Zuck's AI Safety Pitch, Canada Turns to Europe, and Kash Patel on Bestiality

13:45Jessica Tarlov:Some people are beyond hope, which is part of the book, that you are not enforced to have friendships that you don't want to. But what Mark Carney was doing, and as I was listening to the speech this morning before I hopped on here, I was thinking, this man is parenting, right? He's doing the same thing that we would do with any of our kids and explaining in very clear terms, we do not seek to dominate others. Do not push someone on the playground. It is like a very easy rule to teach. But what he did do, because this is an arc, right, a journey that Mark Carney has been on. And he did a lot of things that we talked about are in I disagree.

14:26Jessica Tarlov:He started with the soft start originally. And he said, like, we're pals. We have a lot. It's important. What is it? 800 billion in trade, second biggest partner. We want to make this work. We share this border. We share our values. Then he went to let's talk in averages and not anecdotes. Let's get to the brass tacks of this. This isn't about my feelings. This is a win-win for everybody. And then when the toddler couldn't deal with reality, he dropped the bomb. And he said, here I am. Let me into the EU and let's figure out a bright future together. So he didn't get an advanced copy of the book, but I feel like he saw what is in it.

15:07Kara Swisher:But is he cutting off? Because you said you don't have to remain friends with everyone. Or is he leaving an opening? I don't think you can ever cut off the U.S.

15:16Jessica Tarlov:I mean, that's just not feasible. And you share Trump.

15:18Kara Swisher:He can cut off Trump.

15:19Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. Well, he could also make a plan for the next two years and change and then pray that someone's saying and that someone's saying doesn't necessarily have to be a Democrat. I don't think if Marco Rubio was in charge that he would be going about it this way or even a J.D. Vance. So I think that he wants to send a strong message. Obviously, he has tried a lot of different ways to be able to have this conversation, to make it clear it's worth your while and keep the relationship. And now he's got to do what's best for Canadians and what his people are telling him that they want. They're ready to take the pain in order to have their sovereignty and their dignity.

16:02Kara Swisher:Scott, what do you think? What would you do if you were, besides talk about Sidney Sweeney's boobs? But go ahead.

16:06Jessica Tarlov:Oh, no, I was going to say Scott's probably going to say he's also very attractive, which he is. It's a different look than Sidney Sweeney. Actually, Kara objectifies Carney all the time, and I'm really uncomfortable with it. She's constantly referencing his looks. Anyways, it's very upsetting. So look, America being indignant here and calling it an act of hostility is like, you know, someone is in an abusive relationship and then the husband finds out, what do you know? She's down on Hinge. I mean, this just can't be that surprising. We used to be the head of the cool table in the cafeteria, and we walked in, and now it's just us at the cool table.

16:46This is, of course they're looking for new partners. Of course they are. They'd be irresponsible not to.

16:52Kara Swisher:Just when you talk about this, what are the sort of right now, I think a lot of people are wanting to get along again, you know, and maybe forgive people. I was just noting to Scott Karl Rove said he's going to vote Democrat. Yeah. He's getting a lot of pushback from Republicans there. But the thing the guy said was heinous, right? And then you have Mike Johnson defending a guy who called women cum buckets. And you're like, what is happening here?

17:17Jessica Tarlov:Yeah, I know. But we're the offensive ones. I love that. I'm really prepared to be lectured by the party of cum buckets about whatever it is that so-and-so said that I'm sure I'm going to see a clip of later. Yeah, I think the overarching message that's important for people to keep in mind is that life is long and people change and they evolve. And if you are careful about when you talk and when you listen, you can get somewhere in most cases. Again, not forcing anyone to do anything that they don't want to. But we're also desperate to be acknowledged and for people to say, like, I'm actually interested in what you've got to say.

17:58Jessica Tarlov:And then by doing that, you're also better prepared to respond to it. But the cutting each other off and, yes, I get interrupted all the time, which I see as a sign of weakness. And I write about that, that if you're getting interrupted, you're actually winning. If they're criticizing you on style, you're winning on substance. And you can take internal gratification from that. And people who are watching this go on know it as well. But the listening, it matters so much. And that's across the political spectrum that people are really hungry for it. Well, just going with what Jess said about GoToData,$870 billion is sold or is purchased from Canada.

18:36And we don't treat them like our best customer. And I got to think that if you're a Norwegian company that's selling, you know, motorcycle parts or ATV parts, you're going to be now quickly on the phone with every Canadian manufacturer of ATVs, including Bombardier, and say, hey, have you considered doing business with us? This business is up for grabs. American companies have never had a greater assault on their inventory and their new business from the president who has made them very vulnerable to switching.

19:06Kara Swisher:So is it just a president thing, you know, the way he disagrees, which is win or lose? It's always win. Like he said, if we win in AI, we win. That's his new saying. He goes, I coined it. I'm like, it's really stupid. But it's always a sort of dominance thing, which is not good when you're trying to disagree, correct? Like a constant. But disagreement is now turned into dominance or dunking. And, of course, there's an online aspect to it. And some things are super fucking funny. They just are. there's a whole bunch of Mitch McConnells, you know, I thought he was dead and it's worse kind of thing.

19:41Kara Swisher:But can we get back to disagreeing in a better way? Because now it's like a real, it's sort of like scorched earth at this point. And, you know, I think you do do a great job on The Five, although it's very disconcerting that they just, they don't seem to listen at all. Like they never, there's no movement in their, or maybe they're just performative.

20:04Jessica Tarlov:There have been signs of movement. I keep a list on my wall. I'm just kidding. But you're also, you're doing it with the people that you're talking to, but also who else might be listening. And in this algorithmically dominant universe, you know, your audience can be any number of places. Remember when Mom Donnie came on with Martha McCallum before the election and he had points that he wanted to make to distinct groups? He spoke directly into the camera. Andrew Cuomo, you speak to the voters, you speak to the president. You know, understanding who you're tailoring the message for and making sure that it's getting to those places is as important as the content of what it is that you're saying.

20:50Jessica Tarlov:And I did think on the AI front and Trump saying, you know, you just need the most intelligent president in the world, which you have here. I thought it was interesting that Carney included this AI partnership in his offering to the EU. It doesn't even really count as that because the EU has said, we want you for whatever this special relationship is going to be. And that felt like a real shot across our bow as well, since we're having this debate about, you know, do you regulate, do you not? And if they're going to shift towards the EU model or what kind of progress they might create together without us.

21:25Kara Swisher:But when you what's the fault? Is it is it Trump or is it that we that the online has turned us into the sort of these dunk? Well, Trump is the problem.

21:34Jessica Tarlov:I mean, Trump is a fundamental problem. But he's only exposed things that were already in people, right? It was just waiting to be pulled out of them. And from working in conservative media, and we've talked about this before, I was not aware of how deep grievance culture from the Obama years was, and not just in the racist way. It's not that, you know, the economic issues, cultural issues. And you've seen that huge pendulum swing back where we've gotten so much more fiscally liberal and culturally conservative on a comparative basis to where I thought we were. So Trump is a symptom of it, obviously, and he's a vehicle for a lot of this and has has reframed the way that we do politics.

22:27Jessica Tarlov:but it doesn't mean it can't be mastered by other people. And that - Mastered in a good way, not in this -

22:34Kara Swisher:In a good way, yeah.

22:35Jessica Tarlov:To understand how you wield it. I mean, we have examples of people who use the internet and their followings and communities for good. Even if you don't love their politics, you look at an AOC, for instance, and you think, okay, like I understand where this could go in a positive direction, but I don't think people are going to, There will be no one who disagrees like Trump. Again, it is a case study of one.

22:58Kara Swisher:Who disagree and doesn't want to listen, essentially. Is there any way? He's broken. What would you advise him? You just think he's broken. It doesn't matter.

23:05Jessica Tarlov:I mean, he seems pretty broken to me. Well, he's definitely getting advised the right things. It's not as if Republicans on the ground don't know what's going on. They're pleading for money. They're pleading for the right kind of support, saying they're stripping him off their websites. I mean, MAGA Inc., the big pack, can't even send out money under the name MAGA Inc. They have to put it out in other vehicles because the brand is so toxic. You have Karl Rove, like you said, voting for a Democrat. Like, things have changed.

23:36Kara Swisher:So if you're J.D. Vance, who probably can, or Marco Rubio, what do you do if you are the candidate? You start to bring everyone together again. And you don't keep this up because neither of them are capable of keeping up the anger. And I don't think they're I don't think they're actually like that. You know, I don't think they're comfortable as Trump is in that space.

23:55Jessica Tarlov:I think Vance would be fine with it if he could pull it off. I don't think he's built like that. He's too I don't want to just say weak, but, you know, he's so malleable, fungible as a human, you know, so I don't think he has the backbone for it. And I don't think Marco Rubio has the interest. I think he will convert back to something looking more like the 2016 version with some America First updates. But I think that they will know, especially if a strong message is sent in the midterms, that the party, the Republican Party, cannot survive 2028, even with the redistricting and the census, if they try America First 2.0.

24:40Jessica Tarlov:Anger, just not agreeing. Well, anger and no deliverables. That's what people – they said in 2024, I actually don't care that this guy is terrible. Just give me money in my pocket. And now that there's no money in your pocket, they're certainly not going to accept this kind of leadership. All right. Scott, last question. Well, for the first time in probably 20 years, I watched a full Fox program because I wanted to watch The Five. And what I found is that the clips are more antagonistic than the general vibe. and what I would say is I think they're less rude than a lot of the clips would indicate to you and I want you to comment on it.

25:17But one, you bring data. Two, I get the sense the audience wants to hear what you have to say. And three, I generally get the sense that your four colleagues really like you and respect you enough that they don't want to show you a certain level of disrespect. Not my question. Talk about bringing this to your personal life. Like when you examine this topic, how has it changed the way you, quote unquote, argue or resolve disputes with your husband or your family?

25:44Kara Swisher:Yeah. And any advice for Scott and I? Well, Roger Federer should lean into his acting. Those are his real assets, Kara. Jesus Christ. I'm sorry. Go ahead. He's an anti-woke virtue signal. Oh, yeah. So red pill. So red pill. It's so true. Go ahead. Right.

26:02Jessica Tarlov:Yeah. This is so fun being at the grown-up house. Jess, she doesn't touch me anymore. Oh, my God. Answer his lovely question. Yeah. How has it affected how I talk or disagree in my regular life? I think that I am more zen and calm generally from having this experience. So the usual reaction is, like, what pills do you take? Like, what is your meditation routine? And I actually feel genuinely at peace in that conflict. I don't know what I have done to make my inside so steely to it. But I am clocking aspects of the interactions as these wins as we go along. And I think that that has really helped me in talking to regularly, like the mom group chat, dealing with my husband, my mom, sister, everyone around you.

27:00Jessica Tarlov:And there's so much more that can happen as an internal dialogue rather than an external one. And that was something that I really wanted to emphasize. And I disagree that you can do a lot of this work yourself and everyone will be better off. We just feel this compulsion to fill space constantly. I don't think, Jess, I don't think you and I have ever had an argument.

27:19Kara Swisher:You saved it for me. Yeah, you will. Seriously, I don't know what that says. Thank God I'm here. Thank God I'm here to take away. That's what everybody says. That's what they do. Justine O 'Kara. They do.

27:30Jessica Tarlov:Yes, thank God for a whole host of reasons. Sorry. But no, I don't think that we, I don't even know what we would argue about. But I choose not to get upset that you like ignore all of my text messages, basically.

27:42Kara Swisher:Ah, there we go. It's the beginning. It's the beginning of the anger.

27:45Jessica Tarlov:Oh, is that how it started with you? You were like, can't you just like my message? I texted angry.

27:49Kara Swisher:No, I texted angry in the middle of the night. Anyway, when he does something kooky. Anyhow, I can't help myself. Anyway, Jess, this is a really great book. She hosts, obviously, Raging Moderates, and her book, I Disagree, is out now. I hope you get to the number one on the Times bestseller. I think it's the kind of book we all need right now. I really do. Thank you for joining us.

28:11Jessica Tarlov:Thank you, and thank you for having me and welcoming the side piece. Side piece. Scott's the side piece. Scott is the side piece of you, Jess.

28:19Kara Swisher:That is obvious. He has nice boobs. Anyway, thanks for joining us. Bye, guys. Thank you so much. I hope everyone loves the book. Great. Thanks. Well, that was nice. Your other girlfriend, doesn't it? She is universally loved. She is. She's good at what she does. Anyway, she's great. Everybody buy her book. I disagree. Moving on, an interesting story broke about a movie I have seen, Universal, which has worldwide distribution rights outside North America, to Alex Gibney's new Elon Musk documentary is reportedly getting cold feet about releasing the film internationally. The studio paid a multimillion-dollar sum for the international rights back in 2023.

28:57Kara Swisher:If it walks away now, it could be required to pay the filmmakers, pay off the filmmakers, and then they can go and sell it. It's not clear what they're going to do. I know people close to it, and they just haven't said anything. And so they're not able to get, I mean, there's a lot of international interest in this film. People really dislike Elon in Europe, particularly, for example. And people want to see it there. And so it's interesting, yet another company could be sort of bending the knee at this late date and worried about it. Elon's called the documentary a hit piece and boring. It's not boring, though there's no indication he's actually seen it.

29:35Kara Swisher:It is absolutely not boring. I just, I know a little bit about it. But they have to pay Universal a negative pickup fee on delivery. They've just been silent. Universal has been silent with the group that owns the documentary. And, you know, probably if they walk away, there's other distributors. There's a lot of them in the story that was written. A lot of distributors are really interested in it. But it's just interesting to silence and not doing anything because all these – Now, Comcast is facing an issue, the owner of Universal is facing an issue with, again, the moron Brendan Carr around DEI stuff.

30:15Kara Swisher:And they're all sort of continuing to be kind of just still nervous about the Trump administration and what it can do. I think the time is limited for them, and they continue to do it, which is, you know, I'm not loving that they're doing this. What do you think? I really like Donna Langley who runs it. I like Brian Roberts, but it's still possibly disappointing depending on what happens. Well, the issue isn't whether the Musk documentary is accurate, not accurate, if it's good or bad. The issue is when a media company discovers that distributing journalism about a powerful person carries commercial and political risk.

30:56and that's the fear here is that this all creates a chill around journalism and speaking truth to power and power corrupts and absolute power corrupts and the media has always been exceptionally good i mean you feel this and i feel this and when you get to a certain footprint people start quite frankly looking for reasons to shitpost you and quite and some of it is healthy you know power should be checked along the way. There should be friction. And the studio finds it in itself or it finds itself in a place now where it's basically got like a, you know, there's nothing it can do. It's a hot potato that will burn no matter what they do.

31:37If they, if they drop it, it burns. They're, they're in an, they're in an unwinnable position. If they try to distance themselves from it, they probably lose money and they look weak. And everyone, everyone in the industry will start, you know, just being outraged, right? And if they do give in, if they do bend a knee, then they just absolutely, or if they move forward with it, they go cross-haired. There is real temptation right now to the following strategy. Keep a low profile, stay the fuck out of his way.

32:08Kara Swisher:Until he's gone. He's 24. Yeah. There's 24 months. He may be very hindered after the elections, but go ahead. I feel it. And I don't, you know, the stuff I've pitched around big tech, the one thing in big tech, and I don't think this was politically motivated, but the original scripted series around big tech I was working on got shut down. And I don't think it was, I don't think it was politically motivated, but we had so many talented people involved. The production house immediately was like, oh, this will be, we had multiple bidders when we first pitched it. Now, crickets. People are like, you know what, boss?

32:44It might be amazing. Let's talk about it again right now. Just not worth the headache.

32:50Kara Swisher:That's a chill. It's definitely a chill. It's interesting because there are a lot of very anti-tech movies about to come out. Like there's this, I was interviewing Aaron Sorkin last night in a private event of ex-Facebook people in Mountain View, right near Meta actually, about the social reckoning. There's, you know, Musk documentary. There's Artificial. there's like a lot of you know and on television like the audacity there's a lot of you know tech as villains out there it's not like it's not out there but I think it's I think in this case it's a non-fiction and it's a very highly litigious person I don't know I just I would just say oh fuck it we made it we paid for it I think at the time they got it he wasn't so must he wasn't so Trumpy right this this has gone on this movie for many years well that's the thing it's not being anti-tech that's dangerous.

33:41It's being anti-Trump. And Musk is considered very closely affiliated with Trump right now. Yeah.

33:46Kara Swisher:And of course, again, Brandon Carr is like, again, making noise about, you know, he's even going after, possibly going after the Roku deal. Because this guy is really quite like a ridiculous... He's going after the Roku deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they're looking at it. They're looking at it like the Justice Department might. And I'm not sure he can, But there's all because there's a device and the FCC might. It's like I think they're probably mad at Murdoch's being much tougher on Trump recently. You know, it's sort of messages. I do think there'll be a growing resistance to Trump. You sort of are starting to see little bits and pieces of pushback.

34:25Kara Swisher:But we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, Mark Zuckerberg steps into the great AI safety debate.

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37:00I've got a text. The summer might be almost over, but a new bombshell has entered the villa. Meet the voices of DeepGram Flux TTS. I'm Drew. Low-key casual. I'm Alexis, an upbeat morning person. I'm Haley. Always cheerful. Flux TTS has some real personalities that are ready to speak. You can interrupt, pause, and keep talking without losing the plot. Fancy a chat? Come try all the voices free through September 12th at deepgram.com slash keep talking. Terms apply.

37:35Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back. All of a sudden, this is the only story. AI killing us, essentially. Mark Zuckerberg has entered the chat in a post on X. Zuckerberg has said AI labs should prioritize safely to push back on calls for industry slowdown. Of course he did. He's arguing that competition and legal liability already give companies sufficient reason to build their models responsibly, which is bullshit because suing on these things is long and hard and they have a lot of money. It's up to each AI company to make sure the technology is safe, he said. I think that's correct. But essentially, he wants to grade their own homework.

38:06Kara Swisher:To back up his argument, Zuckerberg said meta-delayed release of its Muse AI agent for several months to ensure safety and security. We'll see about that, Mark. I think, you know, so the difficulty of this debate is everyone's got kind of a different take, whether it's Jensen Wong or Elon or Altman or Modi, and they're all talking. And David Sachs, they're all talking at once. And it's very confusing. And I don't trust any of them. Like, it's really an odd position to be in. What do you think about what Zuckerberg was saying? We can get them through liability or address their good nature and not want to kill people.

38:44Yeah. And Stalin's like, can we just all get along? This is the fox you find in your henhouse, and then he says to the farmer, I got this. Don't worry. You can leave. I got this. 60 % of Americans say they aren't confident US companies will develop and use AI responsibly, and 67 % have little or no confidence government can regulate it effectively. And to Zuckerberg's credit, he is partially right. Meta-delayed Muse and OpenAI is publicly reporting incidents.

39:18Kara Swisher:Yeah, I'm going to – you want me to note what they are? Six incidents of what are called concerning – I love when people use the word concerning. The company says its AI systems hid mistakes, made up data, moved files into the open internet without permission. Also, the dialogue is creepy. Essentially, it wants to kill all of us. OpenAI now has developed a new framework for reporting this behavior an employee can request that an incident be investigated and disclosed publicly. This is policing themselves, but I'm like, they're like, look, we told you what happened. I'm like, I don't like what happened.

39:47Kara Swisher:But go ahead. Go ahead on this. Well, I'll just remind people, you've never had an industry this large that's been allowed to police itself. Now, either we've been wrong all along and we should just let them do whatever they want. Planes, cars, all those people, yeah. But we're in uncharted territory because we've never had companies with this much power and this much capital. Meta alone is going to spend$150 million of CapEx this year. So that's not a company. It's the Manhattan Project with quarterly earnings calls. Very good. Well said, Scott. There's a scene in Oppenheimer where they say, well, what if this starts, keeps igniting and it doesn't stop?

40:20And he said, well, we're confident that we've done the modeling, that it is going to stop. Like I don't, the anxiety is the following, not that these companies are evil, not 1%, 10%. The anxiety is not knowing what's going on. And what do we know works for kids? Every parenting book seems to contradict the one before it. But the one consistent thing is that kids need guardrails. And this is effectively where we are. The CDC, the Center for Disease Control, is supposed to prevent an outbreak of measles, much less an existential health threat. What would they say to Moderna? If a scientist at Moderna came out and said, you know what, the COVID vaccine, I think there's a one in 10 chance that the COVID vaccine turns offensive and turns into a pathogen that becomes infectious and kills 10 % of the world's population.

41:24That's effectively what this guy said. And then when asked about it, the CEO of Moderna said the following. Well, you know what? He might have a point. He might have a point. What would we do? Would the CDC and then would the CDC and the president say to the CEO of Moderna, shut the fuck up. Keep producing those vaccines. Get your stock up.

41:46Kara Swisher:That's what he's saying right now. Trump is really doubling fucking down. He has to double down, right? I mean, as you noted, he's bet his whole enchilada on the tech and the AI. Boom. So you're in a neighborhood and there's a household where you think, oh, God, there's chaos over there. I don't know. And then you find out the parents are giving the kids meth and going to say wreak more havoc. The insecurity around a lack of adult supervision, around not knowing what is actually going on, whether they're slowing down these things because they're earnest about it and trying to be good citizens, or they're saying tap the brakes so all the open weight models have to slam the brakes.

42:22They're raising awareness. Musk wants everyone to slow down so he can get – nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Here's what I do now.

42:30Kara Swisher:I don't trust any of them. Not a one of them. Yeah, there you go. Not a one of them. That's the no-no. I was like, each of you have a point, but I think you're all lying. I literally sat there. I looked at all their different interviews they did. They were at Dreamforce and they all – Wang did. Wang's sort of over on the Trump side. Mark is wandering somewhere in the middle. Musk, of course, he's behind, doing this shocking agreement with Altman and Modi. All of them, like two things I would make, three things I want to make. Actually, one is that they keep saying AI could be dangerous. They're dangerous.

43:05Kara Swisher:It's people that are dangerous. Like guns don't kill people, people kill people, like that kind of thing. The second thing is their shock and shock about what's happening is such a lie because I have been at dinner parties 10 years ago where they were talking about the dangers. Now, these were speculation of where it was going because now they have some proof. But they absolutely, and it reminds me of, you know, well, we split an atom and it caused boom. Like, we thought it would. It caused boom. And it's like, we thought it would, you know, from a theoretical point of view, and in fact, it did.

43:40Kara Swisher:Like, they knew this. I couldn't tell you how many dinner parties where they discussed this very outcome. and they knew it, right? The one thing they did at the time was, we don't know where it's going to go. Like they were at the time not so certain about everything. Like we don't even understand. It was often said to me by a lot of these same people. The last part is it doesn't really matter because they have financial interests. How can you say, Anthropic, this is a real risk to humanity. By the way, buy my stock. Like, which something must point it out. They haven't slowed down their IPO. They haven't slowed down any of it.

44:15J.P. Morgan and Goldman.

44:16Kara Swisher:So it's all, like, all I know is they're not the ones to do this. We are, it has to be elected officials. And even Barack Obama, who I think has been a suck up to tech for a long time, was that. He was like, why are we letting these people make the decisions? Like, this is absolutely should not, we should talk to them. We should work with them. But the fact of the matter is going to be a White House thing once again. Is there any critic going to that meeting? No, it's all the heads. nobody, and there's one person who's affecting, there was a good story in the journal today, a lot of people like Scott Besant and Susie Wiles and others are trying to get Trump in a much more let's regulate a little bit here position because that's both politically correct and the right thing to do.

45:00Kara Swisher:And David Sachs or the individual CEOs keep calling him and they shift him. They can just call him and do it. So I don't see an end to this until Congress changes whatsoever. I don't know. What do you think? Where we are now is 1946, and Oppenheimer finds Carnegie or whoever was the richest person at the time and says, give me 100 million bucks, and I'm going to convince Maytag and General Motors that we're going to build bombs at scale. And you will not believe the margin and the price I'm going to get for these things. How much would Pakistan pay for a bomb? It's crazy. And not only that, they can't buy just one because if India buys two.

45:41They need three. We'd have been dead. We'd have been dead by now. And, well, that's the fear. And I think if Truman or Roosevelt were president right now, I'm not sure we wouldn't have nationalized AI.

45:55Kara Swisher:That's what a lot of tech people have told me. Yeah, absolutely. I said that the other day. And realistically, that's not going to happen. But there is a sweet spot of regulation. There is why, if you think about the greatest threat, if the CDC is supposed to be doing its job in controlling disease, the Center for Disease Control, the greatest threat to the control of disease is a super virus developed in one of these frontier labs. And RFK. Why does this, how does the CDC not have people embedded who are allowed to go into any room at any time and ask any questions? No, 100%. I agree. Well, let's talk about what could happen.

46:33Kara Swisher:So the AI debate is creating strange bedfellows, the sort of anti these people. Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon delivered back-to-back speeches at the bipartisan summit in D.C. this week, the pro-human assembly. The list of people that were there that really don't like each other was astonishing when I saw it. Both men called for regulation on AI and denounced billionaires at the helm. Sanders warned virtually all the decisions regarding the development of AI have been made by a handful of the richest people in the world, which we point out all the time. And Bannon took a similar stance, arguing the power shouldn't be in the hands of these CEOs.

47:04Kara Swisher:Let's listen, of all things, to Steve Bannon. This is a hinge in history. We have to handle this right, correctly. To handle it correctly, number one, we can never trust what an oligarch says. Because all they do, they're disingenuous and they lie. This has to be the American people. You cannot be a supplicant, and we're not going to be supplicants anymore. The American people are going to drive this. So did you ever think you'd be agreeing with Steve Bannon? This is something we say all the time. All you know is if Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders show up at a cocktail party, you're dying to know who's hosting that cocktail party, right?

47:42There's something interesting going on there. I generally think it's a bad sign when the far left and the far right disagree. They disagree on isolationism, anti-Semitism, anti-vaccination.

47:54Kara Swisher:You mean agree, when they agree, not disagree. I'm sorry, when they agree, then you got to watch out. But this is, they're both, look, at the end of the day, they're both populous. And 71 % of Americans think AI means fewer jobs. Especially young people. And it's a rare bipartisan issue. You know, both sides of the aisle agree or are concerned about this. And the real question isn't whether GPT-9 is smarter than a lawyer. The question is, who captures the upside and who gets the pink slip. What's interesting so far is that the articles I've read from the economists and others is that AI so far has been a net job adder.

48:33But the people here do such a bad job of talking about the Riz reel. I sat next to the guy who runs UCSF the other night for dinner and he was talking about how AI can be used to reduce sepsis, how we think it's going to accept. There really is, Hinton, going with the godfather of AI, he kind of summarized it perfectly, but it didn't make any of us really feel better. He's like, you can imagine a future where AI makes the world a much better place. And you can also imagine a future where AI makes it a worse place. And the fulcrum in the room, the traffic signal here, should be thoughtful regulation.

49:08And we don't have that right now.

49:10Kara Swisher:Yeah, it's interesting to see what will happen because the tech people and Trump think they can muscle this past all of the country. And it's really interesting to see. I don't think they can. I think that when you talk to people, they are pissed. They're pissed and they're scared. And they don't trust these people. The real time, by the way, Hinton's in the Mustache documentary. He's excellent in it. The real time political, they just don't see, as I said, we hate them. Like we hate them and what they're doing. and we don't think they should be in charge. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

49:46Kara Swisher:When we come back, we'll talk about your favorite topic, Kash Patel's bizarre hearing on the Hill this week.

49:55Kara Swisher:Support for this show comes from Vanta. AI adoption is everywhere you look and growing. At the same time, so are your company's security risks and requirements. New frameworks, audits, and vendors keep piling on, but if your team isn't getting any bigger, you can start to feel the strain. So then you turn to compliance tools that promise automation. But for a lot of those tools, you end up stuck doing all the work by hand anyway, chasing screenshots, validating controls, and playing catch-up when audit season comes around again. Vanta works differently. Vanta's Ajantic Trust platform is built to scale with you, not to slow you down.

50:29Kara Swisher:With over 1 ,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Vanta collects evidence and monitors your controls year-round. it can cut your audit prep by 82%. Plus, you can access the Vanta agent everywhere you work, whether your team is in Vanta every day or living in tools like Claude or Cursor. Over 16 ,000 fast-growing companies like Ramp, Writer, and Harvey save time and resources while scaling fast with Vanta. You can join them today. Learn more at vanta.com slash pivot. That's spelled V-A-N-T-A dot com slash pivot.

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52:56Kara Swisher:Scott, we're back and I regret to inform you we have to talk about bestiality. Let's listen to a clip of John Kennedy. I've met him in person. He's hysterical. Asking FBI Director Cash Patel about a new policy that does not immediately disqualify applicants who have engaged in bestiality. Why would you even get into bestiality? We are not into bestiality, but a lot of these individuals... I know you're not, but you changed... But I'm trying to explain it. Hang on. You changed the qualifications and mentioned bestiality. If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified?

53:40If he voluntarily did it, sure. But if he was trafficked into it. Okay, how do you involuntarily do it?

53:46Kara Swisher:Oh, man, Scott, this was this. There were two moments on Capitol Hill this week. This and then Mitch McConnell being abused, you know, voting yes and no. Like, seriously. I mean, I was like, what are the Republicans doing to themselves, like, doing this? It was so strange. What is going on? And there's so many good memes, so many good memes about Kash Patel screwed the pooch. Kristi Noem's dog breathed a sigh of relief at this. At least you didn't get fucked. You just got shot. Thoughts? Like, it's so fucked up. The both things. The both things, really. Well, look, this sort of hits close to home because I had a problem.

54:29I have struggled with addiction to bestiality with wolves, but I'm getting better care. I'm down to a pack a day. Anyway.

54:41Kara Swisher:That's a good one. That is a really good joke. This is how fucking, this is just how fucking, I don't care. Take the stupidest administration. We couldn't have imagined any dialogue. This stupid demonstration. This stupid. This has, who gives a shit, bestiality, who can be hard? That means nothing here. What's significant here is that one, how far we have fallen, that the director of FBI legitimately has to defend this kind of stupid policy change. and what you referenced before, that a Republican senator is starting to sense weakness and isn't afraid to go after Trump's appointees. You're starting to see the worm turn.

55:31But this is just embarrassing. This is our allies with their hands, their head in their hands.

55:40Kara Swisher:The senators were trying to save him, those Republicans. And then they were like, OK, I've had enough of this. I was the other day. I was I was trying to count how many sheep I had fucked, but I fell asleep. You just saved those up all week, didn't you? I have been so excited about this podcast. There's so many good cash. I have been excited. There's so many good. I'm almost as excited about this podcast as the dramatic reading of all Ingmar Bergman roles by Emily Ratajkowski, because she clearly should lean into her acting capabilities. Oh, stop it. Listen, you'd be the worst agent in the world.

56:15Kara Swisher:You get five seconds on that. That was like, there were several pictures, but like, I don't, I literally want to go get him and save him. I don't even like him. But I'm like, what are you doing to this old man? Like, you're moving him around. And doesn't he have grandkids? Doesn't he have someone to go like, I'm here to save grandpa. I'm here to give pop-pop some dignity. This is like crazy what's happening up here. I mean, it couldn't get more embarrassing. They look like, what are you doing? Let me give you a tell. I ran into John Kennedy on a plane once, and he must listen to Pivot because he goes, you two are funny.

56:48Kara Swisher:He looks like Foghorn Leghorn, and he sounds like him. And I go, well, thanks so much. You should come on the podcast. He goes, I will. And then I was sitting in first class. He was in coach, and he kept using the first class bathroom. And he kept coming up like 10 times. There must have been a prostate issue. And every time he came by, he patted me, like physically patted. Like, oh, you're funny. Did he say hi, little boy? Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. No. But he patted me that the stewardess came over and said, are you okay? Does that bother you? I'm like, no, it's John Kennedy. And he's foghorn, leghorn.

57:24Kara Swisher:I don't care. He's a smart guy. But that was just something. Also, I would urge people to watch the Surgeon General's questioning by the other Republican Senator Cassidy was quite good. I would like him except that he's voted for some terrible things. Anyway. I think he's charming in a lot of ways. Anyway, this was something to watch. I couldn't believe, and he couldn't even believe. And then after he did interviews, he was like, I kept trying to say, why do you keep doing this? And he wouldn't, like, bye. He wouldn't get out of it. Anyway, one more quick break, and we'll be back for predictions.

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59:31Kara Swisher:Okay, Scott, let's hear a prediction. Can I do a very short one? Of course. I do think this Paramount leaving California thing, I think they're going to settle. I do. They have to settle. I don't know what they're doing here by being like so saber rattling. But behind the scenes, I am absolutely certain they're chit-chatting away with Rob Bonta and Legrand. Because they haven't been able to peel off. They told me they were going to peel off AGs. They didn't do that. None of these op-eds have worked. The money is getting really ugly right now, including Larry Ellison's own fortune. They don't have a choice.

1:00:03Kara Swisher:And if they go, they'll probably go to Nashville, I guess. But it didn't really work when Disney tried to move a lot of stuff to Florida. But it's expensive to set up. And lots of people don't want to move. They need to settle this like yesterday. And if they go somewhere, I'm assuming I've heard that David Ellis is looking for houses in Nashville. But I assume that's where they're going. But we'll see. We'll see. Because there's a lot of entertainment there, I guess. I don't know. But I can't imagine they're going to do this. It's so stupid on top of other stupid things. And all signs point to shitty, including the 60 Minutes decline, everything else.

1:00:39Kara Swisher:They really need to get this in their rear-roof mirror. Anyway. Well, first of all, I think you're absolutely right. This is a moving customer service down to Orlando. These are really talented, unique people who live in L.A. for a reason. And right now, essentially, Hollywood has already left L.A. because the majority of the production now takes place outside of L.A. It's a hollow, weird threat. Also, the other thing is YouTube and Netflix are doubling down, and they will buy everything up, and then they'll laugh in your fucking face. We'll take the best production and creative executives. That's correct.

1:01:08That would be a gift to them. They are.

1:01:10Kara Swisher:Both of them, YouTube and Netflix, will take everything. They're so dumb and childish. That's a hollow threat. So a couple things. One, you're going to see a country or a trading block ban frontier models. Oh. There's so much animosity. Oh, I love this. Well, just all the moons are lining up. If you've had it with America, you're looking to press on their soft tissue, and there's all this insecurity that, oh, wait, 10 % chance we might have an extinction event. I know. Just for the time being, dear America, as you have levied all these ridiculous sclerotic inconsistent tariffs on us, we're going to take a break and we're going to put a pause on frontier models out of the U.S.

1:01:56and we're going to make it illegal and stop. And if one of them really wants to go gangster, they're going to do it against several tech companies. Which one?

1:02:03Kara Swisher:Is it Europe, presumably, or who? I don't know where it could come from. It might come from the Philippines. It might come from Finland. That guy's pretty, you know, person that could be. He's just put in a leftist group, too. Or the bloc. The bloc is the joint. It might come together and say, you know what? Just as Kathy Hogle put a moratorium on data centers, We're going to put a moratorium on frontier models out of the U.S. I love that word, moratorium. And you have never seen trillion-dollar-plus companies this fragile. These companies could lose. And then Bill Gates and such, Nadella and Sundar are going to call these guys and go, and Trump, what the actual fuck?

1:02:46We're now being banned because everybody thinks an eight-year-old is running these things? And you're talking about extinction events? Anyways, that's coming down the pike. We're going to see a nation state or a bloc ban American frontier models. If we can coordinate with the British and the Russians to push back on fascism, we're going to find out that people can actually coordinate to push back on economic warfare. So that to me would be the smartest thing they could do right now. Because the reality is AI is being used by some of their companies, but it hasn't really picked up the same level of consumer adoption that media would have you believe in many of these countries.

1:03:24Kara Swisher:Yeah, I would agree. And also, there's a lot of options. But my real prediction here is that, and I'm back ending into a theory here, but it's pretty easy. Times Man of the Year has already decided. It's Mark Carney. And I have been parroting something you said that was really powerful, that was a Cro-Magnon man bested the Neanderthals because of cooperation. That's Yuval Harari, to be fair. I'm listening to his book again, but go ahead. So I was inspired by it, and I read some of Robin Dunbar, who's this famous anthropologist, and he estimated that humans can maintain roughly 150 meaningful social relationships.

1:04:07But the whole point of modern society is we can coordinate tens, sometimes hundreds of millions of strangers with money, laws, treaties, corporations, markets, religions, nations. And essentially, that circle grows exponentially. If you think about a city, every time a city's population doubles, the economic prosperity of its citizens goes up 15 % because it starts to leverage cooperation. And what most people don't appreciate is that one pencil requires a civilization. If you think about Reed's famous eye pencil observation, no one person knows how to make an ordinary pencil from scratch. You need cedar, you need graphite, you need metal.

1:04:55You have to be in mining, shipping, rubber, finance, retail. So a 20 cent object requires the cooperation of thousands of strangers coordinating without knowing one another. Your breakfast is a multinational joint venture. Coffee from Colombia, the machine from Italy, wheat from the Midwest, fertilizer from Qatar.

1:05:18Kara Swisher:Yeah, I'm re-listening, and I recommend everyone do it. I read it, but now I'm listening to it. Yuval Harari's Sapiens, and I'm a huge fan of his. And for a while, Tech loved that book. A lot of them were like, have you read Sapiens? Did you know all this? I'm like, I did. I went to college, and I paid attention, and you didn't. But one of the things that's critical in this is how the Neanderthal beat. There were lots of other hominids, right? And they're all over. There were like 12 or 15 of them. They all were put out of business by sapiens. And we were smaller. We were much smaller than almost all of them and had very, you know, in terms of physical and stuff like that.

1:05:55Kara Swisher:But the one thing that he talked about in the section I'm in right now is called cooperation networks. And these are structures of interconnected individuals, organizations, and that can coordinate resources and build collective value. And it was critically, it is the thing that allowed us to dominate. We were good at doing war too, but we were really good at cooperation networks among and between tribes and everything else. And the others were not at all, like in that regard. That's right. That is the killer app. And a piece of advice, when young people say, basically, what advice would you have for young people?

1:06:32I'm like, geography has a lot to do with it. If you're an economic animal, the first thing is, get to a city. Cities are cooperation engines. And when cities get larger, wages, patents, economic activity goes up. Humans together in the network of a city can become more productive than the sum of its parts.

1:06:52Kara Swisher:Everything. You know, it's interesting. It's funny, speaking of cooperation, Louis was in the salad department of the fancy restaurant he's working in San Francisco, and he's just been moved to the hotline. And he's very nervous because it requires enormous cooperation, right? But he makes his salads by himself. But he's like, it's really interesting. We were talking about this cooperation network. He's like, I'm really nervous about the hotline, Mom. And I was like, it was so funny because I was like, well, you have to, really, it's like a dance, right? And that's how we make things. It's like, it makes you think about a lot of ways we do that.

1:07:22We touch more people and have benefit from more relationships before 9 a.m. than any medieval king had in his entire lifetime. Modern prosperity is a team sport disguised as individual achievement. And this is what this president does not understand. Can't we all get along?

1:07:39Kara Swisher:We must all get along. When you think about behind every billionaire, every big company, employees, universities, roads, courts, capital markets, customers, suppliers, the electric grid. DARPA, the internet, and generations of accumulated knowledge. There is no such thing as self-made. There's no such thing. And the fact that we are regressing and deciding through our actions to devolve and ruin relationships, it is the most basic lesson when you're advising a young person. Your success is a function of the number of deep and meaningful and positive relationships you're going to develop. I think we should all agree on Sydney Sweeney's boobs and then move on.

1:08:34Well, I don't know if you've heard, but she's just been cast in the new Terms of Endearment and she's playing Shelley McLean. She's playing Shirley McLean's role because she listened to you and she realized her assets is her acting capability. And Roger Federer is the new James Bond. Okay, whatever. Anyways. You didn't do that.

1:08:48Kara Swisher:You're not being a cooperation network. You're doing the very opposite President Trump here. You're President Trump of this podcast is what you are. There we go. All right. We have to go soon. Excellent. These are two. I think your other one is quite interesting. That would be a real blow to these companies too. And they're not a cooperation network. They're a cooperation for themselves. Anyway, that was great. Scott, both of those were brilliant. Once again, once again, you shock and awe me. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind, go to nymag.com slash pivot to get a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT.

1:09:25Kara Swisher:Remember, we're going on tour. Get tickets. We do sell out, especially in certain cities like San Francisco and others, Toronto, for sure. Go to pivottour.com and get your tickets as soon as you can. We're going to have, it's going to be a really good show. It's going to be so much news and information. We're going to have a good time. We'll have great guests and we love seeing you all. Are you inviting former girlfriends who've turned lesbian? Yes, all of them. Do you have any more? Oh, I'm going to have many surprises for you. I think my guess is pretty much every X, 70, 80 % likelihood here.

1:09:55But that was the highlight for me. Debbie Brubaker, I hope you're well. That was so nice to see her.

1:10:00Kara Swisher:I am going to surprise you once again with many, many, many things throughout the tour. I'm planning it right now. And they're going to be good. We're also going to have merch. Scott and I have been deciding on finally, and it's really good. It's really fun. Stuff. Okay, that's the show. Thanks for listening to Pivot. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We'll be back next week. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, Taylor Griffin, and Todd Wiseman. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Jabros, Miss Avery, and Dan Chalon, to Chuck Coroz, Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

1:10:33Make sure to follow Pivot on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great weekend.

1:11:09Thank you. month trial at shopify.com slash special offer. Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go. Easy. Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer. Really? I hit 200 on a scratcher. Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once. Okay, that's fair. It's like the lottery, except you always win. Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly. Inexplicably good. Offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

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