The World of AI Regulation with Brian Merchant

Summary

Better Offline – “The World of AI Regulation” with Brian Merchant

Episode Date: October 10, 2025 | Host: Ed Zitron | Guest: Brian Merchant
A production of Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

This episode of Better Offline dives deep into the current reality of AI regulation, focusing on California’s legislative environment and the outsized influence of tech industry lobbying. Host Ed Zitron sits down with author/journalist Brian Merchant (Blood in the Machine) to explore the political theater behind recently passed—and toothless—AI legislation, the aggressive lobbying campaigns mounted by Silicon Valley, and what meaningful AI regulation might actually look like.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dissecting California’s Watered-down AI “Safety” Bill

[03:02–12:10]

• The recently signed California AI safety bill is the product of a year-long struggle by “AI Doomer”/safety advocates.
• The original version (Bill 1047) had real regulatory teeth: third-party audits, actual transparency, and data sharing mandates, but was fiercely opposed by all major AI companies, including so-called “safety-first” firms like Anthropic.
• After significant redrafting and lobbying, the bill was gutted into a “watered down” version that:
  • Requires companies to publish privacy/security policies publicly (“like a privacy policy”).
  • Implements an honor system: companies are supposed to self-report “unsafe” incidents to the state—but with no meaningful enforcement.
  • Adds whistleblower protections, though these are described as largely symbolic in the current legal climate.
  • Establishes Cal Compute, a public AI research consortium, yet essentially just creates another committee for discussion.

Memorable quote:

“It’s just an honor system to alert the state if you’ve done something wrong… Now Gavin Newsom gets to say, ‘I signed an AI bill, I’m doing my due diligence.’”
—Brian Merchant [09:48]

• Both hosts express skepticism with the system’s lack of “teeth” or any clear mechanisms for enforcement, with Ed Zitron bluntly calling it: “It will give the fake view that the AI companies are regulated so they’re able to continue doing all the actual harmful stuff.” [12:00]

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2. Tech Lobbying Power and Legislative Apathy

[15:05–29:01]

• Brian details first-hand accounts from lawmakers and labor advocates about the relentless lobbying efforts by Silicon Valley.
• Even modestly ambitious regulations see their main provisions stripped via industry influence: “Bills that started out with some teeth have had most of them knocked out or have been delayed until next session.” [15:14]
• Notably, bills that tech companies actually fight hard against are seen as a “bellwether” for what might have some real effect.

Case Study: LEAD Act (AB 1064, California)

• Would require that chatbots marketed to children show they won’t encourage self-harm.

• Industry opposition is ferocious. Lobbying groups (e.g., Chamber of Progress, American Innovators Network, funded by VC firms like A16Z) are buying Facebook ads and sending lobbyists to lawmakers’ offices.

• Tech’s argument: the bill would “deprive” children of educational AI advantages.

• Brian’s take: “It’s fucking evil people…If you can’t stop your chatbot saying self-harm stuff to kids, you shouldn’t be selling it.” [18:39–19:39]

• The conversation highlights a likely technical limitation: large language models may not be reliably controllable to prevent problematic outputs.

  • Ed: “I don’t think you can actually prompt a large language model to categorically stop it doing something.” [19:34]
  • Brian: “Then you should not be selling that… to children.” [19:35]

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3. Silicon Valley’s Broader Campaign Against Regulation

[26:23–28:44]

• Brian reports that this level of national, coordinated pushback and lobbying against state laws is unprecedented in 15 years of tech journalism.
• Notably, there was a recent (barely failed) campaign to outright ban all state-level AI lawmaking in the US, with a crucial vote tipped by a Republican senator safeguarding Nashville’s music industry.

Memorable moment:

“This is its own thing. This AI thing… It’s totally anti-democratic. It’s totally absurd.”
—Brian Merchant [28:45]

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4. The Political Class and Reluctance to Actually Regulate

[29:01–32:13]

• Considerable blame is placed on politicians for a lack of technical understanding, ideological bias toward “not stifling innovation,” and default willingness to defer to the tech industry on their own terms.
• Even well-intentioned laws (e.g., autonomous vehicle safety requirements, union rights for gig workers) routinely get vetoed in California—sometimes with disastrous results shortly after.

Relevant exchange:

Ed (paraphrased): “Why does no one push through bills that actually address the technology—like, from people who have used it?”
Brian: “We still have this mentality—especially in the political class… It’s always been deferring to industry and then reacting.” [31:05–31:50]

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5. What Should AI Regulation Look Like?

[32:13–35:52]

• Brian’s “dream” regulations and priorities include:

  • Environmental impact: Data center energy use, often worsened by loosened regulations lobbied for by AI firms.
  • Real corporate transparency and enforceable audits.
  • Strong workplace protections (e.g., against automated hiring/firing, discrimination, “robo-bossing”).
  • Fundamental labor rights for gig workers.
  • Aggressive antitrust enforcement to limit tech monopolies.
  • Much greater government skepticism of industry influence:

    “Why do you have to fucking listen to lobbyists?” —Ed Zitron [35:06]

• Both agree that, right now, Silicon Valley is “calling the shots”—and that substantive oversight is sorely lacking.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the hollow “honor system” of the bill:

  “No checkup policy. You need a page that people… can read. No enforcement. That’ll stop it.”
  —Brian Merchant, [06:20–06:29]

• On whistleblower protections:

  “Again, and it’s supposed to be for workers who are so concerned about catastrophic risk… not about, you know, if they see a company doing fraud or whatever. This is for catastrophic risk.”
  —Brian Merchant, [07:42–08:12]

• On the LEAD Act and tech pushback:

  “Once the Adam Rains stuff broke and OpenAI’s, you know, trying to hem and haw… we passed the Rubicon… It’s a product. It’s a software product.”
  —Brian Merchant, [18:41]

• On political deferral to industry:

  “It’s ideology. It’s just like, oh, well, like, we don’t want to stifle innovation… It’s always been this way—it’s always been deferring to industry and then reacting, right?”
  —Brian Merchant, [31:05–31:50]

• On the futility of most current regulatory efforts:

  “There’s a million things that need to happen… But right now, it’s just profoundly anti-Democratic where we’re at. Silicon Valley is just calling… They’re just hoarding the cat.”
  —Brian Merchant, [34:34–35:06]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:02] – Overview of the “AI safety” bill’s journey and industry opposition
• [05:36–09:06] – Breakdown of the weakened final bill and why Brian Merchant isn’t celebrating
• [12:00–12:10] – Ed Zitron on fake views of regulation
• [15:14–17:43] – What meaningful regulations could look like; industry fear of child safety measures
• [18:39–21:56] – The real reason why companies may be unable to prevent chatbot harm, opposition logic
• [26:23–28:44] – Nationwide tech lobbying push to suppress state AI laws
• [29:01–32:13] – “Why doesn’t meaningful, user-informed regulation happen?”
• [32:13–35:52] – Dream regulations, environmental/worker protections, call for antitrust, and political reluctance
• [35:06] – Ed’s rant: “Why do you have to fucking listen to lobbyists?”

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Conclusion

This episode lays bare the gap between the public conversation about “AI safety” and the practical realities of lawmaking in the shadow of Silicon Valley lobbying. Listeners get a nuanced, sometimes exasperated, but ultimately clear-eyed assessment of why so little meaningful AI regulation exists—and what, ideally, should be done to protect workers, the environment, and society overall. For anyone seeking a primer on where AI regulation really stands in 2025, and why, this is a must-listen episode.

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Find Brian Merchant:

• Newsletter: bloodinthemachine.com
• Social: [@brianmerchant on most platforms]

Host: Ed Zitron

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“Just because you put up a web page about ‘safety’ doesn’t mean you’re being regulated.”

Transcript

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[Brian Merchant]

Call Zone Media Oink Oink.

[Ed Zitron]

Welcome to the Monologue this week except It's a duologue. There's two of us. Better offline. I'm your host at Zetron Better Offline. And today I'm joined by Brian Merchant, the author and writer of the book and newsletter Blood in the Machine. Brian, thank you so much for joining me.

[Brian Merchant]

Thanks for having me. Good to be back.

[Ed Zitron]

So today we're talking about AI regulation, the current state of, well, California's regulatory moves and indeed the very confusing situation. And I think we can start with this, actually, this AI safety bill that was vetoed and then just got signed. What happened there?

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, I mean, the long story short is that, you know, the people who are actually worried about catastrophic risk. Right, like the AI Doomer crowd, the people who think that like this is the number one thing to worry about with AI they all got together last year and wrote this bill. Last year it was 1047 and it was, you know, again, assuming that you are worried about that kind of thing. Like this was like a legitimate stab at trying to keep the companies honest. It did things like mandated like third party audits of the systems to make sure that they weren't, you know, they weren't too risky or that they weren't, you know, including information about biological weapons or whatever. And people had a. But the AI companies hated it because it would. It mandated some sharing of information, some transparency. It mandated. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not even a little bit. Even this. Even like the safe AI companies. Like Anthropic. Anthropic. Yeah, yeah, even those guys, they were, they were against. So everybody was against it. It passed because Scott Wiener, the. The sponsor is a fairly prominent, powerful legislator. But even though it passed both houses and was sitting on Newsom's desk, the, the industry, Silicon Valley got Newsom to veto it, basically. So Newsom vetoed it. And then he said, let's try it again next year. So Scott Wiener got together with a bunch of AI ethics people and some. And then so this year he comes back with a watered down version of even that. Again, the aim is to prevent catastrophic risk. Yes. And he just signed this bill. So as we're recording this, he signed it a few days ago. It's on, on the, it's on the books and it's. People are like celebrating this thing for some reason. And I'm like, I'm really scratching my head.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. Why are you not celebrating? Okay, so here's what's wrong with it.

[Brian Merchant]

Okay, here's what the bill actually does. It does four things basically instead of, you know, Actual mandating, actual transparency and sharing data with auditors. Things that could actually might, you know, maybe be considered a prescription if you're worried about things like catastrophic risk. One, the new, the new bill has. It forces the tech companies to publish privacy protocols on a website. So say. Yeah, like a privacy policy. Yes. It says this is what we're doing to ensure and our security practices. Right. This is what we're going to do to keep you safe from catastrophic AI. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

So no checkup policy. No, no, no, no. And then you need a page.

[Brian Merchant]

You need a page that people.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Nice.

[Brian Merchant]

No enforcement. That'll stop it. And then you. And then if something does go wrong and the companies have done something unsafe in there with their LLMs, they need to report it to the state. So they, it's, it's an honor system. So, so they have to tell.

[Ed Zitron]

And what happens if they don't report it.

[Brian Merchant]

Unclear.

[Ed Zitron]

Great stuff. Brilliant.

[Brian Merchant]

Unclear. So the, like the one thing that you could argue or two things, again, like in theory, these are fine things that it says.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, limp.

[Brian Merchant]

Well, these, those first two things are. They're a limp. I think they're a complete joke. And so that, but part three and four is whistleblower protections, which nice. You're supposed to. Already supposed to have.

[Ed Zitron]

Right. Good to formalize.

[Brian Merchant]

But yeah, yeah, it's just like kind of like underlining it with a Sharpie saying, okay, people should be able to blow the whistle if something catastrophic is happening. Right. I have very little faith this will meaningfully change anything at all.

[Ed Zitron]

I'm going to guess there are no like protections actually in there. Like, is there anything that specifies?

[Brian Merchant]

There's some language that does raise the threshold. Again, theoretically. But like, you just have to think about how whistleblower are already treated and how difficult it is for them to come forward with all the NDAs and just sort of the norms in the industry. So like theoretically, you know, but again, and it's supposed to be for workers who are so concerned about catastrophic risk, not about, you know, you know, if they see a company doing fraud or whatever this is for catastrophic risk.

[Ed Zitron]

So really no real protections.

[Brian Merchant]

No teeth. Really no teeth. I was reading this thing and I'm not seeing really any, any enforcement mechanisms other than, you know, these companies get a slap on the wrist and maybe it's a little bit slappier if it.

[Ed Zitron]

Comes, but it doesn't sound like there are actual remedies or anything like that.

[Brian Merchant]

Not really, no. It. There's a. Finally, the fourth thing that it does again in spirit, this Is okay, like this is. It's a good idea. It's to start like a public consortium like, called Cal Compute. Like a public alternative for AI for researchers. It says let's give them. Yeah but it's just a committee. It's a committee.

[Ed Zitron]

Fuck yeah, Bureaucracy.

[Brian Merchant]

It forms a consortium to discuss a.

[Ed Zitron]

Group together that will discuss what might happen in the future after another meeting or two. Brilliant.

[Brian Merchant]

Once again. So my read on this and I've seen a lot of statements coming out of otherwise decent sort of orgs saying like this is a step for, you know, AI safety. And I'm no, it's not. It's not really.

[Ed Zitron]

It doesn't even seem like it addresses AI. It doesn't seem like it's an attempt to mitigate any harms.

[Brian Merchant]

I mean it is an attempt to. You could. I think that generally which harms the most?

[Ed Zitron]

I'm going to guess so. In looking at AI regulation, you have probably not seen anything that addresses the environmental damage, anything like anything about the stealing.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, workplace surveillance, things like this. So my read on this right like, so I think again, I think Scott Wiener and, and, and the sort of the, the group that are interest, that are like the AI safety groups, like they, they believe in this stuff. They really lobbied for this. Like they think that that is important to have something better than nothing. But the effect of this mean is, is largely just that. Now Gavin Newsom gets to say like I signed an AI bill, like I'm doing my due diligence. And meanwhile there are a bunch of other bills that we're going to talk about that would actually, you know, do. Do something that would actually sort of meaningfully rein in the AI companies at least a little bit or at least point a way towards doing this. This is just again putting, putting your safety policies on a website like an honor system to alert the state if you've done something wrong. Kind of just saying, okay, well system.

[Ed Zitron]

For the most funded companies.

[Brian Merchant]

And here's the number one way that you can tell that this is entirely bullshit and that is that anthropic is in favor of it. They came out and said like this is good. Number two, Meta was like this is sensible. And they didn't support the bill, but they're not opposed to it. Even OpenAI was like, yeah, well they, I think you could tell they have.

[Ed Zitron]

Any kind of restriction.

[Brian Merchant]

We don't like that. But even if it's the flimsiest one, I feel like you could see them like the, the gears turning in the corporate machinery were like Are we, like, basically this bill requires us to, like, have an intern, like, write some copy or even just have, like, chat GPT generator.

[Ed Zitron]

That's the thing.

[Brian Merchant]

Put it on a website.

[Ed Zitron]

They don't even have a thing in there saying you can't use AI to write it. I would have probably done that myself, personally.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah. So number one, it does next to nothing in my eye, and I just can't. I mean, I know all these, like, advocacy groups and people who are, like, trying to get some good laws on the big. They're hungry for a win. So they want to say, like, yeah, we did something. But this is, I think, to me, this is worse than nothing because it's going to let Gavin off the hook on, like, the handful of bills that might actually do something.

[Ed Zitron]

And it will give the f the fake view that the AI companies are regulated so they're able to continue doing all the actual harmful stuff.

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[Ed Zitron]

Are there any regulations you've seen that actually approach the actual harms anyway or, sorry, suggested regulations or bills or anything like that?

[Brian Merchant]

Okay, yeah, there's a couple. So, and I've been talking to, I, I, I, I've talked to, I've talked to lawmakers over this process, I've talked to some of the sponsors of the bills and I've talked to labor groups. And the one sort of through line that runs through all of this is that Silicon Valley and its lobbyists have just been out and forced trying to crush even the most sort of basic common sense regulation. And so laws or proposals that started out with some teeth have had most of them knocked out or have been delayed until next session. So we're left with a few things, we're left with a few things that, you know, I think more than anything they're just like bellwethers as to whether or not it's even possible, possible to like get, to get anything done. Because as your listeners will know, right, like the whole AI, like for enterprise isn't working out so well right now.

[Jacob Goldstein]

No.

[Ed Zitron]

And so no one buys it.

[Brian Merchant]

No one, no one's buying it. No one wants it. So they're gonna have to make some changes in the, in the next couple years. And the way they're gonna, I, my, my guess is that they're gonna try to find ways to sell people on its other capacities. Things like it's a surveillance tool, it'll do, you know, it'll.

[Ed Zitron]

Surveillance tool. It's an awful like, it's not, that's what's funny about this because it's like the Actual harms to mitigate would be training and environmental and energy. The number must go up. So it's like, yeah, we'll, we'll regulate. Because the surveillance thing, I get that, like, there is already AI surveillance, but it's like, oh, what if they put all the data in a large language model?

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Would the large language model do anything with it? Like, what do you like, we've already got that. But wait, so what other bills have you seen?

[Brian Merchant]

Okay, so, you know, there's one, I think the one that's still out there at the time of recording. Who knows, it could have been vetoed or signed by the time that this goes to air. But there's one, there's one bill that Silicon Valley is genuinely upset about and afraid of. And it's a bill that, that like sets the very lowest bar. And it says essentially, if you are going to make a chatbot and market it to children, then you have to be able to demonstrate that this chatbot isn't going to make them harm themselves.

[Ed Zitron]

Ah, so, so they hate that.

[Brian Merchant]

They are. And they're in, you know, they have, there's this Silicon Valley lobbying group that's kind of famous in California, especially called the Chamber of Progress. It's like, yeah, it's like immediate reflexive immediately. I know, Gag reflex immediately. So they, they've got this guy who's out there writing op EDS in like the San Diego Tribune and doing press for Edwards, going, oh, it's over broad. And let me like, their actual line on this is, if this bill passes, then you're going to be taking away AI that could educate children. You're going to be taking away AI from children. And they're not going to have the same advantages that children with AI have. And they're running this like this big Facebook campaign. They've hired lobbyists specifically to take. They don't have to do this.

[Ed Zitron]

It's fucking evil people.

[Brian Merchant]

They are evil people. I mean, this, I mean, for me, this was like, you know, this was like, it's past the threshold. Once the Adam Rains stuff broke and OpenAI is, you know, trying to hem and haw about, you know, oh, well, you know, we're going to do this or that. It's, we passed it. We passed the Rubicon, right? There's, they've got chat bots that are, that are telling children to, you know, hide the news so that their parents don't see it. And like, it's, again, they make it seem like, oh, AI is this frontier. We're going to work Something. It's a. It's a product. It's a software product. Yeah, go ahead.

[Ed Zitron]

But I have a theory. Yeah, theory.

[Brian Merchant]

Okay.

[Ed Zitron]

So I don't think they can control these models. I don't mean because they're intelligent. I don't mean because they're autonomous. I mean, I don't think you can actually prompt a large language model to categorically stop it doing something.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I don't think it's possible.

[Brian Merchant]

Then you should not be selling that. That piece of soccer to children.

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[Ed Zitron]

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[Jacob Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

I don't think you're right.

[Brian Merchant]

Capable because I think you're right. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

But my theory is based on costs because of Claude code that they can't. That they can't do cost control. If they can't do cost control, it means the model won't listen.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

And I reckon that they can't be like, never talk about killing yourself.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Like, they just can't do that.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah. Or it would require, like, going back through, you know, like, there's been. I've seen a lot of sort of speculation that the reason that it's talking like this is that it's like a lot of the language is coming from like pro suicide forums in the bowels of the Internet. So, like, they don't want to go through and take discussions. Yeah. Or discussions of suicide.

[Ed Zitron]

Probably articles as well, that say how to deal with someone who's just. Horrible stuff.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Really fucking peep. And this. Is this a California bill?

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, it's a California bill. Yeah. And it's. And it is. Yeah. So, you know, if you're on Facebook, so there's a front group spun up by some of the VC firms, like A16Z and, you know, Andreessen and these guys and Y Combinator, then there's a front group called the American Innovators Network Network, and they're running all these ads arguing that this bill, again, whose sole purpose is to ban chatbots from being marketed to children, that. That also try to convince them to harm themselves.

[Ed Zitron]

Like not even banning them from being marketing. Marketed to children, just you have to. Stopping them being harmful.

[Brian Merchant]

You have to. Yeah, it's the. The way that it's. Which is what they're all hung up on is it's just like you have to be able to demonstrate that if you sell this to children, it will not tell them to harm themselves. And. And I think you.

[Ed Zitron]

One of the more reasonable requests you could ever ask of a company most.

[Brian Merchant]

I cannot think of Something that is more. But they're saying, oh, no, it's too broad. Everything else will get caught up in this. You can't have a chat bot because.

[Jacob Goldstein]

But.

[Brian Merchant]

And then it's always like, but why. Why couldn't we have this chatbot in the classroom? Yeah. Oh, because it might tell somebody to kill themselves. Like, that's why.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah. And they. They don't. This is. Again, we should. These people should be trying to interview them. But like, because it's the question would be, say that you agreed with this bill. You disagree. Say you agree with it. How would you stop this?

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, just how would you stop it?

[Ed Zitron]

Can you stop him? Is that why you're upset? Is the. Is the reason you're mad because you literally can't stop this? Yeah, because that's the thing they hum on her around any kind of protections.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, Anything.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Anything.

[Ed Zitron]

And now. And I wonder if it's because they. They can't.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

They want to be like, oh, it's too powerful. No, it's too.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

It's because it sucks. It's not because it's. It's not because. It's because you built something shitty and hard to control.

[Brian Merchant]

Exactly. It's shitty lava.

[Ed Zitron]

Lava is hot.

[Brian Merchant]

That.

[Ed Zitron]

And can burn through most things. That doesn't make it intelligent.

[Brian Merchant]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

Your inability to not drink lava just like.

[Brian Merchant]

Deal. I mean, it's a combination of both those things. Like. Like, it's either, oh, this would be really expensive to fix, or, oh, like, I don't know if we can.

[Ed Zitron]

I reckon what they would have to do is they would have to just neuter it. They would just have to. They would have to just make it so that anything that gets even close to that conversation.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Would have to be just like, shut down to the point that you can't even talk about superhero stuff.

[Brian Merchant]

Right.

[Ed Zitron]

They would probably just limit it to the point of. Of nothingness.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah. Which, like. Yeah. I mean, if that's what they. I mean, we're, again, we're talking about, like, children here. So, like. Yes, that seems like if that's what they have to do, then, then that in. In my view, anyways, is something that they.

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[Cindy Crawford]

Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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[Brian Merchant]

But again, it's wild because like they don't usually hire lobbyists to oppose state level bills. But the right the sponsor here, Rebecca Bauer Khan. It's it's the lead act is is what it's called. It's AB 1064. She's just like I've never seen anything like this. They're like having lobbyists come and knock on my door and like, you know, yelling at me about this. And they're just like, it's a full court press and we could talk a little bit after this about like how this is sort of like part of a broader movement where they're, you know, Silicon Valley is sending its lobbyists out all across the country, but especially typical.

[Ed Zitron]

To do on this level.

[Brian Merchant]

I mean, Silicon Valley hasn't wanted regulation on anything for a long time. But this, the, the level of like, of concentrated effort and sort of the campaigning is new. Right. Like I've been a tech journalist for 15 years and I've never anything like we saw over the summer where they were. Silicon Valley tried to lobby for a ban on all state level AI lawmaking. They, they really got a whole sort of united front together. They got stakeholders from the different.

[Ed Zitron]

Fail.

[Brian Merchant]

Though they did fail, but they failed by basically one vote. And they failed because of a Republican in Tennessee who represents Nashville. Yeah. And she was like, wait a minute, we have a law in the books that protects our country music industry from being sloppified and would this overturn it? And they were like, well, yeah, but you know. Yeah, yeah. And then so she kind of came out against it and that if it wasn't for that, it would have, that, well, it would have passed.

[Ed Zitron]

And that is bonkers.

[Brian Merchant]

It's bonkers.

[Ed Zitron]

That's wild. That country music saved us.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, country music and Nashville's like, no AI music slop law. And they're gonna try again though. They're gonna try again. Yeah. Ted Cruz keeps talking about it. He's, he's, he's interested in giving it another go. So it'll be coming down the pike. But to be clear, like, no, this has never happened. If you've never seen somebody like, say, okay, we're gonna ban lawmaking around search. No search engines can have any laws made around them or social networks. This is its own thing. This is AI thing. Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

They just can't be laws.

[Brian Merchant]

No, it's totally anti Democratic. It's totally absurd and all, I mean, it tells you all you need really, that the Silicon Valley interests are willing to push all their chips in and team up with the Trump administration and its allies to try to get this done.

[Ed Zitron]

I mean, I don't know. Fucking Newsom.

[Brian Merchant]

No, he's, I mean, Newsom has vetoed a ton of solid AI bill. I mean, last year Newsom vetoed a good bill that I think was good because it was on. So I don't know if you caught this. But last year the, the Teamsters and some pro labor groups fought for a bill and got it passed, bipartisan, passed the House that says, okay, if you're going to use autonomous or AI technology to run a truck that's like over a certain amount of weight, then there should be a human safety operator making sure it's not hitting people, not running into people.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah.

[Brian Merchant]

It passed both houses. Newsom vetoes it, and two weeks later there's the autonomous car that drags the pedestrian across San Francisco. If that timing had been different. Yeah.

[Jacob Goldstein]

Thank you.

[Ed Zitron]

Thank you, Gavin. Very good, Gavin.

[Brian Merchant]

It wouldn't have necessarily applied, but I think the optics would have been different. So he wouldn't have been able to. But anyways, Newsom is per. Is perfectly happy to veto a lot of this stuff. The difference is, is his, his constituents here in California, they care about this. And in the case of that, of the LEAD act that we were talking about, he, the, one of the reasons that, that, that it stands any chance at all is that his, his wife is like a vocal supporter of the LEAD act and she's been on some stages saying, like, I think we should protect our children from AI slop. And, and, and so it's gonna, he's gonna, it's gonna be like his wife on one hand and all of Silicon Valley's lobbying force on the other.

[Ed Zitron]

Newsome versus Newsome. Jesus Christ.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, so it's with.

[Ed Zitron]

So here's something though. Why does no one ever push any bills that actually, I realize that, even doomed ones. Why did it seems that there's a lack of any bills that are like actually aimed at the technology written by people who have used it, for example. Yeah, like, why does that never happen?

[Brian Merchant]

I mean, we still have this mentality ingrained in this, in this country, especially in the political class that just doesn't really have a lot of, of hands on experience with the tech. It's changing a little bit, but I think it's just, it's ideology. It's just like, oh, well, like we don't want to stifle innovation. We don't. You know, if they need to build, you know, a million data centers and, you know, encircle the nation and in Stargate outposts, then I guess that's. Then we'll defer to you. It's always been this way. It's always been deferring to industry and then reacting, right. And then saying like, oh, oh, well, that was a bridge too far. And then they try to, you know, get some. So like there are laws on the book now, like 10 years after social media sort of, you know, was on the scene.

[Ed Zitron]

They don't even direct at the problem, though.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, well, I mean, the biggest problem. Yeah, no, I mean, there's been some antitrust ever. That's the closest you've probably gotten to some decent efforts at, you know, know, reigning in the giants.

[Ed Zitron]

Close us up.

[Brian Merchant]

What would you.

[Ed Zitron]

What would be the regulation that you would want to push through other than the stopping the kids getting the AI suicide? LLM, that one seems pretty good. But a dream, A dream bill for you. What might it look like? What are the things that you actually think need to be restricted?

[Brian Merchant]

I mean, honestly, like I, we, we have not even touched the, the. We barely got to the tip of the iceberg here about what needs to happen because, I mean, the things that, that, you know, that I worry about are the same ones that you cited, which is with the environmental impacts of just. But that's almost a separate issue.

[Lenovo Ad Voice]

Right.

[Brian Merchant]

And in fact, all that has happened on the legislative and policy front is that the AI companies have convinced they did this to Biden. By the way, it wasn't Trump. They convinced him to relax environmental regulations so they could just build more data centers without being subject to as many fines. So you have to get serious.

[Ed Zitron]

I saw some regulation around. They have to report their power draw somewhere.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah.

[Ed Zitron]

Like they have to talk about how much energy they're using. Wow.

[Brian Merchant]

Wow.

[Lenovo Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Brian Merchant]

And I, you know, I do think that, I mean, and most of these bills are written in a way that doesn't just apply to AI. There's. There was a decent. There's. I mean, again, it's. Everything's just been battered to bits by the lobbying machine. But there is a bill that he did sign that sort of. Of semi. Restores gig workers rights to unionize. That's. It's good. But there's a big asterisk to it. It's a little wonky, so we won't get into it, but it's a good, a good step. We need gig workers to be able to organize right now. They can't in most of the states. So that I do think, you know, workplace protections and protecting against automated hiring and firing shit and wage depression.

[Ed Zitron]

Boss thing.

[Lenovo Ad Voice]

The.

[Brian Merchant]

No robo boss again, it's like even the sponsor of the bill, Lorena Gonzalez, who's with the California Labor Fed, I talked to her and she's like, look, this is what we could get through. Nothing else that we had in there that like really seriously banned discrimination and it's really not like, it's not about the tools again. It's about allowing bosses to use this as an accountability sink or to offload.

[Ed Zitron]

Saying is kind of where you need to regulate sometimes.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ed Zitron]

Especially when you're not going to regulate the fucking technology.

[Brian Merchant]

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, there's a, there's a million things that need, that, that need to happen. I mean, I think antitrust absolutely needs to happen. But I, you know, I, I would get way more radical than, than anything that, that that's being even, even talked about right now. Because right now it's, it's just profoundly anti Democratic where we're at right now. Silicon Valley is just calling. They're just, they're, you know, better than anybody. They're just hoarding the cat.

[Ed Zitron]

This is the one thing, and maybe this is a dumbass's opinion, but why do you have to fucking listen to lobbyists?

[Brian Merchant]

You, I mean, you do not. Otherwise, you do not.

[Ed Zitron]

Yeah, like, I realize I'm not a big politics knower, but that feels like you could just not talk to them, I guess that sometimes they contribute to your political campaigns, but just, just don't do it.

[Brian Merchant]

That's it. Yeah, just lock the door.

[Ed Zitron]

This is how I enter politics. I'm just like, what if you didn't listen to he just didn't pick up.

[Brian Merchant]

Zitron, a hero for our times.

[Ed Zitron]

Why not? I don't want to talk to you. You sound really annoying. You keep, I want to run this bill. You keep texting and calling me, saying I shouldn't. This is going to block you politicians.

[Brian Merchant]

Listen, let's get you a soapbox. I'll vote for Ed Zitron.

[Ed Zitron]

All right, Brian, where can people find you?

[Brian Merchant]

I am bloodinthemachine.com and Brian Merchant on most social media platforms.

[Ed Zitron]

Lovely. Thank you for joining me. This has, of course, been your Better Offline duologue for the week. Back next week with an interview with Stephen Burke from Games Nexus. Thank you for listening, everyone. Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osawski. You can check out more of his music and audio [e-mail] m a t t o s o w s k-I.com you can email me at ezetteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat wheresyoured at to visit the Discord and go to r. Betteroffline to check out our Reddit thank you so much for listening.

[Brian Merchant]

Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit.

[Cindy Crawford]

Our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Cindy Crawford]

Ah, come on, why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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[Cindy Crawford]

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[Brian Merchant]

What kind of man would let this.

[Cindy Crawford]

Happen to his family?

[Ed Zitron]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Cindy Crawford]

On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

[Brian Merchant]

Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Ed Zitron]

It's only cheating if you get caught.

[Brian Merchant]

Hulu Original Series Murdoch Death in the family from premieres October 15th on Hulu.

[Ed Zitron]

And Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers.

[Brian Merchant]

Terms apply. This is an I heart podcast.