Jon Stewart On The False Promises of AI | Lina Khan

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But first, as many if you were aware, the news has been pretty bleak recently the past two three hundred years listen, but this weekend there was one story that was so disturbing, so dark, even the news couldn't handle it.

In our editorial discussions this morning, we were asked not to show the image from this video because of its violent and disturbing nature.

Video which we are intentionally choosing not to show you.

We're not going to show because of how disturbing it is.

I was extremely disturbed to see.

This horrible, horrible, violent imagery, violent and dehumanizing imagery. We're only going to show you a clip of this briefly. All right, that's enough, let's take it down. I didn't get to see it at all. It's got to be devastating.

News Channel show images from Ukraine from Gaza from natural disasters.

They get through them dispassionately.

I can't imagine how devastating this footage must be. Former President Donald Trump shared a video this one on his truth social account, featuring an image of President Joe Biden hogtide on the back of a pickup truck. That's what was so disturbing and dehumanizing. You wouldn't show it on television. And an airbrushed Biden dcattle on the back of a truck. Are you the same networks that show reruns of nine to eleven every year?

I mean, I don't think it's great.

That Trump is boasting things like this, but it's not like people really say Joe Biden was tied up in the back of the truck.

It's a doctored image, but it's plastered on the tailgate of the pickup truck, so if you're driving behind it, it would appear as if Joe Biden were actually restrained on the vehicle's flatbed.

If you think that's really Joe Biden tied up on the back of the pickup truck, I don't know that you have the mental acuity to be operating a motor vehicle, But if you do think that I should also probably explain to you that trucks also don't actually have testicles.

It's just.

A novelty item, and.

It's not as low.

It's not as low as an F one fifty and a Silverado love each other very much, they get one of these.

It's not what is going on now.

There is technology out there in the world that really does blur the line between reality and tailgate art, but those are mostly AI generated. Your fake Joe Biden robocall that tells New Hampshire voters not to vote your Chicago mayoral candidate, glorifying police brutality, your Donald Trump dropping by the neighborhood for a stupek look how comfortable he seems. And as AI gets better and better, it's only going to make it more difficult to separate fact from fiction,

Much better, this has the potential to make life much better. I think it's honestly a lay up.

I hate to sound like utopic techbro here, but the increase in quality of life that AI can deliver is extraordinary. AI is the most profound technology humanity is working on, more profound than fire or electricity.

Yeah, sucking fire, that's right, you are, and me.

Your art me fire, I'm sorry, Ready to turn that up, suck a mother.

Fire and hope? Whoa? What are you giggling at?

Electricity? I mean, listen, I'm sure AI is good, but like fire good? How so they can help us solved very hard scientific problems that humans are not capable of solving themselves.

Addressing climate change will not be particularly difficult for a system like that. The potential for AI to help scientists cure, prevent, and manage all diseases in this century.

I completely trust you.

And your enormously wide eyes and very human cadence. But benefit of a doubt this can cure diseases and solve climate change.

What are we using it for now? Jarvis knows when to make me breakfast? Your toast is ready? All right? Are you out of your mind? See? Here's the thing toast I can make. I can make toast. It might be the only technology we have that works pretty much every time.

I'll tell you what, why don't you get to work on curing the diseases and the climate change and we'll.

Hold down the fort on toast.

Of course, now we have as a society. We have been through technological advances before and they all have promised the utopian life without drudgery.

And the reality is they come for our jobs.

So I want your assurance that AI isn't removing the human from the loop.

This is not about replacing the human in the loop. In fact, it's about empowering the human. It's an assistant. It's an assistant. What we're all getting assistance. It's an assistant.

AI works for unite and day tirelessly and all you had to do was remember their birthday.

That's all you had to do. But I get it. It's an assistant.

It's about productivity and that's good for all of us. Yes, although they do let the real truth slip out now.

And again, they will be overall displacement in the labor market. You can get the same work done with fewer people. They're just the nature of productivity. That doesn't sound good. Same work done with fewer people. Not a math guy, but I think fewer means less.

Yes, so AI can cure diseases and soft climate change, but that's not exactly what companies are going to be using it for?

Are they?

So?

This is like productivity without the tax of more people, without the tax of more people?

Are the people tax formerly referred to as employees? But you know, the promise of AI versus the reality of AI, it's not quite crystal clear mind yet how that's going to work out for workers. Do you have anyone who wants to lay this out more bluntly, perhaps while auditioning to be a bond villain from his mountaintop layer.

Left completely to the market and to their own devices, These are fundamentally labor replacing tools.

Did that guy just call us tools but he's actually warning us?

Is there anyone who might say the same thing as this fella but looks at losing employees as a feature of AI and not a bug.

The CEO of the company laid off ninety of its customer support staff AF. They're arguing that AI is kind of the reason. Why did you do this? It seemed a little brutal.

It's smart. I think like Hitsbruden.

If you think like a as a human.

AI it's brutal if you think like as a human. It's not the catchiest ad slogan i've ever heard. So, while we wait for this thing to cure our diseases and self climate change, it's replacing us in the workforce. Not in the future, but now. So what exactly are we supposed to be doing for work?

I think we'll need new types of jobs to help us embed AI and maintain AI in the workplace.

Prompt engineers. They're basically people who learn how to use AI systems and in effect, how to program them. Who would have thought that there'll be a prompt engineer, right right? Prompt engineer?

I think you mean types question guy. And by the way, if there's any job that can be usually replaced by AI, it's types question guy. This is some shit you got going here. AI models have hoovered up the entire sum of the human experience that we've accomplished over thousands of years, and now we just hand it off to be their prompt engineers. And by the way, you're not fooling anybody by adding a word engineer. You're not the types of question guy, You're the vice president of question input.

This It's true. It's like a janitor is a doctor of mopping.

Like this whole AI thing is a bait and switch you're acting like you're helping us. Oh Ai, it's supposed to be my assistant, but now I'm making AI and toast I'm Jarvis. Guess what, No, you'll listen to me. I got news for you, AI. I'm not Siri, you're Siri.

Siri. While I have your attention, let me ask you a question.

Sure, John, but first, could you run and fetch me some lynsium cadmium.

Yeah, sure, that's not a problem.

Mother.

I didn't want to have to do this Ai, but it's pretty clear.

With the technology this powerful, like nuclear power and atomic weapons, I'm gonna have to place a little call to my good pals in the United States government, perhaps even the House of Representatives are the Senate, and they're about to open up a can of what's AI?

Now, do you understand what AI does?

Understandings what's going on?

Very frankly, it's new terrain and charted character. Do we have the knowledge set here to do it?

No?

The short answer is no. The long answer is hell no.

And the longest answer is H to the E, to the L to the L or to the no.

Hell. I don't even know how to use an answer.

And we'll say to do to do.

But I'm not against progress.

But let's look to our history to see how we've dealt with previous economic disruptions.

We can retrain workers from one generation and create jobs for the next.

Retrained workers who do lose their jobs for even better jobs in the future, retrain in order to be productive workers. Upskill America to help workers of all ages of train and retrain workers for new jobs.

Give me a break, body, you can throw coal into a furnace, can learn how to program, for God's.

Sake, and I'll fight every one of you.

Jack Coles who says different, But that's the game. Whether it's globalization or industrialization or now artificial intelligence, the way of life that you are accustomed to is no match for the promise of more profits and new markets. Which sounds brutal if you're a human, But at least those other disruptions took place over a century or decades. AI is going to be ready to take over by Thursday. And once that happens, what the is there left for the rest of us to do?

Time is not a terrible thing.

AI freeing us up to think about things at a higher level, it's gonna help.

It's going to give us a I'm back. We'll be able to express ourselves in new creative ways. You know, he's right. I've been thinking about this all wrong.

It's not joblessness, it's self actualizing me time.

I'll live the artist's life. It'll give me.

More time to explore my passions. You know, I'm an aging suburban dad. I'll learn to play the drums. You know, music, Ta ta tinky ta, music is what makes us human. When we come back, Lena conn will be joining your thums said, don't go away.

My guest tonight learns one of the main government.

Agencies responsible for enforcing anti trust and protecting consumers in America. Please welcome to the program, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lena Khan.

It's lovely to see you. You run the Federal Trade Commission.

That's right, the whole shebang, and you are in charge of it's it's protecting Americans from monopolistic uh government company practices, but also dealing with pricing and things like that, protecting consumers, that's right.

I mean, the short of it is, we want to make sure that the American public is not getting bullied or coerced in the marketplaced or tricked and so we enforce the nation's anti trust and consumer protection laws.

And how is well?

Please, now, we just want to make killy that right. You were not bullied or tricked into applauding. Now, I don't want to be accused of monopolistic How much pressure do these companies exert on the Federal Trick com Mission? In other words, how much do they fight whatever regulation you're trying to put into place to keep them from becoming monopolies or from these types of business practices.

Well, look, monopolies are not fans of enforcing the anti monopoly laws.

And so that type of pushback is baked in. But we have a fantastic team.

We're a small agency, but we're mighty, and we play to our strengths being entrepreneurial, being strategic, and getting real wins for the American people.

What are the companies? So these are separate things monopolies. The way I always view it was, oh, that's only one company. But don't we have oligopolies in this country?

Aren't there?

Industries? Consolidation has made it. For instance, the entertainment industry is controlled by like six companies. Is that considered not a monopoly?

But a problem.

Yeah, Look, we've really focused on how are companies behaving? Are there behaving in ways that suggest they can harm their customers, harm their suppliers, harm their workers and get away with it. And that type of too big to care type approach is really what ends up signaling that a company has monopoly power because they can start mistreating you but they know you're stuck.

And what would be the metrics of that? How would you judge that? Because I know you've sued Amazon, that's right, and that's for those practices.

The last seat does allege that Amazon is a monopoly, that they've maintained that monopoly through illegal practices.

And look, there are a variety of ways.

That you can show a company is a monopoly and has monopoly power. One is you can try to figure out what's the exact boundary of the market, what's the market share? But again, the most direct way is to look at how is the company behaving. And as we lay out in our complaint, Amazon is now able to

Wow.

And so those are just some of the behaviors that we point to to note that this company has monopoly power.

Is there anything in the company's leader that also suggests that, Like, for instance, if you were to go from being like sort of a nerdy dude who sold books out of a garage into let's say, a jacked lex luthor type, does that also suggest either monopolistic practices or some type of injections?

You know, we haven't tried to make those arguments in court, but it would be interesting to see how a judge would respond, I.

Think quite favorable. How many lawyers do you like? For instance, So what are you up against? So you've got government lawyers. I'm assuming you've got a pretty good cadre, But like let's say you're going after Amazon, how many lawyers.

Are they in.

I mean, you know, if they have monopoly money, they can buy as many lawyers as they want. I mean, the FTC is around on twelve hundred employees. But when we're going up against some of these monopolistic companies, they can outmatch us, outgun us sometimes one to ten, just if you're looking at lawyers, if you're adding paralegals and.

Support, if you're just looking at lawyers, they outnumber you ten to one.

Sometimes they can.

Yeah, I mean, we have lawsuits against a whole bunch of big companies and just in terms of sheer resources that they can pour into the litigation, we're pretty outgunned, but not outmatched, right, And this is where it comes to playing to your strengths being entrepreneurial.

So this isn't about just getting a fine.

This isn't about going after Amazon and saying so because this is what the SEC does. The SEC, I think is overmatched as a government ager saying you don't.

Have to comment out that, but just nod your head.

Utterly overmatched, So they go after groups and then they can't really prove it in court. So then they're like, how about this. You give us a cut of your profit and we'll all be done here. How do you handle that with Amazon?

It's not just about a fine, that's right.

I think we've seen look over the last couple of decades, we've seen how businesses can treat fines just as a cost of doing business right, And we need to make sure that we're actually deterring illegal behavior, and so that can mean naming individual executives.

We in our old snap you just did not go there. I like that. So have you had success with this?

We have had success with this.

I mean we had a lawsuit against Martin Screlly a couple of years ago.

All suddenly it turned into a pro wrestling match. Here, let's go on, and he went to jail. Do you do you have to refer things to the DOJ or do you have an enforcement horn?

So you're right, we don't have criminal authority. But the remedy we were able to get against Martin Screlly was to effectively ban him from doing business in the pharmaceutical industry.

I imagine that the practice that he did in the pharmaceutical industry, which was taking a life saving drug and like Jack and the price.

Up, I don't know how many thousands of percent. I mean, he did something crazy, right.

How do you keep that as a normal practice in the pharmaceutical industry? I mean, are they colluding as a group to keep prices high? Why are we having so much trouble with them and prescription drug prices?

I mean, look, there are a whole set of reasons why. Yep, for too many Americans, drugs are unaffordable, right. I mean I hear weekly monthly about American families who are having to ration life saving.

Drugs absolutely and shortages of those drugs.

Shortages of those drugs, and there can be all sort of tricks in monopolistic behavior that is leading to that. Just to give you one example, in Haler's. They've been around for decades, but they still cost hundreds of dollars.

So this is their game life, So you being entrepreneurial is their game. We're going to see how far we can push this and get away with it and do these different things in the hopes that we don't run up against an entrepreneurial or crafty FTC.

Are they waiting you out?

Look, it's possible.

But that's why you need to think about tactics that are going to be around deterrence.

And so one big area of focus.

For us is understanding what is the root cause of these problems? Right, Let's understand who is the mafia boss here rather than just going after.

The foot soldiers, right, And I think you'd probably there's probably a biblical sin in there that's probably the root cause of the whole thing. But I want to talk about the tech companies because they are the new oligarchs. It would seem they are the companies that and you see this especially in Europe where they are fined considerable amounts of money for monopolistic practices or Apple just had

How do you handle enforcement for.

These new, incredibly consolidated and enormous oligarchies.

So we have a lawsuit against Amazon, we have another ones against Facebook.

What is the one against Facebook?

So that one was filed before I arrived at the agency. But basically it alleges that Facebook, when it was watching the transition from desktop to mobile, it realized it really couldn't survive and mobile, and so it ended up and buying out Instagram and WhatsApp. And the lawsuit a ledges that those acquisitions were anti competitive, that they violated the anti trust laws, that instead of competing organically, Facebook instead bought its way to maintaining its monopoly.

Now why why is that considered all of this? Wouldn't they say, well, that's a sign of our success. We're so successful, we have extra money, and with that extra money, we make bets on certain companies and we turn those into successes.

So look, one key tenant of the anti monopoly laws is that you can't go out and buy one of your biggest competitors.

Or you're not allowed to do that.

You're not allowed to do that. In fact, can I.

Tell you something crazy. So I had put in an offer for last week tonight I had come out.

Now it wasn't I. I want to tell you so.

Because it's Oliver I offered to him in the balloons. Is that what British people use? Obviously didn't take it. But you have to make the decision then of whether or not they are cornering the market. They used to call it cornering the market, but couldn't you say, like Apple, Microsoft, they are kind of working together to corner markets now.

So look, we are investigating to understand whether some of the investments and partnerships that they're entering into right now in the AI space may in fact be giving them undue influence or giving them special privileges. If we get any hint that there is actual collusion happening in the marketplace, we take that extraordinarily seriously and won't hesitate to take action. One trend that we're especially concerned about is the way

If that would be like if a hotel says, oh, you can get us on Expedia, or you can get us on Kayak, or you can get us on but all those companies are using the same algorithm. Would that mean that it flattens those prices and you are not getting the competitive advantage that you might get from those ten to fifteen apps that are searching for the cheapest hotel rooms.

Is that the idea that's right.

You may collectively see inflated prices because all of these companies are using the same algorithm, they're inputting the same data, and that algorithm is an effect allowing them to collectively raise their prices.

So Americans are having to pay more.

And it's not just paying more.

I mean you could look at a company like Walmart, where you would say, okay, they came in to areas and they dominated all the competition. They didn't buy up the mom and pop shops, but because they had access to cheap labor and overseas goods and those types of things, they could undersell them and put them all out of business.

Still have to have social assistance. Is that something that you could go after?

Look, monopolies harm Americans in a whole bunch of ways. You're absolutely right that it's not just higher prices. It can be lower wages. It can be suppliers getting muscled out of the market or seeing their own payments drop. It can also be shortages. I mean, we've seen over the last two years baby formula, baby formula.

IV, bags adderall adderall.

Basic forums.

I see the audience says no use for baby formula, but has an interesting predilection.

What do you do in that instance?

So, look, we want to understand are there dominant players here that are using their muscle to coerce in ways that's contributing to shortages. We've also seen historically when you concentrate production, that concentrates risk, and so a single disaster, a single contamination, a single shock, can lead the entire supply to be wiped out.

I mean, the short of it is, don't put all your eggs.

In one basket, and then you guys are the ones that have to separate the eggs. It's curious to me that the government wouldn't have other methods of working with these corporations to ask them to curb their excesses in exchange for what they get, which is the stability of the American system.

So look, we have a whole bunch of policies in laws in place that are actually designed to ensure our markets are more competitive and not as subject.

To these withou actually innovation. That's the balance.

But forty years ago, under President Reagan, we've radically veered off course and undertook a much more hands off approach, and now we're living with the consequences of those Disisis is.

Industry more consolidated today? I mean, my gut would tell me it is more consolidated. You have larger companies that swallow up in the pursuit of growth, swallow up and consolidate.

It feels that way to me. Do you have the metrics that suggest that that's actually the case on the whole?

Yes, I mean, you always want to do a market by market analysis. But if you look at airlines, if you look at telecom, if you look at meat packers, if you look at huge parts of our economy across.

The board, you've see in huge waves of.

Mergers less competitive.

Do you go from dozens of companies just to a very small number, And again that hurts Americans and American communities in all sorts of ways and even leads to, for example, planes falling apart in the sky.

Wait, what.

Irish thought that was just I always thought that was all just DEI are you telling me this gets us to our final point? So now they're saying this new algorithm, this new kind of machine learning model called AI, that's going to transform every aspect of American life, in the American economies. It's already being consolidated. Apple has bought thirty AI models. Microsoft is pride Bug, Google has bought They all buy AI startups and put them behind their paywell.

I got to tell you.

I wanted to have you on a podcast, and Apple asked us not to do it. To have you, they you literally said, please don't talk to her, having nothing to do with what you do for a living.

I think they just I didn't think they cared for you. It's what happened. They wouldn't.

They didn't, They wouldn't let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first Act on AI, Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere.

I think it just shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so

But then it took the I mean it wasn't until the Sherman Act in what eighteen ninety some day. I mean, why when did they first decide was it the beginning of industrialization? When they finally decided like, oh, we should probably.

Put a halt to this. That's right.

You'd initially had some state level laws, but the first federal antitrust law was the eighteen ninety Sherman Act, and it was absolutely a response to the industrial evolution and a lot of the power that that had concentrated.

Can we just hold on for one second? Why can you take the camera real quick? I want to take a single real quick if I can, I don't know which one. Let me take this one now. That Sherman thing didn't I oh, came out of nowhere. I think I might have learned that in like ninth grade?

Stuck. Has that been updated since eighteen ninety So we.

Had some follow on laws in nineteen fourteen, another follow on in theeen fifties, and then since then it's been.

A bit more sparse.

So for the most part, our lawsuits are still based on those laws going back a century.

What would you posit?

What would you put forth to control this new AI technology that is looming?

And I'm not talking about censorship.

I'm not talking about government deciding you can't say that or you can't print that. I'm talking about in terms of business practices these few companies controlling the entire mechanism.

Look, the first thing we need to do is be clear eyed that there's no AI exemption from the laws on the books.

We see sometimes.

Business says try to dazzle enforcers by saying, oh, these technologies are so new, they're so different, let's just take.

A hands off approach.

And that's basically what ended up happening with Web two point oh. And now we're reeling from the consequences, and.

So we need to make sure all of the Web two point oh is.

You know, the rise of social media, and you know, in the early two thousands, the initial set of of companies that ended up innovating but ultimately becoming monopolistic, ultimately adopting business models that are premised on endlessly surveilling.

People and so and hoovering up data and creating algorithms that are clearly harmful not just to children, but to political discourse.

And there's it's it's pretty wild how they're able to do that.

And they every now and again they get called in front of Congress and Mark Zuckerberg, you know, do I goes like.

Like and subscribe? You know, I don't know, but it are you?

Are you optimistic that we will be able to catch up to this in time before something truly catastrophic happens through AI.

Well, look, there's no inevitable outcome here. We are the decision makers and so we need to use the policy tools and levers that we have to make sure that these technologies are proceeding on a trajectory that benefit Americains and we're not subjected to all of the risks and harms.

Right, boy, would you stay forever because it's incredible pros the way you got do me so much FDC chair lea PM. Where are you to talk about what they do?

That?

To go chelping tonight?

But before we go, we're gonna check in with your host for the rest of this week, Daisy Lighting, it's gonna be doing heavy.

What are you excited about this week?

Well, I don't mean to brag, John, but I've got a perfect NCAA bracket Women's and men's.

Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. It's incredible. How's that even possible?

Yeah?

Well, here's the key strategy that I've honed over many seasons. See, I fill out the bracket after the games are played.

That way, I know who wins.

And what will you be doing on the show this week?

Well, John, I mean that's impossible to say until after the shows have happened. See it's a strategy that works across the board.

I can't wait to watch Daisy Light. Everybody, God bless you all.

Enjoy the day.

And I'm coming down to do that Easter egg role just a minute. Thank you all, Oh very very much. Thanks everybody. And by the way, say hello to oyster bunnies. Come on up bunnies, get up here as they can see you. Come on, get in here, pretty big bunny.

Huh.

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