In short
Odd Lots Podcast: The Politics of AI Are About to Explode
Episode Overview In this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway dive into the increasing political ramifications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the United States, particularly as it heads toward the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. With the guest Saagar Enjeti, co-host of *Breaking Points*, they discuss how AI is becoming a significant political issue, the bipartisan concerns surrounding it, and the future role of the tech industry in Washington D.C.
Key Themes and Discussions
AI's Role in Upcoming Elections
- Historical Context: AI was not a major issue in the 2024 election but is expected to gain traction for 2026 and 2028.
- Bipartisan Concerns: Various political factions are expressing worries about:
- Economic impacts (labor displacement, electricity prices).
- Trust in AI outputs.
- Potential need for federal bailouts for AI companies.
- Examples of Political Engagement: Notable mentions include J.D. Vance and Sarah Fryer discussing government involvement in AI.
Concerns Around AI
- Labor Displacement: The fear that AI could eliminate jobs is widespread, leading to skepticism among workers.
- Energy Consumption: There are concerns regarding the electricity demands of AI technologies, exacerbating inflation.
- Government Involvement: Discussion around whether the government should provide financial backstops for AI development and deployment.
Diverse Political Opinions on AI
- Bipartisan Opposition: Enjeti highlights a surprising unity among political leaders from both sides of the aisle against unchecked AI development.
- Historical Parallels: The current backlash against AI parallels historical populist movements against economic monopolies and tech control, drawing comparisons to anti-railroad sentiments in the late 1800s.
Trust and the Tech Industry
- Skepticism of Tech Leaders: Many citizens feel distrustful towards tech leaders who historically have made bold promises regarding technology benefits.
- Public Sentiment: The narrative of AI replacing jobs and reducing human relevance is shaping public opinion against the tech industry.
Future Perspectives
- Rising Political Movements: The left and right are seeing emerging discussions on regulation, with the left increasingly vocal about tech holding too much power.
- Potential for Universal Basic Income: Although Andrew Yang previously championed UBI, there appears to be little traction for such ideas in current political discourse.
Key Takeaways
- AI as a Political Catalyst: The episode emphasizes that AI is set to become one of the most critical political issues, influencing both the economy and societal structures.
- Political Division: The discussion showcases a growing divide between the political elite and the general public regarding the implications of AI technology.
- Uncertain Future: With rising public dissatisfaction, there are questions about how politicians will navigate AI's impact on labor markets and energy consumption in the near future.
Conclusion The conversation illustrates a crucial moment in which AI technology is not just a question of innovation but one of existential political concern. As the episode concludes, it leaves listeners pondering the potential for substantial political shifts and the need for more democratic involvement in the governance of emerging technologies.
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
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2:00Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Alloway. Tracy, something I've thought for a long time. I think you might feel the same way. I'm glad we're not like politics reporters. No, absolutely. I cannot imagine what that job is. I sometimes look at some of the stuff that our colleagues in the political media have to report on. And like, look, like a lot of it does touch what we do. And they're obviously like there's no way to avoid it altogether. And obviously some of this stuff has big implications. But by and large, you know, getting to look at the numbers on the chart or learning how, you know, debt structures work or learning how cardboard boxes work is just much more.
2:42It's very satisfying to me relative to. You prefer the lines over the lines coming from the mouths of politicians. That's right. Lines over lines. That's a good one. Thank you. But it's going to fall apart, I think, because I think this AI story has such high stakes. And there's so many different policy questions, et cetera, whether it's related to electricity prices or the possibility for labor displacement. I think there's basically no way at this point that 2028, maybe even 2026, AI somehow is going to be a big political story in a way that it was not really in 2024. Well, I think you're already seeing it in 2025, right?
3:20So we had Sarah Fryer came out and said she was talking about maybe getting a government backstop for AI CapEx spend. This is the open AI CFO. Yes. And of course, she rolled it back a little bit. But not really. But not really. And it got everyone talking about, you know, what is the government's involvement or obligations here? We know that J.D. Vance, of course, has been supported by Peter Thiel, who has very strong and possibly idiosyncratic opinions when it comes to AI. And, of course, there's the labor market aspect. There's also electricity prices. Inflation is still a big political challenge for the administration.
3:57And having all these data centers consume energy is pushing prices up. And so I expect you'll hear a lot about AI. I don't think, you know, we're recording this November 13. I don't, like, we're probably not currently in a recession, though the economy is not booming, but who knows exactly. But, you know, if you imagine a recession is going on, and here's this technology where many of its biggest backers talk about the ability to replace a lot of labor. And, you know, there's some debate, but, and there's this talk about placing greater strain on electricity. And as you mentioned, there's the possibility that, oh, and maybe the government should backstop.
4:33I mean, this is a lot. This is a powder keg. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. We have to learn more, though, about the different factions, how it's going to play out politically. Will AI have any friends in Washington, D.C. whatsoever? How the different candidates are positioning themselves vis-a-vis this? So I wanted to talk to one of the most plugged in guys I know in DC, someone I've talked to for a very long time, who's been talking about the politics of AI on his own show for a long time. Literally the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with Sagar Njeti. He is the co-host of Breaking Points, a massive popular podcast, knows a lot more about all the political dimensions than we do.
5:10So Sagar, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots. Thank you for having me, guys. Long time listener. And congratulations on your 10 year anniversary. Thank you so much. You've been doing these segments on AI and they're blowing up on YouTube, huh? Yeah, yeah. I mean, purely analytics wise, I have a little bit of a test here for how the people are feeling. And I think you summed it up actually really well, Joe, is in a time of economic precarity, a very low consumer sentiment when Dario and Elon and Sam Altman just routinely go on podcasts in 2025, right? And they're just like, yeah, we are going to replace you.
5:43You don't have to work anymore. It's basically the embodiment of that World Economic Forum meme about you will own nothing and be happy. And so, I mean, I don't think that they really understand the implications that a lot of us are actually taking their words very seriously. And I'm increasingly tapped into both not only the data center backlash, which is real, by the way. Heatmap just did a fantastic piece about the data center backlash, how it's swallowing American politics. Georgia's power races very recently were massively influenced by AI and data centers specifically. And I'm watching this like fascinating horseshoe is really not the right word because horseshoe implies, you know, far right and far left.
6:23I sent you a tweet earlier today, Joe, which kind of brings it together. And it was like if Tim Miller of the Bulwark and Ryan Grimm, co-host of mine, far lefty, And then Matt Walsh are all agreeing on attacking AI with Jon Favreau of Pod Save America coming in. We're not really a horseshoe, are we? Like we're the entire spectrum of American politics all agreeing to stand in opposition, I think, to what fundamentally is about an issue where we do not feel that we are in control of this technology. We are not sold yet on the benefits. And you guys talked about that recently in one of your latest episodes about how AI is not even going to make you rich, which was also one of the promises.
7:03That's kind of behind the entire pitch. All right. So AI, truly a bipartisan issue or bipartisan gripe. But at the same time, we hear a lot of politicians talk about the tech competition with China in particular, right? And we have an episode that came out recently where we talk about the existentialism around AI, this idea that you have to win. Otherwise, you're basically going to die or fall into some sort of like modern dystopian poverty forever and ever. Why is that rhetoric still out there if at a local level everyone kind of agrees like, you know, this is bad for electricity prices. It's potentially bad for the labor market.
7:44Yeah, great question. And I think actually that might be the politicians not really getting to the heart of the issue. And we have to separate the AI technology and the promises that were originally there, which we could probably strategically agree like we need to maintain technological advancement. And then the current way that it's structured, where it's basically in the hands of three or four like super CEOs and everything's kind of seems rolled up fundamentally that you guys are no going a lot more than I do. But because of the cost of compute of data centers, specifically like the big tech companies are the ones that are in control.
8:17So I think we should disaggregate like the idea of AI itself as a technology, potential open source and its usefulness from the way that it's actually being structured, used and controlled. And I think that's really where a lot of the pushback is. And also, though, I would say, you know, politicians, this may seem counterintuitive, but are often the last people to know whenever something organically is pushing up. You know, I'm, I guess, on the forefront of a of a YouTube show. I mean, in ways like I have real time analytics day to day about how people are feeling. You only get a Democratic kind of feel about this once every two to four years.
8:49So it can take a long time for this to bubble up through the halls of Washington and kind of get rid of some of the 2018, 2019, you know, more think tank talking points that I think that you're describing there, Tracy. David Sachs, the co-host of the All In podcast and the White House's AI and Crypto Czar, he says all the negativity is because of effective altruists and the sort of movement in San Francisco that's pushing these doom scenarios. Are all these people that you follow and talk to or that follow you, are they all like reading EA Substacks? Is that where they're getting insight from?
9:22They have no idea what EA even is. I've actually had to do a few explainers on the show about effective altruism. And again, the vast majority of my audience, I mean, these are Uber drivers and hotels. These are just normal people who are kind of like going about their day-to-day life. David is absolutely wrong on this issue. I mean, he may be structurally correct in terms of the way that the rhetoric around AI that causes Adario and Elon and others to go on shows and talk specifically about how you're not going to work, but you're going to be okay. And this whole idea that kind of backstops EA.
9:56But this is really just like small D democratic pushback, I really think. And I also think an idea I've really been rolling around in my head, I'm curious for what you guys think, is that at the heart of the social media revolution were some newer upstarts. We'd never heard of Mark Zuckerberg. We'd never heard of, even if we push back to Google, these guys were revolutionary entrepreneurs. This time around, they sold us the promise of social media. And regardless of whether you think it's good or not, we don't really have a high level of societal trust in the Arab Spring and all that. And these are the very same people now making these multi-billion dollar, in some cases trillion dollar bets on AI and telling us to trust them.
10:37So that's something that really belies it. You know, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the AI space, let's, I don't know, Alexander Wang, like he now works for Mark Zuckerberg, right? It's just, it's just fundamentally like a little bit different in terms of who the key players are who are trying to tell us about the beneficiary of the technology. and I also think, you know, they're no longer talking about the things that they originally did. Like they were like, we're going to cure cancer. And it's like, well, Sam, why are you talking about erotica porn, man? Because that's a little bit different. It's like maybe the internet and chat GPT is just going to be the exact same as the internet as it always has been, which is basically increasing, you know, user time and chat GPT, putting some ads in there, just an immiserating experience, which of course also has high levels of efficiency for business use.
11:21I was going to say exactly that. I'm not sure it's that people don't trust the promise. It's that the promise itself doesn't seem that enticing at the moment. You know, you're going to lose your job and AI is going to get to do all the fun stuff in human life, like make pictures and movies. And your children are going to get married to an AI model. So you're not even going to get a branch on. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You're exactly right. I mean, I thought the erotica thing from Sam was just the biggest tell. I was like, wow, man, like we're not talking about biomedical. We're not talking about chat TPT, curing cancer.
11:52and all of this. I mean, to be fair to him, he has talked about the Open AI Foundation, how they're going to try and move things in that direction, but all of the public consumption and everything being geared. I don't know if either of you are NFL fans. Have you noticed the number of ChatGPT ads during NFL games now? Oh, I haven't noticed. Oh, it's every game. And it's like, here, ChatGPT is designing my workout. ChatGPT is designing my vacation. Listen, no hate, but it's basically an Expedia ad, right? This is not cancer curing. It's Instagram for teens. It's ChatGPT. Microsoft Copilot, I believe, ran an ad about image generation, you know, the Studio Ghibli thing.
12:27I mean, that's not enterprise groundbreaking technology. Like, this is like you're burning data center or like you're increasing my power bills so that people can do Studio Ghibli recreates. Like, I'm out on this, you know, that's how I feel. So there are obviously a number of different concerns that people have electricity prices, labor, and we'll get into that. But you said something interesting, which is that even prior to AI having come out, prior to late 2022 when Chad GBT burst on the scene, people were already souring on these big tech moguls. On the right specifically, but really across, there's concern about the algorithm.
13:05What's it doing? Shadow banning. Are certain things being labeled as fake news that aren't fake news? There was all the backlash against YouTube for what videos they allowed during the pandemic, et cetera. It feels like just intuitively, there's no reason that all of these concerns don't quickly map onto very cleanly onto AI concerns. You're exactly right. I mean, it already has. Right. And in some of the early cases, you guys, we've all been around. We remember the early content about Facebook moderation. Remember all of that? I mean, look at what's happening with ChatGPT, story after story about these suicides and now erotica.
13:41And, you know, they're saying the same level of stuff that Facebook used to say, like, oh, we have, you know, controls in place. And look, I mean, at some level, I do sympathize. Like when a billion people use your product, you know, 1 % of them might be crazy. And that's actually a really, really tough problem. But also, you know, when your technology is being implicated in all of these insane lawsuits and you have screenshots and stuff that come out that make people go, whoa. I don't even know if I want my 19 or 20 year old like anywhere close to this. That really, because of the way that we all lived through those past conversations show, they track exactly onto Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg.
14:18I mean, look at the stuff he's had to deal with, with the meta AI Instagram chatbots, you know, for teenagers. And it's funny because they're trying to get ahead of it to the NFL thing. I watch these ads closely. Like one of the big ads right now, ad campaigns is Instagram for teens, which they're like, we have safety. stuff, you know, like that that's kind of baked in and they're trying to get ahead of it because you know, you don't run that ad if you don't have the anxious generation as one of the top bestselling books in the United States. Like it's an upper middle class, like revolution now about people who are like against iPad kits.
14:49Right. And I think that's going to track very, very cleanly onto AI. There's no reason that it shouldn't.
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18:17coming to big tech for help. And now I'm thinking back to the inauguration when we had, you know, people like Bezos and I think Zuckerberg was there as well. Yes, he was. And they're sort of, you know, I don't know how I saw one person. I'm not going to describe it this way myself, but I did see one person describe it as a hostage situation where the big tech CEOs, you know, they're all gathered in front of Trump and they seem kind of scared. They're smiling, but they're smiling, but not with their eyes. How would you describe the relationship now between the administration and, you know, the big wigs of big tech?
18:54Yeah, that's a great question, because, you know, what I'm talking about is small D Democratic politics. Now you're asking about power politics. Power politics here is very different. I mean, you know, David Sachs has navigated his position incredibly well. You know, Joe, there was a funny incident. I think I talked to you about this where I found a snippet, I think was a Financial Times piece. And it was just about it was like AI accounts for 80 percent of stock gains and X percent of GDP in terms of CapEx. And David Sachs like retweeted it. And I was like, oh, so you think that's a good thing?
19:21You know, I was like, I was like, oh, I was like, OK. But, you know, that's actually if you're in the Trump White House right now, you need this. You know, you need the rally. You need the GDP and the data center spend because that's what's propping up. Again, you're the economist just from my listening to you and reading Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Financial Times and others like that's a main reason why, Joe, you were like, well, I don't think we're in a recession. Derek Thompson has written very eloquently about this as well is just how much of that spend currently accounts for why things seem OK.
19:51So there is like a real alliance, I think, right now between the Jensen's David and even Sam Altman and others like they all come to the White House and announce their crazy deals for a reason. they get these awesome press conferences from Trump. I mean, there's the famous moment where Zuck, what did he leans over to Trump? He's like, I didn't know how much you wanted me to say. I'm like, wow. Okay. So, you know, you could, I mean, you could describe that as at heel. You could also say he's got to bend over and kiss the ring while also being able to basically just do whatever he wants. So there is, I think a very, you know, alliance of convenience right now where the amount of money they're pumping into the economy, the amount of stock value that they're creating is extremely beneficial to the Scott Bessence and others of the world talking about MAGA economics.
20:36Let's talk a little bit more about electoral politics specifically. Ron DeSantis actually seems to be trying to carve a lane for himself early on, even before the Sarah Fryer comments actually saying no bailouts for AI companies. What do you see right now in terms of candidate positioning? Yeah, it's all very early signaling. And that's actually, I love this because usually one of the things I hate most about politics recently, it's all top down. You have guys who are running for city council talking about impeachment or something. It's like, dude, tell me about the roads. But actually, this one is really bottom up.
21:10The data center stuff, it's Tucson, actually here in Northern Virginia, where I live, there was a big comment and there's a lot of public controversy about data centers. My state, Virginia, 40 % of our power is consumed actually by data centers. Oregon is like 33%, I believe, of power. There's been a lot of local stuff, and it hasn't really bubbled to the national level. And I would say people here, they care about money, but they also care about electability. So there's an ocean of money to be had if you're, quote, pro-AI or pro-tech, but they'll always choose their own careers when and if it does come down to that.
21:43I haven't seen it bubble up yet. I did see, I'm not sure if you guys did, that Bernie Sanders and a few of other progressives signed a letter against data centers specifically. And that was the first indication that I'm like, oh, the staffers, they're paying attention, right? They're listening to the pods. They're reading David Weigel's piece about data center politics, and they're trying to operationalize that into something. At the national level, you're exactly right in terms of Duran DeSantis tried to pick that lane about bailout. And that actually gets to something very recently where you talked about Sarah's comments.
22:15I mean, we did a segment about that, and it was huge, about the open AI bailout, because people can feel it. They're like, I've seen this movie before. They're, you know, yeah, they make$20 billion, but they've got 75 billion in projected losses to 2028. They've got a trillion dollar in committed spend. You know, the P.E. ratios and all this are so crazy. And if it doesn't work out, they're going to say, oh, well, we need you to bail us out or we need you to build the data centers for us and take all the most expensive part of our business out. They are inherently distrustful already of the numbers.
22:46And I think this is very American. Like you don't want to be controlled. And the AI people tell us about how this is the second industrial revolution. And it's like, well, you know, then we should probably look to the politics of the previous industrial revolutions. You know, the railroad, obviously, like had tremendous benefit. It doesn't take a week or it took a week to go to California instead of three months. That's awesome. But, you know, very quickly in the 1880s and 1890s, titanic, you know, uprisings in the Midwest of farmers feeling that they're being controlled and anti railroad politicians were some of the original like anti-industrial populace in Washington, even though originally everybody was really sold.
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23:23I didn't know that about anti-railroad politicians. Oh, yeah, yeah, there definitely were. There were all throughout the 1890s, some of the original populist party. If you go and you look at what that all was, a lot of it was about the railroad. And, you know, I mean, there's legendary stories. Texas, where you and I are from, Joe, White Patman. I'd have to write. Yeah, there were like people like Sam Rayburn, actually, famously, very anti-railroad. He wouldn't take the free railroad passes. These were like big, big stories all the way up until the 1920s. And so I see a very similar kind of track, except though that I'm not so sure that the socialized benefits will be as good as the railroad because the railroad at the end of the day, it was awesome.
24:03I could go to California in a week. I don't have to take the stagecoach or the Oregon Trail or whatever. This time around, I'm like, listen, I don't know if you guys have used Sora. Sorry. Like, it's not worth the power bills. It's not worth it. Tracy's insisting that I correct that I'm not really a real Texan. I only went to college there. He's a faux tax. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. This is important to me as someone with a dad who was raised in Dallas and Lancaster. I know. Anyway, I was just thinking, you know, we were talking about populism in the 1800s. And did you ever see the interpretations of the Wizard of Oz as like - Yeah.
24:37Something about the silver. Yeah. I still don't actually get it. Oh, I've seen it. Yeah. It was farmers who wanted to move to a silver-backed currency. And a lot of it supposedly was tied to populism. Anyway, I wanted to go back to power politics for one second and ask what the heck J.D. Vance is going to do here, because it's not impossible that he is the chosen successor to Trump in whatever time frame. And in that case, he's sort of stuck between, I guess, two Ps here, populism and Peter Thiel. yeah well you know it's it's a lot more peas than that actually because it's populism it's trump it's t i mean you know the teal thing i've always thought it was frankly a little bit overstated in terms of influence but regardless i would say more like teal sphere or teal thought if that makes sense like as you guys know probably most of the people listening to this like there's an entire like ecosystem around like zero you know zero to one posting and all of that within tech Anyway, so that sphere, let's call it right tech, I guess, you know, to be extremely reductive.
25:42That sphere is really the one which currently embodies, you know, really a lot of this more pro AI direction. Let's say Palantir, Alex Karp and others. But even he is fascinating, right? Because he's pro AI, but only for Palantir. And he thinks that the rest will suck. So like these things do break down. But JD, I mean, look, he's going to be in a tough position as well because he also it's not exactly like in repudiate the Trump administration. I actually think it's one of his biggest weaknesses going into 2028. I mean, you guys will remember they savaged Kamala for the what would you do different conversation from Biden.
26:17I mean, how do you answer that when Donald Trump is still alive and you have to run? You know, you're going to get destroyed if you say the truth. And I mean, look, I don't know where things are going to end up. Trump is basically trending in Biden territory right now in terms of his approval ratings. And so, look, we saw that movie. And in my opinion, when you start chart posting about how the economy is actually good, you're cooked, you know, to borrow a phrase from the youth about politics. But yeah, the power politics of it are really, I think, trepidatious, I think, for a lot of the right, because they don't want to get away from Elon and from his money, right?
26:52Elon is a very, very powerful center, I think, in Republican politics, XAI. He's got this huge new data center project. I'm sure you guys have read or seen something about that. He's probably going to demand certain things. And at the same time, a huge amount of the right-wing commentariat who would probably be more J.D. Vance ideologically positioned, let's say like the Matt Walshs of the world, the Tucker Carlson's of the world, these people are straight up on record as this is demonic. We need to stand for humanity. And it's going to be very tough. I actually think it might be the single toughest position that you'll have to navigate in the campaign.
27:28And I think that the left, the political left in particular, they are looking at this data center stuff. They are all over it. More Perfect Union, which is one of those, it's like a Bernie aligned institution. They have been all over this issue. So I'm watching the populist left really, really grab onto it. And And I think a democratic position in 2028 is going to come down hard in terms of either regulation or protecting Americans, reforming power. However, it's going to be there. They are going to be there. And the right is going to have a very tough time. It's interesting because like even 10 years ago, we thought of Silicon Valley as like basically being democratic aligned, right?
28:04Like most big tech executives. And I still think most people in San Francisco obviously vote Democrat, including a lot of high people at these tech companies. But there's this well-known shift that everyone talks about, and they've got much more comfortable. But it feels like, to me, they've switched sides to some extent. They could kind of end up friendless in all this. Oh, I mean, I think that they massively overplayed their hand with Doge. And I mean, look, if we're being honest, just look at the stats. It's a total failure in terms of its stated project. You could debate whether USAID or whatever is bad.
28:41I mean, Treasury data is public, guys. You can go read it for yourself in terms of spending. So that's one thing. But two, you're exactly right, Joe, in terms of the fair weather friend nature of all of this is that, you know, a in terms of the way that a lot of the Democratic base has been radicalized at this point, they're never going back. And then in the right wing coalition, you know, I don't want to go too deep in the weeds here. I actually kind of want you to go deep. I kind of want you to go deep. Yeah, I mean, the tech right, let's take this H-1B thing, for example. This is like a huge, huge split right now in the political right because a lot of these tech guys are very pro-H-1B.
29:16Elon famously said he would fight to the death over the issue of H-1B. This was during the whole fight in December before Trump took office. And Trump ultimately, he just did an interview a few days ago where he embraced H-1B, say, actually, we need more talent. But there's a lot of the activist political right, which is very against that and increasingly are blaming a lot of these tech right politicians for hijacking the administration. So that's why, you know, for them, I would be very careful as to how exactly, you know, they're going to navigate. There's also I mean, this breaks on foreign policy lines as well, because a subset of the tech right is also very pro Israel, which is also a very divisive issue.
29:56I don't want to drag that into this, but only to say like Joe Lonsdale, Sean McGuire. These are very, very rich people, very activated in the current cohort of MAGA, but not exactly like beloved, let's say, amongst a different segment of the American right. And so I could see a huge clash coming to the front with that. And that's another issue I would say for a J.D. Vance is like, I'm sure he's friendly with them. And that's easy when Trump is papering over all these coalitional politics. But that's going to break out into the open like nobody's business in a primary. And I could see it. I could see them becoming friendless quickly because, again, I mean, look, I could be wrong.
30:35I don't think that that's where the base is. I really don't. Just because if we look at the math of who are the people increasingly identifying as MAGA or Republican, like people making less than$100 ,000 a year, are not going to be cheering on, you know, multi-billionaires telling them that they don't have to work, that they're not going to work anymore. Not that they don't have to work anymore. They're not going to work anymore. More blue collar types. I mean, you know, the driverless, you know, the driverless trucks issue like the Teamsters president. I had him on my show just going hard. Sean O 'Brien, famously the only union president to not endorse in the election, much more Trump friendly.
31:12So that part of the coalition is going to have something to say, I think. Yeah, I feel like we saw some of the sensitivity burst into the open with the H-1B visa comments when Trump was like, we don't have enough talent in America. I mean, Twitter slash X just exploded. I was going to take all the jobs and the jobs that will be left were also going to. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Whatever jobs are left, they'll be in India. So you're like, I don't know about that. OK, so I feel like I know the answer to this question. But if a lot of people are going to be unable to work, is there anyone in D.C.
31:46or elsewhere who is talking about universal basic income? Andrew Yang. I just had him on the show. He's doing he's doing the biggest victory lap over all of this. You know, I have not seen it. I know even Bernie famously, I think, is against UBI. I have to go back and check. He's more of a federal jobs guarantee guy. And that's the most most out there. Like I said, I mean, to be honest, covering politics now, I've only watched them play catch up. I mean, famously, I've talked with Jack Dorsey and others about this, but like those famous hearings where they'd be like, so how does Facebook, you know, make money?
32:21and you're like, oh my God, man, in front of these hearings when the congressmen don't even know the most basic facets or they'll be asking stuff like, why do my campaign emails get stuck in Gmail's filters? These are real questions that were asked by the United States Senate and the Congress. So I don't have a lot of faith that there are a lot of very forward-facing thinkers around this issue. And in particular, I mean, I know that to be the case. It could change in 2026. I think a Dem, you know, Tea Party type wave is coming. There might be some interesting candidates that start to say things like that and maybe on the Republican side as well.
32:58I'd like to see it.
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35:26including stylish cars like the Camry and Corolla, as well as efficient and spacious SUVs like the RAV4 and Grand Highlander. All backed by Toyota's reputation for reliability. No pressure, just possibilities. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Toyota, let's go places. We've been talking a lot about the right, the Republicans. I actually really like a lot of these guys, but when I think about the other side of the aisle And I think about some of these tensions. You mentioned more perfect union and some of these more kind of populist left things. I'm not very bullish on the abundance Dems right now and how that sort of faction that would like to sort of take the party in a sort of more, you know, I guess I don't know if centrist is it, but centrist, moderate, liberal realm, et cetera.
36:17Yeah, whatever it is. I don't know how you feel. Give us your sort of your view on the other side of the aisle. Definitely. I mean, the interesting thing about the whole abundance thing and all of that is, I think, you know, what it misses is the theory of control. And, you know, it's like more housing, awesome, you know, but it doesn't get to ownership, I guess, and the feeling of like, the ability to control your own destiny, which I think is really baked into the American spirit and the American project. and you know you see stuff like this about debates around housing and you know they'll kind of ridicule this idea about corporate ownership and you know i'm not going to get into the weeds about whether that's even true or not i know there's a lot of controversy but the idea is definitely very popular right you know for a lot of people and the reason why is fundamentally they're like i'm being priced out of my ability to buy a home like it really what it is about is about you know the individuality of reclaiming your own destiny.
37:14And that's why those two things are very linked. It's about power. And to kind of bring back to Tracy's question earlier about beating China, et cetera, it's the technology is not the same as the companies that are in charge. And when you see these swelling valuations and talks of bailouts and the encroachment into your daily life or your office and you see headlines about firing workers, you know, on the promise of AI. None of this goes to the heart about democratic input. You know, I was thinking about that in terms of the chat GPT suicide question, which I know is fringe from their point of view.
37:50But I think it's important if billions of people are going to use your technology. And Sam famously in a Tucker Carlson interview was like, well, in a country where assisted suicide is legal, like, would you direct people to those resources? He effectively said yes. And I was like, oh, my God. I mean, then, you know, chat GPT's mental health standards, in my opinion, like there needs to be some like there needs to be stuff hashed out in the U.S. Congress and at the state and the local level where like we all agree on what so-called guardrails and acceptable norms are. And I can't just be leaving it to Sam Altman.
38:23I'm sorry. I think, you know, no offense to that. It's not even about him. It's about everybody. No one person should have that immense amount of power, which is going to affect millions and millions of people. Yeah. And it just seems incredibly difficult to have any democratic input into what are effectively black boxes. Right. And have always been black boxes. I have a very basic question. But is anyone in D.C. using A.I. in an interesting way? I imagine, you know, people are probably editing policy papers or whatever with it and doing some research. But like, is anyone, I don't know, creating lots of AI driven bots to sway conversations or I don't know, come up with some new system of campaign finance?
39:06Who knows? I'm not privy to any of the secret stuff like you. I mean, that kind of. I'm not either, just to be clear. I mean, it kind of begs the question, is it is anything interesting being done with AI? Yeah. Right. You know what you just said of editing papers. Everybody's editing papers. Great. You know, awesome. A friend of mine, John Coogan, I'm sure you guys know him. Yeah, yeah. I think he, John had a great analogy to AI. He was like, I kind of think it'll be like the credit card, you know, like frictionless payments. It enabled an entire new ecosystem. We can build wealth and it'll make your life like a little bit better, you know, and all that.
39:37I think that's basically the technology, right? You know, summarizing, editing. It's a better Google. That's cool. And all that. But I haven't yet seen like some mass sophisticated thing. I mean, to be honest, you know, most people in D.C. are probably using A.I. for editing purposes, research to check things. What else? I mean, image generation to slander your political opponents. That's a pretty big one. We use it for thumbnails for our YouTube videos. You know, like I guess that's cool. You know, I mean, yeah, it's nice. It's definitely nice. It's not that I don't have I also have Photoshop guys who work for me.
40:08So, you know, they use it a little bit every once in a while. But I haven't seen anything truly novel. I really haven't. You know, in terms of elected officials who maybe a few years ago, this would have been a surprise, but who seem to have very good intuitions about things. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of these names is like, oh, I'm like, she seems savvy in a way that maybe people wouldn't have guessed. Has she been talking about AI at all? I, you know, I haven't looked. Definitely. I haven't seen anything in particular. I can almost guess where she would land, though. Especially, look, her own home state is now ground zero for a statewide referendum against data centers.
40:45Talk to us about that. Actually, tell us, we have this Georgia election. I know it was like kind of powers and electricity stuff. It's kind of directly on the ballot, right? Yeah, two races literally about power both made Democratic candidates. They made data centers, power usage, like a central part of their campaign, and they won a huge victory. I don't want to ascribe the entire thing. Let's be honest. In a national environment, a lot of people are voting against Trump. But it was it was an awesome night for Democrats. Right. But look, I mean, in a certain way, like those arguments still are really finding a lot of salience because, you know, these stories about power going up.
41:24And look, I mean, everybody remembers, you know, the Walmartization conversation, the Amazon warehouse conversation. Nobody loves this idea of these big companies coming in, buying land, using a ton of resources, driving prices up. Nobody buys the BS anymore about how this is going to create a ton of jobs. I mean, definitely some construction jobs, but nobody's really under the illusion. Everybody knows tech is a power law business. You know, the vast majority of the wealth is going to flow up to the top of the CEO and the net worth of Zuck and Elon and the rest of these people. So that's where the politics of this really matter.
41:58And, you know, Heatmap, I shouted them out. They wrote a great piece about the data center backlash is swallowing American politics. And you should go read it just to even look at polling, not just about Georgia. I mean, this is bipartisan at every level. And younger generations are the most anti-data center, anti-AI kind of politics. And I mean, look, they're suffering. I mean, they have a high unemployment rate right now. A lot of them either blame AI or look at AI as one of the reasons why they're having a tough time in the labor market. And, you know, it doesn't help whenever you see Wall Street Journal articles just about white collar companies increasingly bet on more productivity out of existing workforce like this stuff.
42:33Confirmed it both confirms biases and it's real. So it's not even particularly a bias. What is the state of antitrust at the moment? Because I remember at the beginning of this year, it seemed like it was emerging as a possibly bipartisan issue or at least a direct link between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. everyone wanted to go after the big tech companies possibly for different reasons but you know the outcome's the same is that still a live issue in dc yeah i mean uh look speaking quite candidly like the state of the government is like large portions of it for sale and for uh you know large portions of it are basically you know they are very beholden to financial interests i'll put that very politely, shall I?
43:16At least about who can get to Trump's ear, who can get and have some influence with the administration. I don't want to poo poo it entirely, you know, when big money or a donor or something like that is not involved. The FTC has done some good work and has been looking to try and confirm. But they've also, quite honestly, you know, moved past some of the antitrust cases and others that Lena Khan put forward. So I would say it's mixed. I mean, I think that the look, this stuff is happening on the open. So I don't even know I'm afraid of saying it like he convenes the tech CEOs and they are like, how much money do you want me to announce?
43:49And they'll just do it. You know, I mean, that's pretty much is the whole ballgame. And I think that gets to the kind of power alliance I talked about earlier, like the Trump administration really needs these companies for headlines and because they're propping up the economy in their stock market. So this is exactly where I wanted to ask you about next, which is if there's one tension here, which is the stock market itself has sort of become a populist issue, right? This seems very strange to talk about the stock market and populism in the same sentence. But you see all of the different people who will randomly pull up on their phone various stock positions.
44:25Well, Trump himself also benchmarks himself to the stock market. And Trump talks about the stock market. So this whole thing is like, oh, it's Main Street's turn, et cetera. But a lot of young people, people who are middle class or lower middle class feel either direct. They're either very directly in the stock market or they feel like they have some very interest in it. How does that intersect with this? What do you see like among like the commenters on your show in terms of like how they think about, you know, just the sort of betting and everything and investing and trading? Yeah, that's a great question.
44:55I mean, I don't know. There's like a couple of different angles to it. right? Because the Trump people ridiculed Biden for saying the economy was good. But now they're doing the exact same thing. You guys know the S &P did pretty well under Biden, right? Let's be honest. Start benchmarking from the day he took office to the day off. I forget the exact number. It's like 60, 80 percent. These are decent returns over the four year period. But it's not like anybody at home was like, oh, the economy is so much better. But of course, politicians do that whenever they come into office. But Joe, I mean, you're not wrong.
45:25And I guess this is a much more meta conversation where, I mean, you and you and I've talked about this privately, the numbers got to go up, right? Because all of our futures are in the number. Like we don't have pensions in this country. We don't have a robust social safety net until we turn 65. So in the interim, it's really robust. Yeah. And then it gets very robust and that's a separate combo. But yeah, I mean, in the interim, like, you know, your hopes of retirement, your hopes of buying something or but asset appreciation, like that's all we got. And I think that the increasing financialization hope is exactly behind crypto sports betting issue.
45:59I'm very passionately against. This is exactly why is I think, you know, it removed a lot of the hope kind of undergirding the stability of the American foundation. And within that speculation and fast riches. And plus, I mean, the tech is so good. I mean, have you guys placed trades on Robinhood, you know, with the confetti and everything? You got to go do it. You know, you got to feel it, put a little bit. Put a position behind it. And you'll see why people get... I'll buy some SPY on top of that. Exactly. That's the responsible thing to do. Go put a couple hundred in the SPY. But you'll just see the confetti.
46:31Do they still see the little celebratory animations when you place a trade? It's happened to me recently. Congrats. I did one. Congrats on making a trade. But I mean, I can see how addictive that this can all be. And they send you a million push notifications a day. You know, the opposite of what a good investor should do and be like, oh, stock is down 5 percent. Stock is up 2 percent. You know, they want you clicking and staying in the app and the charts. Everything is designed for you to kind of be in there. So these are big tech companies, which they make a lot of money doing this stuff. And you can see why societally, structurally and technologically, why that this became kind of like a democratic issue.
47:11By the way, while we're recording this, just breaking news from Bloomberg. Thinking Machines Lab, an artificial intelligence startup founded by former OpenAI executive Miramirati, early talks to raise a new round of funding at roughly$50 billion valuation. Every time we record an episode about AI, a headline comes out while we're recording. Yeah, it helps us benchmark where we are. That is so crazy. Didn't Cor, there was something I saw recently. Every day. Every day. There was one yesterday. A new$100 billion. Anthropic investing$50 million into new data center every day. It's just, I mean, I don't know.
47:48I really, that's why I love your show. Thank you. Just thinking about, you know, I've been doing a lot of johncassidy.com reading, you know, back from 2000 and vendor finance and just thinking really deeply about it because I do think, you know, look, you know, I don't know, today, tomorrow, a few years, who knows, you know, where exactly it comes. but some sort of downturn is probably inevitable. And the political ramifications of that are just so immense. You guys know with the downturn in the stock market, interest rates, reduction in workforce, I'm really afraid. Yeah, this is the thing, which is that there's already this backlash and the stock market is near record highs and unemployment is near 50 or lows or whatever.
48:30So we haven't actually seen any of like really bad stuff. Sagar and Jetty, thank you so much for coming on to OddLots. That was a lot of fun. Thank you guys for having me. I loved it.
48:51Tracy, I thought that was a lot of fun. You know, this idea that like there's already this backlash that's brewing and we actually don't have widespread unemployment yet. We haven't had a stock market crash yet or anything like that. You know, three years is a long time. We have no idea what the economy is going to look like in 2028 or really even 2026. But if there's so much negativity already building. Right. That sort of tells you tells you a lot. Right. If people are angry with the S &P at like six thousand seven hundred. How are they going to feel when it's like below six thousand? Yeah. I mean, I think everyone has agreed at this point that this is going to become a political issue.
49:30Right. And the only question is how big and then what the response actually is to it. The other thing I'm thinking is because relationships both within the government and between the government and private entities seem so, I'm just going to say, complicated and fluid at the moment. It seems really hard to guess, like, which direction this is going to go in. Totally. It seems really hard to guess. I thought your question about is anyone talking about UBI and this is really interesting. It's grim, like how there seems to be almost no truly forward thinking politics. I mean, really, this conversation should have been happening throughout the 2024 election, right?
50:10Like this was like obviously going to be a massive thing and the stakes would be incredibly high. It was virtually non-existent. That was just a year ago. So I think that really tells you something. And the fact that by and large, you know, there's a couple people tweeting about it here and there, like maybe Ron DeSantis. But by and large, this still doesn't seem to be something that any elected official wants to sort of carve their land out. Yeah. And it's probably not until unemployment actually picks up that you're going to see people actually start to talk about some possible solutions. But again, it's hard to see what those are.
50:44Or just like, yeah, thinking in advance about any of this stuff. Yeah. All right. Shall we leave it there? Sure. Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart. Follow our guests, Sagar and Jetty. He's at eSagar. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at CarmenArmin, Dashiell Bennett at Dashbot, and Kale Brooks at Kale Brooks. For more OddLots content, go to bloomberg.com slash oddlots. We're a daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg slash oddlots.
51:17And if you enjoy Oddbots, if you like it when we talk about the political ramifications of AI, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad-free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
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From the publisher
AI wasn't much of a topic in the 2024 election. But it will almost certainly be big in 2028, and probably even the 2026 midterms. There are concerns about all the money being spent and whether a federal backstop or bailout will be necessary one day. There are the concerns about energy use and electricity prices. There are concerns about labor displacement. And there are concerns about whether we can trust AI outputs. Already we see numerous politicians lining up against AI in one way or another. On this episode, we speak with Saagar Enjeti, the co-host of the Breaking Points podcast to discuss how this issue is already blowing up, and how the tech industry may soon find itself friendless in DC.
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