← Fareed Zakaria GPS
Fareed Zakaria GPS
UN Nuclear Chief on Iran’s Nuclear Program; Where is the War with Iran Headed?
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- [00:02]
Fareed Zakaria
This is gps, the global Public Square. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from New York. Today on the program One month of war with Iran. The Trump administration presented tehran with a 15 point peace plan this week. Iran did not accept it. A central demand is Iran must stop enriching uranium and give up its stockpile. Any scenario where Iran would agree? I will ask the IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who has been involved in the mediations. Also this week. This war has been won. President Trump said the war had been won, but the Pentagon ordered thousands of troops deployed to the region. Retired U.S. army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling joins me to explain what those troops can and cannot do. And what do Iranians who live outside of Iran's borders make of every everything happening within them. Plus the courts versus Big Tech Mark Zuckerberg's matter lost two landmark court cases this week, with juries finding some social media platforms liable for addicting or harming children. Will there be a real reckoning for the tech giants? I'll ask, but first, here's my take. In the years after Barack Obama's presidency, it became an article of faith that one of his central errors in foreign policy was the Syria red line. He said that he would attack Syria if it used chemical weapons, but when evidence emerged that it had used those weapons, he pushed the question of intervention to Congress, which declined to act. A disaster, Donald Trump called it at the time a cause of generational and reputational damage, said then Senator Marco Rubio. Part of an incoherent maze of foreign policy, Pete Hegsett argued a few years later, in ignoring a red line that he had drawn, Lindsey Graham explained Obama had risked squandering American credibility around the world. Obama's red line flip flop looks like the model of careful policy making compared to what we have witnessed since the Iran war began. Last week, President Trump posted on social media that if Iran doesn't fully open without threat the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. The rest of the story is well known. Iran refused to be cowed by this threat and continued its attacks and its closure of the strait. Trump's response to quickly climbed down and announced that he had postponed any action on energy infrastructure for five days, claiming that suddenly overnight, Iran and the US had been engaged in productive conversations toward a complete and total resolution of. Of our hostilities in the Middle east, quote, unquote. The Iranians denied any such talks were taking place. Now Trump says he's extending the pause by another week and a half. It is by now clear that Donald Trump is being graded on a curve when he says he will raise tariffs to 130%, or that he will blow up Iran's biggest gas field, or that, quote, the war is very complete, pretty much unquote. None of these statements mean much. They could be actual American policies or not, or they could stand as policy for a day or a week, after which they will change. After saying that the war was pretty much complete that same day, Trump asserted, we haven't won enough and we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. He said that he agreed to negotiate with Iran's leaders, but then couldn't because they keep getting killed. Though it is, of course, his own military and Israel's which is doing the killing. All clear. Trump's supporters claim this incoherence is strategic genius, that he's keeping people off guard, except that the policy seems to change for a variety of reasons. Maybe the stock market falls, or maybe the target country lavishes praise on Trump and gives him a gold bar. Trump's superpower is that he is flexible enough to turn on a dime and has a base that will accept anything he proposes. Once unalterably opposed to Middle east wars, many of his MAGA supporters now believe in this Middle east war with the zeal of converts. And while Trump has made clear that he would like to end the hostilities, the problem this time, unlike with tariffs, is that he cannot unilaterally stop what he started. Iran gets a vote, and it is currently voting to keep fighting, calculating that, though weakened, it has enough military power to do damage to the world economy, thereby inflicting pain on the US for the world, there is no longer any such thing as American credibility, just a strange reality television show in which the main actor swerves, bobs, and weaves his way through crises, hoping that what he says today will solve the crisis caused by what he said yesterday. The day before he threatened to obliterate Iran's power plants. Trump claimed that the US Was considering winding down its military operations against Iran and implied that protecting the Strait of Hormuz was not his problem and could be dealt with by other nations whose imports passed through the Strait. At another point, he said he didn't need any other country's help. Businessmen used to rail against previous administrations because of policy uncertainty, quote, unquote. Now they line up to praise Trump as his carnival of chaos roils markets almost every week. Donald Trump has gotten used to playing with the United States massive power, punishing those who don't bend the knee and rewarding those who do. In doing this, he's squandering credibility built up over decades to extract short term goodies, sometimes to the benefit of his own family's business interests. But in Iran, he seems to have come up against an adversary that won't play by his rules. Go to fareedzakhariya.com for a link to my Washington Post column this week. And let's get started. The Trump administration said sent Iran a 15 point peace plan to end the war this week, but Tehran did not accept it. At the center of the proposed deal is Iran's nuclear program. The Trump administration is pushing for Iran to dismantle its main nuclear sites, halt its uranium enrichment and hand over its current uranium stockpile, among other commitments. A key player in any potential deal will be the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Rafael Grossi, the director general of that organization, has been involved in the mediation efforts. He joins me now. Let me ask you, Director General, about the nuclear issue. So on the nuclear part of the demands and counter demands, what is the nub of the disagreement? The Iranians say that they have the right to enrichment. The Americans say they don't want them to have any enrichment. Is there a compromise there? Because that seems to me the heart of the matter.
- [08:18]
Rafael Grossi
Of course, there can be many forms of compromise. And this is, of course, something that the negotiating parties have to come to and it wouldn't be new. I was part of this frustrated, truncated negotiating process that was taking place last February, you may remember, and then last year as well, there was another attempt, both mediated by the foreign minister of Oman, you may remember, and there, of course, the issue of enrichment is at the center. This idea of a right to enrichment per se does not exist. Countries can enrich, of course they can do that, but they have to submit all their facilities, all their facilities to inspections by the iea. The United States has said repeatedly we do not want to see enrichment there. And in the past processes, we were considering some alternatives that would result in a very limited activity related to uranium enrichment, which of course, as is evident, didn't work. So now the question mark here is whether we would go or they would try in the conversation to go to zero enrichment or some activity and also probably some form of moratorium maybe for a number of years whereby Iran would not renounce to this activity, but would put it on the sides, so to speak, for some time in a wider process of confidence building. But here I am already speculating and I'm not very comfortable in that area.
- [10:05]
Fareed Zakaria
Do you believe that given the level of bombardment that has taken place, Iran could still rebuild its program? You do hear people say, look, they have the knowledge. You can't bomb away the knowledge. Or do you think that the facilities are now in such bad shape that, you know, it would be many, many, many years before they could do something?
- [10:31]
Rafael Grossi
You know, Fareed, there is no contradiction in both assertions of what you said, what you just said. So there was enormous damage, in particular during the 12 Day War last year at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordo. You remember that that campaign was mainly focused on the nuclear facilities. What we are seeing now this, this war that has more than a month has had a number of targets and objectives that go far beyond the remit of the nuclear. So last year there was enormous damage done, but not everything was destroyed, of course, and we are not here doing a military assessment of what survived and what not. But it is obvious that not everything was destroyed. And also your second phrase is absolutely true. One cannot unlearn what one has learned and has been doing. Don't forget that this activity of uranium enrichment, which is rather complex, is not something that is impossible to do, is methodology, quite sophisticated methodology. So the centrifuges that spin at high velocity to separate the isotope of uranium, which is interesting, from the one which is not all of these things Iran has mastered throughout the years. And this is not per se a nuclear activity. So you may have in Iran dozens or perhaps more workshops or small factories where they could, you know, reproduce these capacities.
- [12:26]
Fareed Zakaria
You mentioned that the greatest damage to the nuclear program was actually done last June in that 12 day bombing which involved stealth bombers. A number of people in US Intelligence have told me that that bombing campaign pretty much destroyed Iran's nuclear capacity for many, many years and that it was, as the President then had said, obliterated. Would you agree with that?
- [12:58]
Rafael Grossi
Well, it was very considerable. You know, when it comes to adjectivizing destruction, I am not a military expert. What I can tell you is that the damage was very, very big and very considerable at the same time. There are things that remain, both of you.
- [13:17]
Fareed Zakaria
But in that case, it does seem difficult to believe the administration's current claims that Iran was by some accounts two weeks and some accounts two months away from being able to constitute nuclear weapons that it could use. That claim seems Far fetched, does it not?
- [13:39]
Rafael Grossi
I don't know. I don't know because I don't know what kind of information they may have. And what I can tell you is that don't forget, Fareed, that for this you do have a stockpile already of highly enriched uranium at 60%. You don't need to produce it, you already have it. You need to enrich it a little bit more. It is true that the program had reached a concerning, I would say, level of development and sophistication.
- [14:13]
Fareed Zakaria
When we come back, I will ask Rafael Grossi, who is a candidate for Secretary General of the United nations, whether under UN international law, this attack on Iran is illegal. When we come back. And we are back with Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the IAEA and a candidate for Secretary General of the United Nations. Do you believe that the 400 kg of enriched uranium that we believe is buried in Isfahan, can it be bombed away? Or does it have to be in some way physically, you know, sequestered or taken out? What are the options for the United States right now?
- [15:05]
Rafael Grossi
The option should be an agreement. This would be the most perfect way to do it because when you have an agreement, we could, the inspectors of the IEA could go back first and check whether the entire stockpile as we left it the last time we verified was in June last year. We put it, or we had them in cylinders and with seals of the agency. So we should go first and check that the material is there and it hasn't been diverted. All right? So this would be, paradoxically, even from a military point of view, the most, the safest way and the most certain way to do it. Because let's imagine to use your scenario that you are developing now that there is more kinetic attack. Well, you would never know whether you destroyed everything, whether something had been diverted. And don't forget that this is a huge amount. With that amount, one could potentially, potentially produce more than 10 nuclear weapons. So this is why I say, of course, I, being a diplomat and representing the iaea, would always tell you, we need an agreement.
- [16:29]
Fareed Zakaria
In your dealings with the Iranians, have you found them to be rational, to deal with, to negotiate with? Have you found that when they sign agreements, they observe them?
- [16:43]
Rafael Grossi
Well, listen, I've been negotiating with them for many, many years. And of course they are extremely rational, they are extremely sophisticated, they are extremely intelligent people. They defend their national interest, and so does the United States and Israel in this case. But there is a war, all right? So I think we have to try and to find a medium line here to bring us to a better place.
- [17:12]
Fareed Zakaria
Mr. Director General, you are also running for secretary general of the United nations. And I wanted to ask you in that capacity as a candidate whether you believe that the war that the United States and Israel initiated is illegal under international law. Kofi Annan, one of the secretary general, said that the Iraq war was illegal. Antonio Guterres has said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal. Is this attack illegal under international law?
- [17:46]
Rafael Grossi
Farida, you're also a historian. Since 1945, there have been, I mean, we can check, but you will see that there have been more than 30, and if you include hybrid conflicts or civil wars, many more. If you refer to the Charter, you will see that most of the legal experts will find only two examples where there is alignment with the UN charter. One is the Uniting for Peace resolution in 1950. You remember Korean War, and the second is Resolution 687 on the first Iraq war. All others, there have been different opinions. My take as a candidate, and hopefully a future secretary General, is that in these cases, the UN Is there to solve the problems, not to enter into an academic discussion where there's not going to be agreement. Diplomacy must always, always be the first choice. And I think President Trump has said that, and it's good that diplomacy is starting again.
- [18:58]
Fareed Zakaria
Director General, thank you so much for your time. Pleasure to have you on.
- [19:03]
Rafael Grossi
Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure.
- [19:08]
Fareed Zakaria
Next on gps. As the US Explores a diplomatic end to the war with Iran, it is also sending more troops to the Middle East. What does that mean about where this conflict is headed? I will ask General Mark Hertling. As President Trump talks about a diplomatic end to the war, he is sending a very different message through the military. The US has said the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, along with 3,500 sailors and Marines, arrived in the Middle east on Friday. And today Iran said their army is waiting for an American ground invasion. I'm joined by retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who served in the U.S. army for nearly four decades. He has just written a new book called if I Don't A Father's Wartime Journal. Mark, welcome. I'm so delighted to be able to talk to you because nobody is smarter about these issues than you. I look at the number of troops being sent, and if you take the sailors out, the number of troops is even smaller. It doesn't still seem large enough to do some of these missions. So I want to ask you, what would it take to take Carg Island?
- [20:27]
Mark Hertling
Well, first of all, Fareed, it's great to be back with you again. I've really enjoyed our conversations in the past and you're very kind. You know, it depends. When you talk about taking an island, it's not just the seizure of that landmass, it's also what you plan to do. You know, when we're talking, what's happening right now? As you just mentioned, there's a lot of military personnel in the area. Estimates close to 30 to 50,000, but those are spread out all over the place. Getting to Kharg, which is far north along that coastline, is going to take more than a Marine Amphibious Unit. You know, when you're talking about MU, a Marine expeditionary unit, you're talking somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 soldiers. There's two of them in the area. That brings it to 5,000. The brigade, the immediate ready response brigade of the the 82nd Airborne Division has also gone in with their tactical command post. That adds about another 5,000. So all told, you have about 10,000 forces in the area. But the question remains, what are they going to do? Are they going to seize an island? Are they going to protect the coast? Are they going to go into some of the islands? We haven't talked much about Musa Altoob, the Tombs. So really the question becomes what is your troop to task relationship? What kind of things are you asking the military to do? What is the calculation for the type of force that should go in there? And then once you have that, you have to calculate not only the support from the standpoint of intelligence and air power, but also logistics support. When you're looking at Carg island, which is very close to the shore, there is the potential for Iran defending that as part of what they see as an exponential, you know, just a threat to their, an existential threat to their country.
- [22:25]
Fareed Zakaria
What about forcing open the Straits of Hormuz maybe by seizing tankers? How easy would that be?
- [22:35]
Mark Hertling
Well, to secure the mouth of the straits, you have to also control some of the land mass around it. You'll hear names like Laraq or Abu Musa or the Greater and Lesser Tombs in the straits. Those give you the capability to overwatch the straits. So you still have to have a land operation in terms of seizing tankers, a very difficult mission, or escorting tankers on also a very difficult mission. Right now I would suggest you've overtasked the navy because when you have two carrier strike groups in the area, those cruisers and the destroyers that are part of that strike group are conducting a mission to protect the carrier and to, and to launch Tomahawks. Suddenly, if you say, okay, now you also have to escort literally hundreds of cargo ships through that strait, you're really overtasking the capability of the ships in that fleet. So again, we have to look at what are the troop to task relationship this time and point of the Navy and all of these, Fareed, I can't emphasize this enough. All of these are extremely dangerous mission and truthfully, Iran is not going to roll over. As I said, this entire attack against them is an existential threat. They are fighting for their territory, territorial integrity and their national resolve right now.
- [23:56]
Fareed Zakaria
And finally, Mark, and we don't have a lot of time. These are tactical issues. Even if we succeed, do they then provide you with a strategic victory?
- [24:10]
Mark Hertling
They don't, Fareed, because I don't know what the strategic end state is just yet. As you pointed out so rightfully at the beginning of your show, there are many missions that the President has named, the kinds of things that he wants to do and he has been shifting back and forth between those on multiple occasions. A military takes individual battles. The fight that we've been seeing with the aircraft and the naval vessels and now we're including a ground force to that, they combine all of those into an operational campaign, all of which are directed toward achieving the end state of the strategy. If you don't have the end state of a strategy, what the politicians want you to do, and it's very succinct and it doesn't change, it's going to be very confusing for the men and women in uniform to execute the operations.
- [24:58]
Fareed Zakaria
Always a pleasure to have you on General Hertling. Thank you. When we come back, we will talk about the Iranian diaspora and Reza Pahlavi. Could he be the next ruler of Iran?
- [25:15]
Michael Ian Black
I got News for your ears, the podcast. I am your host, Michael Ian Black. In this week's episode, we're covering everything. Iran, airports, Elvis. We're answering the question, could Elvis beat up Trump or would Trump have the better of Elvis? And what is Trump's take on Bruce Lee? All of this and more have I Got News for your ears. Check us out on Apple, Amazon, Music, wherever you get your podcast. Even better, you can watch the Vodcast on Spotify.
- [25:48]
Fareed Zakaria
The relationship between the FBI director and the President has always been complicated. Unravel the complex dynamic in the CNN original series Standoff the FBI Power and Paranoia now streaming on the CNN app. This weekend, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or cpac, took place in Dallas with a curious speaker. Reza Pahlavi, the US Based son Of the former Shah of Iran who was deposed by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, he has become the most prominent figure in a fractious Iranian diaspora. In his speech, he praised Trump, vowed to make Iran great again as Iranian Americans in the crowd shouted, long live the Shah. How influential is he within Iran and outside? What are the politics of the Iranian diaspora? Joining me now is Azadeh Merveni. She's a journalist and author who has covered Iran for decades. She heads the global Journalism program at nyu. Azadeh, your stuff that you've been writing is so, so fascinating. Why this time around did we hear from Iran in one or two places the cries for Reza Pahlavi? We never heard those before. What's changed to bring him to the fore in Iran this time?
- [27:09]
Azadeh Merveni
Well, firstly, things in Iran have done deteriorated terribly. So in a way, Reza Pahlnavi is the beneficiary of the deterioration of life in Iran for Iranians. The Islamic Republic has hit a dead end. It cannot provide security, well being or a future for its people. And he, as the sort of singular leader, prominent figure in the diaspora to many people at this moment, appears to be the, the transition figure who can help the country break out of this impasse. His base has expanded beyond the traditional royalist monarchist corps to include people who just see him as a transition figure because he embodies secularism, prosperous Iran, Iran that's open to the world. A figure that represents social freedoms. And so by virtue who he is, he embodies all of this. This for a people who are simply desperate to break out of the impasse of the regime the regime has imposed on them.
- [28:11]
Fareed Zakaria
When you look at the Iranian diaspora, how would you describe the politics of it? How many support this war and how many oppose it?
- [28:20]
Azadeh Merveni
The diaspora is fractured in a way. It represents or reflects the fractures in Iranian society itself. It is split almost down the middle. About half or a little bit more support this war. They see it as the only way to break Iran out of the grip of the Islamic Republic. The other half are deeply ambivalent. They do not support the Islamic Republic, but they see the destruction being wrought on Iran, the attacks on universities and on civilians and on its industrial base as part of putting the country's development back. They're alarmed. So the diaspora is divided. It is more organized, so it's more forceful. And I think there's a sad element of the diaspora that many don't have a stake in what happens to Iran as it stands, They've been securitized, ostracized, by the Islamic Republic kept out. And as a result they feel like they can only engage with Iran again, potentially go back and have a role in Iran again if the Iran that exists today, run by the Islamic Republic is dismantled. So they've been denied a stake.
- [29:31]
Fareed Zakaria
You know, to me, the most interesting part of that is because they've been so cut off and it's now what, 47 years. Right. You have a diaspora that actually doesn't know the country that exists today very well. You know, we've seen this with pro previous diasporas, the White Russians or even the Iraqi exiles like Chalabi, who, you know, had a kind of fantasy of what Iraq was, not what it really was on the ground. You know, they had a fantasy of a secular Iraq where the Sunnis and the Shias would live together. Is there a similar issue going on with the Iranian diaspora? Because they really haven't been, I mean, few of them would have been alive even during the the Shah's time.
- [30:13]
Azadeh Merveni
I think that's absolutely the case. And I think on both sides of the divide you see the intensity of the partisan view reinforced by those long years of detachment. Those who characterize Reza Pahlavi and who are vehemently against any kind of military intervention. Iran, I think are detached from the intensity of the suffering of the Iranian people. There are people, I travel to Iran regularly who can no longer afford to eat, who were formerly lower middle class, middle class people. So they do not see the desperation that leads many to want any kind of change, even at the price of destruction, because they see no future in the status quo. And then the same on the other side, the side that is ardently pro intervention that that doesn't seem to mind the cost of the war terribly. To them, Iran is a bleak and distant place where nothing has flourished, where nothing has developed. And to them there is very little actually to destroy. So both sides are in sort of cul de sacs that are shaped by their long years of detachment.
- [31:24]
Fareed Zakaria
Azadeh, it's fascinating to hear from you and keep writing this stuff as really fascinating next on gps. We're going to move somewhere else. Social media companies were found to have harmed young users in multiple court rulings this week. Is this a watershed moment for Big Tech? We have Tristan Harris when we come back. On Wednesday, a California jury found Meta and YouTube had harmed a young user through features that designed to be addictive. That verdict came swiftly after another loss in New Mexico, where Medra was found to have failed to protect young users from sexual predators. Both companies have vowed to appeal the decisions. But the rulings could signal a shift. Big Tech may no longer be able to avoid liability for what happens on their platforms. I'm joined by Tristan Harris, a former Google ethicist who co founded the center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit focused on tech safety. He's featured in a new documentary that is going viral called the AI Doc. Let me ask you at the heart of this, because before you did this AI stuff, you talked a lot about these tech companies and social media. The core issue is, do you believe that they are intentionally causing this addiction?
- [32:52]
Tristan Harris
So the thing that people need to get about this lawsuit that's so fundamental is it puts the blame on the companies. It's not about the usage of the products. It's that they intentionally design these products to maximize screen time and usage duration and frequency of use. Why? Because the incentives. Charlie Munger said, if you show me the incentive, I will show the outcome. He was warned. Buppets BUSINESS PARTNER we know that the incentives were to get as many users, young users, using the platform as much as possible, which means suddenly if they're using the platform, older sexual predators are going to be able to message them and they don't have an incentive to try to stop that problem. They actually wanted to print money and all the time in between. What we should learn from these cases, if you look at the evidence and what Frances Haugen bravely disclosed in the book Careless People, they've talked about the evidence has piled up. They knew that these harms were there and they said we have to go after racing for this addiction. Even so. And I think we should learn from this social media example because that was in a way a kind of a baby AI, a little AI baby AI just calculating what's the perfect photo or video to show this person.
- [33:59]
Fareed Zakaria
Talk about what this does within a company. If that is your goal, that is your incentive. What is the culture and incentive structure within a company?
- [34:08]
Tristan Harris
So this is so important when the harm start to show up. In the research, they knew that Facebook was making, I think young girls, a third of young girls, more depressed or had body dysmorphia issues. Arturo Bihar talked about all the sexual exploitation you can see in the emails they knew about this. What this leads to is the people who stay at the company despite knowing the those facts. If I'm a conscious person, I peace out. But if I'm basically willing to perpetuate that incentive, the system is selecting for sociopathic qualities. And they knew and we knew since 2013 this was going to be A problem. We've been waiting 13 years for this lawsuit to finally happen. This big tobacco moment.
- [34:50]
Fareed Zakaria
So the more reckless people stay, the more ethical people leave.
- [34:54]
Tristan Harris
Correct, correct. And then you end up with a, a company that is careless to cite the book title, Careless people. And we should learn this lesson because AI is a much more powerful race. This was a little race between social media companies for attention, for younger and younger attention, drilling, fracking for attention, shorter bite sized content. With AI, the race is to build God own the $50 trillion world economy and build artificial intelligence that can replace all of human economics labor. That that prize means that all of the collateral damage. If you thought the kids social media harms were bad, the AI companies aren't going to care about job loss. They're not going to care about cyber attacks that happen. They're not going to care about, you know, all these bad things that can happen. Because in their mind if I don't do their do it and get there first, I'm going to lose to the worst guy that will.
- [35:42]
Fareed Zakaria
And that was exactly the no. Do you think that these lawsuits are, are these a big tobacco moment?
- [35:49]
Tristan Harris
Yes.
- [35:50]
Fareed Zakaria
Will they have the same kind of effect?
- [35:53]
Tristan Harris
I think if you look at the size of the fine in The Santa Fe, New Mexico case, it was $375 million. This is not that big. A meta will hire a top level AI engineer and pay them $375 million as a signing bonus. So people should get. It's not about the fine though, it's about this case fundamentally sets up the price precedent. There's now going to be a wave of lawsuits that now can say these companies intentionally knew what they were doing and hopefully this will lead to accountability. And as you said at the beginning, you know there is more regulation on making a sandwich in New York City than there is on building world ending artificial general intelligence or on social media companies.
- [36:32]
Fareed Zakaria
Do you think that these companies could be fundamentally regulated and structured differently?
- [36:39]
Tristan Harris
Yes, I do think they can be. And if people are interested, we have a report at the center for Humane Technology, a solutions report of many examples. But basic things like liability which you mentioned, companies should be liable for the foreseeable harms that they create and there should be a kind of foreseeable harms common so that when anyone does safety research and recognizes a risk that goes into a standard that moves the standard of foreseeable harm for everyone to the highest, highest possible mark. If you're liable when those things go wrong, teen suicides, AI psychosis, these kinds of things, then all of the companies will have an incentive to avoid those harms. So we need liability, duty of care. Another example, AI is a product, not a legal person. AI companies are currently arguing that AI should have protected speech. That's what they use to defend themselves in the case of the teen suicide case. And when they have protected speech or are a legal person, there's suddenly immunity. There should always be a human being who is responsible and accountable so that the human choices that are producing this asteroid that's coming to earth, the humans have to be responsible.
- [37:42]
Fareed Zakaria
The key, it seems to me, and the common thread here is that these companies don't want to be liable for anything that happens on their platform. They want to take all the profits but say, but if anything bad happens, we're just a platform. That's exactly right. And of course, the platform was one that was built and created by the US Government. A platform like GPS is still run by the US Armed forces. And so there is a huge public interest, it seems to me.
- [38:12]
Tristan Harris
Well, it's sort of like if you take up children's human development, now you're responsible for children's human development. It's sort of when Marc Andreessen said software is eating the world, what he meant is that software is going to start taking over all these aspects of our society. But if software was eating the world, AI is eating software and it's eating, when we say the world, children's development, our information environment, everything. And so if you're, if you're taking responsibility, if you take over that part of society, you have to take responsibility for that part of society.
- [38:40]
Fareed Zakaria
Tristan Fascinating. And remember, the doc is, what's it called?
- [38:44]
Tristan Harris
The AI doc.
- [38:45]
Fareed Zakaria
AI Document.
- [38:46]
Tristan Harris
Apocalyptomists.
- [38:47]
Fareed Zakaria
Thank you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.
- [38:55]
Eva Longoria
I'm Eva Longoria and I'm setting out
- [38:57]
Fareed Zakaria
to really experience France, to savor its
- [39:00]
Rafael Grossi
world celebrated cuisine and explore the country's rich history.
- [39:04]
Tristan Harris
Searching For France premieres April 12th on CNN.
- [39:07]
Fareed Zakaria
And next day on the CNN app,
- [39:10]
Claire Duffy
I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, there's a growing category of products aimed specifically at addressing women's unique health needs. These tools and services are sometimes known as femtech and they can provide big opportunities and benefits, but they can also come with some risks. To walk us through all of this, I spoke with Bethany Corbin. Bethany is an attorney and CEO of FEM Innovation, where she advises startups, clinicians and health care organizations.
- [39:39]
Eva Longoria
In my opinion, what it really does is, is gives us a collective language to talk about women's healthcare innovation and the tools that are out there so that we can take control of our healthcare experiences and know how to advocate for ourselves in a system that's probably not been designed to advocate for us.
- [39:56]
Claire Duffy
Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts.