00:02:41 · Ezra Klein
[00:02:41] S2: it attached itself to Donald Trump. And this is a place, I think, where at least in part their success became a failure. The tech right is not the reason Trump layered the world in tariffs. It is not the reason that he went to war in Iran, but it is at least part of the reason why he has a hideously unpopular position on AI. And I was surprised in the exit polling how important people said AI was to their vote. So 56% said that artificial intelligence and data centers was a crucial or major factor in their vote. 57% said AI would do more to hurt society. 24 said it would help society. 76% opposed the data center in their community. So you're dealing with an issue that people were both in a in a kind of direct and vibes y way, actually, like, taking into account. And Trump, because in this period, he has been really bought in on, like, the David Sachs, Jensen Huang, you know, Marc Andreessen, etcetera, view of the world, he... His view and the Republican Party broadly's view on data centers was let them rip, build as many of them as you can, whoever wins AI wins, and that put them on sharply the wrong side of public opinion on an issue that's sort of unlike the diffuse issues of costs or the war in Iran. You could really sometimes, like, tie a specific politician like Husted in Ohio to to, like, to data center backlash, and that gave Republicans maybe who didn't like them a reason to cross party lines on them.
00:04:14 · Max Read, Ezra Klein, Teddy Schleifer
[00:04:14] S1: Yeah. Is this a... I mean, let me ask the chicken and egg question. Is AI getting dragged down by Donald Trump and the tech right, or is this that AI just has naturally bad politics and its association with these figures is dragging them down? [00:04:29] S2: I think it's a mistake to think that the only reason we regulate things is to slow them down or to stop them or because they're bad. You you regulate things to put them within a, like, a trustworthy semi... At least semi democratic container such that people can make peace and have confidence in their trade offs. There is a world where AI is rolling out in a [00:04:54] S3: way where people think that the folks in charge have thought through the risk, have thought through the questions of jobs, are are finding out what they need to [00:05:03] S2: find out, and maybe have more trust in it. That way, I don't think it's being dragged down by Donald Trump's popularity. I think the problem with AI in terms of popularity is that the basic sell on it is it might kill everyone. It probably will take your job. But if it doesn't do those things, you're gonna have cheaper energy. Like, it doesn't... It's not a good, like, description of a technology you want. But the problem it is having on a secondary level is it... It's rolling out at a time when the people rolling it out just don't seem trustworthy. So they have not been subtle or agile or thoughtful about how to manage its risks.
00:05:03 · Ezra Klein, Erin Griffith, Max Read
[00:05:03] S2: find out, and maybe have more trust in it. That way, I don't think it's being dragged down by Donald Trump's popularity. I think the problem with AI in terms of popularity is that the basic sell on it is it might kill everyone. It probably will take your job. But if it doesn't do those things, you're gonna have cheaper energy. Like, it doesn't... It's not a good, like, description of a technology you want. But the problem it is having on a secondary level is it... It's rolling out at a time when the people rolling it out just don't seem trustworthy. So they have not been subtle or agile or thoughtful about how to manage its risks. [00:05:39] S4: But that's, like, been the whole point of this, like, rightward shift. Right? It's like all the tech guys are so excited to be able to not have to actually care and, like, soft pedal things and sell them to people. Right? Like, is... Hasn't that just been the gleefulness of this, like, kind of Trump two point o tech right kind of thing where they're like, We're so powerful and rich that we don't have to convince you. We'll just do it, and you'll like it what... Or you won't, but we don't care. [00:06:02] S2: And you... As you see, it's working out [00:06:04] S1: great. Yeah. [00:06:05] S4: Well, I think we're seeing the direct backlash to that, which is, like, kind of what you're saying. Right?
00:06:05 · Erin Griffith, Max Read, Teddy Schleifer
[00:06:05] S4: Well, I think we're seeing the direct backlash to that, which is, like, kind of what you're saying. Right? [00:06:09] S1: Erin, you were sort of addressing this in your... In the last thing you were saying, but I'm interested in why we feel like the this... At least this group of tech investors and executives went for Trump so hard in the first place. [00:06:21] S4: Oh, well, there's [00:06:25] S3: there's
00:06:25 · Erin Griffith
[00:06:25] S4: a lot of layers to this. I mean, you could... Like, obviously, they... A lot of them just don't wanna see regulation. You can go back to Marc Andreessen's whole thing that he that he kinda went on this media tour after he came out for Trump, and and he was, you know, telling this story of the deal, the broken deal, and, you know, the elites are now under attack. And we had this meeting that, you know, may or may not have happened, and subsequent reporting has called into question that... Where all the Democrats were saying they were going to kill AI. I I do think it's also, you know, just a little bit of a cultural thing where it just, like, seemed like more fun for them to be edgelord meme kind of posters and, like, not having to care about cancel culture and wokeness and all of that. And so I think, like, on on a high level, some of the... A lot of the billionaires and the leaders of the industry kinda went to the right, and everyone said, oh, well, the rest of the tech industry is still very liberal. But, like, I think over time, that sort of, like, you know, in... Very online kind of thing attracted way more people to that side. And so I'm I'm gonna be very interested to see, like, how that plays out if people kinda just start, like, backing away from from that vibe. The one thing I wanna also just say, like, just to add on to what I was saying earlier is, like, this idea of, like, kind of ramming through the tech stuff regardless of whether people like it, regardless of sentiment, and, like, they'll like it on the other side, is, like, very prominent amongst a lot of the VCs that I talk to where they say, well, like, people don't like big tech or people are are... Don't trust big tech, but look at their revealed preferences. Like, look at look at how much they're using Facebook, and look at how much they're using Amazon. They actually... And they they love their iPhones. They're addicted. And, like, they're just sort of looking only at the data and saying, like, because people use AI a lot, because ChatGPT has a billion users around the world, ergo, people are going to like this stuff. They might just, like, you know, not have the trust or whatever, but that doesn't matter because people are using it.
00:08:23 · Erin Griffith, Max Read, Ezra Klein
And I think this election is actually showing us that that's the wrong way of looking at AI because, you know, people obviously are very, very mad about it and to the point where they don't want it. [00:08:34] S1: This felt like a decidedly anti tech election, but I think we can also separate some of the sentiments that were contributing to the votes and the the blue tsunami. I I heard somewhere that in Japan, because you don't wanna call it a blue wave or a tsunami, they're calling it the national scolding, which I think is so much better. So I'll call it the national scolding. The the factors that went into the national scolding, let me... I'm gonna separate the sort of the tech stuff into three different categories. One is the sort of broad opposition to AI that you're talking about, Erin. One is the sort of specific anti data center sentiment that really captured a lot of attention this summer that a lot of politicians, ran quite hard on. And then finally, a kind of general anti oligarchy, anti billionaire sentiment that focused in particular on Elon Musk, but I think in general on a lot of tech billionaires. I wanna take these one at a time and start with the anti AI sentiment. And I'm gonna play a little bit of Jon Ossoff's victory speech from last night. [00:09:32] S2: And at our grave peril, humanity is fast forgetting the terrible lessons of two world wars and the holocaust. Meanwhile, the titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the artificial intelligence they're creating risks human extinction.