Supreme Court Saves Social Media, Montana Bans TikTok, and Sam Altman Wants AI Regulation

23:22And he didn't call for prohibitions on using copyrighted works, although that's going to be a mess of trouble for a lot of companies. What do you think? Well, I thought at some point he was also going to call for the important conversation around gender balance or write a book on personal loss. I mean, I just – we've been to this movie before. Okay. And we live in a country where to be one of the wealthiest people, to be a billionaire, means to have people admire you, want your opinion on stuff, to laugh at your jokes. To be a billionaire in the U.S. is to be loved, and people want to be loved.

23:57I don't think he's a billionaire, just so you know. Okay. Yet. Well, he doesn't actually have a stake in this. Okay. All right. Well, let's play a game. Who said this? All right. We need a more active role for governments and regulation. October of 20. Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg. Okay. No, she said Sandberg calls for government regulation. That was June of 19. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used. That was June of 20. Twitter CEO Dorsey. Generally, I think regulation is a good thing.

24:32April of 19. CEO Nick Clegg. Much has been said about Facebook recently, but there's one thing we agree on. Congress should pass new Internet regulations. That's October of 20th. Snap Spiegel, our guy. We definitely support thoughtful regulation. That was in May of 2022. That is up to Congress not to pass it. I agree. I don't know. In this case, I think they are actually trying to be thoughtful and going around early to do these things. Now, whether Congress does anything is another story. Let me say, speaking of people I interviewed, Altman said a lot of what he told me in March when I spoke to him on my other podcast, which will not be named.

25:11Except here he went a bit further. Let's listen to that. Congressman Ted Lieu said there needs to be an agency dedicated specifically to regulating AI. Is that a good idea? I think people like us that are creating these very powerful systems that could become something properly called AGI at some point, those efforts probably do need a new regulatory effort. And I think it needs to be global body, new regulatory body, and then having existing industry regulators still do their regulation. Who should head that agency in the US? I don't know. Anyway, he had said this very clearly and has been talking about a global body.

25:52Same thing Lena Kahn talked about. She thought she had enough rules in place that she could do the regulation. And so this is way further along than other previous efforts, I would say. I would have to push back on you on that. But go ahead. I hope you're right. I hope that Sam is true to his word and he seems like a lovely young man. you like him. Everyone I know thinks a lot of him. And every piece of data says that he is full of shit and that he uses two weapons of mass distraction that have been used on us before. One, pretending to want to be regulated. And the new weapon of mass distraction is to refer to this company as the governing body, as a nonprofit.

26:35I think a hundred times the original investment goes back to the investors and management before it turns, the money goes back to a nonprofit. So they just shouldn't use the term nonprofit when they're talking about this company. Yeah, that is true. To create some sort of distraction that somehow they're more noble and not as profit motivated as everybody else. So I agree. This was a love fest. We have the Restrict Act. We have Antitrust and Amy Klobuchar. And there's always a lot of head nodding. We always think we're going to get something done. So you're right. Let's move to the part where we actually create that regulatory body.

27:07I think the first regulatory body should probably be or hopefully we can walk and chew gun at the same time. I like to be a division of NATO. I think we need cross-border, multilateral agency looking at this from a defense standpoint. I do think this is a defense issue. But enough already. Appoint somebody, get the commission going, have it be ground up, start with people who have technology backgrounds. But I just feel, I'm sorry, we've been here before and we always get our hearts broken. Well, let's talk about, I would agree. I would agree. But I think, one, this particular technology is not protected the way the other one is.

27:44So they knew there was nothing they could do. And so there is liability. So they're going to tread much more lightly. There's all kinds of significant copyright problems. There's going to be another hearing on that coming up. I do think Congress is doing the right thing doing these meetings. This was a little bit of a loaf fest, I would agree. I don't necessarily think they have to smack them. But it was more of a fact-finding mission. And I don't mind them doing that for a short amount of time. you know but let's talk about specific things we got a listener question via email let's read it out dear mr and mrs swisher that's funny do you think audio and visual media should have information about how much of the content written or form is generated by ai do you think there's there will be some kind of labeling system like organic food that media will adopt so the customers at least have some idea of what they are consuming thank you lars well lars i think that It's a great idea.

28:36And actually, so does Sam Altman. It's not a bad idea. Like, where's the provenance of things? I think you're going to have to have some sense of where they collated all your information from so you can judge it. I don't know. Scott, what do you think about that one? I think it's a good idea. And it gets to one of the economic points. And that is, if you're – I've been spending a lot of time, or I was spending time in something called a writer's room. And we've been talking a lot about the writer's strike. And if you feed into an LLM every episode of Modern Family such that you can help write the next great sitcom about an American family, those writers should be compensated.

29:17There should be some sort of tool that not only indicates what percentage is AI generated, and quite frankly, I don't think the consumer is going to care as long as they feel like it's good information or more importantly, it makes them feel good about themselves, whether it's misinformation or not. But what you're going to need is you're going to need something similar to what the record industry has done a decent job of in the music industry. And that is if you're KROQ 106.7, the greatest radio station in the history of mankind, and you play a bunch of B-52 songs, another amazing band, they at the end of the year send you a bill and say, okay, you've used this content to build your company.

29:50There's going to need to be some sort of likely AI generative model that says, this is where you have fed the LLM. This is the input to the LLM, and we need to compensate them. Yeah, and I think a lot of these companies have been, including ChatG, OpenAI, about the details of the sources of data and all kinds of things. They're trying to keep quiet about its training techniques, the amount of computing power. And so they're a lot less open because there is more competition. But here's the thing. If you're a nice white kid who's in technology, when you stand in front of Congress, the first three times are really nice to you.

30:26God, I just I literally have PTSD from this bullshit. Whether it was Marissa Mayer standing in front of Senator John Kerry saying about Google. Well, it's and he's saying the Seattle Post intelligence just went out of business in about two years because their classified business gone. And she was like, well, it's early, Senator. I mean, I just we've been here before. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. I would agree. So what would a regulatory agency look like and who should head it besides me? I would say the following. The most important thing is to get a regulatory body going. The second most important thing is to ensure that when someone takes an uber Kalanick-like approach with their generative AI and starts doing mendacious shit because they're like move fast and break things, that they get hit really hard really early.

31:09I think the algebra of deterrence needs to be set here that, okay, we're going to err on the side of prosecuting people that start generating misinformation around certain categories, regardless of whether or not you think you're an innovator, regardless of if a name brand VC has given you money. That shit's not going to hunt here. I think early and often. Yeah, well, it might not have the same First Amendment issues that stymies social media regulation. And as I said, may not be protected by Section 230. There is a lot more, you know, they can't just bring in false First Amendment free speech arguments that they often tend to make that sometimes are applicable and most times are not.

31:47So that's that. It's, you know, they have liability just the way The New York Times does or anybody else. That's right. But the hard part is, how do you reverse engineer it to if somebody creates, says, give me 10 or 100 or a million tweets that are automatically uploaded or content uploaded LinkedIn in the voice of a regulatory body or a legitimate medical journal that vaccines alter your DNA, it may be really difficult to reverse engineer it to the source. But let me, I want to circle back. I don't want to be a total Debbie Downer on this. The most positive thing about, in my view, all of this is that this is likely, I believe this is the most enduring technology since probably mobile.

32:33People say since web, I would say since mobile. This is really exciting. And the really wonderful thing is it's American. The best companies in the world doing this are in America. And that gives us an edge on our adversaries. That's going to spawn incredible economic growth. I think this is going to result in job creation, not job destruction. The most innovative product of the last 50 years has been the vaccines. And this is a close, probably number three behind either the web or mobile. And it's American. So that's very – Yeah. It's American. That said, when I interviewed him, and he also said it in Congress yesterday, he called for an international body, which I tend to agree.

33:11He compared it to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That said, nuclear arms and power have always been products of the government, not individuals and individual companies. And so that's a little different here. So how do you regulate private companies? You could sort of link it, I think, more to like CRISPR and cloning and things like that than you necessarily would the government. But it certainly – it has to be – there has to be an international standards body of what you can't make, like killer robots, no, yes on this, no on this. And so there's sort of rules of the road from the get-go.

33:45And that's what's most important is who is going to be the – it should be the U.S. leading this effort to create this international body. probably should come out of the State Department or I'm not sure where it should. I mean, it could come out of it. The president has got to come from the executive branch. I was also at a dinner with Tony Blinken, and he was very interested in the State Department being part of it. So I don't know which one would push forward, the Commerce Department. There's national defense. there's some sort of regulatory body to ensure that, you know, it doesn't get out of control or we create this, you know, move even further into a post-true society.

34:28But there's even three or four levels down beyond that. The thing I am most worried about AI is that I see this terrible trend that stuck during COVID. And that is people, specifically young people are using some sort of digital form of a relationship where they think they have friends, but they're not experiencing friendship. And rather than taking the risk of going out and making friends, meeting mentors, finding mates, they try and find some weak, low risk facsimile, whether it's Netflix or Tinder or porn that decreases their motivation to socialize with other people. And the result is a slow slip into depression.

35:10And I wonder with open AI, or I worry about open AI, if we're going to be able to create everything from fake friends, fake girlfriends, and reasonably good sex bots, where we have an entire generation of young people that mistake friends and relationships for friendship and actual relationships, and become more and more sequestered from each other. I mean, literally, the movie Her is playing out. I guess. I don't know. I didn't like that movie. Anyway, I'll have to go back and re-watch it. I kind of... The director asked me what I thought, and I was like, eh, at the time. I don't know. That's the first thing is a relation.

35:48That thing was ahead of its time. It'll send chills down your spine when you watch it again. I'll watch it now. Alright, okay. Or go... Probably a better film. What is it? Ex Machina? Ex Machina? Ex Machina? Yeah, that one I thought was great. The fact is, the AI was part of it, and I think the AI could care less. And that's... I could see a person falling in love with AI or can't see an AI falling in love with a person. And one of the most rewarding things in life is to have real desire, real pining. There's a reason that romantic comedies are two hours, not 10 minutes. And we're creating a world with low calorie, low reward relationships where there's no obstacles or no disappointment.

36:25And it leads to a lack of life. It leads to a lack of victory of, you know, it's really exciting, speaking for a friend to get asked to a prom at a different school when four girls at your own high school say no to you. I can say this firsthand. It's really exciting. When you ask four girls to your prom at university high school and they all say no, and then someone asks you to their prom at a different school. I asked four girls and I said no. But that's life. That's the that's the wonder and the victory of life. And instead we're like, I know I'll have a fake relationship on a digital platform that's enhanced by AI and I'll never know real desire and I'll never know real victory.

37:12Interesting. Scott, stay away from the AI. That's all I have to say. I'm not going to tell you that I went to all four proms. That is unfair. That is unfair. Anyway, Anyway, Scott, I had lots of boyfriends and I'm a lesbian. So think about it that way. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the new TikTok ban out west and take a listener question about the future of writing.

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40:08Scott, we're back on our second big story. Bad news for fans of air fryers and crocodile videos in Montana. On Wednesday, the state became the first in the union to ban TikTok. Governor Greg Gianforte signed the ban into law. It imposes a fine on app stores that let users download the TikTok app. It also fines TikTok itself. If it operates in the state, there are no fines for TikTok users. This ban is set to take effect on January 1st of next year. Of course, it'll be overturned. Both TikTok and the ACLU-issued harsh statements, acutely bill violating the First Amendment. It completely does. This is such endless fucking virtual signaling by these dumb, body-slamming governor of Montana.

40:49The states should have no business here except for maybe banning TikTok and government things. It's just that they really need to stop. This is such – they were busy. They finished doing their anti-trans stuff, anti-trans performer bills, and then moved on to this one. They really should focus on roads and other issues in Montana, but they didn't. What do you think? I'm not sure I see the two as being equivalent. I don't – all I have to say about – It's just a waste of time. It's a waste of time for – I love the great state of Montana. I think it's incredibly beautiful. I don't like TikTok. I'd like it to be banned.

41:21So I'm – but you're right. In terms of – it probably doesn't make sense for states to start banning media. It's ridiculous. There is a real danger from China. But our governor from Montana is not going to help anything. And he's going to ruin it too at the same time because he's shredding the Constitution. You're right. I agree. It's just – it'll be torched by the courts. There's lots of ways to do it. And instead this guy just wants to jump out in front of, I don't know, Christine Ome or whoever the fuck is going to do it somewhere else. It's literally the reason I'm comparing it to the trans thing is they all just got on the thing when they should be doing stuff for the people in the state of Montana.

41:58It's not going to work. It's endless bullshit. And this guy has no business being just get off, get on the porch, young, young man. Well, it could be. It's not like it's not like he's a governor telling principals what pronouns they can use in schools. Oh, wait, that's Florida. Yeah, I'm sure he does have a bill like that. Oh, come on. They have whatever. All these states are doing these meaningless – the next one will be that lady in Arkansas. They all want to be president, and they don't think they can be – they can't inflame the crazies in every other state by just, like, making sure the fire department and the police department are working effectively.

42:35I can't stand it when governors run for Senate and vice versa. They are totally different jobs. One's lawmaking and legislative. One is an operational job. One is you're supposed to make sure the roads work, that when it rains, the sewers are actually working. Even water. Deal with water issues, Governor. I mean, come on. This is bullshit. And by the way, it also gets in the way of actual things our government needs to do around this particular company. I'm with you on this, Kara Swisher. I'm with you. I'm just pissed at this guy. We stand together. I will go out on a limb here and I'll say he's being, even if he's being truthful, he's not being neutral.

43:10He's not being truthful. Oh, stop it. You stop that. Listen, don't insult her because I will come to Florida. I will fly to Miami and slap you. I love Chris Donombo. You know, look, this also gives TikTok a lot of high ground that it probably deserves in this moment. But it doesn't allow you to really look at this correctly. And, of course, they've been deploying ads. You know, the senator said that. The result, everyone's a TikTok lobbyist. This is overreach on every single thing. Speaking of right-wingers in social media, Elon Musk tweeted an attack on George Soros this week, likening the billionaire to X-Men villain Magneto and said he wants to erode the fabric of civilization.

43:48Actually, Elon is eroding the fabric of civilization. One thing he didn't mention is Soros sold over 100 ,000 shares of Tesla stock in the first quarter. He said, of course, asked about his tweets and the conspiracy theories could alienate customers and hurt his business. He paused for quite a while because that's what he does. It's a part of his little stunt and I'm a genius and I must think for a minute thing. And let's listen to what he said. I'll say what I want to say. And if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it. Said every three-year-old toddler wanting to keep his truck everywhere in the world.

44:22Anyway, he certainly went on to say what he wanted. Here is later in the interview arguing that the man who killed eight people in Texas earlier this month was not a white supremacist, even though everyone else does, including the state of Texas. Go ahead. Ascribing it to white supremacy was bullshit. Okay. And there's no proof, by the way, that he was not. There's no proof. I would say that there's no proof that he is. And that's a debate you want to get into on Twitter? Yes. Because we should not be ascribing things to white supremacy if it's false. Yes, you shall not besmirch the good name of white supremacy.

44:59Didn't he have a swastika tattoo? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the state of Texas. That's kind of a tell, isn't it? Mm-hmm. He had hundreds of posts online that including neo-Nazi material and white supremacy. I honestly, you know, you don't want to say bad things to someone from South Africa, but boy, is it bleeding through that terrible history of that country. One of the many things that bother me about, I have never understood the conspiracy theory and the hate that George Soros evokes. And for Elon Musk to say about anybody that they hate humanity, that's what he said about George Soros. George Soros hates humanity.

45:39George Soros is a Holocaust survivor. George Soros spends a dramatic amount of his wealth trying to promote democracy and freedom around the world. And I'm sorry, he hates humanity? So I don't – that is a really – that is a very aggressive thing to say about somebody. You know, I don't like, I mean, I don't like Elon Musk. I would never say that about him. But again, he's like trying to go red pill. I think he's angry that he sold his stock. Yeah, that to me. I've never understood. And Bill Gates gets some of that too. I'm like, thank God that we have these people who make so much goddamn money and then turn around and think, okay.

46:24You know, Bill Gates says, I'm going to try and cure infectious diseases. And George Soros says, I'm going to try and protect democracies all around the world. I'm like, well, okay. Billionaires could do a lot worse. I've never understood this red pill hate for George Soros. I just don't get it. This whole thing. Besides George Soros pretending this guy isn't exactly what he is. Like, I feel like if you have Nazi tattoos and several, you might be a Nazi. That's just me. Or you might like them. You might enjoy them. You might enjoy their repertoire. And I don't even know why he's picking this fight.

47:02And can you imagine Linda Iaccarino going, oh, wait, this is all she's going to do. He's going to say, and he doesn't care about money. Like, he does. Yeah, shareholders would like to have a word. So do advertisers. Yeah, but, well, there's no shareholders of Twitter, except his friends who just are like, Like, oh, Elon. By the way, Tesla said it was going to advertise for the first time. And that's what he said. That was a big takeaway from that. They said they need advertising. That's a problem. It usually just marked it on his fame. You know, they used that for years and years. At one point in one of their filings, they historically have been able to generate significant media coverage of our company and our vehicles and believe we will continue to do so.

47:43It was alluding to Musk. To date, the vehicle sales, media coverage, and word of mouth have been primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped achieve sales without advertising, traditional advertising and relatively low marketing costs. Now they might advertise. Thoughts? So, and I will bring this back to the story, but two nights ago, when was it? I got a call from Stephanie Ruhl saying, come on the 11th hour with Kara. It'll be great. With Kara. And I'm like, what are we talking about? And he said, well, we're going to talk about Elon Musk. I'm like, I'm out. I'm going to go drink. I'm done talking about this guy.

48:14He lives Renfri too much in my head. And I want to advertise it. Yeah, but I've got a bunch of calls from media outlets saying we comment on Elon and advertising. And I looked at what he said. I think it's just one of those things where he just said it off the top of his head. I don't think it means anything. I don't. One of the, in my opinion, one of the really most innovative things about Tesla is that is that Elon Musk has massively leveraged Twitter and new mediums to get the equivalent of billions of dollars in free advertising. And one of the reasons that Tesla has much greater margins than the other automobile companies is they spend almost nothing on advertising.

48:53It's like Lee Iacocca, right? And as a professor of brand strategy who made his living preaching about the power of intangible assets resulting in a rational margin and advertising, the reality is advertising, to a certain extent, kind of outs you as not getting it. And if you think about the best products in the world and the best companies in the world, Show me a company that's aggregated or acquired or accreted more than$100 billion in market cap within, say, 36 months. And I'll show you a company that doesn't really advertise like a traditional company in its sector. So this was another head fake to get a headline.

49:32I don't know. I doubt they're even going to do it. They don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to need to. I don't think people are as hot on Tesla. They've got to find a way to sell them. Yeah. I think they're going to need to. They're going to need to be like doing their advertising. I don't think they can avoid it with the competition. There's too much. Yeah, he gets so much. He can, I mean, keep in mind, he doesn't have a - Negative now. Negative attention now. Before it was largely positive. You know, and the same thing with on Twitter, he's got at some point, he's got to get advertisers to want to advertise there, right?

50:06Maybe Tesla can advertise on Twitter. That's a key point. because this is the trick that Google and Meta used to do. First, they throw parties and they call these advertisers and people, their partners as they basically put a gun to their head and execute them. But they used to advertise a little bit, right? To maintain good relationships with their quote unquote partners. Can you help us? We're going to spend a little money, throw them a bone. Here's kind of your last meal. And we want to, Amazon would advertise a little around the holidays. And I don't know if they were testing it, if they were sincere about it.

50:41or they just wanted to maintain, you know, throw a few bones at the people that they were putting out of business. Except he needs advertising compared to them. They didn't need it. I think they do. I think Tesla needs it. I think they do. Look, the margins were down. The numbers were down. It's only – these aren't going up. These are not going up because of him anymore. They're not. That's a function of competition. The question is – No, it's also him. It's like he's – I literally – and I'm not just talking to like a lot of people are like, I have gotten so many emails and calls from people. They don't say they're woke people because they're not.

51:16They're like, what else is out there? That's the nature of people, right? They want something fresh. Yeah, they want some great cars now. So I don't know. I think he needs to advertise, and I think it's a very big expense. Yeah, but what you're saying, though, is that advertising offers an ROI. How is he going to get people to buy the cars if other cars are just as good and prettier? Honestly, they're all prettier than the Tesla now. Well, I mean, that's a different issue. That's a product problem. But what you have is the companies have added a lot of value. It used to be, I mean, I'm thinking about watching the entire, I love watching an entire series with my kid.

51:49And my 15-year-old nine just ripped through Game of Thrones, which is probably inappropriate, but it's bonding. And I'm thinking about when he turned 16, I would like to watch the entire Mad Men series again. I just thought it was amazing and so interesting. And it's such a lesson on kind of the, it's such a great period piece. And it's also a really interesting insight into work and advertising. And when I came at professional age, a good ad campaign could literally change the trajectory of a company. They could. Kia or Hyundai, I forget who it was, had this amazing ad campaign and it literally increased their market share three points, which is enormous in the world of automobiles.

52:26That doesn't happen anymore because people aren't glued to their TVs. People with any money aren't watching ad-supported media. Product innovation went through this massive golden age, unlocked with digital innovation. And all of a sudden, product and innovation and supply chain innovation became the way you built your brand, not advertising. So I'm not even sure a limited amount. Sure. But I don't know. At the golden age of Don Draper has been drawn. Well, I don't know how they're going to sell cars then because someone's got this guy's is getting negative attention and he doesn't care if it has consequences.

53:02But advertising isn't going to save him from himself. Yeah. He needs to butt the fuck out of this stuff and just work on the products. That's all he needs to do. But he's not going to do it. OK, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got. I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. This question comes from two. Hi, Kara and Scott, not Mr. and Mrs. Swisher. As an independent author, I've been watching the rise of narrative AI with interest. Right now, their prose is fever dreams, but it's going to improve. Do you see a future for human authors? And if AI-written books flood the market, what can human creatives do to stand out?

53:37Thank you, Tuverd. I don't know, Scott. What do you think? Do you like the idea of being married to me? Be honest. I don't. I'm thinking of seeking a divorce. Yeah, I'm going to hire a very high-priced divorce attorney. I've already talked to every divorce lawyer in town to contaminate them. Thanks, Tom. I had the best divorce in the world. It was called my divorce tragically amicable. We're still friends. That's what actually made it more sad. I'm like, wait, why are we getting divorced again? Mine was amicable, too. Ours is going to be ugly, though. Ugly. AI written books flood the market. Can human creatives do to stand out?

54:16Can you stay on topic? Are you planning to divorce me? I am. Since the beginning. I just want you for your money and your apartments. I want the apartment in the settlement. Said every woman in my life, quite frankly. Yeah, exactly. I think I deserve it, honestly. Yeah. I really, in a weird way, I really do put out for you. Anyway, human creatives, what can they do to stand out? Answer two's question. That was good. I know. I'm getting better at these sex jokes. Every technology has a similar effect, and that is it consolidates the market. And it basically, if you're a middling lawyer drafting leases, vanilla leases, you're in a lot of trouble.

54:57If you're a writer who just does okay work but not great work, watch out. Here it comes. But if you're a thoughtful person that's creative and knows how to, AI is not going to take your job. Someone who understands AI is going to take your job. And this is, I'm already using Notion AI, one of our advertisers. And I will take, so for example, I will take, we're talking about, and this is going to be scary, about starting something called, you know, the original AI Prof. G. And feed in my book, my most recent book on, I wrote something called The Algebra of Wealth. feed in every transcript from every property podcast and create a generative AI that could potentially answer questions.

55:41But the thing is, the thing you feed into it is what makes it original or different. And so if you're someone who can produce really great original work, your compensation is going to go up. If you're someone that needs to constantly rely on generative AI for other stuff, you're probably in trouble. But if you're doing original work and using generative AI to help you, to inspire you, to fill in gaps, to make stuff better, you're going to become a warrior. So this doesn't make you obsolete, it makes mediocre people obsolete. And what will happen is there'll be unbelievable new businesses and there'll be new adjuncts and new services and new jobs created by these little companies and they'll become medium and big size companies to do really cool things with generative AI.

56:30There is an interesting thing. This guy named Jake Ward on Twitter put, we took a website from zero to 750K a month SEO traffic using 100 % AI generated content, 7K total pages generated hit 300K a month after six months, 750 after 12, 4K plus keywords and positions one and three, 13K plus keywords and positions four through 10. he did this whole breakdown. And to me, it's demand media AI edition is what it's doing for that market, right? If you remember demand media, who kind of was a content farm. And this is a version of a content farm. And he's right. Mediocre, you're fucked. Any press releases, earnings releases, things like that, anything that can be done in this way.

57:16And then a human checks it, sure, is gone. And much stuff is, much marketing material is just, it's easy to copy. It's easy to do. And so that's really, you have to be creative, really hyper-creative. Look, there are certain industries that are just going to, I've always thought that disruption is more a function of how ripe the industry is. I don't think, I think everyone's talking about writers right now, and I do have a prediction around the writer's strike. But I think the The industry that's going to – there's the mother of all chins right now is healthcare. I would not want to be a pathologist or virologist or radiologist right now because there's no reason – Radiologists have already been under siege, yeah.

57:55There's no reason why – AI is really good at looking at patterns and then predicting, all right, if you give me a million data points, I'll give you with really great accuracy what the million and first data point will be. And it strikes me that looking at stuff under a microscope and trying to understand what is the pathogen here, that AI is just going to do that better. And we've been over – I don't want to say we've been overpaying these people because the end practitioners haven't done as well. But the insurance company and the people have inserted themselves in the middle in the pharma companies, you got to think that that's where AI is really going to boom.

58:30Yeah, it's going to be a real – but books too, I'm sorry to tell you, there's a lot of mediocre writing out there. And this will be mediocre for you. And mediocre but necessary, banal but needed. Like, you just have to have it around. Like, here's your explanation for this and that and the other things. So there's – you just – you don't have the imagination big enough to figure out where this is going. But we have to move on. But go ahead. Last thing. But last point. Like, I like you all know, Hari, the guy who wrote Sapien. Yeah. Harari. Him with Armed with AI. Yeah. His next book, I can't even imagine the kind of content he's going to be able to produce because the way his mind works, his ability to connect instinct with human behavior and what the future might look like.

59:13I just don't think any AI can come up with that. But what he'll be able to do is say, all right, give me a history of homo sapiens in this era and what happened. And he will have just a level of rigor and research. He didn't have access before. If as long as it's from good sources, that's the thing. So we'll have to see. But you still will require creativity and a certain flair. Yval has a beautiful writing style, I think. So that is, you can start to mimic it, but it's still very hard to mimic certain people, like Scott Galloway, for example. God! No generative AI comes up with a German shepherd.

59:53My ex-husband, Scott Galloway, my ex, my ex, my soon-to-be ex. I'm taking the kids, albeit my sister's. If you've got a question of your own and you'd like them answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions.

1:00:20Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

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1:01:24Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

1:01:53No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

1:02:31Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. So in the 80s in Britain, the coal miners, I think it was the national— You're doing a coal mining prediction? But go ahead. Go ahead. I'm setting it up. I don't want to be replaced by AI. Hi. I'm trying to provide some creative context here. All right. So I think it was the National Minecrafters or Mineworkers Union took on Margaret Thatcher. And basically, Thatcher said, this is my moment to show that I'm the Iron Lady. We need to move to different types of energy and just said no over and over and basically broke the back of the coal miners union. The same thing's about to happen here with the riders.

1:03:11They have the same skill set or a similar skill set to authors, to journalists, and they make a lot more money. In addition, this is a dream come true for the studios, an enforced multilateral pause in spending as they recalibrate and have cloud cover to come back with fewer employees. the union here the writers union has so badly miscalculated the power dynamic here and and the studios are going to slowly but surely quietly they are going to break their backs and this is going to end really poorly for the writers it's going to end i can't it's it's almost it i wouldn't be surprised if we found out that the studio has got together and said piss off and upset the writers' union so they go on strike and force all of us to stop spending in producing content.

1:04:04Because every individual is like, I got eight shows I haven't gotten to yet that I'd like to watch. So this is going to be remnant. This is the information age coal miner strike in the UK. It's going to end really poorly for the writers. They are totally, and all this virtue signaling with stars that make$10 and$20 million a year showing up and pretending that they stand with their brothers and sisters. I just think it's hilarious. You're going to see this union come back to the table and the studios are going to just do what used to happen to me when I was trying to raise money through the 90s with VCs.

1:04:36They're going to grin fuck them. They're going to say, that's interesting. Writers are really important to us. We should keep talking and they're going to do nothing. And then when a bunch of the writers that are going to be replaced by AI anyways, start thinking, I can't pay my rent and start putting pressure on the union to settle, the union's going to end up with a worse deal than they had going into this thing. So my prediction, the information age equivalent of the British coal miner strike is happening with the writer's strike, and it's going to end the same way. Who's Margaret Thatcher?

1:05:08So the studio heads are Margaret Thatcher. You don't get my analogy? I thought that was pretty good. I do. I get it. I agree with you. A bunch of writers and actors have written me, and I'm like, I think you're, I don't think you have leverage here. I don't see the leverage. Maybe I'm missing it. Well, you know who the culprit is? We're creative. We're creative is not enough leverage. And I applaud writers. They're angry. They're angry at the studio heads. The real culprit is all the kids who work for me at Prof G. They don't watch ad-supported TV. They all watch TikTok. 850 million creators on TikTok.

1:05:41Assume 1 % of them are any good. They have so misread the situation. And if I were a studio head, I would be thinking, oh my God, thank God for this union. They have given us a gift. Yeah. I don't know how many, their signs are creative. They're just the leverage. I don't see it. I don't see it. I get, I'm getting a lot of angry letters from writers, but I'm sorry to tell you, I'm not sure what you should ask for. And I agree it's, but they're going to be smaller writers rooms. They just don't want to pay as much and they're not going to have to on some level. And the danger here is creating a disgruntled group of creatives that work for you eventually because you do need creativity to really do well.

1:06:22But I have to say the leverage is not there. I think you're right. Good prediction, Scott. Good prediction. Do you have anything, Kara? No, I don't have a prediction. I'm just right. I just reported and correct. This is second week in a row. I don't know what I'm going to do the third week in a row. I'll think of something. I got two in a row so far. I've got to think about what I want to do. I want to. Unfortunately, I'm often right about Elon Musk stuff. Unfortunately, I'm often right. Yeah, that's that's your biggest problem. How right you are. I had a whole show on it with Ryan Mack and Zoe Schiffer today about it.

1:06:56But one thing that came out that Ryan just tweeted was about some guy suing him who was working on their operations team. And like they wanted to install shitty locks on in offices that would put people in danger and said, just do it because no one will catch us. Like this guy is alleging this. I just, every time I think I'm like disappointed, I'm like, you're kidding me. Like, really? Anyway, it's just, I don't have a prediction except that I'm always surprised by how the depths of bad behavior. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Can you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

1:07:35Ernie Andertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mille Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Kara, my wife, have a great weekend.

1:08:00Support for the show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, and you don't need to make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you find yourself drowning in software and processes instead of focusing on what matters, growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. It's the only business software you'll ever need. Odoo is an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. That means CRM accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, and more. No more app overload.

1:08:28No more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part is that Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you're just starting out or you're already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable, and designed to streamline every process. It's time to put the clutter aside and focus on what really matters, running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com.

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