's an an adjacent question that that prompts

9:05 which is is it necessary to have some comprehensive diagnosis.

9:08 I mean I think about 2012.

9:10 So if we go back and we think of the Republicans, right?

9:13 So 2012, Romney loses.

9:14 You know, there's the the famous sort of postmortem and the postmortem,

9:18 which Lindsey Graham gets behind and Marco Rubio gets behind

9:20 is that we have to get right with Hispanic voters.

9:22 The way we get right with Hispanic voters is comprehensive immigration reform.

9:24 Senate passes it.

9:25 Boehner kills it in the House.

9:27 Rubio's for it.

9:28 Rubio's for it.

9:29 Um, and the Trump finds his way, I think, via Steve Bannon,

9:34 via his own sort of weird kind of feral

9:38 instinct to an alternate theory of the case,

9:41 which is we need to get white working-class voters,

9:44 and we need to juice that turnout in that support.

9:47 And that that that proves to be enough

9:49 to kind of pull the inside straight in 2016.

9:53 The lesson for me of that is that like

9:57 you can't just reverse engineer what happened last time, right?

10:02 Right.

10:02 So you need you need new ideas.

10:05 You need creativity.

10:06 You need innovation.

10:07 And so I think that's one of the things I worry about there is

10:13 this real instinct to kind of go back what went wrong correct for it.

10:17 And and one of the things you're seeing right now, which is super healthy.

10:21 Exactly.

10:21 Like it should be the way you win,

10:24 but but I I my only hang up is like it isn't right now.

10:28 No, that like it like how do you take like the party doing all the right things

10:33 and losing two out of three elections against

10:35 Trump and get them to be a little naughtier?

10:39 Yeah, that's interesting.

10:40 Or also or even just less scared of their own shadow, you know?

10:44 I mean that that I think that's what the voters are smelling, right?

10:47 Confidence.

10:47 And I think look, there are places where I think you see that for sure.

10:51 Um, and I think part of it too comes down to a lot

10:54 of it comes down to talent and who the candidates are.

10:56 Um, but I think you're right.

10:58 You're identifying something very true and correct.

11:00 And I think it's been a psychological profile and feature

11:04 of of the discourse in the sort of broad center left,

11:07 particularly progressive circle since I was in my early 20s.

11:10 I mean, notoriously like factionalism and yeah um

11:12 and sort of purity tests and all this stuff.

11:15 But yes, the other fundamental thing I think

11:18 you're putting your finger on is a sense

11:21 that every conservative and Republican has from very

11:24 young that the country is with us and we are the true representative of America

11:30 and the sense that so many Democrats have

11:33 that they aren't and worried that they aren't

11:36 and which isn't even true which is not true.

11:39 I mean that that I mean that's the thing about right now right?

11:41 I mean particularly right now like people don't you know the Iran war being

11:45 a perfect example like people don't like it they just no no one likes

11:48 it and people like don't like it who are have my politics people who

11:52 don't have my politics people who are religious people are secular and I think

11:55 the only way out is through and what I mean by that is ultimately

11:58 it's all in the doing and it's not the theorizing so like you got

12:02 to go out and do and I

12:04 think you're seeing different candidates from the Democratic

12:07 party in very different ways like John Oaf James Terico and Graham Platner are,

12:13 you know, uh, three different white men around the same age,

12:17 with extremely different approaches in very different states

12:20 and massively talented and all very massively talented and all.

12:23 I would say all three of them and I don't know, you know,

12:27 who's going to be successful projecting a kind of confidence that is

12:31 not the kind of handringing all three of them again very different folks,

12:37 different backgrounds.

12:38 They they project they seem like they to their core think

12:44 they're talking for the majority and add Mami to that list.

12:47 Absolutely.

12:47 Like I I said this to Adam Kinzinger who was on this week and I said,

12:51 you know, because they won't do it for themselves, I'll do it for them.

12:54 The Democrats have the bigger tent.

12:56 They should be throwing big tent parties for themselves.

12:58 Pat themselves on the back.

12:59 And they've they're on the right side

13:00 of every single issue if you ask the public.

13:02 Like I'll throw them a party if they won't throw one for themselves.

13:05 But that should just confidence.

13:07 Not just confidence,

13:08 but like all the things that people said they didn't do, they have done.

13:11 They have the better media ecosystem.

13:13 They have comedians saying, "What the[ __] Why are all

13:16 these comedians still?" Like they're winning the party.

13:18 They're winning the communications.

13:20 They They're making fools out of their own sort of stooges in state media.

13:25 I mean, you got Megan Kelly attacking Fox News in a way

13:28 that that I don't think you and I even ever would.

13:31 I mean, you you you've got the Democrats sort

13:33 of taking all the notes and acting on them.

13:35 Um, but but I guess your point maybe answers it.

13:38 They they now need to deliver.

13:39 Is that the feeling?

13:40 Yeah.

13:40 And I think you're right, though,

13:42 that there is like this weird vestigial place that people go

13:45 to to to keep talking about the you know what I mean?

13:48 It's like it's 2026 like a lot and you know there's this great line, you know,

13:52 the former UK minister during World War II about the what

13:55 the hardest part of governing was and he says events, my dear boy, events.

13:59 Yeah.

13:59 And it's like, you know, as you remember,

14:01 there were articles being written in the summer of 2000 about when Jim Jeffs,

14:06 the Republican senator,

14:07 moves from Republicans to Democrats about like is the Bush lost his way.

14:12 And then you know what happened?

14:14 911 happened.

14:15 Yeah.

14:15 There were articles being written after Donald Trump

14:18 beat impeachment in the Senate in Janu late January,

14:22 February 2020 about how like Trump's back

14:25 and he's on the rise and then COVID happened.

14:28 Like none of this is static.

14:29 So one of the things you get is you get this like well the last election

14:32 we have was this and this happened

14:34 and the podcasters we should have got on the podcast.

14:37 It's like like I hope no Democrat shows up like

14:39 lots of stuff has happened like lots of things have happened.

14:42 You you do talk about what's happening.

14:44 So and I think again some people

14:46 think well then you're just coasting on thermostatic

14:49 public opinion and backlash whatever but it's

14:51 like also like no you're responding to events.

14:53 I mean, this is something I think is so important is you have

14:56 to be responsive to where the public's at and what people are feeling.

14:59 And right now, the country thinks we're on the wrong track,

15:03 doesn't like Donald Trump,

15:05 don't like the way things are going, things are too expensive,

15:09 they don't like the war, and they think Trump is corrupt.

15:12 These are all like big 60% 65% majority findings.

15:15 So, just go with that, right?

15:18 Yeah.

15:18 I mean, do you spend any mental energy trying to figure out chicken and egg

15:25 with these big stories like like is Epstein is the Epstein betrayal the keyhole

15:30 through which they believe the rest of what the prodemocracy had to say about

15:34 the economy and the corruption or do you

15:36 think it's just all crashing down on people?

15:38 Like what is your theory on how to Great question.

15:41 So here here's what I think.

15:43 I think that um one I think useful category to think about is sort of low

15:48 trust high trust right do people trust

15:49 other people and trust in institutions and one

15:51 of the things about the US is we are a very low trust democracy in fact

15:55 we're the lowest trust country of pure

15:57 nations right so there's all sorts of measurements

15:59 of trust do you think most people can be trusted most of the time is

16:03 a question gets asked across all the countries

16:04 do you trust the government do you trust big

16:06 business these things we're we're very low trust in fact it's like us in Russia

16:10 But the reason I think it's relevant is

16:12 a I think the information environment has exacerbated that.

16:15 Mhm.

16:15 Right.

16:16 It's it's the the way the algorithmic feed works.

16:19 It feeds on that and it benefits the out

16:24 of power party because it's like don't trust them.

16:28 They're empowerment.

16:29 So Donald Trump had that as a tailwind

16:32 when he was running against and I think one

16:35 of the things you saw with Epstein was

16:37 that dynamic flip around and then it was a headwind.

16:40 Yeah.

16:40 Yeah.

16:41 Right.

16:41 So, it's like and you saw with Dian Bino,

16:43 it's like he's out, he's a podcaster being like,

16:45 "Well, I wanted to release it and then he's

16:48 in the FBI totally uncomfortable." It's like, "Yeah." Yeah.

16:51 Yeah.

16:51 So, I think that's one fundamental dynamic here.

16:54 The reason I think Epstein was so crucial is that it kind

16:58 of flipped that sense of who's in power and who's out of power.

17:02 Who's the they, right?

17:04 That they that we've all heard.

17:05 They don't want you to know this.

17:07 They are keeping it.

17:08 deep state.

17:09 The deep state or whoever it is, right?

17:11 That sense of the they I think flipped at a certain point,

17:14 particularly with a certain kind of low trust

17:17 voter that was very weakly bound to either party.

17:19 And if you think of it as like an electron weekly like circling a nucleus,

17:24 that it sort of bound to Trump in 2024 and then it's bound back off him.

17:32 And I think in many ways Epstein was

17:35 the story that made that chemical reaction happen.

17:38 And now I think it's pretty hardened, right?

17:40 Because now it's like these people look like insiders and liars.

17:44 So I think you're right to identify that as like a key moment.

17:47 But I think in some ways and I think

17:50 this is actually a real challenge for Democrats if

17:52 and when they retake power is that like it's

17:55 it's very hard to run a low trust democracy.

17:59 You've almost got to go all sunshine.

18:01 Like you've almost got to have like like Florida had

18:04 sunshine laws that required I mean they were like it was

18:07 it was forever ago because I'm ancient but like reporters

18:10 could be anywhere where two politicians were in the same room.

18:13 So if I work for Jeb Bush if he was golfing with someone the press was

18:16 allowed to go like you almost have

18:18 to modernize sunshine laws and put like a puppy

18:20 cam on on the head of every politician like you mean live stream the white

18:24 house or live stream every you've got to throw the doors open in a radical way.

18:28 Yes.

18:28 And I think that is one to go back to this question about like you know,

18:32 learning from the past while not being obsessed with it and trapped in it.

18:37 I do think one of the big lessons of 2024 is like say yes,

18:42 talk to the press, talk to everyone.

18:45 Like you're just that that that the default should be a posture of yes,

18:51 I'll do press conferences.

18:51 I'll go on this show.

18:52 I'll talk to that person.

18:53 I'll talk to that person.

18:54 I'll talk to that person who doesn't like me.

18:56 I'll go on that show where the the the host has said some awful things before.

19:00 I don't care.

19:00 I'm still going to talk to his audience.

19:02 Like I think changing that default has been

19:04 pretty key and I do think that's been happening.

19:06 Who do you think does it best?

19:08 You don't have to name one,

19:09 but like who do you like who who's because I I I read your comments about

19:13 this like some of what benefits Trump isn't

19:15 that he crushes a single one of these performances.

19:18 It's that there are so many that that were like what you call postgaff politics.

19:22 Yes.

19:22 Postg politics.

19:23 Yes.

19:23 I mean I think Mandani has done this very well.

19:26 I think the campaign that Platner has run in Maine is pretty instructive.

19:29 Again, take out what you think of him as a, you know,

19:32 whether he'd be a good senator or not or he's kind of been everywhere.

19:36 And part of that too has to do with the difference

19:39 between the and I love to hear you talk about this.

19:42 The assessment you're making about cost benefit when

19:45 you're the incumbent and you're the challenger, right?

19:47 So, it's like I think a lot of the Democratic establishment still

19:51 worries about the gaff and they worry about I'm going to do

19:54 this interview and then this thing's going to get spun up

19:56 and it's going to be the Howard Dean scream all over again.

19:58 And it's like it would never I mean

20:00 I saw your like that could never happen again.

20:02 It's never nothing lasts long enough to I worry

20:04 that Democratic voters would still hold someone accountable for a scream.

20:07 Like I think that there is still this thing and I see it in try like like trying

20:11 to book my own show where people are like oh no he doesn't want to do too much.

20:15 Why not?

20:16 And like what like the more you do the more

20:18 you do and that's that's all that I think there is.

20:21 And also the other thing is that like democratic politics is

20:24 a sustained act of communication between

20:27 people trying and arguing like sustained argument

20:30 you know it is the nonviolent means by which we resolve

20:33 the conflict endemic to human affairs right that's what we got that's all

20:37 we got and the way you do it is talking right it's

20:40 like talking or something else so we talk right and I mean

20:44 that's you know that's human history right so you got to be

20:48 willing to talk you know and I really I mean I'm biased.

20:51 You're biased.

20:52 We're talkers, right?

20:52 So, it's like I think that the thing that I do is the most important,

20:55 but I do think it's important.

20:56 Well, I mean, it is the way I mean,

20:58 and you've written the book like it's the way

21:00 people consume information about who they're going to pick.

21:03 It is content that you only create content

21:05 and people only consume content that's fresh or viral.

21:08 And you only do that if you're everywhere.

21:10 Absolutely.

21:10 And I think there's this real control question, too.

21:13 Mhm.

21:13 And I think this is a thing that gets to consultant culture,

21:17 staff culture, even even political culture.

21:20 In some ways, you want to control as much as you can control.

21:24 And there's a certain formula to let's say

21:27 you're recruiting a a swing seat house candidate, right?

21:31 It's like good resume and bio.

21:34 Do a bunch of like very setpiece earned media where like you I am outside

21:40 this hospital that's going to be gonna

21:43 uh go under because of Medicaid cuts, right?

21:45 Take a few questions and then raise a ton of money and buy a bunch of ads.

21:50 I mean, that's been the formula for decades.

21:53 And the advantage of that is that you can control everything.

21:57 You control the ad, right?

21:59 Mhm.

21:59 But the problem is increasingly as the landscape changes,

22:02 the people you need to reach aren't going to see the ads.

22:06 They're not watching like local TV news.

22:08 But what Democrats would say to you is that how do

22:11 we lose um all the swing states over the Trump trans ad?

22:15 I'm for whatever that ad was.

22:17 She for whatever they for.

22:19 Here's I think there's a strong rebuttal of this.

22:23 Two things.

22:23 one in the states where the swing states

22:27 where both sides were running ads and campaigning,

22:30 Harris's margin was narrower than in the other states.

22:34 So look what happened.

22:35 Look at Trump's overperformance that happened

22:38 in New York State where no ads ran.

22:40 Right.

22:40 Right.

22:41 So if you want to test the hypothesis, zero money,

22:43 the structural conditions were driving support towards Trump

22:46 and the the Harris campaign actually blunted it, clawed it back.

22:50 Yeah.

22:50 Right.

22:50 So, I have this argument with campaigns all the time.

22:53 They're like, they're like, "Well, you say the ads don't cuz I I worked

22:56 on campaigns and I'm very skeptical of paid media." Yeah.

22:59 The second thing I would say also,

23:00 which I think is a really important thing to realize,

23:03 is if you break up voters by how much news they consume.

23:07 Okay.

23:08 So, in the center of this bullseye are the most the people

23:12 who consume the most news who say who self-reported a lot of news.

23:15 Kla Harris wins them like plus four or five.

23:18 Mhm.

23:19 Then like some news is like maybe plus one

23:22 or even almost no news is Trump plus seven.

23:24 Again, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but roughly.

23:27 And zero news is like Trump plus 15, right?

23:30 So, right.

23:31 The the it wasn't like like the people

23:34 most tuned in like the campaign and the swing

23:38 states and the people most tuned in were

23:41 those were the most Harris disposed voters.

23:44 Mhm.

23:44 It's the It's that outer circle and you got

23:48 to have a theory of how to talk to those people.

23:50 I think this gets into the attention economy

23:52 that that you wrote about and that you talk about.

23:55 I I just read something I think in the Atlantic that um

23:58 for all the time and energy we spend on our podcast,

24:01 a majority of people consume all podcasts and clips.

24:03 It's all clips.

24:04 It's all clips.

24:04 It's incredible.

24:05 I mean, it's all clips.

24:06 And and I mean, look,

24:07 I there's something we could get into what this is doing to everyone's brains

24:11 and their attention spans and their ability

24:13 to concentrate and listen and you know,

24:15 I think there's also a question of like, does everything need to be TV, right?

24:19 You know, like, oh yeah, I like TV, you like TV, we make TV,

24:23 but also like listening is nice, reading is nice,

24:25 and should we have to do our makeup for our podcasts?

24:28 Well, that's and and the idea that everything now is TV is insane.

24:31 Insane.

24:31 I mean, short form video, right, is the kind of default means of communicating.

24:36 And that has profound implications.

24:37 The other thing that's crazy about that too,

24:39 which you know is worth thinking about is we talk about the algorithm

24:44 like the Oracle at Deli like with like the the the proper

24:49 noun and it's like that algorithm is determining something in some opaque way

24:56 that is communicated to us as a neutral arbiter of verality or popularity,

25:01 but it's not like why does that algorithm do what it's do?

25:05 I get served stuff all the time in my algorithm where it's like,

25:08 I like to work out and I like weightlifting.

25:10 I like watching weightlifting videos.

25:11 And it's like, do you also want to see this like super right-wing anti-feminist

25:16 content from like gross misogynistic dudes?

25:18 And I'm like, I don't.

25:20 But it's the same thing like like they're making guesses,

25:23 right, about what you might what else you might like.

25:25 It's also not the other thing about it is it's not like it's that sophisticated,

25:29 you know, that right.

25:30 So you looked at a bunch of weightlifting videos.

25:33 You might like these shoes.

25:34 You might like his dress.

25:35 You like a lot of sports.

25:36 Yeah.

25:36 Exactly right.

25:37 It's like, oh wow, the algorithm it's like not that incredible.

25:41 Um, but I do think that, you know, the the the role that plays,

25:46 it is a weird black hole at the center of our politics, the algorithm,

25:51 because if if you go back to what you were just saying before,

25:54 which is true, that mo most of the podcasts now are being consumed as clips.

25:57 It's like, well, where do they see the clips?

25:59 Well, they see the clips on Instagram

26:01 or Tik Tok where they're fed into an algorithm.

26:03 What does the algorithm show them?

26:06 Well, I don't know.

26:07 Yeah.

26:07 And I've had this experience, too.

26:09 You know, this slot machine we're now making.

26:12 We're doing short-term video, which again is good and we should.

26:15 And that's again to to take my own medicine, right,

26:18 about like you got to meet people where they are.

26:20 I'm sure you've had this experience.

26:22 Yeah, you make three videos and you put them out and like one gets

26:27 30,000 views and one gets 90,000 views and one gets 2 million views, right?

26:32 And it's like, was the one with 2 million views so much better than the others?

26:36 I don't know.

26:37 I mean, you can try to kind of retroactively engineer for the next one.

26:41 And then sometimes you'll try and iterate.

26:42 You'll be like, well, I'm going to do another one on that topic.

26:45 Yeah.

26:45 Yeah.

26:46 Yeah.

26:46 Yeah.

26:46 Well, it's like chasing the It's like chasing the highly rated blog.

26:49 You can't do that either, right?

26:51 Because like what works on one day no may not work the next day.

26:54 And that brings us back to where we started right about how

26:57 you approach politics which is you want to be informed by the data.

27:00 You don't want to just be like I don't look at polling.

27:03 I don't look at the numbers.

27:05 You want to be informed by the data but fundamentally you cannot back out

27:09 a calculation reverse engineer chase a thing

27:12 where you just construct from the data.

27:15 You have to have a vision and have some ideas and try stuff and see what works,

27:24 but you can't just depend on, you know.

27:26 So, how do you do that for your TV show?

27:29 Like going from the high-tech to the algorithm to like

27:31 the probably the lowest tech thing we both do,

27:33 which is program our TV shows based on what we've read and consumed in the news.

27:37 I mean, honestly, I think in a weird way,

27:40 I think we all have a sense of like what are the big stories.

27:45 Um, You know, sometimes I ask myself if

27:48 I'm like staying too closely in the main center, like the big stories.

27:53 I mean, we, you know, it's an 8mm show.

27:56 We do, you know, we we do the big stories of the day.

28:00 Sometimes I'm like, should I be doing

28:03 things that are more bespoke or more underappreciated?

28:06 Yeah.

28:07 Um, but then in some ways like the big stories are so big most days

28:13 like there's a like and like the medium is also like a broad story to broad

28:18 I mean I don't know I also feel sort of like everyone can get the news

28:22 on their phone so my duty right is to sort of do some curation and so

28:26 what is the biggest what is the thing that impacts the most people or hurts

28:30 the most people totally and I think so so I think also we're living in a world

28:35 where those big stories are big and kind of omnipresent um it's you know I've

28:40 been they're also so bad they're so bad and I've also so They're so bad.

28:44 But there's also there also is this sense I have of there's

28:50 there's like bad stories that are that have sunk below the visibility

28:55 line where I'm like well corruption like I have a really hard

29:00 like I especially when you when you watch the the results out

29:04 of Hungary like corruption is so universally loathed right it's like making

29:08 a fool out of you out of you and and especially if

29:10 you're one of the Trump supporters who thought he was going

29:13 to make your life better the corruption really rubs them the wrong way.

29:16 I struggle to find a lot of good investigative journalism about the corruption.

29:20 I know the New York Times just want to pull us for some of its crypto reporting,

29:24 but those stories obviously take forever.

29:26 Yep.

29:26 And there's there's there's zero television element.

29:29 That's a big part of it to give the corruption the coverage it deserves.

29:33 I It is a story I am doing the worst on.

29:37 I have had the same struggle with precisely that story.

29:39 There was interesting polling I saw the other day that showed

29:42 the percentage of people who say he's corrupt has really dramatically gone up,

29:46 including in every subdemographic,

29:47 including Republican voters, including white evangelicals, etc.

29:50 So, it is getting out there that because he's doing it all on camera.

29:54 It's so me and my crypto fund and here's also here's my son showing

29:59 up on Fox News to talk about his drone company just got a Pentagon contract.

30:03 Correct.

30:03 Like, they're not even hiding to brag about.

30:06 Right.

30:07 Right.

30:07 So, yeah, I've struggled with that.

30:09 some of the other stories,

30:10 one of them which we've done a fair amount of, but like

30:13 we are still killing civilians on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

30:20 We've killed maybe 170 now.

30:22 It is people pointed out a few days ago when Marco Rubio out

30:27 of context was talking about the Iranians

30:29 killing civilian firing at civilian boats.

30:31 It's like well that's actually what we're doing.

30:33 So that that's one story that I've I've we've covered

30:36 but also feels a little like has unfortunately been routinized.

30:39 The other story that I've really struggled with is one

30:44 of those things that we all covered when it happened.

30:48 But the single most consequential thing from a sheer like tally

30:52 of lives like human life that this administration had done is Trump,

30:58 Musk and Rubio killing off USA IDA.

31:00 And there's a new study in the uh out of Harvard that estimates

31:05 that the total cost of that's going to be 600,000 people dying.

31:09 That's like an unfathomable that number doesn't

31:11 you can't get your head around it.

31:14 And again, it's like that happened and the and the sort

31:17 of long tale of that is still playing out.

31:19 And again, I have been struggling with how to cover that because I

31:23 would say on the other side of it though is to the point

31:26 that you were saying before about how bad the things that are happening

31:30 like there are kind of highdefin abuses

31:33 and then there's like more remote abuses.

31:35 And if it's the case that we're covering the highdefinition abuses,

31:39 I'm okay with that as long as they're ab you know what I mean?

31:43 Like if they're they're real and they're important.

31:47 What is your sense of how the press is doing that covers Trump?

31:55 I think it's hard because I think there has been such dislocation of the press,

32:02 you know, like what does that even mean?

32:05 What does it mean?

32:06 I mean, there used to really be, you know,

32:08 I think you saw this from being in comm.

32:11 Um, you know, 20 years ago.

32:13 I saw it from my perch sort of coming up

32:16 as part of a crop of sort of blogosphere online

32:20 writers that were kind of outside of the old establishment

32:24 of what used to be called the gang of 500, like the Washington press corps.

32:30 that world is just so much more tenuous

32:32 now and sort of stripped down of its power.

32:36 I think there's been a a ton of amazing reporting happening.

32:41 I think the the rise of this network

32:45 has really transformed what news cycles are.

32:48 Frankly.

32:48 Mhm.

32:49 I think people have a lot of frustration with the coverage of Trump.

32:54 Mhm.

32:55 Because fundamentally there's this kind of um genre

33:00 constraint around this sense of normalization, you know,

33:03 and it drives people insane when the headline is

33:06 the president says whatever totally insane thing he said.

33:11 Like every headline should be Trump undermines Secretary of State

33:16 and National Security Adviser 80 minutes after he addresses press

33:21 for two hours or you know I think about

33:24 this this word I think about all this all the time.

33:28 We have debates about this my staff the word

33:32 claims such an interesting word such a loaded fraught word.

33:35 Think about when someone says something and someone claims something.

33:39 Now at some level those are the same.

33:43 You're communicating the same.

33:45 Trump says Iranians ready to sign memo of my understanding.

33:49 Trump claims right claims now both are defensible even

33:53 in the world of sort of AP mainstream journalism

33:57 but they have incredibly different senses and there's

34:01 a lot of Trump says that should be Trump claims.

34:05 Right.

34:05 Like basically everything he says should be Trump claims.

34:09 Trump claims that.

34:10 Claims that.

34:11 Yeah.

34:12 Because claims is like I don't know.

34:16 Right.

34:16 Right.

34:17 Right.

34:17 It's like one step down from says and it's a step down from says,

34:20 but I mean what's like I also think we need a different word

34:24 for like I've been covering the overnight

34:26 posts because I consume a lot of sports

34:29 live sports and sports news and if any athlete in baseball or basketball

34:34 or football just had the posting practices

34:37 and times of the president of United States, it would be a huge sports story.

34:42 Oh my god.

34:43 Like if any basketball player if the day before LeBron was going

34:48 to compete in some big game and it's like wait we have the time

34:51 stamps you're up at you're up that would be the story right and if

34:55 any and I and I consume far less entertainment press but like I

34:59 it's sometimes in my feed right but if any actor at the top

35:02 of their game like he's president he's at the top of our politics were

35:06 posting all night it would be a story in the entertainment press like

35:10 they would have to cover it

35:12 and the political press rarely covers overnight screeds.

35:15 I do.

35:16 This connects with actually something.

35:17 I have a theory that one of the best things for Trump and one of the things

35:23 that allowed him to win in 2024 was

35:25 getting kicked off Twitter and going to Truth Social.

35:28 Maybe cuz we didn't see it.

35:29 You don't see it.

35:30 Mhm.

35:31 So, it's like someone having a like psychotic episode where they

35:34 scream into a pillow and then they like come back to you.

35:39 Central with this padded room.

35:40 It is.

35:41 It's like and it's like and because no literally no

35:44 the only reason people are on true social how to find it.

35:46 I just read this.

35:47 I don't know how to find it.

35:48 No, we all read it based on the reposting

35:51 whatever whatever account we follow that reposted.

35:53 Correct.

35:53 But I think that like when it was on Twitter

35:56 particularly when it was on Twitter during peak tweak Twitter pre

35:59 when everyone's there it was so it was like being

36:03 in a subway car with a person who's having a breakdown.

36:07 But then we all move to a different subway car and he's just

36:12 in there and I think it's sort of I think it helps him.

36:15 I really do think it helps him because it's it's like

36:18 and you're totally right that if that was if that was more

36:22 present if it were I mean again if anyone in your life

36:26 I mean forget about you know first there's your athletes or celebrities

36:29 but like if a co-orker if your boss if you'reing all

36:32 night I mean I wouldn't I mean it would be no one

36:37 would I would call Rachel and be like you call him I

36:41 call mom and be like but for any person in your life.

36:45 I mean, that is But but like we've talked about algorithms

36:47 and and I want to ask you about AI in your in your series,

36:51 but like are our brains already broken in that the commander-in-chief,

36:54 the guy with his fingers on the coast, posts all night and it's barely news.

36:58 I really think this comes down

36:59 to something super fundamental about us as humans.

37:02 We're the only species that can live in the Amazon and the Arctic.

37:07 And the reason we can do that is we can acclimate to anything.

37:11 It's the superpower of our species.

37:14 put us wherever and we will acclimate.

37:16 People acclimate to famine and to war.

37:19 People I mean I've watched videos of a guy working out in a halfbombed out

37:26 gym in Gaza with the machines and the dust like literally it's like caved in.

37:31 There's rebar showing and he's like on the machine

37:35 pulling that that fundamentally is the issue.

37:38 It's like he's just done it enough that we've acclimated

37:42 this adaptive feature and it's adaptive feature for all of us.

37:46 And I think, you know, you're right that like we our part of our job

37:51 in the discourse is to resist that normalization,

37:53 but the the pull towards that normalization is powerful.

37:57 You know, it's just a powerful part of our collective

38:01 again like our w at the deepest level of our wiring.

38:04 It's it's partly what produces us and our ability to function.

38:10 So the AI piece is this thing that I

38:14 think I have two ways of coping with with AI.

38:17 One is is what is artificial intel, right?

38:20 Like like I'll just stay and wonder as long

38:22 as I can like what is this new fingle thing?

38:24 And the other is denial, right?

38:26 Like I'm already using it because it's everywhere.

38:28 Yeah.

38:28 like how do you how do you span that in in in in what

38:33 you've like tackled and what you're trying to present?

38:35 So, part of the reason we did this series on the podcast, the AI endgame,

38:39 was precisely because I was feeling myself in a kind

38:42 of defensive crouch about it where it stresses me out.

38:45 It gives me the bad feeling.

38:47 I don't It's like something's breathing down my neck.

38:50 I want to like close the door and pretend it's not there.

38:53 Like one more thing for us to be scared for our kids

38:58 about like freaked out about my I still drink water

39:00 out of a plastic bottle and like don't I can't do

39:02 AI like I'm going to let someone else worry about that.

39:05 Let Chris Hayes worry about that.

39:06 That so that's exactly where I was and I think one of the things that was

39:10 really wonderful about doing the series is I

39:12 think curiosity can sometimes be the antidote to anxiety.

39:15 Totally.

39:16 You know, it's like wait a second, let me let me find out some stuff.

39:20 And one of the things that I think I came to is it's I I think I've arrived

39:26 at the point where this is a big deal

39:29 and a big technology but fundamentally it's what you might call

39:33 a normal technology and what I mean by that is

39:37 you know the car is a normal technology it

39:41 completely transformed every aspect of our society our like so

39:46 everything right so and it has had enormous negative consequences,

39:50 enormous positive consequences like you know the smartphone and the internet,

39:54 the personal computer, the steam engine, the railroad like these are

39:59 all again normal technologies transformative enormous

40:01 consequences but fundamentally there were human

40:04 beings who were heartbroken or grieving

40:07 a loss of a loved one before and after the automobile and we're

40:11 going to be human beings before and after AI having human experiences.

40:15 So that like that to me helped lower the temperature.

40:20 But once you start once I started engaging with it in normal technology,

40:24 once I started thinking about like well how

40:26 did the car changed the world and how did

40:29 the personal computer and and what would it

40:31 be like to go through that again and what

40:33 were things that we'd like to go back in time and kind of figure out

40:36 at the time around the car or burning coal

40:40 that we wish we did back when it started.

40:44 That was my way into kind of starting to feel some agency restored to me

40:49 as opposed to like I'm sitting here waiting for them to drop the bomb on me.

40:54 Which is the way that I think that a lot, right?

40:57 Doesn't it?

40:58 One of our colleagues is walking around the other day,

41:01 you know, stunning before, but you know,

41:03 mid hair and makeup and walked by and I said, "What's wrong?" She said,

41:07 "I'm so scared about AI." And I'm like, "Wait, what did I miss?

41:10 What did it do?" Exactly.

41:11 Did it back drop?

41:12 like what happened?

41:13 Like what?

41:14 But that's how I felt.

41:15 I'm like I'm just like waiting for the bomb to drop upset

41:19 that with her curlers in she's like I'm so upset about AI.

41:22 And I literally got my phone and like you can't Google AI.

41:24 It's too smart for that.

41:25 So I'm like what did it do?

41:27 Did AI do a thing?

41:28 Claude, did AI do a thing?

41:30 But like what is like the AI for dummies?

41:33 Like what can what can how do you start?

41:35 Like how did you start?

41:36 Okay.

41:37 So I think the the the you know the I think

41:40 if you build up from um the idea of let's start

41:45 with just predictive text right you give a computer a lot

41:49 of your emails and it's iteratively you train it so that it

41:53 can start to recognize that when you say like sorry I

41:57 can't the last two words are make it pattern recognition right

42:01 and it turns out there's a way to represent the connection

42:04 between those words in a big matrix such that probabilistically, right?

42:07 When you run it again, it's like, "Sorry, I can't make it." Okay,

42:11 that core insight that a lot of the talking and reasoning we do is

42:16 probabilistically related to each other is

42:18 the insight this whole thing grows out of.

42:21 M you get more and more sophisticated,

42:23 more and more variables and more and more data into a model.

42:28 Mhm.

42:29 And you train it more and more, the connections it can start to make get

42:34 more and more elaborate and complex like remorse.

42:37 It can start to communicate remorse like sorry I can't make it.

42:41 I'm tied up but I feel terrible because I

42:43 know this is the fourth time I'm canceling it.

42:46 Exa Exactly.

42:46 Right.

42:46 So yes, from sorry I can't make it to that a message I type oft off in.

42:50 Right.

42:51 Exactly.

42:51 from from that small thing to that bigger

42:54 thing to a lot more sophisticated and complicated things.

42:58 Basically, in this remarkable way with enough data

43:02 and enough training and sophisticated enough relationships between variables,

43:05 a whole bunch of behaviors emerge.

43:09 Mhm.

43:09 that don't work the way that we work internally but are effectively able through

43:17 a kind of different process to ape a lot of what we can do.

43:24 Now you and Derek though put your finger on the part that I

43:27 think scares me which is that there is a human sort of a top

43:31 the technology or a few humans or a handful of humans or you know

43:35 very small number and no one is

43:39 able to ensure that they have benevolent interests.

43:43 I am not anti-billionaire.

43:45 I am fearful of a world where billionaires amass

43:50 so much wealth that they can easily pay for power.

43:55 That is what I'm most afraid of.

43:58 Not just a world where billionaires control artificial intelligence,

44:03 which itself might be dystopian,

44:05 but a world where billionaires by virtue of their AI wealth

44:09 are able to control everything else because they can buy political power.

44:13 That is that is scary to me.

44:16 What do we do about that?

44:18 The metaphor that many people use inside and outside Silicon Valley and inside

44:23 outside AI is imagine the nuclear arms race in a bunch of private companies.

44:28 Not Los Alamos, no state actors

44:31 with state actors where it's like everyone's vetted.

44:33 We're doing this for the state.

44:35 It's like there's a company in New York trying

44:37 to build a bomb and then there's one down in Austin,

44:39 Texas and then there's another competitor in and they're

44:41 racing against each other and then also there's a bunch

44:44 of Chinese companies and there's one in Moscow and there's

44:46 one and maybe maybe these are good people, maybe they're not.

44:50 That's the way it feels right now.

44:51 And I think one of the things that's just inevitable and people inside

44:54 Silicon Valley say this is that there's got to be some federal regulation.

44:59 Um there's all signs of all kinds of profound implications

45:04 of the technology cyber security to war fighting to privacy, right?

45:10 That there has to be some democratic interface.

45:16 Now that's dangerous and scary in its own way.

45:19 Like do I want Donald Trump personally thumbs

45:21 up and thumbs down and which models come out?

45:23 No.

45:23 But one of the things I think it's interesting

45:26 when you think about how the modern state has

45:30 evolved to deal with areas of really difficult technical

45:34 expertise is like we have these institutions got created.

45:36 I'll give you two of them.

45:38 The central bank and the FDA like we don't want up

45:42 or down floor votes on whether a new drug should come to market.

45:48 Right.

45:48 We democratically created a technical body that has a process

45:53 to regulate the safety and efficacy of new drugs.

45:57 We also don't want up or down floor votes on like interest rates.

46:01 We have done this for various other problems before.

46:03 It's a muscle we haven't exercised in a while,

46:06 but I think it's going to be something.

46:08 We're going to have to exercise that muscle again.

46:10 Is there any movement toward creating

46:12 that or is the industry so resistant to it?

46:15 Our CNBC colleague Andrew Rosskin had a I think someone from Palunteer

46:18 on the other day where he said what do you think about the idea

46:21 of an FDA for AI and he's like the FDA has killed millions

46:24 of people right so I think that's the posture of a lot of people

46:29 um yes there there are people thinking about this for sure like it

46:34 it is again it's slow and it's behind where the technology is but there

46:38 are people think there are lots of smart people thinking about what a regulatory

46:42 and governing regime would look like

46:44 that wouldn't be Donald Trump vetoing things.

46:46 It wouldn't be an up or down vote at every model

46:50 and it also wouldn't be this sort of less a fair.

46:52 Let me ask you a low tech question like do you empower it yourself?

46:55 Does someone let it in and that's where its power is to know your history

46:59 and to know or is its power external like fine-tuned on a vast sample of humans?

47:03 Like can it how could it be manipulated by bad actors?

47:07 Oh, I mean the there's a million ways to manipulate it for bad actors.

47:10 First of all, the companies are going

47:12 to have so much access to information about you.

47:14 I mean everything that we do because you're talking to it all the time, right?

47:17 Like so I even the other day Anthropics Cloud had

47:19 a new feature where they said there's this new feature called memory.

47:23 Do you want to turn it on?

47:25 I said sure.

47:25 Yeah.

47:26 And then it said and it gave me a readout.

47:28 Here's what did it access?

47:29 Well, it just gave me a readout based on my interactions.

47:32 But what it said to me was you're the host

47:34 of the APM show on MS Now and you have written

47:37 these books and this is your next book project and you

47:39 just went to Japan with your wife and your three

47:41 kids and they're this age and and all of that just

47:44 came from I'm talking to you and you're learning stuff

47:48 about me and then I had this moment of like then

47:51 what it can do with that is also sort of fascinating.

47:54 It's a much more sophisticated thing it

47:57 can do with it than like algorithmic ads.

47:59 Think about a bad actor who wants to put

48:03 their finger on the scale of an election, right?

48:08 I mean, increasingly, where do people go for information?

48:12 You know, for an earlier generation, it was Google.

48:15 You know, young people today go to OpenAI.

48:18 They go to Chat GBT or Claude or Grock, right?

48:22 Now imagine the person who's in the wiring of those models who

48:27 wants to put a finger on the lever for the Republican candidates.

48:33 So who's who's running in my local election?

48:37 Well, this person who's got this issue and this person who sounds pretty good.

48:42 Yeah.

48:43 Yeah.

48:43 That's the answer you get.

48:45 You don't know that the the model was messing with the wiring, right?

48:49 Well, the other thing as like a campaign person is is

48:52 the the vast majority of consumers would view it as a neutral source,

48:56 which is sort of the burden of so much politics,

48:59 even an endorsement comes from a loaded person, a partisan figure.

49:02 The vast majority of consumers view AI as neutral on the sidelines.

49:06 The other thing on top of this is as the models

49:09 get more sophisticated and there's more what we call emergent behavior,

49:12 the people running the models don't actually

49:15 understand why they're doing what they're doing.

49:17 I mean this line that the New Yorker writer Gideon Lewis Krauss you know

49:20 put in a piece that has stuck with me is we had the steam

49:23 engine before we have the laws of thermodynamics which is to say the steam

49:28 engine was built and working before we understood the physics of why it works.

49:32 Right?

49:32 So that's a little bit of where we are right now with the models.

49:36 Yeah.

49:37 The model's doing stuff.

49:38 The theory of why the model's doing that stuff we're still working out.

49:42 We're still working out.

49:43 Let me play a clip.

49:44 We'll talk about it on the other side.

49:46 I think what they're doing is actually something that's extremely interesting

49:50 and powerful but very different from what

49:52 children are doing when they're learning.

49:54 What they're doing is taking all

49:56 of the material that human beings have already learned.

49:59 Right?

49:59 The reason why they're so effective is because they're taking

50:03 everything that human beings have said and thought and put out

50:08 on the net and understood and then they use these statistical

50:13 methods to try to organize and summarize and elomerate that information.

50:18 So, it's not that they're going out into the world and figuring

50:22 out things that are new the way that two-year-olds are doing.

50:25 What they're doing is taking all of the things that human beings have thought

50:29 and learned and had ideas about

50:31 and then finding statistical patterns in that information.

50:34 Um, so that was Allison Gobnik and you have kids.

50:38 I have kids.

50:39 I mean, some of the mistakes I think people can make in thinking about

50:42 AI is it is it is not functioning the way our kids' brains function.

50:47 This is what's so fascinating, right?

50:49 to to the point we're just talking about like

50:51 frontier AI models are producing all this remarkable behavior.

50:54 Um it's not because it's being built the way that a human brain is.

51:00 Right.

51:00 Right.

51:01 Right.

51:01 It's it's a different thing.

51:03 Now we'll probably learn some things about how our brain works from this.

51:08 Right.

51:08 But you know Allison Gobnik who's

51:10 a fascinating brilliant um cognitive scientist,

51:13 psychologist, philosopher across all these different areas.

51:17 You know one of the things that she is identifying is the embodied

51:23 human child is the most potent intelligence that exists on the world.

51:28 The amount that you're learning in the amount of time

51:32 bootstrapping in your environment is puts everything else to shame,

51:36 including brilliant adults and frontier AM models.

51:39 But the question then becomes like, will we learn things about how we

51:46 operate by having this other form of intelligence?

51:50 Will we change the way those models work to get more like us?

51:55 Will they become more embodied?

51:56 Which is a whole other question.

51:57 There's lots of data that you're getting as a little

52:00 kid when you're sticking things in your mouth and crawling around.

52:02 I'm in it with the model's just reading the internet, you know,

52:06 like it's like it doesn't have that experiential learning in the same way.

52:09 And so one of the things I to get back to why

52:13 I found this podcast series so interesting is one of the ways

52:17 I dealt with COVID and that anxiety was to think about

52:21 the fact that there were all

52:23 these intellectual questions this pandemic presented.

52:25 How do supply chains work?

52:27 how to communicable diseases work, you know, everything.

52:31 Um, there are so many fascinating questions that this technology

52:34 prompts that I actually think can be the source

52:37 of some inspiration because it brings us back in some

52:40 ways to what we find beautiful and thrilling about being human.

52:44 What's fascinating to me and what I learned from sitting next to you is

52:49 that I think this moment and covering this moment is like this pressure cooker.

52:53 And when the pressure bears down on humans, right, we do all different things.

52:57 You go to like intellectual curiosity.

52:59 Um I go to like whose hand can I hold in my despair, right?

53:03 Um and like I I I do like I go home and I

53:07 sometimes laugh that like sitting next to me are you and Rachel, right?

53:10 Who like your intellectual journeys like would never have taken you through

53:13 any any of the things that that I've been a part of.

53:16 Like your monologue the night after the Iran

53:19 war started like makes me cry talking about it.

53:23 Um like at the end of the day the curiosity comes from like deep

53:28 deep care for the humans and just talk about like like what's inside of you.

53:34 What is your driver?

53:36 Like what is your why?

53:38 You know, I I come from my my parents

53:42 are really remarkable people and and um extremely compassionate,

53:46 humane people who definitely raised me and my brother with a sense that you

53:53 need to care about other folks and think about what makes the world better.

53:59 Um I think that's the animating drive for both of us.

54:04 Um my wife is the same way.

54:06 Um that's her animating drive.

54:07 It's the drive that you want to pass on to your kids.

54:11 And I think in the best what I would call like secular humanist tradition,

54:16 what drives me is that like I think it's

54:21 a miracle that we get to be these things.

54:25 It's totally improbable and totally

54:27 beautiful and totally transcendent that we're

54:30 here that we have the ability to like reduce suffering

54:34 and increase kindness and that in the time that we're

54:39 here that's what we that's what we're put here to do.

54:43 That's really the animating drive.

54:45 Like I really believe in that and it's not quite a religious

54:49 faith but it's it's adjacent to it because it is faith.

54:52 It's not because of anything I can

54:54 deduce from a spreadsheet or anything I've read.

54:56 It's it's just there as uh the principle

54:59 of what I think it a meaningful good life is.

55:03 And so that's my project is to is to live a good and meaningful life.

55:07 And and what living a meaningful and good life is is to make things better.

55:13 I love being your colleague.

55:15 I love sitting next to you.

55:17 I love being on calls with you when you

55:20 say the thing that everyone's thinking but no one says.

55:23 Um, and I love covering this moment with you.

55:25 I feel like I won this lottery ticket that I get to sit there.

55:29 I love I love this podcast by the way.

55:31 No, it's been great.

55:32 Well, you are like the podcast pioneer.

55:34 So, thank you for wonderful and it's what

55:36 such a great pleasure to get this time together.

55:41 Thank you so much.