Police and Thieves

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to The Zero Hour. I'm Richard R.J. Eskow, and this is the portion of the program in which we do readings and talk about them a little bit. And this week's reading is from American history. It is the author and historian Joseph J. Ellis. He won the Pulitzer Prize for a book called Founding Brothers. But this book is called After the Revolution. profiles of early American culture. It's really interesting. I really enjoy this book, but I wanted to read you a particular part of this book, a particular moment in American history that I found striking. He's got a chapter on Noah Webster, you know, the dictionary guy, the guy who's Webster's dictionary was the first American dictionary, and really, at one point, I think, in American history and virtually every American home. But Webster fell on hard times at one point in his career. I think the timing was about the year 1790, so quite a while ago, by July of 1793, so there's your answer. Webster was $1,815 in debt, which for the currency of the time was an astronomical amount and was on the verge of selling his law library for $300 in cash. Then quite unexpectedly, came an offer that promised to rescue him from debt and to thrust him into the very center of national affairs. Alexander Hamilton and Rufus King offered a loan of $1,500. I feel a little bit like Dr. Evil here reading that. $1 million. Offered a loan of $1,500 if Webster would move to New York and initiate... publication of a newspaper that would support the policies of the Washington administration. Okay, so we'll pause here for a second to say, so Noah Webster was being offered money to create a newspaper that would support the establishment, the brand new political establishment of a brand new country. I'll continue reading. Although there was very little chance. that Webster would pass up this opportunity. He nonetheless dickered, in other words, he wanted more money. On November 13, 1793, he arrived in New York City with his family. Less than a month later, the first issue of the American Minerva appeared. In addition to several advertisements for his textbooks and readers, the first issue of Minerva carried Webster's Declaration of Editorial Independence. He claimed that his newspaper would, quote, be chased and impartial. It will avoid purely personal attacks and will support the administration, end quote. And reading for the moment. So what do we got here? We've got a guy.

starting what might be considered the first major American media outlet, doing so with a donor money, political money, and asserting a set of values that might be indistinguishable from any major newspaper outlet of the time, except the more overtly right-wing ones, which is to support, as I said, the establishment of the time. to be impartial. Now, bearing in mind that right here, what Webster's doing is contradicting himself. He's saying he'll be impartial, then he's saying he will support the administration. Well, you can't do both. But see, that's my whole point. My point is that the media today claims to be impartial, yet it has a bias, not a democratic or a Republican bias, but an establishment bias. So it's not really impartial when it dismisses Donald Trump's claim. that he would, for example, pull out of Syria as being lunatic talk or his assertions that trade deals are bad for American workers, which they are, is crazy talk. It's not being Democratic or Republican. It's defending the establishment when it then turns around. And mocks Bernie Sanders for proposing Medicare for all. It's defending the establishment that bipartisan establishment. Now, granted, that establishment is virtually out of Republican politics. Now, they're all right-wing extremists. But whenever Trump says something that's not nuts, That's when they attack him, not for all the nuts stuff, but for the one thing that's not nuts, because they are being chased and impartial and supporting the establishment. Now, that's why they're dismissing the left and the ideas of the left for the very same reason. Not to be fair, there was pretty harsh equivalent of social media back then, too, as the book goes on to say Webster found himself described as, quote, pusillanimous, half-begotten, self-dubbed patriot, quote, an incurable lunatic, quote, a deceitful newsmonger, a pedagogue, and a quack. a historian dubbed the 1790s and quote unquote, age of passion. So there we have it. Very, very similar today. Another historian observed that, quote, the political battles of the 790s were grounded upon a complete distrust of one's political impolence. So we're seeing a return to this kind of, this episode of history, but we do not need media to be mouthpieces for the establishment.

This is The Zero Hour with Richard R.J. Eskow, produced by the Weak Radio Network and broadcasting from the banks of the Anacostia directly into the halls of power. And now your host, Richard R.J. Eskow. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the program. There are so many catastrophes facing us now that it's difficult for me to know exactly where to start, but let's start with the one that's on a lot of people's minds nowadays, and that is a eye, the so-called, the misnamed artificial intelligence. As I always say, vinyl is artificial leather, but nobody suggests it's an artificial color. cow. And like leather is to cow, speech is the output of human beings. It is not the essence of human beings. That's a whole other conversation. But human beings are affected by it. That's for sure. Let's start at the micro level. It can apparently contribute to delusional ideas that lead people to do terrible things. Or so the Canadian government is saying after a man named Jesse Van Rootsilar got very involved with his open AI conversations and went on to kill eight people, including five children. Open AI, for its part, says that the account was flagged through its own monitoring systems. They say they use both automated screening. processes and tools and human review to check to see if any conversations are going in a dangerous direction that might lead to violence and that they caught that something was wrong with this person and did not escalate it to law enforcement. Now, this is an interesting question in a couple different directions. One is we don't want private corporations listening in on even our exchanges with technology, whether it be searches or anything else, and then flagging for government ones that they find disturbing or threatening, that's a very dystopian, a kind of Orwellian. scenario. But on the other hand, we also don't want technologies that are so unguarded, unmonitored, unregulated, that they lead people into this kind of delusional activity. So it's a complex and difficult question. Right now, Open AI is in trouble with the Canadian government because they blame the person for what turned out to be a school shooting. and Open AI's failure to respond to that. So the liberal government, that's the Liberal Party government of Canada says is prepared to regulate AI chatbots if tech companies like OpenAI cannot demonstrate that they have safeguards that would protect Canadian users. Now, I've never understood that liberal, small L in this case, and now position that we're going

to regulate you if you don't regulate yourselves. That's basically a large part of how Wall Street regulation works, is that big banks are expected to self-regulate too. Why do we assume that they're going to regulate in our interest, especially when, as is the case with the banks, there's something called regulatory capture where the people who regulate this business. go on to work for this business, leave government, make huge money. Why would they spoil that by blowing the whistle on their future employers, the people who are going to make them rich? But if you want to regulate them, regulate them. If you don't want to regulate them, don't regulate them. But don't expect them to regulate themselves. unless you're prepared for them to deceive you time and time again or pretend to regulate themselves or do a halfway decent job for a few months or a few years until your guard is down and then go after you. So all sorts of repercussions from this horrific school shooting, which took place in Tumblr Ridge, or Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. Now, on other AI fronts, let's talk about. on the macro level, let's say the national level, the controversy with Pete Hegseth, the self-designated secretary of war, and its demands for anthropic, the company, the AI company that presents itself in the marketplace as the more ethical of these organizations. And they're apparently, both parties disagree about what the disagreement is about. But Pete Hegseth says he wants Anthropics AI to be used to automatically shoot down incoming nuclear missiles and that... AI refused. Now, AI, uh, excuse me, Anthropic says for its part that we. don't object to using our AI software to shoot down incoming missiles. We object to the lack of safeguards. We want it to be done according to the law. So there's a little bit of he said he said to this disagreement. But there is also a much broader issue, which we've covered on this show a number of times, which is that we are deferring the... capability to kill to automated machinery. We've discussed this with author Patrick Coburn in terms of his book Kill Chain. We've discussed it with the author of a study by Project Censored on AI and the mock wars that AI is already fighting, sometimes in the same server between two countries, crazy stuff. But basically, Anthropics position is that they do not want its software used.

to kill without a human intervention. Now, I'd like to see a world where we don't kill with or without human intervention, but that appears to be the question whether AI should be given the power to automatically kill on behalf of a nation or a state. There's also been controversy in the case of Anthropic and concern on the case. by anthropic that their technology was used to kidnap the president of Venezuela, Mr. Maduro, which is illegal under international law. So nobody seems to care about international law nowadays except a few of us. But if they do care about it, that's something they might want to protect themselves against. If international law ever gets real influence again, they might find themselves along with U.S. government officials in front of uh a courtroom in the hague in front of a panel of judges in the hague for war crimes so if they're not afraid about of that they should be because it should be a legitimate concern but of course there's the moral issue too should technology be allowed to kill and for that perhaps we'll talk about it at the end of the hour for that i always look to what remains the Bible of military madness and how to view it. And that is the film Dr. Strangelove. Oh, if Dr. Strangelove could see us now. We'll be right back after this.

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And we're back on the Zero Hour. I, as always, a mere host, Richard R.J. Escal. And joining me once again is Sonali Cole Hotcar. Sonali is senior correspondent here at the Zero Hour. She is also host of Rising Up with Sonali. You can find her work at Rising Up with Sonali.com. And she is a prolific columnist and journalist. And as always, I look forward to our conversation. So Sonali, welcome back. Thank you so much, Richard. Good to be with you. Good to be with you. And your latest piece, as we speak, and I should note in this world of rapid news cycles, that we are speaking on Monday, January 26, about a story that is moving at tragically high velocity, that is the ice story. Your latest column for other words, which comes out. which is published at other words.org is headlined, the Senate must not fund ICE. Some headline the money fueling ICE abuses comes directly out of the pockets of working Americans who are already struggling. So some people will see this online or through social media. But the funding deadline is January 30th. The program goes out, I believe that. they add day or two after that so uh some people you know there may be some sort of resolution to that pieces but let's just talk in general about uh funding ice uh the sudden revival of interest uh i'll start with this uh when i think when i sent out a uh an email uh when abolish ice was first the popular slogan on the left with the headline abolish ice i got chastised by people that this was radical uh uh phrasing and ideology that would never enter the political mainstream. And I mean, entering the political mainstream is on my primary goal in life. But at least in segments of the Democratic Party, it seems as if it's beginning to while other segments are resisting it, is that fair? Because your article, your column hints at that. It absolutely is. It's actually quite remarkable how stunning the turnaround is. And it unfortunately speaks to the fact that the public is malleable.

Well, you can think of it either way, right? The public is malleable to imagery, to rhetoric. And so as recently as 2024, there was a thirst in the public because poll after poll showed that people were wanting greater immigration enforcement because they were hearing that from candidate Trump. And Joe Biden as president was not, you know, was also echoing a lot of this. rhetoric and now given everything that ICE has been doing in cities around the country, starting last year, you know, when Los Angeles became the epicenter last June and even really before that, and then moved on city by city, places like Chicago. And of course, now the flashpoint is Minneapolis. We've seen a really sharp. change in how the public views immigration enforcement, particularly ICE, to the point where more Americans now support completely abolishing ICE than those who support preserving. It's not quite a majority. It is a plurality. But that to me is a remarkable thing to entirely abolish a federal agency. But it shouldn't be that shocking because it's, you know, of course, you and I would see ICE and police. forces is the same thing. and don't see either one as being terribly radical to call for an abolishing. However, ICE and its abolishment should be much more accessible than calling, you know, than the actual abolishment of all police because ICE has only been around since 2003. It was formed in the wake of the September 11th attacks. It is not an institution that has existed from time immemorial. It's brand new and it has been given extra powers just in the past couple of years than it's ever had. the majority of its new funding from the so-called big beautiful bill. And it is a supercharged, essentially lawless militia that is going around killing people left, right and center. hurting and maiming people, whether they're documented or undocumented or citizens, whether they're men, whether they're white men or white women or people of color or black men, everybody who stands up in any way to them is facing their wrath, the most recent victim, of course, being the 37-year-old ICU nurse who worked at the VA named Alex Preti. I'm really glad you brought this up, Sonali, because the phrase abolishize, which a lot of centrist Democratic politicians and consultants were sure was going to hurt the Democratic Party. And after a couple election losses, it blamed that phrase, even though Democrats didn't use it. I think the worst that can be said about it is...

and I'm not against the phrase by any means, is that, well, perhaps people didn't fully understand that... Everything, this majority you mentioned in people in 2024 who wanted immigration laws enforced. Well, that was happening before ICE was created. The Department of Homeland Security is this monstrosity put together of 22 different agencies. And the idea that... You know, we can look at it a different way that, you know, you could have the open borders view that says we shouldn't prevent anybody at any time coming into the United States. Well, abolish ICE fits with that. But it also fits with people who think, you know, let's not have this supercharged paramilitary force doing what's essentially... a law enforcement job, you know, for a relatively minor infraction, coming into the country without the proper documentation. I mean, it's not murder. It's not robbery. It's not, it's not felony fraud of the type that bank executives commit with impunity. For example, it's that Trump has committed. That Trump has committed. You know, it's so, but no, you know, so you can embrace. a lot of schools of thought within that phrase. And I think people are beginning to see now that ICE has become a private paramilitary force. I would argue a lot of things leading up to this made it almost inevitable. But whether you do or don't agree with me, I think it's becoming, it's getting to the point where certainly a majority of the party in the House voted in effect to defund ICE or reduce ICE funding. Yeah. Did I get that basically right? Yeah. So let me explain a little bit, right? Like the majority of ICE's brand new sort of supercharging funding came from the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. But what has come up now is in the appropriations bill to simply fund the government for another few months, the issue of giving ICE more money on top of what it is getting from the Big Beautiful Bill came up. And in, you know, not enough House Democrats stood firm. The majority of them did stand firm. and voted against the appropriations bill that would give ICE more funding. But seven House Democrats gave Republicans the necessary kind of cover and numbers to pass it, including, you know, people like Henry Quay are in Texas.

So up until Alex Prettie's killing, it looked like very possibly the Senate was also going to pass this bill because in order to block it, you need 41 votes because there needs to be, it's an appropriations bill in this particular case with a specific technicality of it. 60 votes are needed to pass it out of the Senate. And so if 41 of... 100 senators say no, it would get blocked. Now, Democrats have 41 votes. Were Democrats going to, you know, whip themselves into shape to ensure that they blocked the bill? Until Alex Preti was killed, that was not at all a done deal. And in fact, you know, just going back to the House, like Hakeem Jeffries. essentially did not whip the vote. He could have whipped the vote. There was a whole New York Times article about how he said he was against the ICE appropriations that he would be voting against it, but he would not whip his party's vote to get a unified front against it. And so the same thing was looking likely in the Senate where Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. didn't look like, you know, he was going to try to play both sides. I'm against this, but I'm not going to demand every one of my colleagues joins me. Now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is saying that he will do so. And, you know, it's terrible that Alex Pretty had to be killed in order for Senate Democrats to see this. So if they vote to block this money, it just means that ICE doesn't get the little extra icing. on the cake that it wanted it doesn't mean that ISIS defunded but it should be a first step And for Democrats to take this step, in and of itself, given how milk toast the party is and how spineless it is, it would definitely be a victory. But there needs to be more. You know, you see people like Zohran Mamdani very clearly and unequivocally saying, ICE needs to be abolished. And then you see centrist, like he's in touch with the people. Then you see centrist Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who has his eye on the 2028 presidency, going on Ben Shapiro's show. and, you know, basically defending ICE agents for like, you know, oh, they have a hard job, et cetera. So really, which version, which leader is more likely to be echoing the public opinion? I think it's fairly obvious. We'll be right back after this with more of my conversation with Sonali Cole Hotcar. I'm Richard R.J. Eskow, and you're listening to The Zero Hour.

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back on the zero hour. I'm your host, Richard R.J. Eskow, and we now continue our conversation with Sonali call Hotcar about Zohran Mamdani, and what abolish the police does when it takes over the mayoralty of the country's largest city. You know, ICE had, has already had an astronomical series of increases in its budget. So, to add more to it was it should have been something the Democrats pushed back on more severely. But for Chuck Schumer to be roused from his torpor to take action on it, I think he's really saying something. And I think it's tragic, by the way, especially tragic. that it took the cold-blooded murders of two middle-class white people to raise this. But they are also gratuitous examples of totalitarian violence. And I guess... that in this sense, the Democrats, once again, they're trying, well, this is my sense for you. Tell me if I'm wrong. Their voters have moved way ahead of them on this issue. And once again, they're running to the head of the parade and trying to pretend that they're leading it. I think that they've lost, you mentioned that a plurality of voters wants to either, what was it to defundize or reduce the? To abolish it. I mean, it was. To abolish it. Yeah, absolutely. Vality wants to abolish it, which is really remarkable. And that's nearly 50% of the public. That's 46%, right? And this is the economist UGov poll. This isn't some like data for progress thing, right? 46% of respondents support abolishing ICE, 43 opposed getting rid of it. Like that's remarkable. So we would have to assume that this 46%, I have obviously seen the poll, but that is primarily Democrats, but also some independence. And that now ICE, instead of riding this wave of, you know, exploding funding, at least in the court of public opinion. has to fight for its survival. But who's going to lead this fight? Now, Sonali, by the time, I think between now today, when you and I are speaking and the end of the week, people can speak up. forcefully let their senators know how they feel about this funding and demand that they stop it, depending on what happens, who's going to lead the struggle? One of the things that's striking to me about it. And

to an extent, and certainly inspiring, although disappointing from a political point of view, is that it's being led by people, the people themselves, that you know, you have these spontaneous, organizations of people coming together using signal or whatever app to communicate with one another, monitoring ice at significant personal danger to themselves. You have people organizing protests, again, not without danger by any means. And it seems to me that if we look to the future, no matter how the democrats vote and i hope they vote to to knock this down this is going to have to continue to be a people-led movement the democrats i have the feeling would would uh would cave on this as soon as the heat he was absolutely their instinct is to keep tacking right their instinct is not to say, oh, if this is what the Republicans want, we should want the opposite, right? Like, that's what be, that would be sort of the standard political, like, polarizing behavior. And that's what the Republicans do. We're against this because the Democrats are for it. Even their own policies that they have ordinarily supported in the past, they'll take a stand against them because they see their colleagues in the Democratic Party against Democrats. It's completely the other way around. They're like, if that's what the Republicans want, we should want that too so that their voters will like us better. It's really thirsty. You know, it's a needy, thirsty, clingy approach to politics. And nobody finds that attractive to use a dating analogy, frankly, right? Like you find what are people attracted to? Those who have values, who take a stand, who are strong, who know themselves, who can be relied to have integrity. Where's the integrity here? Biden was the one who was over and over again talking about borders, giving strong rhetoric about border policies, even if his actual... policies on immigration were significantly to the left of Trump. His rhetoric wasn't. And those things have power. So you see this party continuously just failing its voters over and over again. And you're right that, you know, who's going to lead the charge. Now, we are seeing some people. There are a lot of sort of younger Democrats who are taking stands. For example, there has been a piece of legislation introduced in the House. by Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois, you know, comes from a mixed status immigrant family who herself has faced threats of deportation from the Trump administration and Trump's allies. So she is introduced a bill to abolish ICE. Why doesn't, why don't enough House Democrats rally behind that bill to try to push it, right? You know what we're going to be hearing a lot of, Richard, that I'm really kind of worried about this year. We're in a midterm election year.

and Democrats are going to be saying vote for us, vote for us, give us the majorities in both houses of Congress so that we can stand up to Trump. And they're not going to actually try very hard to win over our votes on policies. It's going to be same old, we're not Trump rhetoric. But it would be so easy for them to win Congress if they took stands on bread and butter issues. And I'll just finish with one last thing. There is a finite pot of money. It doesn't mean that ice, when ice gets endless amounts of resources thrown at it, it means that other programs have to be cut in order to fund ice. This is the anti-abol abolitionist math at play here. This is the math of a capitalist police state and an abolitionist framework would say defund ICE fund the things that keep us safe, food stamps, housing. education, et cetera. And so that is such a clear vision of what the Democrats could get behind if they really wanted voters to back them in the midterms. Well, and I can't imagine that the vote against, vote for us and we'll stop Trump tactics going to work very well because that's based on, hey, you know, this guy is a fascist, which they've been saying for 10 years, even when, you know, there was only They keep trying it, though. Like, that's all Gavin Newsom still has. That's all Gavin Newsom keeps offering. Well, here's actual fascism. This is, I'm very, I was very reluctant to see that word used, much less overused. But this has all the hallmarks of fascism. It is classic. And they're not doing anything about it. And then they're going to say, vote for us so that we could stop Trump's fascism. Well, you didn't do it when you could the left. X number of times. Why should we believe you now? To me, it seems like not only are they, the primary issue is moral, of course, but, and then the next issue is saving what's left of, you know, the shreds, tattered shreds of democracy we might have left. But then the third is, look, if you guys want to get reelected, you're going about it the wrong way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if they wanted, they could be laying the groundwork right now for the midterm elections by rallying behind the things that their base wants, right? Rallying behind very clear issues like taxing the rich, abolishing ice, funding the things that actually keep us safe, addressing the cost of living. Look, just like literally follow what, follow Zohran Mamdani's playbook in New York City. He's so clearly showing the way. They all said it would be impossible for him to get universal childcare funded. Guess what he did right in the first week of his, you know, administration. He was able to convince the governor of New York to make money available and people and applications are now open, right? Like, and that's just one thing that he has done. Out the gate, he's like coming through on all his promises. And it's a very clear enactment of the campaign. that he ran on. It was just such a beautiful model and a textbook that he's offering his fellow Democrats and the whole party to mimic and take it all the way to victory in the federal elections. And they're all going to drop the ball because in the end, they all want to play both sides. And their true masters are the corporate.

paymasters, right? Absolutely. And, you know, the other thing it takes to use the Zohran Mamdani playbook is courage, which seems to be in short supply. Yes, I read this wonderful piece in the LA Progressive recently about why so many voters. Zohran Mamdani had the, he was one of the few candidates in the country who won an election by winning. in equal measure, men's votes and women's votes. This is hard to do. And it was because he adopts what one writer analyzed as psychological androgyny, the tough but tender politician who appeals to men and women by being tough and tender at the same time. And I just thought that was so powerful. because it's also authentic. He's not just like trying to be somebody people want him to be. He's being himself and people love that. It's like, and I'll let you go, but it's psychological androgyny. That's fascinating. It reminds me of the very old school belief of what it takes to be a real man, quote of quote, used to be, you know, tough but tender. Used to be, you know, you'll fight to defend your family, but you love your kids, you love your wife, whatever. you know, you're good to animals. You know, this is... You know, not that we're calling for patriarchal, you know, old school. No, no, no, no, but at the same, I know what you're saying. I'm just saying... Real strength lies in love, right? Right. Real strength lies in being, like, expressing and acting out of love. That's... And just to be clear, what I'm saying is that if you're trying to appeal to voters who hold that view... Sure. your traditional voters, it still works. It still works. So there's the way women, it's the way women run lives, right? Tough but tender. If you're so many single moms know exactly how to. How to run a family like that, right? So, but yeah, there's next week, maybe we can talk about Gavin Newsom, who is opposing a California billionaire's wealth tax. I was thinking about that as we talked. The phrase too clever by half. Oh, yes. That always comes to mind when I think about all Gavin. But that will have to wait until. Next week, Sonali Cole Hot Car Excellent column, as always again, it's the Senate Must Not Fund Ice in other words.org. And so look for it. Also let your senators know you're not having it as far as this bill is concerned. And as always, Sonali, thanks for your great work. And thanks for coming on the program. I appreciate it, Richard. Thanks and see you next week.

See you next week. And we'll see you right after this. I'm Richard R.J. Eskow and you're listening to The Zero Hour. Hello, everybody. This is Richard R.J. Eskow from the Zero Hour. You know, there are a lot of myths out there about Social Security, and they're out there for a reason to make you think it's a good idea to slash the benefits you've already earned. Here's the truth. Social Security has its own special source of revenue. Politicians who say it's driving up the deficit are lying. Social Security can't drive up the deficit because it doesn't contribute to the deficit. In fact, it's forbidden by law from contributing to the overall deficit, and it's currently holding more than $2.7 trillion in surplus. That's hardly a deficit. Learn more about Social Security and how you can help expand this vital program at social security works.org.

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back on the Zero Hour. I'm your host, Richard R.J. Escal. I mentioned Dr. Strangelove at the beginning of the hour is the perfect sort of prophetic movie for these AI-driven military times that we live in. And I was telling producer Troy Miller, executive producer Troy Miller, While we were on break about the first time I saw this movie, if you haven't, you absolutely have to see it. It's both extremely on point as a truth-telling exercise and hilariously funny. Some of the humor probably doesn't age well in terms of cultural shifts and better understandings of different cultures, that kind of thing. But it's still very much worth... seeing in a moment that I was thinking of from the movie is the one I'm about to share with you now, which tells us about, well, let me set it up for you. It's the war room of the United States of America, the ultra-secret decision-making center. The Russian ambassador, Soviet ambassador, has been invited in to avoid what it appears to be an unavoidable nuclear war because one captain of a bomber, nuclear bomber, has gone rogue and is going to bomb the Soviet Union. He's trying to explain, the President of the United States, is trying to explain to the Russian ambassador. that the U.S. is trying to stop it. And the Russian ambassador is telling them about the Doomsday machine. The Russians have invented, the Soviets have invented in this story. which is autonomous, as we now say in AI language. No human being can interfere with it. And if it's triggered by anything like a nuclear attack, it automatically, like an AI, decides to explode a bomb that will make the earth uninhabitable for 93. years. And the president of the United States, played by Peter Sellers, and one of many roles in the movie, reacts as follows. I'm afraid I don't understand something, Alexa. Is the Premier threatening to explode this if our planes carry out their attack? No, sir. It is not a thing a sane man would do. The Doomsday machine is designed to trigger itself automatically. But surely you can disarm it somehow? No. It is designed to explode if any attempt is ever made to untrigger it. Automatically. It's an obvious comic trick, Mr. President. We're wasting valuable. Look at the way. They're getting ready to clobbers. So you get the idea. What he's doing is, and let me stop that sound if I can figure out how to do it.

or let's not okay what it's saying is that the only way to create deterrence is to create a machine that can't be stopped if it decides without human intervention to exterminate humanity this is the this is the situation of AI nowadays it's just the threat that AI will determine that a bird or a meteor or a solar flare is an incoming nuclear missile and will trigger a nuclear war. I mean, obviously, Dr. Strangelove is exaggerated for the sake of drama, but at one point the president says, what good is a doomsday weapon if nobody knows it exists, how can it be a nuclear deterrent? And the ambassador says, well, the Premier was going to announce it as a surprise. He loves surprises. The idea, the problem with AI is that the surprise is something we don't even know about, no human knows about. The way that this technology might interpret incoming data is unknown. Now, I'm not being one of these exaggerated AI doomers who says that, They're going to exterminate humanity because they think we're paperclips or whatever, or they'll become more intelligent than humanity. We're not at that point. We don't even know how to get to that point technologically. So I'm not being that kind of doomer. I'm saying if you connect a system that's designed to act on its own with a web of nuclear weapons. that is capable of destroying the entire earth, you are creating a classic Dr. Strange Love like scenario, and we're insane to do it. And anthropic, although it's obviously acting in its own corporate interests too, it would probably be boycotted if it allowed itself to be used for humanity extermination purposes. is right. So let's downscale from the extermination of humanity. The other thing we are hearing about AI, which is that it will put everybody out of work. There was another financial services company report this week, suggesting in this case that 80% of all workers could be out of work by the year 2030. This created a huge stir. However, if you look at it carefully, as I did, they have no evidence to back that up. In fact, they don't even claim to have evidence backing that up. They're just doing a kind of, what if this happened kind of thing, speculative exercise. which got missed by most of the media people picking up on it. The fact is the history of technology tells us that new technology breakthroughs are often expected to lead to massive job losses, but don't. That said, there will be some job losses for sure. They've already begun, not on the kind of scale.

we're talking about, but Square and Cash app will cut 40% of its workforce. That's more than 4,000 jobs based on their expectations for AI, that by Jack Dorsey, who created Twitter. Salesforce is also cutting about 4,000 customer support roles. Pinterest, you know, the online image company is laying off about 15% of its staffs. Other people are saying that the job loss will be more on the managerial level. Bearing in mind, as we say all this, that... At best, since AI is the sum of all human activity, you can expect it to be mediocre when it works properly because mediocre is what average is. And average is what the sum of all humanity is. So whether or not there's a job apocalypse, a lot of people are going to be displaced. A lot of services we've come to depend on are going to be a lot worse. A lot of our environment is going to be damaged by their data centers, on and on and on, which is why I maintain and still maintain that all of this technology, since it's created by us, since we're the source of it and the users of it, we should be... in democratic control of it, making the decisions about the environment, about the jobs, about the quality of service. And that's why I'm on that soapbox and always will be Dr. Strangelove or not. We'll be right back.

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