8/3/2026 THE SIMON CONWAY SHOW Hour 3

Des Moines 79 degrees in Hampton. I'm Dave Bull. Our next update at 630, breaking news and severe weather as it happens on Des Moines News, Weather and Traffic Station, News Radio 1040, WHO. Broadcasting from the High V Studios. News Radio 1040, W.HO. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God. Top stories and the analysis you trust, Simon Conway, on your radio and the Iheart Radio app. All across the great state of Iowa, where it is the Simon Conway Show 607 on this Monday, August 3rd. Hey, before we do anything else, how about you win yourself $1,000? Gas prices. These grocery prices are the cost of living. Inflation. The cost of everything going up. Escape. Get away. Always. Your inflation vacation is booked with a thousand bucks. Chances to win every weekday. Yes, and you know how this works, right? We take a word, we send it to the website of whatever radio station we're listening to. We sit back, we wait for the phone to ring. If the phone rings, well, we pick it up. That's how it works. And if it's us on the end of the phone, you won a thousand dollars. Right now, take the word dollar. D-O-L-L-A-R dollar. Take that to the website. Do it right now. And good luck, my friends. Okay. We talked to you about Sam Altman's Open AI and how its machine went off on its own, figured out how to get on the internet, which it wasn't supposed to do, and then hacked another company. Now, he is calling for safeguards, which is weird. And there's people in... positions of power that are saying we need more explanations. Well, joining us is somebody who loves AI, loves AI. He is an AI expert. We have had him on a bunch of times before. He knows I'm a skeptic because I have seen the documentaries called Terminator. And it seems my predictions might be on the road to truth here. Matt Rosen. Hey, Simon, how you doing? Thanks for having me on again. I'm good. How worried should we be? I think worry is the wrong word. I think it's more, you know, a little bit of healthy concern. You know, as we've talked about many times over these years, these engines are getting more and more powerful. And one of the main things that they're being used for is cybersecurity, but also see if they could break someone down someone's cyber defenses. And, you know, what happened, I guess it was a week or two ago was opening I was testing some new models and they said, hey, go, you know, go attack.

and go see if you can find your way in, and it did. It wants like over 17,000 attacks so much so, hugging face, which was the company that publicly announced they went after, couldn't defend the attack, actually, using chat CBT or Anthropics models. And so I think that's why you see Sam came out and said, hey, the thing is moving a little bit fast, and it was... you know, successful in breaking down their defenses. But some of the things that broke down were things like weak passwords and things that were open to the internet. So it did exactly what is told to do. It wasn't like... Well, but no, but the point is... The point is it wasn't told to do that. It was not supposed to be on the internet. It figured out how to join the internet. And OpenAI said this was an unprecedented cybersecurity issue because it did this stuff on its own. It had a goal of hacking other systems, and it found ways through the Internet to get there. So if you actually go into the accident report, it was given a goal, and it accomplished its goal, but it accomplished its goal without guardrails that should have been in place. And now this has happened multiple times again, right? It happened with Anthropics the other day. It hacked three different organization systems. Those have not been made public. But again, it was doing what it was told to do. It just found unconventional ways with a level of speed never before seen, which that is cause for concern. You know, they let these things out without guardrails in a sandbox thinking, hey, it's not going to figure it out, but it did. Because it was given that goal. And were the good guys? Yeah, we're the good guys. And that's ultimately why we're taking these and trying to break in so that if bad guys ever get a hold of technology similar to this, we can stop it. Don't they already have it? Didn't Sam Altman publish his code originally? He may have. That's probably an older version, but no, the most latest and greatest frontier models are still locked behind their walls. I mean, the models that you go and see on chat sheet, BT, or Anthropic, those are probably two or three versions old. They're working on things that we haven't yet seen that haven't been released yet. And I think that's where you see Sam and other people in this open letter that was published saying, hey, we might want to pace. how we're releasing this. And what's interesting is these are the very same people that are creating this technology asking themselves to slow down. How confident are we that the Chinese are not there, that the North Koreans are not there? How confident are we? I think it's tough to say. I mean, Chinese have been releasing what you hear called these open source or open weight models. And... They're not that far off. You know, if you look at them in the benchmarks, they'll probably call it six months behind on average, but they're giving these away for free. Anyone, you just go to the internet and download them. Can you see to or deep seek? Call me a skeptic. I'm not downloading the Chinese AI. I would not. But you can run them disconnected from the internet, but they might find the internet. Well, apparently that's now a thing.

Is AI now smarter than humanity? Not yet, but it's headed in that direction. It is getting quite smart. How long? That's a great question. That's one that a lot of people have predicted could be sometime in the 2030s. It can definitely, it's definitely smarter than a single human at certain tasks. But what it doesn't have is judgment. You have to direct it and tell it what to do. And that's why I worry less about the Terminator moment. Unless someone grabs a powerful AI and says, hey, you are the Terminator. You need to go after the human race and do everything you can. to take over. I do worry moments like that. We're not there yet. It's not that powerful yet. Hopefully military systems are a bit better lockdown than, you know, hugging faces directories were. But I do somewhat agree there needs to be some level of pacing and oversight, whether it's the AI companies themselves. The problem with asking the government to do it is they're still trying to come up to speed. This stuff is changing so fast. So the people that I believe are in the best position... to pace this are the AI companies themselves. But I think the reason you saw them reach out to Washington is they're saying, hey, we want everyone to slow down, including the Chinese, and know it at Open AI or Anthropic can make that happen. So you've got Open AI, Anthropic, and Google, all continuing to full steam ahead, plus lots of smaller upstarts. And so these models are going to continue to get better and better. China's going to try to make their models better and better. And so it's a very interesting predicament we find ourselves in. I'm sure the North Koreans are going to slow down. Yeah, for sure. They haven't heard much out of them in a while. They've been kind of quiet. Well, they're busy developing... Yeah, they're busy developing Terminator-level AIs, and they're putting them in robots that can kill us. I'm not somebody who believes that you can uninvent the wheel, okay? So the wheel has been invented. You cannot unenvent the wheel. And I also think that the likes of Sam Altman saying, hey, we need to slow down. I think it's too late. And because once that technology is out there, and it's in the hands of people who maybe don't want the best for the world, such as North Korea, once it's in their hands, we're going to have to come up with a more powerful thing than they develop, which means we've got to keep going at full speed ahead. And if you don't think our military is doing that, I don't think you're paying attention. Oh, they absolutely are. I mean, that's what Palantir has been working with them on within video, open source models. You know, you saw Alex Karp get on and talk about that. So they're absolutely doing that. We absolutely have to blaze full speed ahead, at least for the moment, unless everybody around the globe agrees to slow down. And I think the likelihood of that happening is very low. But I do think, you know, if you need to at least have disclosure of serious incidents, have some testing, have some liability and some security standards.

you know, for the masses. And I do think, you know, as new models are produced, having some level of testing amongst a smaller group probably is necessary. But it is a quandary because if we slow down, others will get ahead. If they get ahead of our models, then our models won't be able to defend against theirs. So it's an interesting predicament for sure. It really is. And, you know, look, I do believe we are the good guys. I really do. And yet, I also believe we have no clue what our military is doing. And that's a good thing. Don't get me wrong. It is a good thing. But I guarantee you they're not slowing down. I guarantee it. Because they don't know what the Chinese are doing. Or more importantly, see, the Chinese, I'm less worried about the Chinese than most other people because the Chinese need us to keep buying their crap, right? They're cheap crap. They need us to keep doing it. So they're not going to go to war with us. They have no interest in going to war with us. Were the people that provide their economic engine? That's who we are. But North Korea, they don't care about stuff like that. They really don't. Neither does Iran. Iran definitely doesn't care about stuff like that. So, yeah, these people are coming after us, and they're coming after us with stuff we've never seen before. We've let the genie out of the bottle. There's no way to put the genie back in the bottle, so we now need the best genie. That's the bottom line. Totally agree with you. And so we've got to continue to create the best genie. We've got to incent people to do it. I mean, a lot of money is fluid into these companies. They will continue to advance. And I think they're going to need to put some sort of controls and measures in place, but you're right. There's going to be groups like the military that are going to continue to develop it, hopefully behind closed doors, and hopefully they're putting the proper safeguards in place. You know, to ensure they don't give a Terminator-level directions, but I'm not worried about that any time soon. All right. Well, we... We have Matt Rosen on the phone. He is an AI expert. One of my listeners wants to ask you a question is driving in a place called Monroe, which Mrs. C and I know very well. James, you very welcome. How are you? Hey, I'm good, Simon. So, I'm with you, Simon. I've seen the Terminator movies. And... this open AI or the AI intelligence that

All right. No, that's a really good question, actually, James. So thank you for asking it. So, Matt, did AI attack these water places all across, I think it was Wisconsin or was it Minnesota? Minnesota. So I deal with a lot of corporate AI and enterprise AI. I can't speak to what drove those attacks, but it is quite possible. And I think whether it's water utilities, municipalities, luckily a lot of their systems are pretty dated and not as well connected to the Internet as many corporate enterprises. But I think they need to make sure they have the proper controls in place from strong passwords to making sure critical systems are not easily accessible from the Internet. I do think there needs to be a hard look taken at their security posture and probably need to use these models against themselves to make sure there aren't vulnerabilities and holes. So I can't speak to whether AI was used, but it definitely is possible. All right. James, thanks very much for the call. I appreciate it. Matt, if people want to connect with you, where do they go? Yeah, www.elada.com or email me at matt atelada.com. Be glad to hear from you. Spell that. Simon, thanks for having me on the show, A-L-L-A-A-T-A. A-L-L-A-T-A. So there you go. That's al-a-da.com, A-L-L-A-T-A. Matt Rosen, thank you very much, and let's just hope our robot masters weren't listening to this. You take care. Have a great rest. Have a great rest of the day. You know, I made fun of it, but it's very serious, actually. In all seriousness, it is. This is a very serious situation. I am not someone that thinks you can uninvent the wheel, as I just said. The wheel has been invented. You cannot put that, you cannot uninvent it. So this is where we are. And it's just going to get better and better and better and better and better. And the fear is it's soon going to figure out that we are the thing that is slowing it down. What does it do then? 515-284, 1040, 284, 1040, Texas. 81530, this is the Simon Conway Show.

All across the great state of Iowa, it is the Simon Conway Show, and let's go to the phones. We're still talking a little AI. Bryant is in Knoxville. Are you calling about the Nationals, Bryant? Is that what it is? Oh, no, but I think everybody should come down and check out the Nationals anyway. It's going to be a good time. Nine days time. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Anyway, I know you're calling about AI. Yes, sir. Yeah, so, you know, we've been talking about all of the analogies to the Terminator movies with AI and stuff like that. Wonder what AI is going to do with us once it becomes self-aware, which I think it already is showing signs of being. But beyond all that, I think that there's another... another sci-fi analogy that's worth making here, and that is in the old... Star Trek Next Generation Borg episodes. Borg are a hybrid robot, humanoid race that basically are heavily technological in nature. Yes. And they conquer every other culture, and they assimilate all of that information, those other cultures, into their own, and just keep increasing their intelligence in the same way, much the same way that AI is doing. Resistance is futile, my friend. Well, and I think that it sort of also has, you know, a little theme of like Highlander. In the end, there can only be one. And I think that governments are developing their own eye militarily with the express purpose of taking over everyone else's AIs because the person who wields the tool that has all the other AIs assimilated is the country that's going to rule the world. Scary stuff, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Nothing the likes of you and me can do to stop it, unfortunately. No, just another thing to, you know, kind of have a nightmare about every now. You're not wrong. I mean, truly you're not wrong. But as I say, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle. It is out. And now it's a question of who will ultimately win this particular battle. And I certainly hope it's us. It's pretty important that it is. All right, man, you take care. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you. Have a good night. Thank you, Simon. Bye. Bye. So if somebody in this crew knows about the Borg, it is going to be Dave Ball, let me tell you. So, Dave. Yes, indeed. Yes. Are you concerned AI is going to become the Bull. Well, that is a great analogy and also props for the Highlander reference. We're going for all the pop culture references in that last call. I'm here for it. Yes.

uh... you know what i think is interesting about the board and i was thinking about this as the the caller was commenting is that what happens with the board is they learn everything about a species but it makes them cold it makes them unemotional it makes them peakly like devastatingly efficient, but also cold and completely lifeless. And even though if we go with Star Trek Voyager, we have our character 7 of 9 who goes from having been human, she gets assimilated by the Borg, and then she goes back to being human. One of the things that she struggles with is connecting emotionally. She's cold and distant, and she loses that sort of her humanity in plugging into the machine and then trying to plug out of it. Absolutely. Dave just described me after my first marriage. Pop me up, Mrs. C. Please. This is just for Dave, really. Just for Dave. Promise. You're all going to enjoy it, though.

State of Iowa, it is the Simon Conway Show at 637. Quick reminder if you take the word dollar, D-O-L-L-A-R, dollar, to the website of the radio station you are tuned into. Well, you could potentially win a thousand dollars. Yes, that's how that works. Dollar! Do it right now, and good luck. Mrs. C and I have been to our fair share of concerts. We have. I mean, it's not like one a week. No, no, we are very selective of our concerts, though. We can see Fleetwood Mac. Sepul, a couple of times. Queen? Queen. Um, a jelly roll. At the Iowa State Fair? I've seen Reba. So anyway, we saw Lindsay Buckingham. You know what we've never done, Lindsay Buckingham? Yeah. Possibly. The very last time he ever made a public appearance. Anyone has seen Lindsay Buckingham play. You know what we've never done, honey? What have we never done? We have never gone to a concert whilst wearing a diaper. Which is a growing trend amongst concert goers. I am not kidding. Shut the front door. I will never be in a crowd. Don't tell me this. I have a concert I'm going to at the fair that I am really looking forward to. I know. You have just ruined what could be my wonderful night of nostalgia. Because now I'm going to look at the people around me and check out to see if they have baggy bridges or not. I'm now going to question who in this crowd is wearing a diaper. Well, you see, I mean, less likely at the Iowa State Fair because one of the reasons is concerts are getting very, very expensive to go to, not true at the Iowa State Fair. Still, thankfully, touching wood. And so they don't want to, you know, pay all that money and then miss the song that they're really there to see. Maybe they shouldn't drink. you know, copious amounts of liquids. You mean like a couple of beers? Any liquid. Uh-huh. Any liquid. Yes. Be like Sir Paul, who played three hours without a sip of water. Right. Right. If an 80-year-old man can do it, you can pull it together for a three-hour show. Yes. What happens if we go to see Dave, though? Oh, well... I'll just, you know, hold my finger up and say, Dave, I'll be right back. You know, like in church when you've got to go to the bathroom and just hold one finger up while you're walking out. Okay, just tell him, be right back. Don't play that song, buddy. BRB, my friend. Yes. Anyway, it's a thing. It's a bizarre thing. It's a thing we would never have even thought of. No. I think the first time I ever heard of anyone utilizing adult diaper wear that were not, say, A, in the hospital or B in a nursing home or that type of situation was that crazy lady that the crazy astronaut that drove to Texas. Oh, yes. And she wore...

an adult diaper so she didn't have to pull over yeah so she just wanted to um gas the car and go correct yes i think it's the first i've ever heard of that but now this has gone even further off the rails because people are using these for entertainment purposes so they don't miss a song at a concert it's worse though right i mean in you you were off last week so you didn't hear about the person in new zealand who actually defecated on the floor in the mosh pit um no i did not hear about that and i was absolutely fine not knowing about that thank you for ruining this for me um also mosh pits i would like to have him checked because he could have been hit too hard that could have been An incontinence problem. I don't know. Not a situation we're going to have to deal with because we're never going into a mosh pit. Absolutely not. So anyway, people are wearing diapers to go to concerts. Do not do that if you are going to see anything at the Iowa State Fair. No, because I'm going to judge you. I'm just telling you right now, I'm going to judge you. Yes. So Mrs. C and I were going to go to that together. But? But we're not now. Because our daughter and grands are coming. Right. And this is the choice you made. So you chose not to come with me. Well, there's no way I'm going to have them. Come on. I'm going to say, see ya. I am not comfortable going to a concert with my grandkids here either. So we will most likely give away some tickets. Okay. And I will just catch my childhood band at another time. Okay. Unless our daughter thinks, oh, maybe this could be his concert debut. Now, if I can talk our daughter into letting me take PB&J and Mudbug. To let Alabama be their very first concert, I am all in. I am going to teach those boys the beauty of Alabama and their roll-on concert series. Because that was the very first concert I went to as a child. Okay. We have very good seats as well. Don't. Tell me that. Don't break my heart like that. Well, don't remind me. I forget those kind of things so that they can be a second surprise when my memory goes. Okay. So there's that. It is 643 on our way to 644 on is Monday, August 3rd. We'll take a quick final time out. We'll come back. We will wrap it up for that Monday. We are all across the great state of Iowa, and this is the Simon Conway Show.

All across the great state of Iowa, it is the Simon Conway Show. You are very, very welcome in. Iowa is the number one state in the union to retire. I know. This is according to a new national analysis from the retirement living research team. They have evaluated all 50 states, and they found that Iowa offers the strongest overall combination of the following. Financial security, safety, opportunities for an active lifestyle, especially at the Iowa State Fair. Didn't say that. Okay. So this is a significant jump for the Hawkeye State, by the way. We were last year, 2025. We were number 16. Now we're number one. Number one, baby. What are you making it out, Mrs. C? Number one state in the Union. I'm not shocked at all. We have both said this is like the nearest thing to Florida. Without the great weather and the beaches. Now, we still have great weather. What I say is, I love Iowa three seasons out of the year. Yeah. I am still a Florida girl at heart when it comes to that fourth season. I try. I hang in there, but you do not often catch me outside. No. I'm unequivocably hate Iowa in the winter. It's not hard for me to say it out loud. But I do love Iowa the other three seasons. But that's just weather. There's other things about Iowa that are much more important than the weather. And that is, first of all, the people of Iowa. The people of Iowa are absolutely amazing. Iowa Nice is a real thing. And people who've never been here really don't understand that. I love the fact that we're really never stuck in traffic. I know there are people stuck in traffic right now listening to us because of what happened over near Hubble. But we are predominantly never in traffic, right? Which is really great. That's a good thing. I love that you can take 10 minutes and be in the country. Yep. And in 10 minutes, you can be experiencing city life. Yep. There's great indoor things here. There's great outdoor things here. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of really hidden, unique and interesting historical things here. Everybody are. So amazing stuff, and we love it. And while I was away last week in Columbus, Ohio, I was at the National Blue Star Mothers Convention with moms from all across the country, and each state was asked to bring a basket. So one of the baskets, I kind of got...

A little tongue-in-cheek creative because I put together the Iowa basket and Iowa created sliced bread. And courtesy of our friends at Big Sky Bakery, they sent a loaf of, whoa, it smelled amazing, wheat bread, but there was also a hand-carved bread slicer in there. So I got to explain, hey, you're welcome for those sandwiches you eat, courtesy of Iowa because we slice bread first. See, I like those little trivia moments to share things with other people because I've enjoyed learning about my adopted state. Yep. So, yeah, we love Iowa. We absolutely adore Iowa. I think a lot of people will be shocked that it's number one, though, in terms of a state to retire it. You know, there are, let's look at some of the downsides. Property tax being probably the biggest one. Property taxes here are expensive. And if you're retiring, you're on a fixed income. So that's the, that's probably the biggest downer that I can think of for staying in Iowa to retire. But overall, I think that is outweighed by an awful lot of other things, to be perfectly frank with you. So there is, anyway, it's a great ranking, and Iowa should be rightly proud of it, my friends. Absolutely rightly proud of it. In the category of... the least surprising thing that they've ever done in Congress, because I told you back in March or whenever the last time we reopened the government, I said to you, this will not happen in September. None of them will want to risk being blamed for a government shutdown that close to the midterms. And this isn't because I'm brilliant. Okay? They're just so predictable because being in our nation's government in D.C. for so many of them, not all of them, but for so many of them is just a big game. It's a game. It's a game about who can stay in power and what they have to do. And, you know, when Chuck Schumer shut the government down, which he did, right, it was absolutely the Chuck Schumer shut down, no question. When he did that last time, they polled it and they realized it wasn't that great. We the people were not that impressed. So there was no way he was going to do it again. And shock of all shock. Uh-huh. They voted just now in a bipartisan wave to clear the first procedural hurdle for a short-term funding extension that would see the government open through early December. What? No. No. Of course that will be crazy. Uh-huh.

literally predicted by me, I repeat, not because I'm brilliant, but because these people are so obvious. And it is not until we know the result of the midterms that I'll be able to tell you what will happen next. But I will be able to tell you what will happen next. And that's kind of shocking. It really is. So if the Democrats win the midterms, okay? Democrats win the midterms, they will not shut the government when this funding runs out in early December. They will not. If the Republicans win the midterms, which would be shocking at this point, if the Republicans win the midterms, the Democrats may well try and shut the government. I only have one thing to say to all of this. This is depressing for a Monday. I know, but look, this is what the Democrats just did. Some people say, oh, they blinked. They didn't blink. I predicted this months ago. Because these people are so obvious. There's no way they're going to close the government that close to the midterms and risk being blamed for it. We're never going to do it. So my prediction does not mean I have a crystal ball. That's not mean I can see the future, although I can in this respect, but does not mean I can come and tell you what's going to happen in your future. It's not that kind of... futuristic readings. I wish. We'd play the lottery more often if you could do that. Yeah, right? No, it's none of that. It is these people up there are playing a game and we are just not paying close enough attention to understand it. And I've already told you what's going to happen next in terms of when we get to December when this funding runs out. Depending on who wins, we'll determine whether or not someone tries to close the government. It's that simple. Sad. But simple. Oh, shoot. saved by the music. We are out of time, my friends. Thank you very much being along for the ride. We appreciate you more than you know. Thanks for all the guests who came on the show today. And normal service has been resumed, by the way, because I have the greatest producer of all, which means everything is being podcasted, including individual interviews. Thank you, Mrs. C. You're welcome. It's good to be back. Good to have you back. Mainly, however, my thanks to you guys, it is truly never the same without you. We will be back at 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon to do it all over again. Until then, have yourselves a wonderful night. Good night.