¶ Rep. Brad Carson joins the Chuck ToddCast
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Well.
Everybody is trying to figure out things when it comes to artificial intelligence, right I think as consumers or trying to figure out how is it impacting our lives? How is this going to impact our future of work. You've got older kids, You're wondering are you even remotely giving them the education they need to survive in this new AI driven world. Governments are trying to figure out, you know,
how do we help this great technology come around? But do so with some guardrails considering how poorly the same tech companies that are trying to bring us AI brought
¶ Americans are uniquely pessimistic about AI
us social media, and there certainly seems to be disputes about that. And what's been interesting is is how negative the country is becoming on AI, artificial intelligence. And I think there's a lot of fear out there. I think the fear is understandable. I think the technology is remarkable. I think, like many people, I think now we all every day we use it more. Sometimes we don't even fully realize how much we're using it, but we use it more. But the fear factor is definitely gone up.
And in some ways that fear is driven by the people that are bringing us these AI companies, because they're the ones that tell us, well, there's this small, small chance that whatever we're developing is going to consume us all, and you're sitting there going so why are we doing this? So it is look, the next ten years probably are going to be defined politically by this battle of how do we integrate AI into society and how do we
¶ What is Americans for Responsible Innovation & who funds it?
do it on our terms rather than on AI's terms. So my guest today is a former member of Congress, former Democrat Brad Carson from the state of Oklahoma, president of Fulsea University, and he's president of Americans for Responsible Innovation. So the idea is that he's trying to work on trying to create some better conditions perhaps, and I say perhaps, because we're what this conversation is about, of a of
a regulatory environment that could earn the trust of the public. Because, as I point out, it's some very recent NBC News poll, but this has been pretty consistent so far. Most Americans see more negative coming from AI than positive. Now we're unique around the world. Most other Western democracies are a
bit more pro AI than we are. And I think, like I said, the experiences of social media on this country, in particular the experience of what globalization did and the fact that that's still a living memory for many of us. So I in many ways Americans have earned their skepticism on this. Brad Carson, Welcome to the podcast.
Thanks Chun, great to see you again.
So let's let me start with that. I want to get into some overall politics, whether there's such thing as an Oklahoma Democrat anymore, and we can discuss that, because even then, you were an outlier when you were in Congress start with this. Tell me about your organization and be transparent with me. Who's funding it, who's what you know?
Because I tell you we're in the middle. There's so much money flowing into politics right now, coming from a handful of people trying to influence the regulation of AI.
¶ Anthropic believes that AI needs reasonable guardrails
So tell me about organization and tell me who's buying it.
So American's Responsible Innovation is now about two years old. We're by partisan group. I'm a Democrat. I'm the president of it. We have several Republicans who work for us, and we take great pride in working across the aisle because we believe AI should not be a partisan issue and that it's some one that both parties have a huge stake in managing well. We're funded by family foundations or charities. We take no money from the tech sector
¶ Huge AI money pouring into Illinois primary races
at all, So our biggest funders are groups like Coefficient Giving, ohmed Y are Packard Foundation, and a number of family offices. So we're independent of the tech sector entirely, and we're often critical of them. But we believe that AI can be powerful, transformative, and so we're not We don't want to kill the golden goose either.
All right, you say you're entirely independent from the tech sector, and then you also mentioned the Packard family. I mean that's part of Hewlett Packard. I mean I assume you have some family offices that made money in the tech sector.
Sure, some people who gave give to us actually even work for the labs today. They might work for OPAI or Anthropy. We don't take any kind of corporate contributions like you might see at other groups in Washington, DC.
Look, the reason I asked that you've got We're in the middle of primary season and you see you literally have super PACs that open AI is supporting versus a super pac that Anthropic is supporting, because they're actually not always on the same page when it comes to the regular regulation issue. Do you do you guys have that
¶ Outside groups & PACs are far outspending actual campaigns
tension inside your organization.
We do have a bit of a tension about that. Although you should know that that super pac network, of which Anthropic is a contributor, I actually run that as well. That's kind of something I do in addition to my work as AARI. And that's a group we found that kind of spun out of AAR and we raised a lot of money for it, and then we convinced Anthropic to contribute to it because to their credit, Anthropic, like the other donors, believe that we should have reasonable guard
rails around that. So I'm very involved in the politics of it, very involved in the Illinois races today as we tape this, but also involved to aari kind of the advocacy work on the hill. So both of those kinds of things, do you why should we yah?
Let me put it this way, the amount of money you brought up the Illinois races. By time people hear this, we will have already had these primaries. But it's funny you bring up the Illinois races. I think it's just I can't believe the amount of money from outside groups that's involved in the center race. Now I understand it.
The primary is the center race, right. The winner of the Democratic primary has like a ninety five percent chance of being the United States center barring some unforeseen event, scandal, etc. So the game is the primary. But you ran for office. Can you imagine having to run for office now in this era of super PACs where you may have a theory of the case of what kind of campaign you'd
¶ Money is destroying democracy, SCOTUS let it get out of hand
run a run, but the outside group that supposedly wants you to win, has more money, and if they say, you know, we don't like your messaging, We're going to do another messaging. You're you no longer have control of your own campaign. Have you? Can you imagine what life would have been like for you as a candidate under the under these conditions.
Well, I think it's one of the greatest changes in American politics that most people don't appreciate the hard dollars campaign raises, they're almost insignificant. You look at the Illinois primaries, candidates there often raising one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars. Super PACs are then spending four or five million dollars against you. We're involved in a race in North Carolina's fourth district in the research triangle, each candidates spent about
one hundred thousand dollars. The super PACs spent a couple of million on each side. So you see, happy in American politics is in some ways you would even have to raise money as a candidate. You could just sit back in your house let the super PACs fight it out. Because whatever you raise and asks hard it is to raise when you're running for office, how exhausting that is, it's going to be matched probably ten x or more by the super PACs, So really extraordinary.
Should this should? It doesn't sound like you think this is a good system. Obviously they're working within the system that it is. I always joke I cover politics as it is, not as I wish it were, and you're participating in the system as it is, perhaps not as you wish it were. But my word, I mean this is if the candidates aren't in charge of their messaging
¶ Immunizing tech companies with Section 230 was a huge mistake
or their campaign, then what's the point.
That's a great question. American democracy is really at stake here the superPAC era. But you're going to really see it manifested this cycle and the next one. You know, Crypto pioneered this strategy. Apex very involved with it too. Both of them have a hut.
You're not alone.
I don't want it.
You're right, I'm picking on you because you're here.
No, the well four or five of us were playing big are superbacks at seventy five million dollars. I'd be happy to stand down if everyone else would as well, because it's really destroying American democracy, changing the way elections are had. So it's a terrible system that we've to Supreme Court, both Supreme Court and FEC interpretations of that Supreme Court opinion. We permitted it to get completely out of hand.
Look, when you served in Congress, do you think back about the do you have any regrets collectively, not you the individual member of Congress, but collectively because it was the entire era had a hands off approach on the Internet, very hands off on regulating, you know. I mean, I remember at one point John McCain advocating we should have the Internet should be tax free forever. And I remember thinking, you know, at some point that's not going to work,
and it didn't. The Internet shouldn't have any sales tax. You know, at some point that's not going to work, and it didn't.
Right.
¶ Courts need to develop common law for regulating tech
But we had such a light touch on the Internet, and it worked until it didn't.
Right.
Social media, to me, is the greatest failed experiment on the human brain that is still ongoing. And I don't know why we haven't stopped the experiment yet right.
Looking back.
And the reason I'm asking it that way because how do we avoid the same mistakes with AI? And what's something you think Congress and government should have done differently in the late nineties and early aughts with the Internet.
Because I would actually say we did more than just not have a light or more than just a light touch. We effectively immunized all of the Internet companies from any liability. This is the famous section two thirty of the Communications Decency Act. And so it wasn't that we just said
we're not going to regulate you. We said we will immunize you from any claims that you defamed people, that you hurt them in any way, that you intentionally inflicted emotional distress, that you're liable for products liability, all of those things. We actually told the companies you're free from having to worry about that. That was in nineteen ninety six, at a time when only seven percent of the people even had Internet. Google and Facebook were just a gleam
in their founder's eyes. So it was a terrible air for us, and we celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of that
¶ Recommendation algorithms make tech platforms a publisher
this year. Well, we want to make sure AI is we don't do the same thing. So one of the big fights in Washington, DC right now is about the preemption of state laws. So a lot of the venture capitalists Open AI has been in this camp that we want to pre empt all state regulation of AI in many ways, that's just two thirty reprized for the AI age basically say there be no law. We're going to basically hold these companies unaccountable. And I think there's a way to have your cake and eat it too by
saying we need some light touch regulation. They should be held accountable for their harms. We which allow the courts to develop common law over the years, which is finally calibrated to the actual risks that the AI systems present, rather than like giving them a blanket immunity. That's what we did to social media. And the stories that come out of social media are obviously horrifying. And when those families sue Facebook, TikTok or someone, they have no recourse
at all. That's a terrible system that obviously harms the families, gives them no redress, but doesn't make the companies fully
¶ SCOTUS misinterpreted 1st amendment when regulating tech
internalize the many costs are opposing on society.
Well, and I get I mean, many of my listeners know I have this pet peeve about section two thirty, specifically when I don't understand how it is any not only that I don't understand how it has any function anymore. For this reason, not that you know, yes, government should have withdrawn it a while ago. But forget that the second Facebook or Instagram or Google created an algorithm to determine what I see and what gets fed to me quicker.
They have become a publisher, They are an editor. They made the decision what goes above the fold, Brad, and what goes below the fold in the old fashioned news stand. That is a decision. It was not, you know, and you're a publisher at that point. So I don't understand how the courts have interpreted Section two thirty as even
¶ Sec. 230 passed before knowing how the tech would evolve
being functional anymore for any of these entities.
It's a great question, and the use of algorithmic curation is one of the kind of emerging questions I think. You know, we've already talked about how the Supreme Court bollock stuff campaign finance and brought us the superPAC era. Their interpretation of First Amendment law over the last few years is equally troublesome, because they now hold things like the use of algorithm as being no different than you know, when you were back in the editor of Hotline, back
when I first met you a long time ago. You're making editorial decisions every day, right, that's covered by the First Amendment, you can be for a candidate, you can be against the candidate, you can write for or against. The Supreme Court now holds those kind of algorithms are equivalent to that. That makes no sense to me. But as long as that jurisprudence exists, right, it's very hard to argue that algorithms are outside of Section two thirty
is immunity. So we have a problem with how the Supreme Court's interpreting the First Amendment as it comes to like these tech platforms as well.
No, you're look, that's a that's a fair pushback on my pushback, which is this First Amendment interpretation of an algorithm. But the point is is that they've the initial instance of Section two thirty was well where they're not publishers. They're just a platform that they somehow don't have any
¶ State level regulation may be the more immediate solution
influence on their platform. And while that might still be true of our reddit, you know, in the way that Reddit works, that is not true of x that is not true of Instagram. They you know, yes, you know, they don't create the content, but they go out of their way to make sure I see certain content based on my profile that they have decided to suck up with data. So that's why I'm that's where my you know what, I don't understand that how they can then
say no, no, no, no no, We're just a plot. We're just in charge of a platform. You can't hold us accountable for it.
I mean that shows you the danger of a two thirty pass at a time when no one even understood what the internet.
We didn't know what they were passing.
So you pass these like vague terms that are in the law, courts are forced to interpret them, and right courts go off on this or that tangent and they have a lot of money now, the social media companies do, so they fight back in Congress with millions of dollars. They all have super packs of their own, and so it's very hard to change. And so one of the great lessons of two thirty for AI is like, don't
¶ How do you determine which candidates to support?
pass some kind of metal law before you even understand like what's going to happen in five years, because then you can't change it. You know, it's very hard to politics to get these things reversed.
Well, this is what I love federal federalism. We have fifty states, and it does seem as if it's a were. The divide on whether states should be allowed to regulate AI is I think an interesting fight because it's not a left right divide. This really is a industry versus everybody else fight. Right, you have Ron DeSantis, who is who's marching forward on trying to get AI regulation in the state of Florida, while Donald Trump's still trying to
give immunity to these companies. I imagine if you're taking anthropic money, you're on the side of letting the states give this a shot. First.
Yeah, we actually said we've always advocated for that. They've brought it twice before Congress, and we led the coalition to AARI to defeat that again. Republicans and Democrats, Republican ags Sarah Huckaby Standers was rallying Republican governors. DeSantis, Steve Bannon was on the Hustings like really active in this. So it does transcend party label in some way, and really it's a world now. I think only people actually
for this policy are like three people. They're a sixteen z Anderson Horroriz, the VC firm that Mark Andrews ben Horowitz runs, and the Open AI guys that's really used for it. Topics not for it again, anthropics in the industry,
¶ The tech isn't unpopular, it's how it has interacted with U.S. politics
they're very divided. Anthropics says, well, we prefer to have a comprehensive federal standard. That would be wonderful, but the absence of that, you have to have the states to do their work, and so through a lot of divisions, and it's actually just a few small people. Unfortunately, they have billions of dollars and the ear of the White House as we speak, because of the tech rights influence there that they can get their way against. Really people in both parties.
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¶ We know social media is bad for us, but can't quit it
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¶ Congressional leadership has stood in the way of regulation
you're getting involved in these campaigns, how much are you spending money on the issue of AI itself and how much are you just involved in helping somebody who you think will be on your side in the in the battle over regulating that.
So it's a bit of both. It's people we know are going to be on our side, and then we are spending some money on trying to socialize AI make people more aware of it, because right now many people have a lot of concerns, but it's not the top of mind for them in voting.
Are you surprised at how negative people are about this?
I know I'm not really because I can see it even here in Oklahoma, where I still live. You know, people who are very Trump oriented, very conservative state. This is seventy thirty Trumps. You know, I don't know many liberal Democrats here, and many people are fired up. We have a huge data center rebellion from people who are deeply religious, conservative across the board Trump voters, and they don't want data centers, which is one manifestation of this fight.
And you know, we actually pulled a lot. You know, the only thing more unpopular than Benjamin net and Yahoo in a Democratic primary electorate or AI companies. It's kind of extraordinary, actually, and I think you know, what you said at the outset is actually really telling every other country in the world. AI is much more popular. In China,
¶ What's a safer way to roll out AI regulation in a broken political system?
something like eighty five percent of the people are very positive about AI. So it's not the technology itself it's unpopular. It's how it's interactive with our somewhat dysfunctional political system. That's what makes it so unpopular here. I think that does speak to the need to really have like a better social contract with people. You know, more people sense like this, the political system can't be hijacked by a couple of people that you know will work against us.
That's I think what makes it so unpopular here because we are an outlawier in that respect, and the explanation for it is our unique kind of socio political dynamic.
Well, I hear you there. At the other two points, I think there's no doubt it's the fear of our politics and whether they can manage the moment. And I certainly have those concerns. But you know that, I just think trust in the tech companies is so low because I don't think you know, social media is one of these phenomenons that it really has turned into the smoking of the twenty first century. We all know it's not good for us. We all know it's unhealthy. We're desperate
to make sure our kids, don't. You know. We're like, let's get it out of schools. You want to talk about it some this bipartisan right that a matter of red state of blue. Get the get the spreens out of the schools. Right, And yet we can't quit. We
¶ There are certain safeguards that must be built into AI models
all can't quit.
Right.
It's it powers economy, It helps to fuel this economy in some ways, we don't know how to We know this is bad and we don't know how to stop it. And I think the fear that's my theory, and that, oh my god, if we do AI, then we'll never be able to unwind this.
That's exactly right. I mean, we know now from the various leaks, for example, from Meta who know about things they knew that they tolerated, that they were almost willing to encourage behavior that is criminal and shocking in lots of ways, right, because it promoted engagement. You know, we know the AI companies, especially we've seen Chat GPT because it's the most consumer facing of all of the AI
¶ Grok took on a "MechaHitler" persona & is integrated at the Pentagon
products out there, more than Anthropic or Google's products. Are right, How people can like misuse them and become addicted to them. We can lead people to solve farm I think, I mean, because you covered DC so much. There's a question like tink the Kids Online Safety Act, which is a response to the social media problems. It passes the House and
the Senate overwhelmingly. It gets bottled up in leadership. Why because they're on the phone with like Meta you know that's got millions of dollars to give to the super packs, the majority and minority leadership packs, these kind of things. And so that's the dysfunction. It's like people know it and their politicians look kind of the rank and vile. They do support changes, but it gets bottled up because again a couple of phone calls from people you know
really kind of like can stranglehold it. That's a unique aspect of American politics. That's again about the money, and it's one of the terrible aspects of American politics.
Well this is I mean, look, you keep coming back to something that I don't think is unfair to coming back to, which is as you know, here we have a we have a democracy that desperately needs updating. I'm not going to call it broken. I'm going to call it in disrepair and it needs modernizing. You know, we need some cases, it's just simply catching up to reality, particularly when it comes down money and politics works and
things like that. But it is I don't We're not going to improve the democracy in time to get AI right. So let's put on our well, we got to deal with the politics that we have now that we wish we had. What's the safer way within this system that
¶ Letting the private sector roll out AI without regulation is a huge risk
we can be rolling out AI to help people feel better about this.
I think the first thing is we should let the states which are more agile, less captured by big money interests, have the ability to take a stab at this and to experiment with it. That's the first thing. I think the second thing is we should minimally demand that these frontier labs, these are the five big companies to have the very well known models. This is ex Google, Meta, Panthropic, Open AI. Right. They need to be more transparent about
what they're doing. They need to be reporting to government authorities like can this great novel pathogens? Can it promote offensive cybersecurity risk? Can it help?
By the way, what is the government entity that ought to be overseeing this?
I would like to see something of the Department of Commerce or Department of Energy. Okay, are there already to
¶ We have no visibility into AI labs or how it's being deployed
nuclear weapons or a lot of export controls, So that's where they should do it. They should be reporting up there. And I think, you know, if you have a model that actually say it could be proven to develop novel pathogens, and we already know that most of these models are better than PhD virologists, so they're incredibly good at this kind of thing. And if it could develop a bio weapon,
you should be actually prohibited from releasing that. Today you're not prohibited in any way from releasing that, and you don't even have to test for it. And so the idea is like, there are certain things that should be testing for, you know, and that you shouldn't be able to release these, and you should have safeguards. So if you could develop child pornography, for example, we should know ahead of time and you shouldn't be rock.
Look at what GROC has pulled off, right, Elon must decides to sexualize GROC and usership what triples? Yes, exactly, I don't want to. We can make a comment about our own society about that. But let's humans are going to human Okay, So that is that is what it is. Humans are going to human. You know, I always say our problems in this country are incentive structures. Right. Good people can do bad things with bad incentives. Bad people
will do good things with good incentives. So what Groc basically did is, Hey, let's imagine I have the worst incentives imaginable. Could I triple the amount of users I have?
Well, the answers, yes, exactly, they're new deifying images. Of course, there's the whole Mecha Hitler episode. Do you know where it took on the persona of Adolf Hitler. It kind
¶ AI can be used for incredible medical advances... or bioweapons
of blows your mind. Actually, And these products like take Groc, the one we're just talking about, it's now embedded increasingly in the Defense department. It's replacing Anthropic and Claud's product there in many ways. And this is the most, the least reliable, the least safeguarded of all of them. And so you know, someone who spent a lot of time working at the Department of Defense under the Obama administration and thinking, you're like, I can't I wouldn't want to
rely on this. But well, again, because humans will be human, we often do rely on computer outputs that think like, oh, that must be right, the computer said, and we don't actually interrogate it enough. So it's actually very parallel situation we're finding ourselves in.
You know, I was speaking with he wanted to say this off the record, but it was a retired general who was knee deep in COVID, so he was helping in that world. Has not has not been has been in the private sector since. But he remarked to me, he said, I do not understand. He said, you know, the government made sure, you know, if they were in charge of the scientists making the nuclear weapons. The government
created the Internet, then it took the internet public. We are letting the private sector do this without much government supervision at all. And I say this. We know how people feel about government these days, and you may not trust who's in charge of the government, depending on your political person. But previous instances, you know, collective collective concern by government proved probably a good thing with nuclear weapons, and proved a good thing with the initial creation of
the Internet as a as a defense thing. This general was mortified that the government had no was not essentially holding the hands of these companies.
I think he should be mortified. It's really the first
¶ Ron DeSantis is proposing an "AI Bill of Rights" in Florida
kind of transformative military technology that's being developed by the private sector, private companies. We don't even see their research. We have no idea like what's happening in the skunk works of these labs, no visibility into it. It's really quite extraordinary. And now we see with Claude in this whole speed with p Hexeth Department of War, how reliant
they are on AI had. The Iraq War has shown some examples of Claude's use there, and so I think, yes, he should be mortified because what's happening in San Francisco within a six by six square mile area there. It's transforming the world. It's going to transform military power, and we really have no oversight or even insight into what's going on.
Do you ever say to yourself that are we living a Bond movie? Right? I mean, this is the plot
¶ Surveillance pricing seems incredibly unconstitutional and illegal
of one of those b minus Bond movies, like not even a really good one.
It's some people, I think are waking up to it. And that's why people are scared about this. That's why the unpopularity is there. People are like, you know, I see a lot of polling data and people do recognize it might be able to do some amazing things, you know, cure diseases, new.
Materials, social media. I look, I'm old enough to remember the Arab Spring. We thought, wow, we have democratized the world. Social media is going to get rid of authoritarianism. Oopsh you know, it's like, it's funny you bring up we all talk about the health benefits. There's a story out there about the guy in Australia who developed the cancer treatment for his dog. Right, and as a dog lover, you know, I was, I'm like, yeah, I could see
¶ Washington Post looked at subscribers' credit reports when pricing
myself doing that for Cali, you know, my puppy. That's the good part. But if you can develop, if somebody without scientific training can develop this amazing treatment to shrink a tumor on their dog, what could they do to actually give you a tumor and to actually create cancers if they chose to. It's the same thing with the
Arab Spring. That's what we learned with the Arab Spring. Right, what was a positive the minute, Well, you could break through until the authoritarians decided, oh, we'll control the flow of information again.
Yeah. I think that's what one of the lessons of social media is there's good and bad to both these things. They're not unalloyed one way of the other. And you have to have a regulatory scheme that's flexible enough, which isn't easy to achieve, but it must be allowed to be flexible. Social media we froze it, you know, in Ice in nineteen ninety six, so section two thirty it was over.
Yep.
It's basically been unregulated, set and immunize any harm. And if you try to get after it, they always say it's section two thirty. We're immunized from this. You know. You can't allow that to happen for major technologies, and that is the danger of AI. That's really the big fight to AI. Now. It's like, do you want to repeat section two thirty? I think it's fair to say that like that tech right crowd David Sachs A sixteen Z people like that open AI. That really is what
they want to do. And the question is, like, we have learned our lesson, you know. And it's not to say AI should be prohibited or that it can't do many good things. It can't, but you do have to
¶ People deserve to know if AI is evaluating them when applying for jobs
have a certain agility which the law permits, and to freeze that like we did with social media is just a disastrous mistake that you know has changed society irrevocably.
What are some good state regulations being developed that you'd like to see. Let's see how that sticks. Maybe that will work. I mean, you know, this is the laboratory of well, we like to call the fifty states, right, the laboratory of Democracy's what's a few in attempts you'd like to see to see if okay, and maybe this will be a good national regulation. But let's try it. Let's try it in Indiana or Oklahoma or Yeah.
First I'll give you like three or four of those. For one thing, Ron DeSantis is proposing an AI Bill of Rights in Florida. It gives you know, your right to owne your data and have transparency into AI decision making. I like laws like that. California and New York for the Frontier labs have required transparency in reporting requirements have added to those requirements. That's not enough, but that's a good,
good step in the right direction. Maybe the third bucket is it's a whole different type of AI than like ROCK or chat GPT. It's very pervasive. It's how AI is being used in our day to day lives. For example, surveillance, you know, facial recognition, algorithms deciding whether we're going to hire you or not, algorithms determining whether your health claim is going to be approb.
Let me give you the one that I'm just rip us about surveillance pricing. I think this is so unconstitutionally legal,
¶ We haven't had enough debate around the AI issue
and it's like, I am you want to really make you know, It's like, do you want when the middle class and upper middle class decides to pick up a pitchfork. That's when politicians are troubled in Surveillance pricing is one.
Of those Well, this shows you the power of state law. So you know, you may have seen this. It kind of broke in the news last week where I'm a Washington Post subscriber online and to renew right, it quoted me a price and at the bottom it had a little note that this was based on an algorithmic determination. Right of my use patterns they knew about. The thing is, they knew my credit history. They probably know how much money I make, so they probably you know Taylor, like, hey, he's a super user.
Hey do you remember when you clicked when you accepted terms and conditions that allowed the Washington Post to do a credit check on you.
I don't. I don't think I did that, but like all terms of Star, I'm sure we did. That's my right.
¶ Who can be a trusted voice to lead the debate?
I hate those goddamn things because I'm sure they'll say, oh, you accepted terms and conditions. You mean oh, because because you put a gun to my head to accept terms and conditions every time you update the app. But they looked at your credit report, think about that.
Brand among other things. Right, they have all the consumer data you could want on me. They know what I else I subscribe to you, they know I'm a New York Times subscriber and The Atlantic and things. But the only reason we even got who noticed about that is because New York has a law that says if you engage in algorithmic pricing, you have to put a little note on it. And they obviously have a lot of New York readers. And it's only because of that state
law that I in Oklahoma got notified of that. So these are the kind of things like that's not frontier level AI. They're not using chat GPT, that's AI, and the average American should know about that, and we should like have a debate. And that goes into the broader question like surveillance. You know, that anthropic Apartment of War got into the things that we call legal in this country that you and I might over cocktails call surveillance,
or ordinary people like that's surveillance. The government doesn't call it surveillance. I mean, it's shocking the amount of data they have. Llms can create a whole dossier about you. You know that there wasn't possible before llms existed to really assimilate all this data U and so those kind of things like I like that New York law, things like that that make you, at least even if we
don't prohibit it, you need to be notified. Like if I'm doing a job interview and this happens in places you often now will like stare into the screen and the AI will say like is this person smarter or
¶ Consumer protection for AI would be a winning political message
not because of my gestures or maybe my glasses. You know, it's like I deserve to know if AI is evaluating me in some way. Those kind of laws I like to see.
What do you think? What is your biggest concern in this fight? That that you're you're you're you don't have enough of the big tech titans on your side.
I think that's part of it. I think you knew there's a there's a political economy aspect of this right where you have to fight. And we know that good ideas don't just prevail because they're sound and even popular ones kids Online safety shows that big money can prevail in American politics. So I think that's the biggest concern, you know, if people are left My job leading a super pac is quite easy. The often aspect, well, what
do I have to believe to earn your support? And I say, all you have to do is believe in having a democratic debate about AI. If that happens, I think most people will probably come to my side. What I don't want to do is for close it, you know, like we've had with crypto policy in this country, where today there's no real debate on cryptopolicy because the superpack has now made it impossible for people to be against
that issue. We don't want that for AI, right. We want it to be free where people can have actually, you know, an argument about what we should do, and if so, I have confidence in the American people to come to the right conclusion.
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Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to qu and ce dot com slash chuck for free shipping, three hundred and sixty five day returns, quints dot com slash chuck. It doesn't feel like we're having enough of a debate. It doesn't feel like we've had enough of a tutorial, you know, in a in a healthier democratic system, because our systems, you know, some version of we have a cold. We can some of you may decide how bad are is it? The flu?
Is it? How bad is it? But we're definitely not healthy. Who would be leading this conversation about about AI? I mean, do we need an old time fireside chat? Do we need a General Eisenhower to sort of, you know, explain things?
¶ The electrical grid will need a trillion dollars invested into it
You know, what what would what what? What would a healthier, small d democratic system be doing right now with the development of AI and bringing the public along and making the and feel a little more secure about it.
I think two groups can do this. One is if the company leaders themselves were more open about it. I think Anthropic has actually done a good job of that. They've been pretty forward leading, They've expressed concerns that's made people aware. If you had all the LAB leaders come together and talk about these things more openly, not simply like be arguing their own book, like what's best for the narrow share interest here, but like the broader social context,
that would help. I think my real hope is in the twenty twenty eight presidential race, you need someone at that level of platform, that level of free media covering them say look, America, look what's happening here, you know, and to like that it kind of like raises the consciousness of the whole country. Ron DeSantis has done a bit of that in Florida. Have been a great leader on this issue. But if you want a president and you said, look, you know, technology is actually a defining
issue of our day. It's redefining party allegiances. Where Steve Bannon and Elizabeth Warren or like eye to eye on these kind of questions, you know, and you should be paying attention. And here's some solutions for it as well, not just crying of the solutions that works.
You know, it strikes me as the safest place to be politically is if you're pro consumer. You know what you're describing, what essentially what Governor DeSantis is proposing. And in some ways it is very much a small C
¶ The difference between Oklahoma Democrats & national ones?
conservative approach, which is, hey, we got to have a specific essentially a bill of rights right, which is really a consumer protection you know, we can have larger arguments about, you know what should this be allowed and should this be allowed? Right? And that's where sometimes you lose people on the right. Well, I don't want government to involved with all the decision making, but let's have some basic
protections for the consumer right. And it feels like if you put if the north star is consumer protection hard stop.
I think it's a one political message.
That you probably can get to the right place without without feeling that you're too blue or too red.
I think it is actually a great message, and I think though you do need someone of stature to inject that into the debate to let people know, like AI is changing your life. You may not even be able to see all the things that's doing right. You don't even know it. Sometimes it's invisible to you. But consumer protection claims are very powerful and to make a kind of a major issue. That's what I hope twenty twenty eight brings. And I actually think it's going to be
a major issue in twenty twenty eight. So I'm pretty optimistic that it's going to be a huge question. And once it's become part of the broader discussion, a few people can't control it anymore. Right, it can't be just like two guys in Silicon Valley plotting against you. Once it's in South Carolina, New Hampshire. It's a thing, you.
Know, It's funny, you know, the Internet never did become a centerpiece conversation in a presidential election, not ninety six, not two thousand. You know, I remember McCain tried with the tax free Internet and thought there'd be some there would be a somewhat of a centralizing You know that you'd have been dismissed as a candidate if you didn't have a policy talking about how to integrate the Internet
into every day commerce, et cetera. I'm with you. I think twenty eight is going to be the year where that is focused on fear of AI job displacement. I'm not saying AI job displacement is going to be taking place, But the fear of it, I think is going to be at a more heightened state come twenty twenty eight. We've seen already a few things like the Jack Dorsey company where he just laid off forty percent of his folks. Whether that was really AI driven, you know, right every
you're like, oh, that's that's interesting. Let's see if two or three more companies do this, then it's a trend, right. But I do sense fear of AI job displacement is probably going to be a a central concern, particularly you're
¶ The tribes have become the check on Republicans in Oklahoma
certainly seeing it labor units right now.
I think also rising electricity prices and perhaps water usage. Some of those concerns are more serious than others. Overestimate the use of water things, but you've seen Spanberger run all those kind of issues. Loud And County flip a seat from red to blue. A couple Georgia political public health Brad.
I mean not to get like very specific here, because I've my electric bills gone up through the roof and I'm in Arlington County, which is not far from Loudon. But the reason we're paying a steeper price is because of how electricity is transmitted alunk off the grid. Into the mid Atlantic, and it turns out that you know, like you know, it's gonna hurt us more than it will hurt another state more because they get their electricity
slightly differently than Maryland gets THEIRS. Then Pennsylvania gets THEIRS, Virginia gets THEIRS. You know, what it's done for me is that it's highlighted. Hey, our grid is a mess. We probably need to restructure the grid in a way to minimize consumer pain and maximize stability.
You know, I think that's one of the underappreciated aspects of what AI has done, is there's this incredible energy build out across the country.
Yeah no, but it's exposed some problems, problems too.
But it's actually I think probably will lead more than anything else has to some solutions to those. Right, you're right. The grid has to have probably a trillion dollars invested into it, right, We need more interconnection agreements. The regulation is pretty come by.
I know, who should pay for it? We don't have to pay for it now. Friends that want to build these data centers, this should be the price. Nothing wrong with that.
And that's the right, right, that's actually and this is why I think it's going to be a good issue. Actually, you know, you asked me, like Oklahoma Democrats and like Southern Democrats like this is actually a classic wedge issue if you're a Democrat in these states, because you're something
¶ Ossoff & Buttigieg are two potential '28 Dems that stand out
like you know what, I'm I'm actually for lowering your electricity bill. I'm like, I want these data centers to pay their way. Sometimes, like pro business Republicans have a hard time getting themselves to that position. And so you've seen in a couple places, right, it's a really good issue to kind of like get these concernsvatives who care about affordability and water, environment, energy use, I mean, who
are skeptical at AI in Silicon Valley as well. Kind of inherently all that comes into kind of a world where I think he's going to make for a lot of strange politics.
Actually, and let me let me end with a little bit of just your observations of what's going on in particularly in your I don't know, is it your former political party or your current one person? Do you consider yourself a Democrat?
Oh? Yes, of course.
Okay, what's the difference between an Oklahoma Democrat and a national Democrat these days?
Or is there one I'm about the last Democrat in the state of Oklahoma today, So I'm kind of like, you know, the last of the Mohicans here, I'd say,
¶ Dems need to attack Trump for lying to base, rather than attack his voters
I think, you know, my view has always been that the parties do capture by the values of the professional managerial class, you know, whose concerns are almost post material, right about things like if you come like I do from eastern Oklahoma, small towns, That's what I presented in Congress where I was from, their concerns are very material health care jobs, roads, schools, We have meth and opiate addiction that are endemic, you know, these concerns of like
kind of esoteric social questions, which if you're like living you know in loud In County, one of the richest counties in the country, there are not that many people who like worry about these things with the same intensity.
And to me, I like to say, I have you have the luxury to worry about those things?
Yeah, exactly, And so things that you know, even if they're in the right about it, they make them more salient than they should be. You know. It's like, you know, in my mind, like I think the whole question that the party's debating about trans issues, you know, you could be four or against it. These are different positions. It's
really not that salient to the average voter. And so you know, we should focus on things that are like driving their their kind of household decision making, and Democrats need to be better about that. So that's the problem with the coastal Party. But I still think Democrats have the best message for people who have very material concerns
¶ How did you like being the president of Tulsa University?
about healthcare and public schools, things like that. So I'm working do my best to reclaim that tradition.
I have a specific question about Oklahoma. You know, one of the things I like to remind people is that even in one party states and a political a strong political opposition develops some and it isn't sometimes it's within the party. Right, We've seen that in Texas there are basically two Republican parties and they're clashing right now in that center base. But we had seen this, right, the one part of the Republican Party wanted to impeach Compact,
another part is trying to defend him. But you know, the weak Democratic party and it's perhaps getting a little stronger down there today, but at the time, but you know, there's the reason the phrase exists. Politics of horors a vacuum. What I've noticed about in Oklahoma is as the Democratic Party has fallen away as the chief opposition to the to the majority governing governance in the state, that the
tribes have become the check, the oppositional check. And sometimes it'll be by the tribes funding a Republican primary candidate to a certain sitting governor or sitting attorney general. Maybe it will be finding a former Republican to run as a Democrat for governor.
Or.
It's, you know, is Oklahoma politics. It's it's a two party state, but it's not Democrats and Republicans, it's Republicans. And that the next most powerful interest group is the tribes.
That's probably a fair assessment of it. The tribes are historically very democratic. Unsurprisingly, over the last twenty years have become very wealthy and have a lot more political interests at stake, and they've spread that money around. Because Republicans are in ascendancy really and have like basically every office at every level. Right, they've played in a lot more Republican politics to find people who are supportive of them. They've been real at war with Kevin sitt or governess.
They have and that's basically been over a over good old fashioned economic right how much did the state get in the gambling revenue.
And also jurisdiction, you know of things. But now they have people running for governor, which is all about the Republican primary. Again, there's no serious democratic cand is. Some of them are very strongly aligned with the tribes, some less so, and so the tribal issues are actually driving
a lot of it. They fund a lot of things, independent expenditures, and so I think it probably is fair to say that after kind of state government, we have a kind of rump oil and gas industry that still has some power, but probably the tribes are the most organized kind of figures. They keep a check on government.
Yeah, we're seeing Look, this is what you're seeing a little bit in the state of Florida and what you're seeing a little bit in the state of California where the tribes are becoming the sort of the bulwark against a majority, you know, the majority party running amok, almost running unopposed. And I think we all know our democracy doesn't work without a little bit of friction, that's sure, and in that sense it develops a friction. What would you tell you gave some advice about like how you
viewed the party in general. What kind of anybody out there running in twenty eight that you're like, boy, they're at least talking about issues differently and it's about time, or you know, who's who's just standing out to you is sort of like, well, I hope to hear from hear more from them after twenty six.
You know, I hear John Hassoff on the stump. I'm always very impressed by him and how he's thinking of things, and I hear Buddha Judge that kind of similar rhetoric. I think kind of that analysis I gave, perhaps offered less stridently than I did, is one people recognize, you know, that we need to get back to more of a class based politics than that we've had in the past.
Well that's what Trump did. He ran a good old flash and class wharf, you know, class warfare campaign which Bob Shrum used to help Democrats run back in the dates of Gore and Kerry and and and those campaigns which were quite competitive.
Yeah, I actually can envision. This is one of my goals in life is have a Democrat go on Steve Bannon's war room and say to the magabase that listen to him, Like, the truth is Trump has betrayed the magabase, right, all the things you cared about about the swamp and all this.
That's my wife's theory. She's like that you should say he lied to you. Yeah, don't tell them they were dumb. Go the other way around. I mean, this has been the problem with the left. They keep attacking the voter for supporting Trump, rather than understanding why the voter wants Trump in the first place.
So, if you want to make America great again, so what a great thing that is, you should vote Democratic, right, because we are the ones who are actually going to deliver this message to you. I actually think that's the jiu jitsu that said that's probably too hard for people.
To You're, well, it's why. It's a reminder. I always say, today's MAGA voter was a Clinton voter in the nineties.
One hundred those were all Democratic voters.
I think they were all Bill Clinton voters. I wonder, don't you agree they were Reagan voters and they were Bill Clinton voters.
I bet they were. All of them were registered Democrats back in the day, and they were your constituents. Yeah, exactly, and my district now that I won is seventy five twenty five Trump And so it shows you like these people. They have certain interests, and Trump spoke to them in a brilliant way. And we shouldn't take that away from like the genius of his campaigning. We should try to like re channel that in some way.
President of Tulsa University did love it or hate it?
I love there. Actually, Jane in June to do full time AI work. I loved it. University Tulsa is a great place.
What's worst it is it as bad politically. I mean, you know that's the old joke, right The politics are worse on a college campus because the stakes are so low.
It was far harder politics than the actual being an elective office ever was.
Well, it's I always had a soft spot being a Miami Hurricane boy. I always had a soft spot for the Golden.
Hurricanes, exactly where the two hurricane in the world. Right, of course, Oh, you grad myself. I have to hate Miami.
I know you don't, but that's all right.
We had to.
If it wasn't bro Oklahoma, Miami wouldn't have gotten into the top tier.
That's true.
Beating Oklahoma gave Miami an identity, so losing I I'm very thankful for the old Big eight, our coaches.
Jimmy Johnson right from Oklahoma, since you're our best people.
That's right. Well, and then we sent you one back with Schnellenberger that didn't go so hot, but that's that's neither her door there. Hey Brad Carson, this was great. I appreciate you coming on. And uh, look this this is I see why you're engaged in this. I mean, this really is in some ways more how if we got to get a ri we got to get this right because getting it wrong could be could be very very damaging.
It is the most important fight going on right now.
That's for sure. All Right, we'll be well, let's let's stay in touching, Chuck,