@Chrisontheair - Chris Merrill Won't Go Back to Flint

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Hey, good afternoon. I'm Chris Merril.

This is KFI AM six forty and we are on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. When you're on that app, you can click on that talkback button. If you have questions, comments, quipt quotes, criticisms, or compliments about the program, feel free to let us know the question for tonight's talk back. I had a story about to former inmates of San Quentin going back to play an alumni game on their Field of Dreams, which is the baseball field inside the prison,

That's it. I just never want to go back.

Curious about what where it is that you've spent time that you would never want to go back to again.

Good afternoon, Chris, listen is to Heilly out of him in California. The one place I would not go back to Tahati Village time share presentation. I thought it was cool because I said they were giving away like three days, four nights, But it felt like I was a hostage and it was very hostile. I do not advise that for anyone. The work's the one place a time share presentation. Oh my god, thinking about it now is give me exiety.

Yeah, me too.

My wife dragged me to a couple of those because she's like, oh, they're gonna pay for you know. We had two nights at this dump of a hotel in Branson, Missouri. Oh, we did it there. And then when we first got married, actually was here. We sat through one of those timeshare presentations because they give us tickets to I think Universal Studios or something. We were living in northern Arizona at the time, and they said, so we had to sit through that, and they said, oh, you should only take

Hey, Chris, someplace I'd never go back to visit probably send you Comic Con that place. I mean, it's it's great, but after going for you know, so many years, the pandemic stout me and I think I'm done with that place.

Too crazy. It is crazy.

Yeah, you've been to comic Con, Kayla, Now, no, it's pretty crazy. When you like, you have to be in that mood, the same mood you have to be in when you go. I'm going to go deal with the crazy amount of people at for instance, Universal Studios, which the day that we went, which was part of our honeymoon, it rained like torrents and it was wonderful. Oh so few people there. I mean it was buckets. We're riding roller coasters.

In the rain.

It was so great. I loved it so much. But Comic Con is it's just a madhouse. It's like going to Disney on a popular day. It's just it's just a madhouse and you're standing out, you're standing outside and you're in line, and uh it's hot.

Yeah, beautiful setting.

You didn't get a better setting than the convention center in San Diego, but yeah, it's a lot. You just have to be all in for it. If you're not all in for Comic Con, it's no good. Uh, all right, did you want to.

Do this other one?

We had one guy that had thoughts on trans athletes. We were talking about the transathletes earlier. For those of you joining us, I just don't like the parents are screaming at kids.

I don't. I don't care for it at all.

And then we have people that are justifying parents screaming at sixteen year olds.

Well they deserved it. So what are you gonna do?

I mean, yeah, you have freedom of speech, but you also have freedom to not be, you know, an adult acting like a child process your emotions. Let's uh, let's find the words. Probably not scream at children. Trumps on again, off, oup, hang on, wrong one, hang on.

If I had a daughter, I would suggest that she boycott these competitions where there's transgenders. I mean, it's a no win for these young women that can't compete with the genetics of a boy. I mean, you can put lipstick on the boy, but it's not a girl. So just saying it's not gonna work, huh. And this is gonna end up tragically down the road.

I think it is. I'm afraid it is gonna end up tragically down the road. And I don't think that's because you have trans athletes. I think it's because you have people bullying children. And as far as it's a no win, well, the trans girl that competed did get gold in one event and shared that gold with two other girls and got silver in the in the long jump event, So you can't really say it's a no win when she didn't beat them all.

So I don't know, man, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't deprive my daughter of the opportunity to go win at the state track and field because of my own.

Political leanings. I just wouldn't do it. I wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, you do what you want. It's your kid, But I wouldn't deprive my kid. How about this?

Did you happen to see that there was a story. I'm shifting gears here. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Did you have to see the story about Elon Musk? They say that he was doing drugs during the campaign. What New York Times the mind bending article. As Elon Musk became one of Donald Trump's closest allies last year, leading raucus rallies and donating two hundred and seventy five million to help him win the presidency, he was also using drugs far more intensely than previously known.

Effect of chronic use.

He took ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and he traveled with a daily medication box that held about twenty pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant adderall according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

I don't know about you, guys, I'm stunned.

I'm shocked that the guy who would wear a hat on top of the hat and get on stage and jump and scream and carry on the way that he did would have any history of drug use.

That seemed like perfectly normal behavior to me. So I just that is, uh, that is wild that he was using a lot of drugs. I assume we're all on drugs.

I mean, isn't there a point where you see people and you go, okay, well there's some drug use going on there.

He's at it.

Before I'd profen always you can just oh yeah, right, yeah, I know, right, Like, hey, here's a fun drug I just started this week, Saw Palmetto. Yeah, yep, it's supposed to help with prostate function. So I also carry around a little pill box with about twenty pills a day.

Yeah, saw Palmetto.

I've got my multi vitamin, I've got my blood pressure medication I got Yeah. Yeah, I guess I'm like Elon Musk minus the ketamine and adderall and the jumping on stage with a chainsaw. Yeah, but otherwise exactly the same. The thing with Musk, though, is that when he did all that stuff, we didn't immediately go what is he on?

Is an eccentric and he's had some really genius things.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to take it away from anything that he's accomplished.

But the behavior that we saw was that was a little.

Beyond just eccentric. That was just that was drugs. That was straight up drugs.

Do you buy the black eye? Oh?

That he told his son to hit him. I was playing with my son. I told him to punched me, and they hit a lot harder than you'd think.

Uh.

I don't know who tells their kid to punch him. That's weird to me. Also, I'm not surprised though that if the black eye. It wouldn't surprise me if the black eye did come from the kid. And I say that because the kid is a bit undisciplined as well. I mean, he's a four year old who Musk brought to the Oval office during a press conference. It was running around and telling the president pretty horrible things during

Of the free world, you're an fing idiot.

So yeah, it would not surprise me if the kid has discipline issues and would punch Dad in the eye.

That does not surprise me at all. That's what Bratts do. You know.

They misbehave and if they're not corrected, then they'll continue to misbehave.

So yeah, that part doesn't surprise me at all.

So Trump was asked about Elon Musk in this press conference because you know, there was the kind of the falling out, and then Musk said, Wow, I've not really saved the country any money, but I sure have saved all of my investors a lot of money.

They just haven't made squad.

What started as a political romance is now wrapping up with a little less love. Elon Musk's one hundred and thirty days as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency came to an end today, well short of his promises, and just days after he criticized President and Trump's.

A big beautiful Bill.

Trump and Musk sharing the spotlight today at the White House as Musk ends his role as a special government employee.

But while okay, then they get on more stuff blah blah blah, and then Trump gave him a gold key and then he said it's great, and uh, we're gonna save a bunch of money and YadA, YadA, YadA.

Does this strike you as.

Odd though the times that they've had the joint press conferences in the Oval Office, Trump is set at the resolute desk and Musk has stood by, sometimes with this kid crawling all over the president, sometimes just nearby, wearing his T shirt because of the respect for the office. I know Trump is sitting, and of course Musk wearing a baseball capital time. I know that Trump is sitting behind the desk, and I think he's saying, I'm gonna sit behind the desk and look presidential.

But there's just something about the tableau of it.

Where Trump is. I mean, he likes to lean right, he likes to slouch. We've seen that everywhere he goes he slouches, and which is fine. He can slouch aw you want, I'm slouching as week, But the tableau of it, and I know Trump is like, I'm the president.

I'm gonna sit behind the resolute desk.

This makes me look presidential, and then I'm gonna have him standing there and it's gonna look.

Like he's an aid.

But somehow Musk upstages him. Part of it has to do with Trump's posture. Part of it anything has to do with just the way that Musk stands and commands an energy in that room that that Trump doesn't have when he's sitting there and then looking up at Musk. This is a really odd thing that I noticed. I don't know if I haven't heard anybody else point that out, but it just seemed really strange to me. Just seemed

So.

It was basically the first computer. We allowed for the machine to UH to decipher it. Because the Germans had a way of changing their code every day, it seemed to be a.

Completely random pattern. So suppose you're.

Doing one of those ciphers in the in the newspaper or online or wherever you do it, and uh and and and you have to try to figure out what it says. And you're and you're trying to break the code, and you're going, Okay, well this squiggly line this I figured out that this squiggly line that equals a D. So then you go through all the cipher and you find all the squiggly lines and you go, that's a D. And then from there you try to figure out the rest of it, right, that's it. Well, imagine if every

So Alan Turing was the guy.

He's kind of considered to be the father of modern computers because he had this notion, rather than trying to get people, who are it crosswords and ciphers in the paper, why don't we get a machine that can figure out these codes and it'll be able to do it faster than we can now. They didn't have the kind of machinery and chips that we did, obviously, because they didn't have computers then, so it was a very mechanical system.

On the American side, we didn't have any of this.

We didn't worry about Germany's technological superiority to decipher our codes.

Because what we did is we took a dead language.

Well to the rest of the world anyway, the Navajo were still using it, which is why it was known. We took a language that the rest of the world didn't know. They had no idea, they didn't know what these different sounds meant. They didn't have any interpreters. They didn't have so they're trying to decipher a language with no key. There was no well, this sound means this

Well, as one might expect, all hell broke clues.

People were not very excited about the fact that we've just decided to erase history because we're afraid it might be too inclusionary, so we don't learn our history.

What could possibly go wrong?

Okay, if I AM six forty, we're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.

Thank it, Amy Chris Merril, if I am six forty more stimulating talk talkback question.

Today, we had.

A story about former inmates at San Quentin that went back to play an alumni baseball game against current inmates, and I thought, if I got out of San Quentin, I ain't going back no way.

So what is someplace that you would never go back to visit?

We've had a few on here on One guy said he would never go back to Flint, Michigan.

I'll blame him.

Another dude said he would never go back to a Timeshare presentation. Amen, A men, my friend, So what is someplace you would never go back to visit? If you're on the iHeart radio app, just cleik on that talk back and let us know what if someplace you would never go back to visit?

And then obviously why why would you not go back there?

There was an interesting story that popped this week and an interview was done with the CEO of Anthropic, which is one of the AI companies that's out there, and he's basically warning a bunch of white collar jobs are going to go away.

And now I was reading and he was talking with an Axios reporter.

Axios is continue to follow up on a lot of these AI stories this week. They've really been the forefront of reporting on the AI here of late, and they said, the US government needs AI expertise and dominance to beat China in the next big technological and geopolitical shift, but they can't pull it off without the help of Microsoft, Google, Open Ai, Nvidia and others. And so we're seeing emerging of Washington and Silicon Valley. They say, driven by necessity

It happens.

And then when the Democrats do it, the Republicans say that we shouldn't be using government to pick and choose winners. And then when the Republicans do it, then the Democrats say, I can't believe that the Republicans would do this to pick.

And choose winners.

And of course there's always winners that benefit typically that party, whether that's labor unions, or whether that's big business and low taxes, blah blah blah. Right, We've seen this play out time and time again, but we are seeing a lot of subsidies going towards some of these companies, or

On the AI race.

And yet I think to myself, if we had, if we had the government that is trying to push forward this the efforts in AI in a public private partnership that benefits the private sector, how is that different than what China does. China is a capitalistic communistic government, right, I mean, it's communist capitalism. Chinese Communist Party does this. They invest and they work with the companies and then the companies make money. But in this case, the Chinese government

Let's say TikTok.

If TikTok makes a bunch of money because with some of the investments that the Chinese government has made, then the Chinese government says, cool, that was our investment.

We want something out of it.

Right in the US, the government makes an investment and then the company takes off, but the government doesn't really recoup that. Right, we give subsidies, or we give tax breaks, we give we give certain advantages, tax abatements, call them right to these companies because the companies need to help.

We want to.

We want to, we want to win this battle. And then you know, okay, well what does the government get out of it? And they go nothing, but the CEOs will, and then the CEOs go, we built that, right. It has been a big political argument. You didn't build that, Oh yes I did. I built this from my hands, you know, with my bare hands. Like no, literally, the government, the government gave you a break so you could build it. Oh, I built this from scratch all by myself. I played

Just call it what it is you are.

So either we're all on a level playing field and we're all going to pay the same taxes, or we're not at a level playing field and just admit it.

That's what it is.

So what this CEO of Nthropics said is basically, quit sugarcoating what's coming mass elimination of jobs across technology, finance, law, consulting, and other white collar professions, especially entry level gigs.

Entry level white collar roll. That's what you need. Entry level white collar.

That's a cush job until the cuts come and then you're the first one out. But let's just call it lower to middle management. This is from Anderson Cooper talked with the Anthropic CEO on CNN. Dario, you've said that AI could wipe out half of all entry level white collar jobs and spike unemployment to ten to twenty percent.

How soon might that happen?

Just to back up a little bit, you know, I've been building AI for over a decade, and I think maybe the most salient feature of the technology and what is driving all of this is how fast the technology is getting better. A couple of years years ago, you could say that AI models were maybe as good as a smart high school student. I would say that now they're as good as a smart college student and sort of reaching past that.

I really worry, particularly at the entry.

Level, that the AI models are are very much at the center of what an entry level human.

Worker would do. The problem is, what is an entry level human worker? Because I can tell you this, I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed by AI yet. I mean, I'm impressed by where it's going. I'm impressed by the concept. I'm impressed by the proof of concept. I'm impressed by some of the early functionings. I'm not impressed with a lot of it because hallucinations still run wild. Hallucinations are

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, the gateway to Dollywood and a multitude of other tourist traps. I've never seen traffic so bad and so many tourists per square foot. It's horrible and you can't enjoy it. I don't know what people see in that place, but it's just absolute congestion, beyond anything LA traffic has ever seen. Wow, and worth hundreds of miles of driving out of the way. It's not worth it, and I will never return and avoid it at all cost.

All right, you guys ever been to Pigeon Forge? No? Okay, good talk? Nope, nope?

Yeah, all right, So now not a glowing review. I guess we don't go to Pigeon Forge.

Ever. After twenty nine years of living in California and Huntington Beach, I said, I never moved back to Nashville, Tennessee, where I grew up. Wow.

A couple of people for Tennessee today. A lot of people don't like Tennessee.

All right, well guess where I I am? Oh, thank you NYSA. Oh you made me break a promise.

Oh, Gavin Newsom made you big. Jerry Brown didn't make you break that promise. It took the Newsom to do it. Okay, Larry, all right, what else?

Good evening. I would never go back to Catalina, Ireland. That was the most boringest place I've ever went to. I have no desire to ever go back. Wow, Thank you guys, have a great evening.

Thanks you too.

She's not going back to Catalina while she wasn't there during the wine mixer. That's the big one, s all right.

Hey Chris, Hey, I thought it was kind of weird. I totally agree with everything you're saying today. That is weird.

I guess the show is still got a lot left, so we'll see what happens.

And look out, Angel Martinez. Here comes Lucy. Heell a, Hi Kayla. Okay, that got creepy fast. Hi Steve, he loves Hi Kayla. Hey Steve, Hi, Kayla, Steve, you got a little thing with him? You have a little something going on there Hi Kayla, Hi Steve. At the end of the talk backs, he always gives me a personal message. Yeahs always great. He's a good guy.

Okay, all right, it sounded a little creeper to me, but if you're cool with it, then.

Hi Kayla, thank you. Jesus, that was brig me. That's I'm gonna have nightmares. Thank you. Yeah, I don't blame Hey. It's kind of weird. I agree with everything you said tonight. So Hi Kayla, thank you. I was talking about the AI here.

More than three quarters of Americans now want companies to create AI slowly.

They say, slow it down.

Here to tell us more about it, is the story read by AI Outstanding.

Most Americans want AI progress to slow down.

Now that sounds natural, doesn't it. All right, but then there's kind of a giveaway when it comes to AI, which.

Is why I think that we are still it's still not quite ready for prime time.

All right, here's what he said. Let's try this from the beginning, from the top.

Most Americans want AI progress to slow down, poll finds.

Poll finds. Okay, all right, so we're reading.

This as tech giants race to develop AI. Seventy seven percent of Americans say they prefer companies take their time and get it right, even if it delays breakthroughs. According to the twenty twenty five Axios Harris Poll one hundred, only twenty three percent support rapid development at the risk of mistakes. The causes sentiment spans generations from ninety one percent of boomers to seventy four percent of gen Z.

Wow, even gen Z three quarters say let's let's pump the brakes. But the concern is that China is going to get ahead of us. Don't worry is if we're not.

Ahead of AI, China will get ahead of AI. And then I then I mean, I mean, then.

Uh uh, they would, they would, they would, They would be able to replace their workers first.

So I mean you got to win.

Despite pressure from CEOs and investors to lead in a global AI race, the public remains skeptical.

Yeah.

Many fear job loss, misinformation, and irreversible early design flaws. The poll suggests Americans have learned from past tech missteps and want slower, more responsible innovation.

Yeah, and we're also in an exciting period with with AI. Part of the reason that we were that were moving so quickly is that it's exciting, it's new. We want to see just how far this can take us? Right, just how how much can we do with AI? It's kind of exciting for for the kids these days, like Kayla Kila. You probably we don't remember not having the internet, do you you do?

Oh?

Okay, all right, all right, that's fun. Yeah.

So then you also then remember like the early days where the web pages were really rudimentary compared to what we have today, right, where it was angel Fire and what was the other one?

Angel Fire was one of them, there was what was the other? What was it?

Well? Earthlink was a provider, right, I'm just thinking of the web page designers like Geo, geolinks or something and angel Fire and you could make your own website. Right, So why are we so afraid of AI? Because ultimately when we say slow down, it's because we're worried about something.

Right. One of the things that motivate is fear and greed.

And so you've got some people that say, boy, I want to see how far this can go. I want to see what AI can do. I just want to see how prosperous we can be with AI. Right, that's the greed. But what what what we what causes us to say, slow it down, let's exercise some caution.

Is the fear side of us.

And that's that's a that's a basic emotion that is a survival mechanism, the fear, all right, And we have a lack of understanding when it comes to AI. We don't know what it's capable of, good or bad, and the unknown is scary. And most of us don't understand AI. We don't understand the limitations, we don't understand the abilities, we don't even understand.

How it works.

And I was reading some more on that today too, and a lot of it is basically just predictive, right in the same way that you might be using a you might be sending a text it, or you might be writing an email, and all of a sudden, your your your Outlook or your Gmail starts to try to predict what the next word would be, Right, That's kind of how AI works, but just on a grant, like what's the most likely answer based on what the next

The war of the World or some sort of an alien invasion Independence Day.

We worry because we don't know, and the fear comes from that blindness that we have. And then we get bad news headlines, right. We get the headlines about the hallucinations of AI. We get the headlines about kids using AI to cheat all over the place. We get warnings from insiders like the gentleman from Anthropic who says this is going to create a bunch of layoffs. We're gonna see high unemployment, right, and we also be honest, we've

In fact, here.

I've got a new one how to spot phishing emails. Now that EI is cleaned, AI excuse me has cleaned up the typos, which means AI will be used by bad actors. And nowadays it doesn't feel like everybody's trying to take advantage of you, right, They're all trying to steal your information or your money. We're getting incessant spam and fraudulent emails, and we see how that tech is being used for evil, and AI will make that worse.