AI safety takes center stage

Make Me Smart November 2, 2023 Transcript

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Kimberly Adams 

Hey, everyone, I’m Kimberly Adams, welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m Kai Ryssdal, Thursday 2 November is where we have landed.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, it’s wild to think that this time next year, it’s gonna be election day.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, my God, oh, my god, I can’t even believe you’re going there. Holy cow,

Kimberly Adams 

I can’t help it. This is where my brain lives like, unfortunately, way too much of the time. But today in the present right now, we are going to actually focus on this week. And listen back to some big news stories of the week via audio clips, we got a couple lined up for for you today. The first one comes from a story that I did earlier this week when President Biden rolled out his executive order on artificial intelligence. And I interviewed Meredith Broussard, who’s a data journalism professor at NYU and just put out a new book on artificial intelligence. And here’s what she had to say.

Meredith Broussard

So we’re at a really interesting point with tech regulation, because people have have imagined for a long time that keeping themselves safe from big tech was their individual responsibility. But tech is so ubiquitous now that individual effort is no longer enough, we really need policy level interventions.

Kimberly Adams 

You know, there’s so many similarities between this and climate change, where for so long the narrative has been recycle, reduce your own waste, and do all these different things to fix the problem that is a systemic issue. And with AI, that is sort of what this executive order is arguing that it plans to do you know, that they’re planning to take this whole of government approach to trying to kind of catch up with AI by, you know, adding some additional regulations on to companies, which they will inevitably get sued over. But as I said, you know, in the story that I did, I think it’s super interesting that they’re really going after government contracting as well. And saying that they’re going to be adding some guidelines when it comes to government contracting, which is, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars every year, which is going to make a big difference.

Kai Ryssdal 

I also do wonder, just on that whole of government thing, we don’t quite have a whole of government, we have the executive branch, which is large and sprawling and has lots of agencies. But we don’t have Congress and the law yet. And I think the interesting thing is gonna be to see how Congress does with that. Right.

Kimberly Adams 

But that’s just the thing. I think they’re not. And I think everything.

Kai Ryssdal 

We have switched roles we have.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m coming to the dark reality, given what Congress is right now, we know we’re not going to get meaningful AI regulation out of them anytime soon. I mean, look at the fact that, you know, Amy Klobuchar, and others in the Senate have been trying to right you know for a long time pass laws to regulate companies like Amazon and Google and all these big tech firms for years. And it’s just not gaining any traction. And the lobbying is intense. And there’s so many different issues at hand, but through the executive agencies, you know, and we’ve talked about this before the risks and perils and also the benefits of, you know, lawmaking via regulation. It’s a bit faster, but very subject to litigation and can be easily undone by the next administration. And so anything the Biden administration does in this regard can be undone.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Should we give a nod here to what happened over in the UK and I knew about it really only because I got an invitation this week from His Majesty’s Consul General in Los Angeles, inviting me to some bigg to do at the Consul General’s residence here in LA, the British Consul General’s residence. I know I couldn’t go because I didn’t want to celebrating the British government’s move into AI safety research, which I mentioned only because Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the UK, invited a whole bunch of people, world leaders and Elon Musk in a conversation with Rishi Sunak. I think it was on Twitter to to talk about global cooperation on AI safety research and a lot of companies. Excuse me, a lot of countries did. China agreed Cice President Harris was there. So, you know, globally things are happening too. And we should just point that out. Yeah.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I think the, the fear the fear of not doing anything is great enough to spur action, right, because this is moving very quickly.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah. Alright. Next,

Brian Cornell

Again, when you look at overall retail spending. Just look at the top line, you say, right, a really healthy consumer and they are spending. But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining. So they’re even tightening up their spending in those categories.

Kai Ryssdal 

So that was Brian Cornell. He’s the CEO of a company you might have heard about called Target. He was talking to CNBC.

Kimberly Adams

Tarjay, Kai, Tarjay.

Kimberly Adams

Oh, stop it, I thought. That’s so like late 90s. Oh, my Lord, for reals did you just do that? Tarjay,  anyway, so back here in the real world. He was on CNBC, talking about the company and where it’s seeing things, here’s why it matters target, obviously, a huge consumer shopping destination. They’re seeing declines in retail spending on discretionary items, toys and apparel, seven consecutive quarters of that, that is not great. As you know, consumer spending drives this economy. Consumers a little cranky, you know, so there’s a lot going on in this consumer economy, even though by the way the economy is doing great, Jay Powell said so the other day, too great.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I mean, this is something that’s been predicted for a while, like, how long will the American consumer hold out in the midst of you know, everything? And I feel like people have been predicting the pullback for quite a while now. So it’ll be interesting if this is the season where it actually happens.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right, exactly.

Kimberly Adams 

All right. Next clip. Let’s hear it.

Michael Lewis

If you ask me. Another question, do I think he’s going to jail? Yes, I think he’s going to jail. I think it’s highly unlikely he doesn’t go to jail. I just think the circumstances are just, it’s shame to ignore how interesting the circumstances are.

Kimberly Adams 

All right. Well, that was author Michael Lewis, talking about Sam Bankman-Fried with Fareed Zakaria on CNN. They were talking about Lewis’s new book “Going Infinite,” which is about SBF and you know, at this very moment jury is deliberating over his trial. The closing arguments ended yesterday. And the jury is going to decide if Sam Bankman-Fried is guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges. You know, during the trial, he actually testified on his own behalf, which many legal experts say was not a good risk worth taking. But it’s, you know, this is a trial of crypto even though the crypto industry wishes it wasn’t.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, yeah. i So, I feel bad about saying this, but I don’t have a lot of appetite for Sam Bankman-Fried stories anymore. Yeah, it’s kind of like, you know, I think crypto, we’ve we’ve hit peak crypto. And until actually, my mom can use it to buy a cup of coffee at the diner near where she lives. You know? It’s a speculative instrumental.

Kimberly Adams 

Until and if.

Kai Ryssdal 

Right, and if right, is it? Yes, if right, because it is not yet determined, as it were that this is gonna work as actual money. It’s interesting in the abstract, and look, people lost money, but the people who invest in crypto at this scale, one cannot feel sorry for them. Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I hope Michael Lewis, sells more books but man, I’m done with this story.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m sure he will, I’m sure he will.

Kai Ryssdal 

He always does. Sorry, what were you gonna say?

Kimberly Adams 

Well, the the lack of sympathy, I think from for the most part. That’s true. I do think there are some people who genuinely got roped into the narrative in the scam. And I do feel sorry for some of those folks.

Kai Ryssdal 

Same, same, same same. Next one. Here we go.

Dan Sullivan

Our country is being challenged on multiple fronts across the globe. We literally have American troops under attack in the Middle East. As a member of the Armed Services Committee as a US Marine Corps Colonel. I know we all know here in the Senate, American needs to have our best players, most combat capable leaders on the field. And right now, that’s not happening.

Kai Ryssdal 

So that was the Senate of the United States. Last night. It was Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan. confronting my favorite senator, the senior senator from the great state of Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, about Tuberville’s holds on all of those military promotions that we have spoken of many, many a time. Here’s why it matters what happened last night, number one, its members of Tuberville’s own party, the Republican party going after him on the floor as he continued one by one to object, and in the Senate one senator can hold up anything just by objecting, to 60 consecutive nomination requests in a row. From Sullivan of Alaska, Joni Ernst from Iowa who is also a veteran like Sullivan, and from Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, those three were spitting mad. It was amazing to watch clips of that on C-SPAN yesterday and this morning, Tuberville just stood up every time and clearly did not give a good gosh darn, about what it means for military readiness, what it means for these people’s careers, what it means for the fact that none of these people that Tuberville is objecting to have any say over or can influence the Pentagon policy on reproductive health that he is objecting to. It’s amazing. So where it stands now is that in about 10 days, if Chuck Schumer sort of starts machinations now, they’re going to try to do a change to a Senate standing rule standing order rather sorry. Because that’s different in the Senate rules are different. That would let them advance it with 60 advanced these nominations with 60 votes. So let’s hope that happens. And we can be done with we’re talking about Tommy Tuberville, because it just makes me crazy. Crazy.

Kimberly Adams 

I really wonder if he’s gonna face any consequences in his district for that when reelection time comes up? Like, will people remember what people care? I mean, I’m imagining all the PAC ads and his opponent running ads about all of this and what he did for military readiness and all this stuff. I mean, but will people actually remember and care?

Kai Ryssdal

Right? Right. Yeah, I don’t know.

Kimberly Adams

Okay, well, that is it for today. Yes.

Kai Ryssdal 

One more thing, though. Before, we go. Sorry. No, you go ahead, you do the tag and then I’ll do the next thing. Go ahead. Okay, clean radio professionals people, that’s what we are.

Kimberly Adams 

We will get it together. Tomorrow is economics on tap, which is our weekly happy hour, we’re gonna have a YouTube livestream at 6:30 Eastern, 3:30 Pacific where you can join us for news, some drinks and a game if you want to know what at least I’m drinking. I don’t know if Kai did it, it should be in the back end of our newsletter, which you can subscribe to online. So do that.

Kai Ryssdal 

One more thing. Before we go. We said we would and we will since you guys did so amazing, in our recent membership drive. We’re gonna do some virtual trivia on Thursday, November the 9^th, four o’clock Pacific seven o’clock back East. If you’re a Marketplace investor, check your email we will send out or did send out another invitation today to you. So that’s in your inbox.

Kimberly Adams 

Yes. And if you’re not yet an investor, it just takes a donation of $5 or more to Marketplace, and then you will be one and you can go to marketplace.org/gift smart to do that. You’ll see a link to register for the trivia night in your confirmation email after you donate. And really we do appreciate you listening and giving what you can and we hope that you’ll join us for a few rounds of fun trivia.

Kai Ryssdal 

Today’s episode of Make Me Smart was produced by Courtney Bergsieker with assistance from H Conley. Audio engineering by Drew Jostad. Ellen Rolfes writes our newsletter. Our intern is Niloufar Shahbandi/

Kimberly Adams 

Marissa Cabrera is our senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital.