The Global Public Square: Navigating War, AI, and the World Cup

Summary

Fareed Zakaria GPS – "The Global Public Square: Navigating War, AI, and the World Cup"

Date: May 31, 2026
Host: Bianna Golodryga (substituting for Fareed Zakaria)
Podcast: CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS delivers a sweeping look at three urgent and intersecting global themes: the ongoing US-Israel war with Iran, the ethical and geopolitical dilemmas of artificial intelligence (AI), and the controversial climate surrounding the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup. Through expert interviews, meditative essays, and sharp discussion, the show probes questions of power, human agency, and international identity during an era marked by rapid change and deep uncertainty.

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1. The US-Israel War with Iran: Strategic Loss and Shifting Alliances

Guest: Robert Kagan, author & foreign policy analyst

[03:45] – [09:27]

Key Discussion Points

• Not the defeat yet, but a strategic loss:
  Kagan emphasizes the real loss is not in the negotiations over Iran's Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU), but rather over new control of the Strait of Hormuz.

  "The defeat has to do with the strait... I'm quite skeptical that we're at the brink of an agreement because the Iranians are not going to allow the strait to be turned back to the way it was before the war began. They're not going to return it to being an international waterway. It's going to be open, but it's going to be open under new management, namely Iranian management. And that is a game changer."
  — Robert Kagan [03:45]

• Trump’s shortsighted approach:
  Kagan critiques Trump for ignoring long-term strategic risks in favor of potential short-term political gains, attributing the crisis to decisions made without full consideration of warnings.

• The Abraham Accords – now ‘dead’:
  Despite previous trade growth among Abraham Accord nations, Kagan argues that the US and Israel’s perceived inability to protect allies has turned even friendly Gulf states toward Iran.

  "The Abraham Accords are dead now... The United States has demonstrated to the Gulf allies... that we are incapable of protecting them in this situation... Now Israel's a pariah in the region and no one, least of all the Saudis, are now going to be signing up for the Abraham Accords."
  — Robert Kagan [06:54]

• New regional dynamics:
  Gulf states, especially Oman, have begun making their own arrangements with Iran, acknowledging Tehran’s control of the Strait.

Notable Quotes

• "Iran has definitely proven that they can choke off the Strait of Hormuz and that the US can essentially do nothing to stop them."
  — Bianna Golodryga [04:41]

• "We lost this war back in March, when Trump decided he didn't want to suffer... he called for the ceasefire... The Iranians... are therefore not willing to make any concessions."
  — Robert Kagan [08:23]

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2. Ethics and Global Control of AI: The Pope's Manifesto

Guest: Father Paolo Benanti, Vatican/Italian ethics adviser on AI

[10:50] – [16:14]

Key Discussion Points

• Papal encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas”
  Pope Leo XIV’s document warns of “serious dangers of AI”, calling for “robust constraints” that sharply contrast the US administration’s “hands-off” regulatory approach.

• Dialogue Over Polarization:
  Father Benanti stresses the Church’s open, dialogic approach to AI, preferring communication and checks over blanket condemnation or endorsement.

  "Dialogue is much more important than not standing position... what we saw... was a dialogue, a possibility to have an interchange of opinion."
  — Father Paolo Benanti [12:01]

• Education as Guardrail:
  The Vatican sees AI safety in education and wise usage, though Benanti concedes that “slowing down” technology is challenging given “the huge amount of money inside AI”.

• Whom Does AI Serve?:
  The Church's core concern is the consolidation of computational power in the hands of a few private actors—echoing social inequities of prior technological eras.

  "The problem is a problem of computational power. And such kind of computational power has to be domesticated to coexist in a democratic space."
  — Father Paolo Benanti [14:55]

Notable Quotes

• "Is it the magic wand that will fix any problem or is the human being the real layer that will enable AI to work better for society?"
  — Father Paolo Benanti [13:17]

• "It's not AI and human. So this is the perspective that the Church is trying to highlight. And so it's a problem of much is too much, not why."
  — Father Paolo Benanti [14:55]

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3. World Cup 2026: Geopolitics, Legacy, and Divided Audiences

Guest: Ishan Tharoor, journalist, The New Yorker

[16:16] – [23:00]

Key Discussion Points

• World Cup under a Geopolitical Cloud:
  The 2026 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by the US, Canada, and Mexico, is heavily politicized—“gloom hanging over this World Cup”—amid ongoing wars, protectionist policies, and diplomatic rifts.

  “There is certainly quite a bit of gloom hanging over this World Cup... over the previous months... profound amount of distaste, disgust, especially in Europe, with the way this World Cup has been organized, the extent to which FIFA President Gianni Infantino has cozied up to President Trump.”
  — Ishan Tharoor [17:43]

• Personalization of global events:
  Tharoor highlights the unprecedented centrality of President Trump to the tournament, overshadowing the multinational character of the event.

• Boycott Movements and Civil Liberties:
  Despite nearly half the German public supporting a boycott and warnings from groups like the ACLU for travelers, the games proceed, albeit amid tight visa restrictions and political tension.

• Immigrant America’s Moment:
  Tharoor posits that the tournament may ultimately showcase American diversity more than traditional globalism:

  “This may end up being... the tournament that is defined by the energy of American fans, but specifically the immigrant diaspora... So that may be what this World Cup is remembered for... it showcased America’s diversity.”
  — Ishan Tharoor [21:57]

Notable Quotes

• “There are fears over people being detained at airports... widespread indignation about the prices... So there's a lot of pessimism about the way this tournament is going to unfold.”
  — Ishan Tharoor [17:43]

• "Team USA roster as a diverse group of a humbler America as the sport has now edged past baseball as America's third favorite sport."
  — Bianna Golodryga [22:45]

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4. Ritual and the Loneliness Epidemic

Guest: Bruce Feiler, author of “A Time to Howl: Ritual Created the World and How It Can Save Us”

[24:28] – [31:48]

Key Discussion Points

• Rise of New Rituals:
  Feiler discusses the epidemic of loneliness and division, proposing a “renaissance of new ritual gatherings”—from divorces to graduations to “daddy daughter dances”—as a remedy for social fracture.

  “We have our... the enemy is in our pockets... abdicated our relationships for our phones... And what I found is... a renaissance of new ritual gatherings that's happening all over the world as people create astonishing new ways to gather in real life.”
  — Bruce Feiler [25:23]

• Ritual as Human Technology:
  Rituals are described as “the original human algorithm,” with scientific evidence supporting their power to heal loneliness, calm stress, and connect people in ways that algorithmic interactions cannot.

  “At this moment, when the algorithms of hate divide us, the only thing strong enough is the original human algorithm.”
  — Bruce Feiler [29:42]

• Notable Rituals:
  Discusses modern examples like “Taylor Swift divorce parties” and “soberversaries”, emphasizing rituals for life changes both traditional and new.

Memorable Moment

• “If people make this commitment to hold a ritual, it's the number one thing people have been saying when they read A Time Together. As you just said, I want to create a ritual. If we do this, we can cure loneliness.”
  — Bruce Feiler [31:27]

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5. Fareed’s Essay: Imperfect Humans in an Age of Perfect AI

Host: Fareed Zakaria (pre-recorded essay)

[32:57] – [41:16]

Key Insights

• Human Intelligence vs. Artificial Intelligence:
  Zakaria argues that AI’s triumphs cast new light on the irreplaceable qualities of human intelligence—emotion, morality, imperfection, and lived experience.

  “A human brain weighs about 3 pounds... runs on roughly 20 watts... yet it can do things that still baffle machines... Human beings can understand irony, ambiguity, affection, embarrassment, love, shame, humor, longing.”
  — Fareed Zakaria [33:00–34:10]

• We are not computers:
  AI is best at computation; humans thrive at understanding context, ambiguity, and creating meaning.

• Imperfect, not optimized:
  Celebrates the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi; argues it is the imperfections—the “cracks where the light gets in”—that foster empathy, resilience, artistry, and meaning.

  “Our imperfections are not bugs in some system's code. They are the cracks that let the light come in.”
  — Fareed Zakaria [41:08]

Notable Quotes

• “The danger in the AI age is not that machines will become too human. It's that humans will start trying to become too much like machines.”
  — Fareed Zakaria [36:25]

• “No algorithm would have ever invented the blues steeped in pain and sorrow. No hyper-efficient program would have designed Venice, an absurdly impractical city on stilts. And thank God for that.”
  — Fareed Zakaria [37:46]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• US-Israel-Iran War Analysis with Robert Kagan: [03:45] – [09:27]
• Pope’s AI Encyclical with Father Paolo Benanti: [10:50] – [16:14]
• World Cup Geopolitics with Ishan Tharoor: [16:16] – [23:00]
• Ritual and Social Connection with Bruce Feiler: [24:28] – [31:48]
• Fareed Zakaria’s Essay on Human Intelligence: [32:57] – [41:16]

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Notable Quotes

• Robert Kagan [on Iran's control]:

  "It's going to be open, but it's going to be open under new management, namely Iranian management. And that is a game changer." [03:45]

• Father Paolo Benanti [on AI power]:

  "The problem is a problem of computational power. And such kind of computational power has to be domesticated to coexist in a democratic space." [14:55]

• Ishan Tharoor [on World Cup 2026]:

  “There’s a lot of pessimism about the way this tournament is going to unfold. At the same time, it’s going to be a fascinating tournament. It’s the biggest World Cup ever.” [17:43]

• Bruce Feiler [on ritual]:

  "A ritual is the original human algorithm... there is so much evidence that they calm us when we're stressed, reduce our heartbeats... and make your family, your classroom, your neighborhood, your office, your team stronger because the process works." [29:42]

• Fareed Zakaria [AI vs. humanity]:

  "Our imperfections are not flaws to eliminate. They're the source of empathy, creativity, wisdom, resilience, and beauty." [39:10]

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Episode Tone

Insightful, urgent, and contemplative—balancing critical analysis of world affairs with searching reflections on technology, community, and what it means to be human.

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking a comprehensive understanding of this episode’s major themes, ideas, and memorable moments.

Transcript

[Bianna Golodryga]

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[Bianna Golodryga]

This is gps, the Global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Bianna Golodriga filling in for Farid, who's off this week, but he left an interview and more that we will bring you shortly today on the program. It's been three months since the US And Israel began their war against Iran. I'll dig into what America has lost and what it has gained in that time with the author Robert Kagan. Then the World cup is where the great game of geopolitics meets the beautiful game of soccer. Or is it football? Even the name is cause for international dispute. I'll ask an expert about the other global controversy surrounding the upcoming tournament. And later in the show, Fareed left us a beautiful essay about the parts of human intelligence that artificial intelligence will never be able to replace. The United States and Iran teeter on the brink of a deal that would cease hostilities between the two countries for 60 days while both sides attempt to iron out a more lasting agreement. At stake are both traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and therefore global energy prices and Iran's nuclear ambitions Joining me now is the author and foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan. Bob, it's good to have you on the program. You have been quite critical of this war in a number of articles that you've written for the Atlantic magazine. The most recent headline, trump's Endgame is Surrender. An earlier piece is subtitled, Washington Can't Reverse or control the Consequences of Losing this War. But the main issue Trump says he went to war over is Iran's highly enriched uranium. And that is still to be negotiated, even if this deal or this memorandum of understanding is signed. So how is that defeat, let alone irreversible, when the central question is still at play here?

[Robert Kagan]

Well, that is not the defeat. I think that you know what's happening and what doesn't. What happens or doesn't happen with the HEU remains to be seen. I'm guessing probably nothing is going to happen. But the defeat has to do with the strait. And by the way, I'm quite skeptical that we're at the brink of an agreement because the Iranians are not going to allow the strait to be turned back to the way it was before the war began. They're not going to return it to being an international waterway. It's going to be open, but it's going to be open under new management, namely Iranian management. And that is a game changer in the region and in the world because it gives Iran the power to punish nations who are not behaving the way it wants to. It gives Iran control over who gets in the strait and who doesn't get in the strait, who has difficulty getting through and who doesn't. And that is going to have a major effect on the geopolitical situation.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, Iran has definitely proven that they can choke off the Strait of Hormuz and that the US can essentially do nothing to stop them. Do you buy this narrative that the president wasn't aware that this would be the leverage that Iran would go to if put in this position? This is something that a number of military experts, political experts for decades have been warning of. How do you think this happened?

[Robert Kagan]

I think the president, who is a very short term oriented person, saw a glittering prize which was working with Israelis to take out and destroy the Iranian regime. I think that Bibi Netanyahu and his advisers sold Trump on this plan and told him he would be the great hero and he didn't think about the next day too much. But I'm fairly confident that he was told by his advisers that this was a problem. At least they would have been horribly remiss in their duties if they had not told him. Because every administration for decades has considered this question and come out with the answer that this is the problem, that Iran would be able to retaliate in ways that we would find unacceptable. So that was one of the turns to are doing this. And Trump just simply disregarded it because, as he often does, he saw, he saw a chance for a big win for him and he didn't think too much about the consequences.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And now that precedent has been set by Iran. You mentioned Israel, something that we heard from President Trump last week was now demanding that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others join the Abraham Accords as condition for an Iran deal. You have said that this war has destroyed the Abraham Accords. You've also called them hollow, suggesting that peace between countries that were never going to fight was really, in essence, a point. As to why the Abraham Accords didn't carry much weight. That is somewhat of a contradiction, I would argue. But even more significantly, we've seen trade boom among Abraham Accord nations. The deal survived the Gaza war. So how does that not cut against your argument?

[Robert Kagan]

Well, whatever the virtues of the Abraham Accords, I'm not saying they had no virtues. I just don't think they were very significant in terms of keeping peace. But that's beside the point. The fact is the Abraham Accords are dead. Now, the United States has demonstrated to the Gulf allies and Israel has demonstrated to its Gulf allies or its Gulf friends that we are incapable of protecting them in this situation. They took a pounding. They are the ones who are mostly pushing for a peace right now because they don't want to continue that and more of. More importantly, the notion that anyone is going to sign up now in an agreement with Israel and the United States after Israel and the United States have effectively lost this conflict to Iran is ludicrous. And the truth is, and this has been well reported, that those countries that Trump was talking about trying to get to sign up with the Abraham Accords were basically either amused or stunned that he would make this suggestion. Right now Israel's a pariah in the region and no one, least of all the Saudis, are now going to be signing up for the Abraham Accords. This is part of Trump's, you know, self delusion or attempt to delude the rest of us. But in any case, it's not happening.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Yeah, the reporting said that this demand was met with stunned silence. But then what do you say to those who point to the strengthened ties that we've seen between Israel and the UAE in particular, I think that's over.

[Robert Kagan]

I think that's old news. I think that the consequences of this war is that the Gulf states are now going to have to make their arrangements with Iran in order to survive economically. They depend on access to the strait, obviously, and so long as Iran controls the strait, they're going to have to make a deal with Iran. We see what Oman is already doing in terms of working with Iran on procedures for controlling the strait. Other Gulf states will also have to make their arrangements. I don't think people understand perhaps what is actually going on in this conflict right now. We lost this war back in March, when Trump decided he didn't want to suffer or didn't want to see the region suffer from Iranian attacks, he called for the ceasefire. There's been a ceasefire ever since. He has not been willing to resume the conflict. And the Iranians, who are perfectly aware of that, are therefore not willing to make any concessions. And they haven't made any concessions.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Robert Kagan, thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it.

[Robert Kagan]

Thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Up next on gps, the Pope has issued a sweeping manifesto on artificial intelligence, calling to disarm the technology. So what could this mean for Silicon Valley? I talked to a priest who is also an expert on the ethics of AI. That's up next.

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[Bianna Golodryga]

This week, Pope Leo XIV released his first Papal Encyclical, a 42,000 word document centered on one central concern, artificial intelligence. In Magnifica humanitis, the Pope warns of the serious dangers of AI and its impacts on everything from work to democracy to war. He has called for robust constraints on AI, a call that clashes directly with the Trump administration's hands off approach to regulation. Joining me now is Father Paolo Benanti. He is an ethics professor and consultant to both the Vatican and the Italian government on artificial intelligence. Father Benanti, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. You have called this encyclical's real power and that is naming structural problems, computing power held by a handful full of private companies that answer to no voters. So I'm curious that when one of the co founders of Anthropic, one of the biggest AI companies, is standing on stage at the Vatican applauding this encyclical, is the industry taking the message to heart in your view? Or could that be more of an optics play?

[Father Paolo Benanti]

Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. Well, let's put in that perspective. You know, we are too often probably thank you also to the social media, to understand things in a polarized way or you are in or you are out. Well, you know, in the church expressly, according to my Franciscan sensibility, dialogue is much more important than not standing position. So what we saw last day was not a standing position of the church in the confront of anthropic, of other big tech in the Silicon Valley, neither some of the Silicon Valley that is jumping on the chair position. We saw a dialogue, a possibility to have an interchange of opinion. And if you heard well what Christopher Holla said, they are not the same word of the encyclical. There is a lot of job to do, but it's important to keep open such kind of channel to avoid some kind of uncommunication among the parties that can bring to some unavoidable bad future.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, the Vatican's fix, or at least one of the solutions for AI is education, teaching people to use it wisely. But the encyclical also says that technology needs to slow down. How realistic do you think that is at this point?

[Father Paolo Benanti]

Well, you know, there is a lot of money inside the AI and there is a lot of interest around it. But the problem is the day in which we will not have any more worker or the day in which we will not have any more people that can spend the money to simple let the business grow. Is it still business? And once again, is it the magic wand that will fix any problem or is the human being the real layer that will enable AI to work better for society? Both solutions are possible. We can imagine process without human beings. We can imagine process with AI in which the human beings is able to bring much more solution for everyone and in every condition. The future is not something that is already written. It's something that has to be written and can be made in a lot of multiple way. Of course, if we look at what's happening in the last 12 months, we could have the temptation to be scared. There is AI used for war. There is a huge amount of money that is sometimes two or three times a GDP of a huge big nation. But we can feel ourselves like not able to stop or making something. The Church is betting on the idea that we can guardrail a little bit.

[Bianna Golodryga]

It was interesting then to read a Catholic writer in the New York Times this week calling the Pope's warning quote disappointingly measured and asking why he didn't reject AI altogether. How do you respond to that?

[Father Paolo Benanti]

Well, you know, that happened in the 15th century with Galileo when we said that telescope was something bad. But from day one, Leo said what I take this name, I'm quoting because the big challenge, like for LEO 13, is something that is coming from technology. It's not anymore a problem with steam, It's a problem with AI. But for LEO13, the real problem was not the steam. What was the concentration of the power behind the steam, the steam power in few hands that can change the equilibrium in society. And now we have the same problem. The problem is not AI or the algorithm or the idea that we can surrogate some of the human process or human decision process in some algorithmical way. The problem is a problem of computational power. And such kind of computational power has to be domesticated to coexist in a democratic. In a democratic space. So once again, the Church is focused on what is important for the Church, that is the human being. And this is not the case that the title is Magnifica Humanitas in the Age of AI. It's not AI and human. So this is the perspective that the Church is trying to highlight. And so it's a problem of much is too much, not why.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Father Bernanti, fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Father Paolo Benanti]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Up next on gps, the FIFA World cup kicks off in less than two weeks, and it is already mired in geopolitical intrigue. We'll explore the international drama when we come back. In less than two weeks, the United States, Canada and Mexico will host the World cup of the planet's most popular sport, soccer, or as it's known in much of the rest of the world football. But that debate over its name is far from the only point of contention. The tournament is happening during one of the most turbulent geopolitical moments in recent memory, when the leader of a host nation has threatened or attacked one of every 13 nations in the world across his two terms, imposed sweeping tariffs globally, and is currently waging a protracted war in the Middle East. For more, I'm joined by an avid follower of both geopolitics and what he calls football, Ishan Tharoor. He is a contributor for the New Yorker. Ishan, it's good to see you. So many have highlighted that President Trump is tying the World cup now to his own personal legacy. He accepted the so called peace prize from the FIFA President Gianni Infantino. But is there a cloud hanging over this, given the political concerns for so many of these fans around the world, seeing some of Trump's policies and also just the polarization that we're seeing as well?

[Ishan Tharoor]

That's absolutely right. There is certainly quite a bit of gloom hanging over this World Cup. The World cup, as you said, it's the most beloved sporting event in the world. It's this one showpiece event that attracts billions of followers and it usually is. You know, I think when the US hosted it in 1994, it was this incredibly exuberant, amazing celebration of America and the arrival of soccer to a certain extent in the United States. It was a very celebrated tournament. That optimism, energy that we saw, you know, almost more than 30 years ago is not there right now. There's, of course, as you said, the shadow of geopolitics over this Trump's war making in the Middle east and elsewhere. And you've seen over the previous months, especially building up to this tournament, a profound amount of distaste, disgust, especially in Europe, with the way this World cup has been organized, the extent to which FIFA President Gianni Infantino has cozied up to President Trump. There are fears over people being detained at airports. There are fear, there's widespread indignation about the prices associated with this World cup, whether it's stadium tickets or hotels or even the ability to park a car in certain venues. So there's a lot of pessimism about the way this tournament is going to unfold. At the same time, it's going to be a fascinating tournament. It's the biggest World cup ever. And, and in general, when we have World Cups in the past, there is a lot of skepticism and gloom, perhaps before the event, but once the ball gets kicked, once things get rolling, narratives do shift.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And you mentioned how some Europeans are responding to all of this. Nearly half of the German public supported a boycott over US Foreign policy. Obviously, that's not going to happen. But you also have pushed back on this notion of the novelty of politics invading sports reports, noting that this goes back to Mussolini's hosting the 1934 World Cup. So what actually is different this time around?

[Ishan Tharoor]

That's right. You know, the World cup has always been an easy vehicle for politics to take place. And has previous nations in the past, including Mussolini, used it as a set piece for their politics there, In Mussolini's case for fascist Italy in the 1930s. What's different right now, I think, is the intense personalization of this, the way in which President Trump really is the defining figure of the tournament, and the way in which FIFA has, and specifically FIFA President Gianni Infantino has approached him and really cultivated him. The case Infantino may want to make is that he needs to keep President Trump on side to make things go smoothly. But I think a lot of people have been very uncomfortable by the way in which the World cup, which is being hosted, of course, by three countries, countries, not just the United States, has become, in many people's minds, Trump's World Cup. And Trump certainly doesn't want to disabuse anybody of that impression. And that, you know, I think on a certain level, that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Just because the World cup is not about President Trump, it's not about the American team. It's about this global event of nations coming together. And we're going to have real concerns about how some of these nations can come together. Can the Iranian team play properly with the right visas in this tournament? We still don't really know. You saw World Cup's previous ones in Qatar, in Russia. These are not exactly the most open countries in the world. But when the World cup happened, they really rolled out the red carpet for visitors. The US Is certainly not doing that this time.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Right. And the president is really taking sort of a liking to now, noting the timing of this happening as the United States celebrates 250 years. Is there an argument to be made that given some of those concerns? We know the Iranian team is set to play in two states here, California and Washington states, but their fans are barred. There are concerns about Ebola as well. The ACLU has warned travelers about ice and their presence at some of these games. But if we do see more of a domestic crowd show up at these games, does that not perhaps give Trump the perception and the audience that he's hoping for maybe.

[Ishan Tharoor]

And you know, I think especially in the United States, this may end up being, as you said, the tournament that is defined by the energy of American fans, but specifically the immigrant diaspora. I think, for example, the Iranian game in Los Angeles is going to be this incredible event where you have, you know, one of the world's biggest Iranian diasporas of Persian diasporas participating. And, and you'll see that play out with numerous other countries in the United States that have large immigrant populations within the United States. So that may be what this World cup is remembered for, not the fact that visitors came, but the fact that it showcased America's diversity. It showcased the amazing kind of tapestry that makes up this country. But that's not exactly the political narrative President Trump has been touting, especially in this second term either.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Well, you have described this Team USA roster as a diverse group of a humbler America as the sport has now edged past baseball as America's third favorite sport. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed this conversation.

[Ishan Tharoor]

Great to be with you, Bianna.

[Bianna Golodryga]

All right. Up next on GPS Fareed, we'll be back with a surprising interview. Can one of humanity's most ancient practices save us from the modern scourge of disconnection? I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, with me is Nathan Proctor. He's the senior director of the Right to Repair campaign. He'll share some tips for extending the life of your tech. When did you realize that this wasn't just an annoying thing that happens, but actually a systemic problem?

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Frankly, nothing lasts like it used to.

[Bianna Golodryga]

Like our clothes and furniture don't last as long as they did.

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There's a really clear incentive for manufacturers of all kinds to create short lifespan products so that we have to buy more stuff.

[Bianna Golodryga]

And that's exactly what's happening. Listen to CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, just my type, babe.

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[Bianna Golodryga]

Three amateur renovation teams paired with a top HGTV mentor will transform three beach houses into a life changing opportunity to win $50,000 cash.

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Did you say $50,000?

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the Beach June 1st at 9 on HGTV.

[Narrator/Host]

We've heard so much about the loneliness epidemic that we are in the midst of, spurred on by technology and made even worse in recent years by the COVID 19 pandemic. In the 21st century, fewer Americans are married, have close friends or belong to A religious community. The author, Bruce Filer, thinks that the most powerful way to combat this is to return to one of humanity's oldest practices. He has a new book out called A Time to How Ritual Created the World and How It Can Save Us. He joins me now. Welcome, Bruce. This is. How many New York Times bestsellers have you written?

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7. Thank you very much.

[Narrator/Host]

So this is going to be the eighth because it really is terrific and so timely. So you look at this not just the epidemic of loneliness, but you talk about how. You look at how divided we are.

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Yes.

[Narrator/Host]

And in some ways, your book is an effort to find something that can

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bring us together and to report on something that I think is already happening. Right. So for me, a project like this always begins with a feeling. And that feeling was that we are fraying as a society, as we have this conversation, as anybody has any conversations. We have our. The enemy is in our pockets. Right. Or nearby. And in a lot of ways, we've abdicated our relationships for our phones. And what happened to me is that I hit a breaking point a few years ago after my wife and I dropped our daughters off at college. We walked in through our front door and I felt homesick in my own home. My dad had just died, my mom was aging. All my friendships needed to be remade, and I was craving connection. I thought, let me go look for solutions. And what I found is exactly what you said. Not only a startling story hiding in plain sight, but what I think may be perhaps one of the great untold stories in the world today, which is this renaissance of new ritual gatherings that's happening all over the world as people create astonishing new ways to gather in real life. And so I decided maybe that's the answer. So I went on this round the road ritual road trip I attended, enjoying rituals in 16 countries on six continents. And what I've tried to do in time, in a Time to Gather, is first of all, tell a great adventure story, but really offer people a simple toolkit for how to create gatherings that everyone in your life will love.

[Narrator/Host]

Do you think that these gatherings that you observe, particularly in the United States, are they because people feel a sense of loss? They feel like, as you were saying, you said something very interesting, that you felt like you needed to remake your friendships.

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Yes.

[Narrator/Host]

I know a lot of men who feel that after the kids go to college, they have that feeling because they've sort of, you know, you can't neglect work, you can't neglect family. And what men tend to do often is neglect their friends and after, you know, the kids go to college, they're like, oh, my God, what happened to all my old friends?

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And so you look at what these rituals are, okay? Some of them are old rituals made new. I went to a group baptism at the Vatican where they blessed interfaith children. I went to a beautiful cremation funeral in Ireland where everyone took a pebble home from the backyard that the deceased loved so much. I went to not one, but two weddings where people passed around the rings so by the time the couple put them on, they were warmed by everyone's love. But a lot of these are new. Rituals like that are created in response to new transitions that we go through. Gender reveals, NICU graduations, soberversaries, cancerversaries, end of life doulas, end of company doulas, daddy daughter dances, mommy proms. So people are basically. When the idea of rite of passage was invented 100 years ago by Arnold Van Gannip, it was like the big four. Birth, coming of age, marriage, death. Now our lives go through many more twists and turns, and people are creating rituals for whatever they're doing. And a lot of these are ones that institutions never honored. So not just marriage, but divorce, not just fertility, but infertility. New experiences where we don't want to be alone. We want to be connecting with other people.

[Narrator/Host]

My favorite chapter in the book is the Taylor Swift divorce ritual.

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Yes.

[Narrator/Host]

You have to explain it.

[Advertisement Voice]

Okay. My wife, too. I don't know what that says about us, but it's an amazing story about a young woman who grows up. Her parents are divorced, both grandparents. I'm not going to get divorced. You can imagine what happens. She gets married, has two children, gets divorced. Her husband takes half her belongings, the other half she gives away, and she walks in, she says, you know, what I need now is I need a way to connect with my friends. I need my friends around me to help me. So she creates this viral idea, the Taylor Swift Divorce Party with Shake it off cupcakes. And we are never, ever getting back together. Napkins. But it's the why for Reid. And I said, why did this work? And she said, I'm a millennial. When we grew up, we got on AOL chat rooms. Okay. And then Facebook groups. And we started saying, I'm feeling this way in my marriage or I'm feeling that way. Am I alone? No, I feel that way. And older women would chime in, yeah, I felt stuck. And so she said, I can feel upset that my marriage is over, but still want to be surrounded with the people I Love, who can help me get through it. That's what's going on here. New rituals for new transitions, when people do not want to feel isolated.

[Narrator/Host]

And why is a ritual better than just, you know, kind of occasionally just saying to yourself, you know what? I need to be more in touch with my friends, with my relatives. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to call them more often, meet them more often.

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So the way I think about this is we have 300,000 years of evidence that rituals work. This is before we were anatomical humans. We were getting together to bury our dead. That basically a ritual is the original human algorithm. And at this moment, when the algorithms of hate divide us, the only thing strong enough is the original human algorithm. I read 500 academic studies while working on A Time Together. There is so much evidence that they calm us when we're stressed, reduce our heartbeats when we're going through difficult times, and that if you use these rituals, organized, structured events, celebrations, gatherings, whatever you want to call them, they will make your family, your classroom, your neighborhood, your office, your team stronger because the process works. And that's what people are craving. Not come some newfangled thing, but an actual proven thing that predates civilization and is perfect for the moment that we're in right now. To me, the essence of this is if you go back to where we started here, the enemy is in our pockets, and when we are feeding, we are abdicating our lives to these algorithms. We need to wake up every day and say, I want to create a ritual state of mind, a commitment to say, I'm going to connect and reconnect with those that I love. We live in a time when our maladies are increasing, but our remedies are decreasing. And ritual is a remedy that will work. So whatever the problems that we have. You mentioned loneliness, rituals make us closer. Polarization rituals connect us. And now here comes AI and what is it doing? Love bots, death bots, God bots, Going to those moments where we used to do ritual. Ritual is the only thing that can hold us together in those moments. And so if people make this commitment to hold a ritual, it's the number one thing people have been saying when they read A Time Together. As you just said, I want to create a ritual. If we do this, we can cure loneliness. We can make yourself happier and everyone in your community happier.

[Narrator/Host]

And they should all read the book.

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Thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

Next on gps, I recently gave a commencement address at Bard College and spoke to the graduates of about being imperfect. Humans in the age of perfect AI. I'll share those thoughts when we come back. And now for the last look. It's not unusual for college students to engage in protest. Dissent can be central to student identity. This commencement season, there were a surprisingly vocal contingent of graduates heckling their graduation speakers not over political disagreements, but over the mere mention of two words. Artificial intelligence.

[Bianna Golodryga]

We're using a new AI system as our reader.

[Narrator/Host]

Last weekend, I gave a graduation speech at Bard College, the small but well respected liberal arts school in New York state. And I, too, dared to bring up artificial intelligence.

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AI

[Narrator/Host]

Feel free to get the booing out of the way, but I focused on something more important. As far as I'm concerned, human intelligence. I wanted to share some of those thoughts here. Artificial intelligence is indeed arriving with astonishing speed and power. But we humans are going nowhere. And this moment paradoxically gives us an opportunity to better understand what is essential and unique about being human. Every generation has confronted transformative technologies that seem destined to overwhelm humanity. The printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the Internet. Each inspired wonder and panic in equal measure. And now comes the mother of all of them. AI able to write essays, compose music, diagnose diseases, do high level math, generate videos, pass professional exams, and converse with alarming fluency. People naturally ask, what will be left for human beings to do? But perhaps that's the wrong question. The better question is, what does AI tell us about all the things we humans already do and do distinctively and irreplaceably? The answer, I think, is profoundly hopeful. Consider first the sheer miracle of the human brain. A human brain weighs about 3 pounds. It runs on roughly 20 watts of power, about the energy needed to dimly light a refrigerator bulb. Now, training some of the most advanced AI systems in the world required data centers consuming hundreds of millions of watts, enough to power entire cities. These facilities stretch across hundreds of acres filled with giant servers, massive cooling systems, and miles of cable. Meanwhile, your three pound brain is sitting quietly inside your skull, using less energy than a laptop charger. And yet it can do things that still baffle machines. A toddler can recognize a face instantly in poor lighting, understand tone and emotion, navigate a crowded room, learn language socially, infer intentions, and grasp context all effortlessly. Human beings can understand irony, ambiguity, affection, embarrassment, love, shame, humor, longing. We can read a room. We can sense tension in silence. We can detect insincerity in a smile. Machines are astonishingly good at analysis. But humans do more because we live in a complex world inhabited by other humans. The computer scientist Yann Lecun has pointed out that Human intelligence is not merely computation. It is embodied experience, social understanding and emotional cognition layered over millions of years of evolution. And so perhaps we should stop imagining human beings as inferior computers. We're not computers at all. In Japan, the central concept of wabi sabi celebrates imperfection, incompleteness, asymmetry, transience, roughness and irregularity. Handmade ceramics are treasured precisely because they bear the mark of the human being, with uneven glazes and distortions that reveal individuality and craftsmanship. Broken pottery is sometimes repaired with veins of gold, a practice called kintsugi. The crack shines instead of being hidden. The resulting surface is rough. But what moves us is the visible evidence of frailty and repair. We humans don't always seek perfection. Sometimes we seek authenticity and soul. We are entering an age in which rational analysis may increasingly belong to machines. But human beings are gloriously irrational creatures. We fall in love with the wrong people. We cry over sappy songs. We sacrifice for others. We stay loyal to friends. We create religions, nations, poetry, jazz, democracy, and abstract expressionism. No algorithm would have ever invented the blues steeped in pain and sorrow. No hyper efficient program would have designed Venice, an absurdly impractical city on stilts. And thank God for that. In fact, the danger in the AI age is not that machines will become too human. It's that humans will start trying to become too much like machines. We already see this happening. People talk about optimizing every dimension of life. Sleep, productivity, networking, branding, performance. Students feel pressure to turn themselves into perfectly curated resumes. Workers fear being measured against algorithms that never tire and sleep. But human flourishing is not, and has never been about optimization. Human greatness emerges from struggle. That is why the great works of literature endure. They don't portray flawless beings. Ernest Hemingway famously wrote in A Farewell to Arms, the world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. Leonard Cohen put a similar insight into lyrics when he sang Anthem. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. Our imperfections are not flaws to eliminate. They're the source of empathy, creativity, wisdom, resilience, and beauty. A machine may someday write a technically flawless symphony, but it will never know the anguish of Beethoven, who composed his 9th Symphony, one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, when he was almost completely death. When we listen to the ninth Symphony, what moves us is not simply the arrangement of notes. It is the sorrow, perseverance, and triumph of a composer determined to create transcendent sounds that he would never hear. That is why hi human intelligence matters. Not because it's faster than AI not because it's more efficient. It isn't. But because it is embedded in consciousness, emotion, morality, memory, relationships and lived experience. My hope for all you graduating seniors and all of us really, is that instead of competing with AI on its terms, AI prompts us all to become more fully human. So, of course, let's use AI. Let's use it to cure diseases, expand knowledge, improve productivity, and solve problems once thought unsolvable. But let's also use AI to illuminate the astonishing distinctiveness of the human mind. A three pound organ capable of mathematics and music, logic and love, memory and imagination, ambition and compassion. And so do the 2026 graduates who are leaving extraordinary institutions and entering a world transformed by artificial intelligence. I hope you will also become champions of hi. Human intelligence, human imagination, human inspiration and human interconnection. Celebrate the gloriously imperfect human mind. Because our imperfections are not bugs in some system's code. They are the cracks that let the light come in. Congratulations to the class of 2026 and thanks to Biana Golodriga. And thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

[Bianna Golodryga]

From the descendants of history makers involved in the Louisiana Purchase to the Lewis and Clark expedition, discover the untold stories of American expansion in the CNN original series this Land, premiering June 7th on CNN.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm Daniel Dae Kim. I'm going to South Korea to figure out how this small nation conquered the

[Bianna Golodryga]

world with its culture.

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Join me and meet the artists and

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creators behind the Phenome K Everything now

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streaming on the CNN app.