The X Factor, AI Guardrails, and a Barbenheimer Post-Mortem

23:46A lot of words. Even Aaron Levy, who runs Box, which also has an X in it, said, what do these words mean? And then he took it down because everyone was like, huh? The big question about X is, of course, Y or WTF. Talk about this. He's fired a bunch of employees, made a hugely unpopular change to the platform, scrapped all of the brand equity now by changing the name. I don't know if Linda knew about that he was going to do this. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. But she's certainly trying to back him. Talk about the brand equity, because Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of Facebook to Meta, but they kept Facebook.

24:22They kept Instagram. They kept these important things. Can you talk a little bit about the brand change? Yeah, they're totally different because Facebook kept a consumer-facing equity. It just changed the corporate name, which is really for employees. Or Google did the same thing, Google with Alphabet. Right, to Alphabet. So you could kind of justify those. The first thing is, just to acknowledge, Elon Musk has built or been the driving force behind two of the most ascended brands the last decade. First Tesla and two SpaceX. And he did it in very innovative ways. He didn't use advertising. He actually used Twitter as his primary vehicle.

24:57You know, the guy, no matter what, whether it's something stupid, something innocuous, something controversial, something repugnant, he's figured out that if I'm in the news every 48 hours, my brands will have global awareness. And he also, to his credit, built amazing products, incredible breakthrough innovation, even things like opening a store in a mall for Tesla rather than a dealership on the outskirts of town. He has proven to be one of the most thoughtful, seminal brand builders in history. Changing, doing away with Twitter to X will go down is absolutely one of the worst brand decisions in history.

25:35probably a third to 50 % of the world's population know what Twitter is and they recognize the logo. And about 97 to 99 % of all money spent every day is on brands you've heard of before. You're not going to return the email of someone you haven't heard of. You're not going to buy a tennis shoe you haven't heard of before. So just awareness is a massive asset and it's also really expensive to build. Also, the logo, it really connotes something very distinct. You know exactly what it is when you see the bird. If you were to try and replace this and say, all right, we want to have a logo that everyone recognizes, they know exactly what it stands for.

26:16It has actually quite a few, if not positive associations, relevant associations. It's differentiated, It's relevant. It has moats. And half the world knows it. If someone said you have a decade and$10 billion, can you do this? You wouldn't be sure you could do it. So at a minimum, he's taken$10 billion worth of brand equity and taken it into the street and lit it on fire. And what it says to me is, I mean, I'm not, I believe in billionaires. I believe in capitalism. I don't like the idea of a wealth tax. But when I was thinking about this over the weekend, this really is another signal or indication that income inequality has gotten to a point where an individual in his spare time can make a dumb decision to buy something he doesn't want for$45 billion.

27:02Use it to not wreak havoc, but create a lot of tumult. I know there's a lot of stands out there, but so far Twitter in the last six months has not been accreted for the world. And then make a decision like this, which means there's nobody on his board that he listens to. Typically, to buy a$45 billion company, you would have investors and other people that would weigh in on a decision like this. And there is no rational justification for this decision. No, he just decided to do it on a Saturday. It feels like that. Linda just tweeted, X is here. Let's do this with this very unattractive logo. It looks crypto.

27:39The design looks crypto. It looks uber male, but in a bad way. I don't want on my car or don't want to be near people with this flag on their car. It feels very. Feels like Confederacy. Yeah, exactly. It feels very. Smells like Confederacy. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. It's not. It's not. And the design looks bad. It just feels very. And they're talking about bringing all these things together. But where are all the things that are bringing together? Why not just have the bigger corporate thing? I mean, you know, it's interesting because Walt Mossberg wrote, companies change names all the time, but popular products, rarely the words tweet and Twitter have become part of the language.

28:13So brand equity mask is giving up is huge. I know he wants to add many functions and services to you, but why did it require a name change? And for some reason, JR, who is usually intelligent, say, when you see how successful Alphabet and Meta have been with their name changes, you have to do it. He said they were corporate name changes, not product name changes. Alphabet didn't change the name Google. Meta didn't change the name of Facebook. Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know Alphabet. No one's saying that. He could have created his own financial brand or Twitter money or whatever. And he also was saying that it's going to be like most of the global financial network.

28:42I just was like, are you high? And then I thought, well, probably. The answer is yes. Yeah. Yeah. From a brand decision, and it goes back to hubris, and it goes back to, you know, not enough of these billionaires have guardrails in the form of other investors, much less regulation. Anyone who had anyone around them who had any credibility or any authority would say, we need to rethink this decision. Right. Because if he put the brand up for sale and just said, you have access to the logo and the name, someone would probably pay a billion dollars plus for it. You don't take this kind of, this type of equity takes decades and billions.

29:20What's the argument? You know, this is sort of a shoot the moon kind of thing. Like someone was like, I appreciate him shooting the moon. I'm like, why? Why shoot the moon? I don't even understand it. I mean, does it get rid of like the badness around Twitter by calling it X? I mean, I know he loves the letter X, fine, whatever. He called one of his kids X. One of his early companies was called X. I get it. You like the letter. It's great. I'm fond of the letter C. I don't know what to say. But the branding discipline is really not strong here. This isn't shoot the moon. It's shoot yourself in the foot.

29:51And it's so clear that there's nobody home here. The site is a mess. Clearly, it just wasn't rolled out well. The name changes very rarely work. Because usually it's a company trying to escape something. You know, there's a disaster, an air disaster in the Everglades. They merge with another company. You know, Norwest changes its name to Wells Fargo because it's a better brand in M &A. But trying to like, but to take, I don't think we've ever seen this before. You could argue maybe a little bit with HBO to Max. Yeah. But to take a brand that's globally known and turn it to X and do it kind of incrementally, like, oh, yeah, change that now.

30:34And, oh, wait, I want the, he's asked users to design it. it feels like you gave a 16 year old boy a couple hundred billion dollars and said have at it these decisions and maybe that's part of his genius that he has no guardrails i don't know but this one every brand strategist every head of an ad agency any academic in the world of marketing is going to go with this and cock their head and go they'll wait for a minute because a lot of the stuff he does ends up being not only just crazy but crazy genius but this just seems crazy and it doesn't It feels like it's not very well thought through. And he's decided, this is my toy, and I like the term X.

31:14And Linda Iaccarino putting out these, like you said, this word salad, trying to—I feel like she's the circus clown behind an elephant scooping up shit every 30 seconds. Yeah, I do too. It just feels—anyways, I'm sad. I wish he would put it up for sale because I'd love someone to buy it. I think it's a global brand. I would bet it's one of the top 50 most recognized logos in the world because this logo has been at the bottom of every media company on TV. Well, they're talking about them, right? They're talking about it. Well, he always manages to do that. Yeah, even as, you know, the threads numbers are going down because that's what happens in these cases, the usage numbers.

31:51Although I'm using it more, I have to say. I guess he just wants to put his name on it. I don't – I'm trying to give the nicest case scenario. In other words, he just thought of it because he had a bad trip one night and said, let's do this. And he likes the letter X and he's rich. Well, but that's my point. Honestly, when people can just sort of buy$45 billion media companies and then start, you know, retweeting conspiracy theories and then just go, oh, let's just call it X. And I'm like, okay, we have gotten to a point where some people just have too much money. Yeah. And when they have no guardrails and they can buy big companies like this and make these sorts of decisions errantly based on their blood sugar level and this idea they have.

32:36And clearly this just has not been thought out. It's clear most of the people the company don't know. I want you to, like, is there, will people forget it? Because, you know, no one likes Metastill. I mean, we just sort of go along with it and people still call it Facebook. What positive could it be that he gets to start fresh? Look, I like how you're a journalist and you want to see both sides of this. There's not a lot of positive here because it's yet another opportunity for people to sort of abandon it. Yeah. To say, I don't understand it. I don't get it. I'm going to try this threads thing.

33:07But name changes very rarely work. The reason most companies do a name change is in an acquisition, they acquire a company that's stronger than them. Norwest, a company known for mortgages that was a very healthy bank, acquired Wells Fargo. And they're like, Wells Fargo is a stronger brand. Dean Witter acquired Morgan Stanley. And they're like, you know what? Morgan Stanley is a stronger brand than Dean Witter. We're going to go with this one. Or someone says, our corporation, everybody hates us. Let's call the whole thing meta. And I think the metaverse is going to be a big deal. But Mark Zuckerberg was smart enough to go, the people who use Instagram do not want a different logo or a different name.

33:40We're not going to risk that franchise. Right, right. And that's what he's done here. Just the downside here is exponentially greater than the upside. Yeah, I will read from Lou Pascal, who's a very well-known ad person for years and years and still is. A very close friend of Linda's, by the way. Latest in the unending series of idiotic edicts from Elon Musk announced last night, and uninformed by any user insights, worst of all, his all the birds comment is likely to reinforce the perception that a few remaining Twitter 1.0 team that they're unwanted. The Twitter Bluebird logo is beloved, ubiquitous, and has nearly 100 % unaided awareness globally, something that most brands never come close to achieving.

34:22Virtually every newscaster, reporter, and byline features the logo exclusively, giving the brand millions in free marketing. I think he's right. I think he has a very good point. No brand discipline whatsoever and just shitting on what is, even though they have troubles, it's a great brand. Great brand. I'm literally going to take$10 billion plus. It's impossible to put a number on it and just set it on fire and give people yet another excuse to think, well, maybe I'm just done here. I don't get it. Yeah. I don't. He's got a vision for X. He likes it. He's allowed to do it. This will go down as one of the strangest moves in the history of brand strategy.

35:05It is very hard to justify this. Yeah. And Rick Wilson. Desperate rebrands are inherently weak strategy when it's the product itself that needs the upgrade. Elon has worked diligently to make the site less fun, interesting, and easy to use. Grunting out my First Amendment on a private platform is like screaming Hanseatic League at the Denny's. You get weird looks, but they're not connected issues. He can name it whatever he wants, but it diminishes an already wounded brand. So I think he's right. The product matters. The product matters. Okay, well, that's that. That's really smart. Linda, call us.

35:38Seriously. Obviously, you're much smarter than this. But I guess she has to go along. She has to go along. Not good. I thought she could get out of this cleanly, but I'm not so sure. And by the way, one more point is I'm not giving this guy my credit card after these kind of decisions. I mean, there's no way in hell I'm going to do financial stuff with him. But maybe the rest of the world is, as people point out, this isn't having as big an impact anywhere but the U.S. But the U.S. is its most important market. Okay, Scott, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, big tech agrees to AI safety commitments.

36:07and we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Alondra Nelson.

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38:06Scott, we're back. The Biden administration announced that seven tech companies have voluntarily agreed to a number of AI safety commitments. The companies include OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and startups Anthropic and Inflection. That's pretty much all of them, all the big ones. Much of the agreement revolved around testing new AI models to ensure public safety and also to avoid bias and discrimination. Companies agreed to share information with each other about security risk and to implement bug bounty programs. They agreed to watermark AI-created images and audio, I think probably the most significant thing.

38:37The White House announced it's also working on executive order and bipartisan legislation to codify rules around AI. What do you think about this? Just a press release? I think it's important. I'm a bit of a cynic, and I hope it's not just an attempt to prophylactically avoid real regulation. And they're calling on their better angels and realize that it's probably a good idea for us to share this. The thing I like is the idea of a watermark around AI. And I caught up with a friend yesterday I hadn't seen in several years. Do you know who Daniel Lubetzky is? Oh, the guy from Kind Bars. Yeah. Yes, of course.

39:10He's a lovely guy. Daniel's one of these guys that's always like led with civic concern first. He's just, he's from a young age. He started a company called PeaceWorks that meant to bring Israeli and Palestinian workers together to work on companies together thinking that commerce was a great unifier. Yep. And he kind of, I don't want to say accidentally fell into kind, but, you know, building a billion-dollar confectionery company couldn't happen to a nicer guy. And I mean that literally. And, of course, I'm here in Aspen. He's here. One of the wonderful things, by the way, about this podcast is when I'm somewhere, people reach out to me because they hear about it on the podcast.

39:42He said, let's get together for a walk. So we're talking in Aspen, and immediately we talk about 2.30. Jesus Christ, in Aspen talking about 2.30. I think that's the whitest thing I've ever said. Anyways, and I would like, I think there's some potential here. I wonder if you really wanted to have teeth here. First off, there needs to be carve-outs from 230 around certain topical domains, whether it's elections or health. I think there should be, in addition to sex trafficking, which has been very effective, there should be additional carve-outs. Another idea for a carve-out was that anything that is algorithmically elevated is effectively, you're serving as an editor.

40:21You're no longer just a benign platform or neutral arbiter. You've decided to elevate certain content. You have certain obligations around fact-checking. It's similar to every other media company, and that content becomes absolved or no longer has the shield of 230. Another interesting thing I think politicians should think about, and I was speaking to one this morning, is that if it's AI-generated, should that not have 230 protection, which would massively encourage investment to spot, screen, and filter AI-generated content and images on these platforms? because this shit could get very scary very fast.

40:57And there's already been AI-generated images that have convinced people that the Pentagon is under attack, and we're just getting started. So I like this. I think it's a step in the right direction. I hope they're not using it as a head fake and a weapon of mass distraction. Yeah, that's my worry. They have to pass actual legislation and give money and staff to these agencies, teeth to these things. And very, not say the, you know, we were talking about the merger guidelines last week. They're using previous law to try to get a stronger hand for themselves, these regulators. But they really do need to define this as a different and new technology.

41:31And I think they've done that earlier than before. But the stakes are so much higher in this thing that they have to not just have executive orders. You could see the right go after this, saying they're trying to tell these tech companies what to do and make woke AI, that kind of stuff. You can just see all the attacks that could happen here. And, you know, in previous tech booms, they've done nothing. And social media and the internet, if you want to use those, and I would put mobile in there. Very little done around privacy, very little block and tackle. And my worry is they're going to do a lot of these announcements and then nothing, actually.

42:07That's my biggest worry here. But, you know, the watermarking, this is the kind of stuff they have to do to cooperate together, especially around public safety, bias, discrimination. And, of course, to me, provenance is the most important part of this. We give it a, what, a thumbs up, a thumbs up, a medium thumbs up. Yeah. Not as good as Barbie and Oppenheimer, but we - Cautiously optimistic thumbs up. Cautiously optimistic. All right, let's bring in a friend of Pivot.

42:35Alondra Nelson was formerly the deputy assistant to President Joe Biden, acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She was the first African-American and first woman of color to lead U.S. science and technology policy in her role there. Among other things, she led the development of the blueprint for the AI Bill of Rights. She is currently the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Independent Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey, where Oppenheimer was, by the way, and also Einstein. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

43:06All right. I want to start, Alondra, about your thoughts on this new agreement between the White House and major tech companies. I'm sure you're very familiar with it and the different things they went through. We just talked about it a second ago. a lot of around watermarking, AI images, but also other things. So give me a little rundown of how you think about it. Well, let's say at the top that it's, you know, it's generally a good thing. I think the fact that it's voluntary, that we can are justified in being grumbly about that and wanting a little bit more. But there are some good things here.

43:37I mean, I think the high level good thing is that the White House has been for government kind of moving out a clip around this. So they've been really serious and things have been moving. That it's been happening since, you know, the October when I was in government in October of 2022, we did this blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. And so, you know, the Biden administration has been well engaged in this for a while. And I think there are things that I think all of us would have wanted. So, you know, there's some fundamental things. I would point people to the actual commitment document. There are fundamental things in there, like companies have a duty to make their products safe.

44:14You know, it's like these are kind of fundamental assertions that are really important that that the companies have to earn people's trust is what part of the commitments document says as well. And so I think we're in a place that's better than the social media moment at the same time. And I think that that's encouraging. It's an increment. It's voluntary. And there's a lot more to do. But I think in general, you know, it's good. So you said grumbly about voluntary. These companies, obviously, people would like to see laws in place that never happen with social media. These companies have the proper incentives to follow them because some of these could feel like a press release, right?

44:51As you know, you've been in government and that can happen. Yeah, I think we're getting to I think we're getting there. And I think that the fact that, you know, these seven companies even agreed to this, I think, suggests that they know that legislation is coming and that they need to sort of get get in line, get information. But there's, you know, obviously lots more to do here. But they've agreed on things, like seven companies that are fierce competitors have agreed on things that are more than just principles, right? So we've got a level of granularity around red teaming that we haven't had before in the tech policy space around basic sort of consumer privacy.

45:30At the same time, on the other side of this, we already have, you know, the FTC, other kinds of regulatory bodies saying that the law is the law and that you've got to protect consumers. So it's not like we're only waiting for the companies. You know, you've got, for example, the FTC saying we've got to protect consumers. You have CFPB, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, saying the same. So, you know, I think that we're getting to slowly, incrementally a kind of perfect storm or a cauldron of things that will get us to a better place than we've been in the last decade. Right. But legislation is really where it's at, whether it's merger guidelines or anything else.

46:07Guidelines are one thing. Absolutely. Real law is another. Scott? Nice to meet you, Alondra, and thanks for your good work. So I'm curious where you are on the spectrum of people who think that AI is just another tool that we'll use and it can be used for good means or bad means to the AI, what I'll call catastrophists, who think this is the end of the world, that this is now beyond any point of turning back. Where are you? What kind of existential threat do you think AI presents relative to other technologies? It is just a tool, but it's a very powerful tool. And I think that there are potentially threats on the horizon.

46:46We know that there are threats that exist right now. So we know that there are, you know, part of what I thought was great about the White House commitments document is that it felt like an attempt to kind of harmonize kind of various perspectives that have been emerging. So there's, you know, societal risks, risks around discrimination, bias and harm and these sorts of things, in addition to thinking about bioweapons and cybersecurity and the risks that are sort of far term. So, you know, I think that's what's good also about the commitments document. I think for me, particularly because I've just come out of government in February, I'm in the like realm of the practical.

47:22So while I think that there's, you know, both near term and far term risks, we need to be able to do something about it. And I think it's not entirely useful to be living in the world of speculation and science fiction. Like, we've got to, you know, what are things that we can do things about and what are we going to do about them? What about the idea, and we were talking about this earlier, what about the idea of any AI-generated content no longer enjoys 230 protection? You know, listen, I've heard that Ron Wyden himself, who was, you know, one of the co-sponsors of Section 230, you know, decades ago, saying exactly that.

47:56So, you know, I think there had been, you know, I'm not a lawyer, but I think we already saw with algorithmic amplification happening in the social media space that the social media platforms were doing more than just hosting. They were becoming much more than just sort of these neutral things that were hosting information. And I think when you get to advanced AI, generative AI, in which they are dialoguing with people, having interactions with people, you know, the systems are and tools are sorting information. that they're going to send out to people. And we'll probably see a whole panoply of companies that are sort of choosing different ways to sort the information or to create layers on top of, say, GBT-4.

48:39So there's a lot of, you know, I don't know if we'd call it editorial, but there's a lot of choice and selection and things being made here. Yeah, but it's not clear whether they're covered. No, it's not clear. I think there'll be lawsuits that will determine that. I would also say, you know, from the sort of Biden administration perspective, Even going in, you know, the president had said that he was looking at this and, you know, was suggesting that we needed to do a lot of reform, if not repeal in this space anyway. So there seems to be a lot of sort of energy galvanizing behind doing something finally.

49:11Or at least an explicit bill. I think it's Warner and Hawley about that it's not, that it excludes it specifically. So one of the things that you said, we had been talking about Oppenheimer a little bit, along with Barbie and stuff. You noted he is a cautionary tale about the risks of AI and the discussions that need to happen in advance. Now, you had done this with the Blueprint for AI Bill of Rights that you did, which was, I think, rather early, as you said. It was much earlier. I'd love your thoughts on why you decided to do it so early and what are the biggest changes since it came out? Oh, great question.

49:47So we came into office. I was a day one person. And, you know, the president and the vice president already said that not only Section 230, which we've just been talking about, but, you know, harms to children, harms to young people, thinking about competition and antitrust, you know, issues about the threats of social media to democracy. These were already kind of front of mind for the administration. And so the question then became, what is the proactive vision? So we've got a lot of things that we don't like, that we want to be critical of, and that we want to change. At the same time, is there sort of a proactive vision for what we want to do?

50:23So what are the sort of rights, protections that the people should have in the best of world with these kinds of increasingly powerful technologies? And so that's how we went about the work. We spent a year talking to, you know, all sorts of folks from, you know, researchers to companies to high school students. And we also wanted to produce a document, the part of me that's a teacher sometimes that was readable. So it's a long document, it's 70 plus pages, but, you know, anybody can read it. It's a resource for people. I think it teaches people a little bit about AI and how systems work, teaches people a little bit about what you can do about it.

51:00So, you know, we introduce red teaming and auditing and risk assessment and these sorts of things. And so it was really to sort of to say if we're going to sort of move ahead with, you know, a better vision and, you know, how are we going to do that? Also, I think it was really the White House kind of setting the table and setting the vision. So, you know, the document's been referred to as aspirational. It certainly is. Much like last week's commitments, it's voluntary, certainly true. But, you know, I think at its best, what the White House does and what the president does is to kind of create a vision and expectation for American society at its best.

51:35And a lot has changed. So a lot has changed, but I think some fundamental things are true. So a theory of the case with the AI Bill of Rights is that technology is going to change really quickly. It's changing all the time. It's changing all around us. So what do we want to anchor on? Like, what are the things that we, you know, as we go from generative AI to AGI, as we go from a world in which we have generative AI and perhaps quantum computing that, like, ends encryption as we know it? you know, there's all of these kinds of technologies happening about us. We can try to regulate the thing, which is probably may not be the best idea, or we can try to regulate the outcomes, or we can try to sort of level set on the society that we want.

52:17So whether or not you're talking about generative AI or quantum computing, do we want basic privacy for American public? The answer is Yes. The question is, you know, what are the processes, norms? How do we get there? I think will be different. But I think that we need to sort of keep in mind, you know, the kind of holy grail is not AGI. The holy grail, the thing that we are guarding with our guardrails, our democracy, opportunities for people, public safety, and things like that. And so the theory of the case with the AI Bill of Rights is that we're going to keep our eyes on that and think about the regulations, norms, standards, practices we need to get there.

52:58So, Alondra, I'm always heartened when I hear from, you know, insightful and intelligent people such as yourself that outline the issues really well. And then it all leads to a giant nothing burger. We've never had an industry this big with this lack of regulation. And so it strikes me there's a ton of insight, a ton of really brilliant, articulate people outlining the issue. And it results in nothing. Why have we not been able to pass anything resembling regulation on an industry that is now by market cap the largest industry in the world, arguably the most influential industry in the world? What are the forces that you and your colleagues are facing that has gotten in the way of us being able to enact any of these very thoughtful views?

53:44I think that you had a wonderful conversation with Senator Warner a few months ago, and he really nailed it, which is lobbying. So you've got big industry, big tech on the one side of their mouth saying, we need to be regulated. This is horrible what's going on. And on the other hand, you know, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year lobbying against regulation. And so I think that's, you know, that's a fundamental problem. And government cannot compete with that in a fundamental way. I think the president has succeeded in doing some bipartisan things. He believes in it. He thinks it can work.

54:21I think the horrors of the last decade and of social media are such that people are exhausted. They see that a lot of harms have been done. And, you know, I think that there's a space for bipartisanship around this. Like people don't want children harmed and young people harmed. People understand that, you know, antitrust and competition is might be a problem when you can do something like the threads transition and no one sort of needs to have a conversation about that. Certainly issues around privacy. I mean, I think even the fact that you look at the judiciary subcommittee that Senator Blumenthal and Senator Hawley are working, seem to be working really well together on that.

55:00So it does feel like a window of opportunity. I also think the like, the somewhat panic freak out of the public release of GPT-4 and all of the kind of risk conversation has galvanized the public and got the public's attention in a way that hadn't really existed before. And then that gets legislators' attention. When the public is paying attention, legislators are paying attention. So where would you start if you if you had a magic wand? Would you start with privacy? Absolutely. I mean, at this point, having been in government for two years and a bit, please get anything over the line. I mean, like, you know, nothing can hurt.

55:38Like, so if you do antitrust, if you do privacy, if you do protect protections from for for young people, none of these things are to the deficit of the larger goals that we're trying to reach here. But I think privacy is a key one. And I would say, you know, to go back to Kara's earlier question, data privacy and data issues are the thing that's not in this White House commitments document. I mean, there's an assertion that privacy protections need to be strengthened, but we're not talking about the data piece, which is so important here. Yeah, I would agree. And one of the things is, of course, the private sector tends to be running the show for most of tech, as Scott said.

56:14And the government has lost its preeminent voice on the topic. But it's interesting. I was just looking. I'm on X or whatever we're calling it today. This guy, Martin Crowley said, if you're not using AI, you're falling behind. And then Sally Jenkins from the Washington Post said, if you're using AI to write or create, you're plagiarizing. And so these kind of, I mean, like what? Like this is like, it's a really interesting back and forth and back and forth and back and forth going on, which I think people are surprised at. So Scott, of course, and I don't think there should be a pause in AI development.

56:47How do you answer as a government that regulation inhibits innovation? Because that's what you're getting here. There's a gold rush on in terms of investment and money and start an AI company. No matter what you do, you need to learn it. How do you make that argument that regulation helps innovation versus inhibits? Because that's been the tech industry's go-to for far too long. Yeah, I mean, one of the ways you make the case is I think just a business case. So there was a, I think it was a Goldman Sachs report that came out in March or April. that was trying to think about the market cap and what might happen, you know, as AI gets up and running and they were anticipating, you know, something like 7 % increase in global GDP, you know, potentially sort of, you know, trillion dollar kind of investment and productivity globally.

57:38But as I said elsewhere, what I was really struck by was like a lot of equivocating language. So there was a lot of words like around uncertainty and it could potentially do and it might in ways that documents from big finance don't usually do. They're really just often leaning into the hype cycle and like, let's go with it. And so I think the uncertainty around the technology, the hallucinations, like, you know, is it going to work if I use it this time? Is it going to work differently if I, you know, put a layer on top of it and try to use it with a customer in another instance? I think that uncertainty around the regulation does not create a kind of rich, robust space for innovation.

58:18So there's a business case for that. I also think as a researcher, you know, sitting here in my office in Princeton, where people have come to think about really hard problems, that the sort of challenges around the technology, you know, how do you explain it? How do we get to a place where you can, you know, make sure it's transparent and all of that are real opportunities for innovation as well. So just the sort of intellectual puzzle to be a nerd about it are opportunities for innovation as well. I think the rest of it, a lot of the rest of it are, you know, the lobbying narratives that lobbyists tell us.

58:52And I don't think that there's needs to be, you know, a natural tension between innovation and releasing safe, exciting, fun products that lead to productivity that don't steal people's livelihoods. Yeah, but government's so stupid, Alondra. Government's not stupid. I know that. I'm teasing you. It's bullshit. I know, I know. Scott, I know. But I want to say, I mean, you know, this was my first time working in government. And, you know, like the congressional staffers are really good. They are. They're fantastic. And there's a lot of good people working in government. I mean, you know, I think what it is is that folks are tremendously outnumbered and outgunned.

59:31So you're outgunned by the lobbyists. And, you know, they're the sort of, you know, going from the Reagan period, that sort of government, you know, government's the problem, it's too big. And so, you know, offices are way too small, budgets are way too small for the work that has to be done. And I think if we want to really have nimble, agile regulation around big tech and some of these other fast-moving industries, we really need to revisit that conversation. I mean, not that you should have excessive budgets, you know, for government salaries and the like, but you need people to do the work.

1:00:04Yeah. Scott, last question. Yeah. So just to reinforce, anybody who's exposed to people in D.C. up and down the supply chain are, I think, universally surprised at how hardworking and how smart the people are and committed they are. But let me make an ageist comment. They're also really old. Our average elected official is 63, meaning for every 40-year-old elected, there is somebody who's dead. It's just, and I'm ageist around technology. I think younger people have an easier time grasping new technologies. I feel it myself. And my question is, one, do you agree with that? The part of the problem is our elected representatives are just too old to really grasp these new technologies.

1:00:45And two, how can we solve for that, if you agree with it? As someone who's closer to 63 than not and is increasingly finding myself turning to, you know, a graduate student or a niece or nephew being like, how do I do this thing on this Jing and the Bob? You know, I fundamentally agree with you. But I also but but, you know, folks have young staffers. I mean, like, you know, I think it's not entirely incorrect. These stories that say 20 year olds run Washington, you know, there are a lot of quite young staffers who really do get it. I think what you do have is a deficit of attention, particularly with legislators.

1:01:20They've got these huge portfolios. They're running local offices, and they've got a lot of expectations. And they don't always snap to attention on the things that they need to. And so I think if you think about the difference between what I thought, you might not agree, Scott, but what I thought were really smart, sophisticated questions at this hearing that Sam Altman was at. I mean, there was a lot of celebration and praise of Sam as well. But, you know, relative to hearings we had even five or six years ago where people were saying, like, what are the interwebs and how do I, you know, just like fundamental things.

1:01:55How do you make money? Yeah. Certainly I would make a pitch to folks who are listening that young people do need to go into government. And it's pretty important and run for office. And I think I'm encouraged to see young people running for office as well. Thank you so much. I wanted to bring you on for a long time. I think you're one of, did an amazing job with that Bill of Rights. And it was way ahead of it, way ahead in so many ways. And I really appreciate it. Well, we tried and it works really hard. I know you did. You did a great job. Anyway, I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for being here.

1:02:28Thank you, Alondra. I'm a big fan. Thanks for having me. All right, Scott, aren't you impressed? I think Alondra's, every time I talk to her, I feel smarter. Yeah, I remember what I said. People, when you get to this level of government, what you find is remarkably, intelligent, committed people who have a lot of options and decide that they want to go to work for their country on both sides of the aisle. It's very heartening. Absolutely. It is. Anyway, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

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1:05:10Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Well, the obvious fail is what will go down as the weirdest rebranding in history. Is it the weirdest? I don't think you've ever seen a brand with this global awareness. And quite frankly, positive associations is singular. Just differentiate it. Just be like overnight, we're calling it X. I think this is new. Yeah, their best hope is the rest of the world doesn't care. But that is a business fail, and it sort of flies in the face. I mean, if he pulls this off, quite frankly, we're all going to have to rethink brand strategy. Right. The basic tenets of it.

1:05:46That maverick. Everyone will go, that maverick. He's such a maverick. But also, I really do think we're at the point, and I don't like class warfare against billionaires. I do think this indicates that power makes you more stupid. It just—everybody needs guardrails. And corporate governance is important. And this isn't going to damage the world, I don't think, but it's clear that he has absolutely nobody around him that he listens to. And I'm now at the point where, okay, when we have five people worth more than the bottom half of America, we probably have gotten out of control in terms of what it means for people with this, what they can do with this kind of money.

1:06:24Anyways, that's my fail. My win is I think every high school senior should be, I don't want to say forced, but I think every history teacher or science teacher should do what my teachers used to do in the fourth and fifth grade when they were terribly hungover. And that is just put a film in front of us for three hours. I do think Oppenheimer, I thought the movie, I just think that is such a difficult story to tell with that kind of insight and that kind of visual. It was just so, I love that it had no CGI. I love that he wasn't wearing tights or a cape. I love that it wasn't a sequel. I love that it isn't a movie franchise.

1:07:00We're not going to have Oppenheimer 7. My 12-year-old is asking me all sorts of questions about war and about arms control. And I think that we have lost a sense because the majority of America now has never been drafted. The majority of America has never known an economy that has really, really been disrupted through hyperinflation. We've never had an existential threat to our physical safety from a competitor. We had 9-11, but I don't think most people in the nation were actually physically worried about their own safety. And I think revisiting history is just so powerful when it's done well.

1:07:43It is. One of the things I think is interesting is, and you will see Barbie, it's actually a very smart movie. People say it's clever. It's really clever. You'll see, it's got a lot of depth to it and very smart. Audiences are just smarter. They know what they like. They've been attracted to intelligence in both these movies. And so that was what I found. And Barbie set off a great discussion, except for Ben Shapiro and I guess Pierce Morgan, about women and men's relationships around plasticity, around corporate power. It was really interesting. There's all kinds of things to chew on in their feminism.

1:08:18And Oppenheimer, obviously, so much stuff about compromise and ethics and science and et cetera. Audiences like smart stuff, and they are smarter than us, the media, or the people who make these movies, honestly, I have to say. I find audiences always tell you exactly what the right thing to do is. I don't know. I think the average American is of average intelligence. I don't know. I'm always surprised. You sound like a politician right now talking about how smart people are. I don't. I think they're smarter. I think they're smarter than you think. And anyway, I'm going to do my words and fails.

1:08:47I can prove they're of average intelligence. All right. Okay. I like them better than many people. My fails, I'm toggling between the Israeli parliament approving this judicial overhaul that hundreds of thousands of people are protesting virulently in the streets, which is what stopped it last time. But they went out and passed it anyway, saying they needed to correct judicial overreach. They don't have a constitution with a written constitution in Israel, so they can't like lean on anything. Just really, Benjamin Netanyahu really needs to move along. But he's passed it despite what is obvious, protests happening very significant, including with the militaries protesting against it.

1:09:29And then, I don't know if the failure is worth with Ron DeSantis pushing the idea that black people benefited, had benefits from slavery. I just don't even know what to say about, and then he had Nazi imagery. He's going to change the name of Florida to X. Talk about something that just does not, if there was ever more reasons to like, to check back when people ask you where you're from and you have to say Florida. Yeah. He wants to, he wants to like whitewash slavery in history classes. And for positive, I do. I was happy to see all the people in the theater. It's actually a really nice community experience.

1:10:06It was nice. I agree. I loved the enthusiasm. And I know you could say Barbie. It's all about, my son was saying this. You are obsessed with Barbie. Just go see it. And then we can have a normal discussion. Anyway, we'll see. I like the community aspect of not just Barbie, but going to the theater. I think the Barbenheimer thing, even though it's exhausting and finally tiresome, eventually is great. I just loved it. I like the whole thing and I don't care if it's commercial and sell tickets. I don't care if it's dressing up and buying plastic dolls. Very lovely little moment in marketing, I think.

1:10:36Anyway, as opposed to the X.com. Anyway, which seems dark and glum and again, smells like Confederacy. Anyway, we wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show. Call 855-51-PIVOT. Scott, I am from Barbie. You are from Oppenheimer. You went on about Oppenheimer just as much as I go on about Barbie. That's not even close. That means you lack self-awareness. Everything for you, we can be talking about AI and you reverse engineer it to Barbie. Oh, you'll see. I didn't even have Barbies when I was a kid because it has a spirit I like.

1:11:11You know, Barbie only, she only orgasms as a G.I. Joe. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I love that. I love that. Our producer, Lara, is just saying untrue Barbie orgasms with other Barbies. Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. You'll see. Anyway, Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Why don't you read us out? Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Taylor Griffin, and Travis Larchuk. Ernie and Jatot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Dubros, Mielsa Verio, and Gaddy McBain. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

1:11:46We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Have a great week, Karen.

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