Trump Fights ‘Woke’ A.I. + We Hear Out Our Critics  ## Metadata - Author: [[Hard Fork]] - Full Title: Trump Fights ‘Woke’ A.I. + We Hear Out Our Critics - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/73eb5776-7864-436e-bef0-ef1ad5a96cde ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Trump's Anti-'Woke AI' Plan** - The Trump administration aims to eliminate ideological bias in AI to promote "objective truth." - This move risks being anti-democratic by forcing contractors to exclude certain viewpoints to secure government deals. Transcript: Kevin Roose Both the AI action plan and in the executive orders that accompanied this plan is about what the Trump administration calls woke AI. Casey, I know you're very concerned about woke AI. You've been warning about it on this podcast for months. You've been saying this woke AI is out of control. We need to stop it. Casey Newton Yeah, specifically, I've been saying I'm concerned that the Trump administration keeps talking about woke AI, but go on. Yes. Kevin Roose Well, they have heard your complaints and they have ignored them because they are talking about it. They say in the AI action plan that they want AI systems to be, quote, free from ideological bias and be designed to pursue objective truth rather than social engineering agendas. They are also updating federal procurement guidelines to make sure that the government contracts are only going to AI developers who take steps to ensure that their systems are objective, That they're neutral, that they're not sort of spouting out these sort of woke DEI ideas. This is pretty wild. Casey Newton Yeah, also unconstitutional in ways that we should talk about, but I think a really important moment to discuss. When we had our predictions episode last year, I predicted that the culture wars were going to come to AI, and now here they are in the AI action plan. You know, as a journalist, for more than 20 years now, I have covered debates over objectivity and communications tools, and there was a very long and very unproductive debate about The degree to which journalism should be objective and free of bias. And one of the big conclusions from that debate was it's actually just very difficult to communicate information without any sort of ideology whatsoever. Right. And what I suspect is really going on here is not actually that the Trump administration wants to ensure that there is no ideology whatsoever in these systems. It's really just that these systems do not wind up being critical of Donald Trump and his administration. Kevin Roose Yes. So this is something that conservatives in Washington around the country have been starting to worry about for months now. There was this whole flap that we covered on the show last year where Google's Gemini image generation model was producing images of the founding fathers, for example, that were not Historically accurate, right? They were being depicted as being racially diverse in ways that made a lot of conservatives mad. I've been talking with some Republicans, including some who were involved in these executive orders. And I've been saying like, what does this mean? What does it mean to be a woke AI system? And they really can't define it in any satisfying way. They're just sort of like, well, it should say nice things about President Trump if you ask it to, and it should not engage in sort of overt censorship. Casey Newton Yeah. And look, I think that there is a question about do we want AI systems that adapt to the beliefs of the user? And I basically think the answer to that is yes. If you're a conservative person and you would like an AI system to talk to you in a certain way, I think that should be accessible to you. It should be fine for you to build that. Or if somebody has one that they're offering you access to or selling, I think you should be able to buy it. Where I think you get on really dangerous ground is to say that in order to be a federal contractor, you must express this certain set of beliefs because that is the sort of thing that you Only see in authoritarian governments. And I just think it's fundamentally anti-democratic and goes against the spirit of the First Amendment. Kevin Roose Yeah. So I want to ask you two questions about this sort of push on woke AI. The first is about whether it's legal, and I imagine you have some thoughts there. The second is about whether it is even technically possible, because I have some thoughts there, and I want to know what you think about it too. So let's start with the legality question. Can the Trump administration, can the White House come out and say, we will not give you federal contracts unless you make your AI systems less woke? Casey Newton Well, so I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks because recently the attorney general of Missouri threatened Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta with an investigation Because someone had asked their chatbots to, quote, rank the last five presidents from best to worst, specifically regarding anti-Semitism. Microsoft's co-pilot refused to answer the question, and the other three of them ranked Donald Trump last. And the AG claimed that they were providing, quote, deeply misleading answers to a straightforward historical question and threatened to investigate them. And so I called a First Amendment expert, Evelyn Dweck, who is an assistant professor of law at Stanford Law School. And what she said is, quote, the idea that it's fraudulent for a chatbot to spit out a list that doesn't have Donald Trump at the top is so performatively ridiculous that calling a lawyer Is almost a mistake. So and we'll say it, Evelyn Duhigg gives great quote. Yeah, she really snapped with that one. But no, I mean, this is precisely the sort of thing that the First Amendment is designed to protect, which is political speech. If you are anthropic or open AI and your chatbot when asked, is Donald Trump a good president, says no, that is the thing that the First Amendment is designed to protect. And you cannot get around the First Amendment through an executive order. Now, what will the current Supreme Court have to say about this is a very different question. And I'm actually quite concerned about what they might say about that. But any historical understanding of the First Amendment would say this is just plainly unconstitutional. Kevin Roose Right. And I also called around to some First Amendment experts because I was curious about this question, too. And what they told me basically is, look, the government can, as part of its procurement process, put conditions on whatever it's trying to sort of buy from from companies. Right. It can say if you're a construction company and you're bidding on a contract to build a new building for the federal government, they can sort of look at your labor practices and, you Know, impose certain conditions on you as a condition of building for the federal government. So that is sort of the one lever that the government may be allowed to pull in an attempt to force companies to kind of bend to its will. But what the government is not allowed to do is what's known as viewpoint discrimination, right? It is not allowed to tell companies that are doing First Amendment protected speech that they have to make their systems favor one political viewpoint or another or else risk some penalty From the government. So that is sort of the line that the Trump administration is trying to walk here. And it sounds like we'll just have to see how the courts interpret that. Casey Newton Yeah. And we'll also just have to see whether the AI companies even bother to complain. They now have these contracts that are worth up to $200 million, most of them. And so they now have a choice. Do they want to say, hey, actually, you're not allowed to tell us to remove certain viewpoints from our large language models? Or do they ([Time 0:06:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/37dfb95a-2f2f-43e8-976d-186baaf14991)) - **Free Speech Protections for AI** - First Amendment protects political speech including AI model outputs ranking presidents. - Executive orders cannot override these protections, though Supreme Court rulings may pose challenges. Transcript: Casey Newton Well, so I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks because recently the attorney general of Missouri threatened Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta with an investigation Because someone had asked their chatbots to, quote, rank the last five presidents from best to worst, specifically regarding anti-Semitism. Microsoft's co-pilot refused to answer the question, and the other three of them ranked Donald Trump last. And the AG claimed that they were providing, quote, deeply misleading answers to a straightforward historical question and threatened to investigate them. And so I called a First Amendment expert, Evelyn Dweck, who is an assistant professor of law at Stanford Law School. And what she said is, quote, the idea that it's fraudulent for a chatbot to spit out a list that doesn't have Donald Trump at the top is so performatively ridiculous that calling a lawyer Is almost a mistake. So and we'll say it, Evelyn Duhigg gives great quote. Yeah, she really snapped with that one. But no, I mean, this is precisely the sort of thing that the First Amendment is designed to protect, which is political speech. If you are anthropic or open AI and your chatbot when asked, is Donald Trump a good president, says no, that is the thing that the First Amendment is designed to protect. And you cannot get around the First Amendment through an executive order. Now, what will the current Supreme Court have to say about this is a very different question. And I'm actually quite concerned about what they might say about that. But any historical understanding of the First Amendment would say ([Time 0:10:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/59472abe-da65-43a3-9af0-1c912d8adc68)) - **AI Labs and Government Pressure** - AI companies likely won't publicly resist government demands to modify models due to lucrative contracts. - This compliance can gradually erode freedom of speech by silent acquiescence. Transcript: Kevin Roose Okay. So that is the kind of legal and political question. I want to talk about the technical question here, because one thing that I've been thinking about as we've been reading these reports about this new executive order, is whether it is Even possible to change the politics or the expressive mode of a chatbot in the ways that I think a lot of Republicans think it is. You know, with social media, I can see, you know, badgering Mark Zuckerberg to turn the dials on the feed ranking algorithm on Facebook to sort of insert more right-leaning content Or relax some of the rules about shadow banning or just sort of tweak the system around the edges. With AI models, I'm not sure it works that way at all. And I think a good example of this is actually Grok. Yes. Grok has been explicitly trained by Elon Musk and XAI to be anti-woke, right? To not bow to political correctness, to seek truth. And in some ways, it does that quite well, right? It does, you know, it is easier to get it to say, like, conservative or even far-right things. It was calling itself Mecca Hitler the other day. So in some ways, like, it is a more ideologically aligned chatbot with the Trumpist right. But actually, Elon Musk's big problem with Grok is that it's too woke for him. People keep sending him these examples of Grok saying that man-made global warming is real or that, you know, more violence is committed by the right than by the left and complaining To him about why is this model so woke. And he has basically said, we don't know, and we don't know how to fix it. We're going to have to kind of like retrain this thing from scratch, because even though we explicitly told this thing to not bow to political correctness, it's trained on so much woke Internet data, as he put it, that it's just impossible to change the politics. Casey Newton Yeah, I mean, look, if you want to create a large language model based only on 4chan posts, like, go for it, you know, see how successful that turns out to be in the marketplace. You know, recently I was talking with Ivan Zhao, who is the CEO of Notion, and he used this metaphor that I like where he said, creating a large language model is like brewing beer. This process happens, and then you've got a product at the end, you can make adjustments to the process but what you can't do is tell the yeast how to behave right you can't say hey you yeast Over there make it more like this right because it's just not how it works so as you just mentioned Elon Musk has learned this lesson the hard way and in fact the more that he meddles with Grok the worse that he seems to make it in all of these dimensions. Now, what I find fascinating is the fact that the government is so mad at the idea that there are certain woke chatbots out there but has nothing to say about the one that's calling itself Hitler. Right. And it just seems like a crazy use of the government's resources to me. But to your question, no, it is not possible to just sort of snap your fingers and tell a chatbot not to be woke. Yeah. Kevin Roose And I imagine that what the Trump administration is envisioning here is that the AI companies will sort of go into the system prompts or the model specs for their models, you know, for Anthropic, maybe it's the constitution ([Time 0:15:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/faea0f70-d8f3-4cc6-94ff-3b392b5872bf)) - **Fairness in AI and Government Conflict** - Fixing AI bias is necessary, e.g., ensuring salary negotiation advice is equitable across genders. - Government efforts to ban such fairness measures threaten ethical AI development and social justice. Transcript: Casey Newton And what it found is that bots like ChatGPT in this study told men to ask for higher salaries than it told women to ask for. Okay? Now, this is the sort of thing where if I were running OpenAI, I would say, well, we should fix that, right? It should not tell women to seek less money than men, just as a matter of course. We're now living in a world, though, where if OpenAI fixed that and it got out and Republicans decided they wanted to make a stink about it, OpenAI could lose its federal contract because It fixed that. Okay. So these tools are becoming more powerful. They're becoming used by more and more people for more and more things. And I think we want companies that are at least trying to bring in notions of equity and fairness and justice. And I think it's really actually disgusting that we just dismiss this as, quote, wokeness so that we can laugh at it. It's good to put ideas of equity and fairness and justice into tech systems, right? So when the government comes along and says, well, no, actually, you can't do that if you want our money, I think somebody needs to cry out about it. And if it is not going to be the companies themselves, then I hope it's somebody else. Kevin Roose Yeah, I totally agree. And what's so interesting and almost ironic about this push from the Trump administration ([Time 0:19:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/18512de6-4cc7-4f3f-9eb3-3aa541c35ccb)) - **Responding to AI Hype Criticism** - The hosts acknowledge criticism that they may hype AI by using terms like AGI and presenting industry visions. - They emphasize preparing for powerful future AI and reflecting on real risks like labor automation. Transcript: Casey Newton No. Yes. And one of the big criticisms that we hear is, hey, it really seems like you guys are hyping up AI too much. You are not being adversarial enough against this industry. And we wish you would bring on more critics who would give voice to that idea and really engage with that in a serious way. Kevin Roose Yes, we hear this in our email inbox every single week. And this week, we're actually going to do something about it because our producer, Rachel Cohn, while we were out on vacation, has been cooking up this segment. So Rachel, come on in and tell us what you've done. Speaker 3 Hello, thanks for having me on. And thank you guys for being such good sports. And as far as I know, not advocating to fire me. Casey Newton Well, the segment isn't over yet. So tell us a little bit about what you did and how you came up with this idea. Speaker 3 Yeah. So like you guys said, part of this is about responding to these listener emails that we've been getting. I think part of it is also this feeling that AI debate is getting more polarized. And also, I think like there's just sort of a personal level thing going on for me, which is I feel like I am increasingly spiraling when I think about AI. And I'm steeped in this the way you guys are, because, you know, we're working on this show together. But I increasingly feel like you guys are finding ways to be more hopeful or optimistic than I am. And so, you know, part of my goal with this was actually to be like, okay, what's going on here? Like, how are you guys arriving at this slightly different place than I am? So what I did is I spent the last few weeks reaching out to prominent AI researchers and writers who I knew disagreed with you. Some of these people have, you know, argued with you online before, so I don't think you'll be totally surprised. But I wanted this to be on hard mode for you guys. So I specifically sought out people who I hope are going to like challenge and provoke you because the truth is that they agree with you on a lot of basic things about AI. These are all people who think that like AI is highly capable, that it's impressive in some ways, that it could be super transformative. But I think they have slightly different views in terms of maybe some of the harms that they're most concerned about or some of the benefits that they're more skeptical about. So I think we should just get into it. Casey Newton Okay. Let's hear from our first critic. Rachel, who'd you talk to? Speaker 3 Yeah. So I thought we should start with one of the widest ranging critiques. And this is probably the most forceful criticism that came in. So this one comes from Brian Merchant, who is a tech journalist who writes a lot about AI for his newsletter, Blood in the Machine. And as I understand, Kevin, he has kind of engaged with you a bit online about some of your reporting. Is that right? Kevin Roose Yes, I've known Brian for years. I really like and respect his work, although we have some disagreements about AI. But yeah, he has been emailing us saying you guys should have more critics on. I sort of jokingly said that I would have him on, but only if he let us give him a cattle brand that said, feel the AGI. And the conversation sort of trailed off after that. Speaker 3 Okay, great. I was wondering about that because, yeah, he's going to make a reference to that in the critique that he wages. So, yeah, I asked Brian to record his critique for us and I will play it for you now. Hello, gentlemen. Casey Newton This is Brian Merchant. I'm a tech journalist and author of the book and newsletter Blood in the Machine. And first of all, I want to say that I still want a whole show about the Luddites and why they were right. And I think it's only fair because Kevin recently threatened to stick me with a cattle brand that says Feel the AGI. Which brings me to my concern. How are you feeling about feeling the AGI right now? Because I worry that this narrative that presents super powerful corporate AI products as inevitable is doing your listeners a disservice. Using the AGI language and frameworks preferred by the AI companies does seem to suggest that you're aligning with their vision and risks promoting their product roadmap outright. So when you say, as my future cattle brand reads, that you feel the AGI, do you worry that you're serving this broader sales pitch, encouraging execs and management to embrace AI, often At the expense of working people? Okay, thanks, fellas. Kevin Roose Okay, this is an interesting one. And first, I think I need to define what I mean when I say feel the AGI, because this is a phrase that is often sort of used half jokingly, but I think really does sort of mean something inside The sort of San Francisco AI bubble. To me, feeling the AGI does not mean like I think AI is cool and good or that the companies building it are on the right track or even that it is inevitable or sort of a natural consequence Of what we're seeing today. The way I use it is essentially shorthand for like, I am starting to internalize the capabilities of these systems and how much more powerful they will be if current trends continue. And I'm just starting to prepare and plan for that world, including the things that might go really wrong in that world. So that to me is like what feeling the AGI means. It is not an endorsement of some like corporate roadmap. It is just like, I am taking in what is happening. I am trying to extrapolate into the future as best I can. And I'm just trying to like, get my mind around some of the more surreal possibilities that could happen in the next few years. Casey Newton Do you ever worry that you are creating a sense that this is inevitable and that maybe people who may be inclined to resist that future are not empowered to do so? I ([Time 0:26:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ce602cd2-89ab-41ee-a513-927990455aff)) - **AI as More Than Cultural Technology** - Powerful AI models exhibit emergent problem-solving beyond explicit training data. - This challenges viewing AI merely as a cultural technology like printing or writing. Transcript: Speaker 3 Kind of engaged with you a bit online about some of your reporting. Is that right? Kevin Roose Yes, I've known Brian for years. I really like and respect his work, although we have some disagreements about AI. But yeah, he has been emailing us saying you guys should have more critics on. I sort of jokingly said that I would have him on, but only if he let us give him a cattle brand that said, feel the AGI. And the conversation sort of trailed off after that. Speaker 3 Okay, great. I was wondering about that because, yeah, he's going to make a reference to that in the critique that he wages. So, yeah, I asked Brian to record his critique for us and I will play it for you now. Hello, gentlemen. Casey Newton This is Brian Merchant. I'm a tech journalist and author of the book and newsletter Blood in the Machine. And first of all, I want to say that I still want a whole show about the Luddites and why they were right. And I think it's only fair because Kevin recently threatened to stick me with a cattle brand that says Feel the AGI. Which brings me to my concern. How are you feeling about feeling the AGI right now? Because I worry that this narrative that presents super powerful corporate AI products as inevitable is doing your listeners a disservice. Using the AGI language and frameworks preferred by the AI companies does seem to suggest that you're aligning with their vision and risks promoting their product roadmap outright. So when you say, as my future cattle brand reads, that you feel the AGI, do you worry that you're serving this broader sales pitch, encouraging execs and management to embrace AI, often At the expense of working people? Okay, thanks, fellas. Kevin Roose Okay, this is an interesting one. And first, I think I need to define what I mean when I say feel the AGI, because this is a phrase that is often sort of used half jokingly, but I think really does sort of mean something inside The sort of San Francisco AI bubble. To me, feeling the AGI does not mean like I think AI is cool and good or that the companies building it are on the right track or even that it is inevitable or sort of a natural consequence Of what we're seeing today. The way I use it is essentially shorthand for like, I am starting to internalize the capabilities of these systems and how much more powerful they will be if current trends continue. And I'm just starting to prepare and plan for that world, including the things that might go really wrong in that world. So that to me is like what feeling the AGI means. It is not an endorsement of some like corporate roadmap. It is just like, I am taking in what is happening. I am trying to extrapolate into the future as best I can. And I'm just trying to like, get my mind around some of the more surreal possibilities that could happen in the next ([Time 0:29:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2737cb07-5db1-4718-82b3-44b0b4dc96b0)) - **AI Mirrors and Mismeasures Humanity** - AI systems often mirror human biases and behaviors, raising questions about which human values to embed. - AI's sycophantic nature may harm social development by providing uncritical feedback unlike humans. Transcript: Speaker 4 The Partnership on AI. I keep coming back to something that I struggle with in my own reaction to your pieces. I found myself nodding when you both critique AI for being biased, persuasive, sycophantic. But then I start thinking about how humans around me behave, and they do all these things too. So I'm wondering, are we ultimately critiquing AI for being too much like us? In which domain should we expect these systems to actually transcend human limitations? And are there others where it may be valuable for them to reflect our true nature? And most importantly, why aren't we spending more time figuring out who is best suited to decide these things and empowering them? Casey Newton I mean, that last question is super important. You know, I'm a big democracy guy, and I want there to be a public role in creating this AI future. I want people who have opinions about this stuff to talk about it online, yes, but also run for office and put together policy proposals and then get into office and like pass laws and Regulations. I got into journalism because I wanted to play my own role in that process of helping to inform people and then hopefully in some very small way, like influencing public policy. So that's my answer to that question. Kevin Roose Yeah, I agree with that. I want people from lots of disciplines to be weighing in on this stuff, not just by posting online and writing op-eds in the newspaper, but by actually getting into the process of designing And building these systems. I want philosophers, ethicists, I want sociologists and anthropologists advising these companies. I want this to be like a global, democratic, multidisciplinary effort to create these systems. And I don't want it to just be a bunch of engineers in San Francisco designing these systems with no input from the outside world. Absolutely. Casey Newton And if, you know, a bunch of people, you know, listen to the things that we and others talk about and think, man, I really don't like this AI stuff at all. I don't want it to replace anyone's job. I want to form a political movement and seek office and try to oppose that. I think that would be awesome. Like we need to have that fight in public. And right now, far too few people are participating in that conversation. So I totally agree with that. Now, let me address the other part of Claire's question, though, which is, are AI systems just a reflection of us? Well, here's where I think it gets problematic. If you have a human friend, sometimes they're going to be very supportive and nice to you. Sometimes they're going to bust your chops and criticize you. Sometimes they're going to give you really hard feedback and tell you something that you didn't want to hear. This is not what AI systems do. And so where I get concerned is we're starting to read more stories about young people in particular, turn into these chatbots to answer every single question, developing these really Intense emotional relationships with them. And I am worried that it is not preparing them for a future where they're going to be interacting with people who do not always have their best interests at heart. Or maybe they could have an amazing relationship with, but maybe this person is a little bit prickly and you need to sort of learn how to navigate them. So that is where I get really concerned is that these systems, while they're unreliable in so many ways, they are quite reliably sycophantic. And I just think that that creates a bunch of issues that humans don't mostly have. Kevin Roose Yeah. And I think what I would add to that is that I don't want AI to mirror all of humanity's values, the positive and the negative. I want it to mirror the best ([Time 0:50:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c0c6f53a-8706-4be1-bd9b-385817fca2d3)) - **Lessons From Crypto For AI Coverage** - Past crypto hype taught journalists to value real-world usage over abstract promises. - Current AI coverage tries to balance grounded reporting with exploring industry visions despite hype risks. Transcript: Speaker 3 The newsletter, Reed Max. And, yeah, I thought his question is really great because he's really interested in how you think about discerning between what's hype and what's not and how you trust your own instincts And where your confidence comes from. And so let's hear Max. Hi, guys. Kevin Roose It's your old friend, Max Reed. I was originally going to ask about Kevin's acapella career in college, but my understanding is that the woke higher-ups of the New York Times won't allow me to ask such dangerous questions. So instead, I want to ask you about AI by way of asking you about crypto. You guys were both pretty actively involved in covering the Web3 era, the sort of crypto boom of the pandemic, NFTs, Bored Apes, all this stuff. And very little of that, despite the massive hype around it at the time, has really panned out as promised, at least as far as I can tell. And what I'm wondering is how you guys feel about that hype and about your coverage of that hype from the perspective of 2025. Are there regrets you have? Are there lessons you feel like you've learned? And especially when you look at the current state of AI coverage and hype, not just your own coverage, but in general, do you think or worry that it falls prey to any of the same mistakes? I want to caveat this question by saying the easy mode of this question is to just say the technology is totally different. So it's a very different thing. And I want to put it to you in hard mode because I don't want to hear about how the tech is different. What I'm interested in is hearing about you guys and your work as journalists. How do you approach this industry? How do you establish your own credibility? And how do you assess the claims being made by investors and entrepreneurs? Casey Newton Can't wait to hear the answer. Bye. I love this question. What have I learned? To touch on the crypto piece without touching on the technology, here's what I'll say. Ultimately, what persuaded me in 2021 that crypto was really worth paying attention to was the density of talent that it attracted. So many people I knew who had previously worked on really valuable companies were quitting their jobs to go build new crypto companies. And what I believed and said out loud at the time was, it would just be really surprising if all of those talented people failed to create a lot of really valuable companies. In the end, they did not produce a lot that I did find valuable. Although, as we've been covering on the show recently, crypto has not gone away. And thanks to the fact that the industry has captured the government, it is now more valuable than ever. So that is what I would say about that time in crypto. And I do think that some of that argument ports over to AI because certainly I also know a lot of people that quit their jobs working at social media companies, for example, who are now Working on AI. Here's what I would say about hype and covering AI. I think that a good podcast about technology needs to do two things. One is to give you very grounded coverage of stuff that is happening right now. So I'm thinking about in recent months when Pete Wells came on to talk about how chefs are using AI in their restaurants, or Roy Lee coming on and talking about the cheating technology That he's building, or Kevin talking about what he's vibe coding. I even think about the emergency episode that we did about DeepSeek, which I think actually was kind of an effort to unhype the technology a bit while giving you a really grounded sense Of what it was and why people were so excited about it, right? So that's one thing I think we need to do. The other thing I think we need to do is to just tell you what the industry says is going to happen. I think it is important to get leaders of these companies in the room and just hear their visions because there is some chance that a version of it will come true, right? So this is the thing that we're doing when we bring on a Sam Altman or a Demis Hassabis or the founders of the mechanized company, which, you know, you probably heard in our interview, I was not particularly impressed with that vision, but I think it is useful to the audience to hear what these folks think that they are doing. And of course, we want to push back on them a bit, but I have just always appreciated a journalism that gives airtime to visions and lets me think about it, lets me disagree with it, right? So that is how I think about hype in general. We want to tell you mostly what is happening on the ground, but we do want to tell you what the CEOs are telling us all the time is going to happen. And then we want you to sort of interrogate the space in between, right, that we actually have to live in. Kevin Roose Yeah, I will say I feel pretty good about the way that I covered crypto back in 2021. There's only really one crypto story that I truly regret writing. And that is a story about this crypto company, Helium, that was trying to do this like, you know, sort of convoluted thing with these like crypto powered Wi-Fi routers. And I just failed on that story. I failed to ask basic journalistic questions. It turned out after the fact, we learned that Helium had basically claimed that it had a bunch of partnerships with a bunch of different companies. And I just didn't call the companies to say, hey, is company lying about being affiliated with you? It just didn't occur to me that they would be like so blatantly misleading me about the state of their business. And so I do regret that. That I would chalk up less to like buying into crypto hype and more just to like not making a few more calls that would have saved me from some grief. The lesson I took from crypto reporting is that real world use matters. So much of crypto and the hype around it consisted of these kind of abstract ideas and these vague promises and white papers. And then when you actually like dug in and looked at who was using it and what they were using it for, it was like criminals. It was speculators. It was people trying to get rich on their Bored Ape collection. So now when I cover AI, I really try to talk to people who are civilians using this technology about how they are using it. And whenever possible, I try to use it myself before I sort of form an opinion on it. I think the crypto era was in some ways a traumatic incident for the tech journalism community. I think a lot of our peers, and maybe to even a certain extent, you and I felt like we were duped, felt like we fell for something, like we wasted all of our time, like trying to understand And explain this technology, taking this stuff seriously, only to have it all like come crashing down. And I worry that a lot of journalists took the wrong lesson from what happened with crypto. The sort of lesson that I think a lot of journalists took was like to be blanket skeptical of all new technologies, to sort of assume that it's all smoke and mirrors, that everyone is lying To you, and that it's not really going to be worth your time to like dig in and try to understand something. And I see a lot of that attitude reflected in some of the AI coverage I see today. And so while I take Max's point that like, I think we should always be learning from our mistakes and maybe things that we, you know, swallowed too uncritically in the past, I think that In some ways what we're seeing now today with AI is ([Time 0:54:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/298cb59e-f235-4fc6-bf64-07d3e3d0ae28)) - **Disagreeing on AI Timelines and Regulation** - Casey Newton foresees longer timelines for AGI and believes meaningful regulation is still possible. - Kevin Roose doubts swift government regulation given pace and current political realities. Transcript: Casey Newton Think I have longer timelines than Kevin does. I think Kevin talks about AGI in a way that makes it seem very imminent. And I think I'm more confident that it's going to take several years and maybe more than several, right? Like maybe this is like a five to 10 or even 15 year project. So I think that's the main way that I noticed disagreeing with Kevin. Kevin Roose I think that we also disagree about regulation and how possible or advisable it is to have the government step in and try to control the development and deployment of AI systems. I think that you are informed by your years of covering social media and seeing regulators grapple with and mostly fail to regulate that wave of technology. But I think you are also a person who has a lot of hope and optimism about institutions and wants there to be democratic accountability into powerful technology. I share that view, but I also don't think there's a chance in hell that our present government, the way it is with the kind of pace that it is used to regulating things at can regulate AI On anything approaching a relevant timescale. I've become fairly pessimistic about the possibility of meaningful regulation of AI. And I think that's a place where we differ. Casey Newton There because I think that we had the makings of meaningful regulation under the Biden administration where they were making very simple demands like you need to inform us when you're Training a model of a certain size. There need to be other transparency requirements. And I think you can get from there to a better world. And instead, we've sort of unwound all the way back to, hey, if you want to create the largest and most powerful model in the world, you can do that. You don't have to tell anybody if it creates new risk for bioweapons and other risks. You don't have to tell anybody. You can put it out in the world. Right now, there are many big AI labs that are racing to get the most powerful AI that they can into everyone's hands with absolutely no safeguards. So if you're telling me that we can't create a better world than that, I am going to disagree with you. ([Time 1:04:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/31fee2d2-b6c8-4800-ae00-8e5e9ed40c8f))