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- [00:01]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
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- [00:33]
Ed Elson
Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney.
- [00:36]
Ian Bremmer
Let's go get ready for a new case.
- [00:38]
Ed Elson
We're gonna crack this case and prove
- [00:40]
Ronan Farrow
we're the greatest partners of all time.
- [00:41]
Ian Bremmer
New friends, you are Gary Desnake and
- [00:45]
Ronan Farrow
your last name Desnake.
- [00:47]
Ian Bremmer
Dream Team Hidden New Habitats Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly working at Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney.
- [01:01]
Ed Elson
Rated P Where does President Trump's speech leave us with regard to where the war is headed? And it really was to me, the story of the Commander in chief who weeks into this war is deeply uncertain about how it ends. I'm John Finer, co host of the Long Game podcast. This week Jake Sullivan and I break down the President's speech and discuss what it's like to negotiate with the Iranians. We will also debate whether Iran should accept a deal. The episode is out now. Search and follow the Long Game wherever
- [01:33]
Ian Bremmer
you get your podcasts.
- [01:35]
Ed Elson
Today's number 80. That's how many years have passed since a nuclear bomb was last dropped on Earth. And here's to hoping that by the time you hear this, that will still be true.
- [01:49]
Ian Bremmer
Money Market Met if money is evil,
- [01:52]
Ed Elson
then that building is hell.
- [01:53]
Ian Bremmer
The show goes on the right and there at once.
- [01:57]
Ronan Farrow
And sell, sell.
- [01:59]
Ed Elson
Welcome to Profg Market. I'm Ed elson. It is April 8th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices declined through the day, but ended the session flat. Oil climbed and treasury yields were flat. What else is happening? President Trump has threatened to completely wipe out Iran. Trump set an 8pm Eastern deadline on Tuesday for Iran to fully reopen the strait or face strikes on civilian infrastructure. Trump posted on Truth Social quote a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again as of Tuesday evening. At the time of this recording, Iran had ended direct contact with the administration, though talks with mediators were ongoing. Pakistan's prime minister called on Trump to extend the deadline by two weeks and for the Strait of Hormuz to open. During that time, Trump then said he was in, quote, heated negotiations. The S and P and the Nasdaq and the Dow all fell as much as 1% through the day as hopes for a ceasefire dimmed, but closed roughly flat. So here to help us break down the situation, we are speaking with Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group. Ian, so much to get into here. We're obviously recording before the deadline, so by the time people listen to this, things might have gone either way. And we'll get into that. But first, I would just love your reactions to what Trump has written here. Quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Have you ever seen anything like this?
- [03:33]
Ian Bremmer
This.
- [03:33]
Ed Elson
And what do you make of it?
- [03:35]
Ian Bremmer
No. No, I haven't. I mean, if you were to take it at face value, it's threatening genocide, and it's. It's an unhinged post. It. It shows that Trump is increasingly really angry about how badly this war is going for him, about the fact that the Iranians have not capitulated despite his superior military capabilities, and he has no one to blame but himself. So he is, in a sense, painting himself in a corner. But I also, and again, I'm saying this only a few hours before the deadline, and at this point, the Iranians have given no reason to believe that they're engaging constructively whatsoever with Trump's ultimatum. And yet I firmly believe that Trump will not make good on his threat. And there are a couple of obvious reasons for that. One is that if he did, the United States would be seen as a rogue state by countries all over the world, and it would devastate America's standing, influence, and power, not least with core allies who would not sit back and tolerate that sort of behavior. It would have a very dramatic impact on the ability of the United States to continue to count on, rely on, coordinate with, share intelligence with allies. That's number one. Number two, it would have enormous impact on the global economy because the Iranians would hit back. They'd hit back in a big way. We've already seen that the Iranians continue to have capabilities to use both ballistic missiles and large numbers of drones, which they can hit critical infrastructure targets across the Gulf states, which can cause a lot of damage. The big thing they've hit so far that they've really made a difference with is the LNG capacity of Qatar, $20 billion of damage with their strikes, three to five years to repair it. But we could see a lot more of that. If the desalination plants were destroyed, for example, in Gulf countries, you would have mass exodus from those countries. You would not have the viability economically to continue to support the livelihood of the people that live there. So this is a huge thing. And ultimately, as much as Trump is angry and narcissistic and short term oriented and focusing on himself as opposed to the country, you can say all those things, but this is still way beyond what one could plausibly imagine that he would do. So that's the constraint side. That's why there may be, there are lots of ways he can find to get out of this. He can say that the Iranians are actually being more constructive and more tankers are going through. So he's going to give them more time. He can say, I'm hitting this one additional bridge or one power plant. I'm not actually going through with my full threat from 8 to 12 o', clock, but I'm giving you one final offer and now you've got until Friday or next week or two weeks or whatever it is. Right. So lots of ways he can do it, but the actual threats that have been articulated as they have, he's not going through with those. I, I mean, I would stake my reputation on that. Right?
- [07:08]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
- [07:08]
Ian Bremmer
Even though I have no knowledge of that, it is in my view, utterly implausible. Now, having said that, two things I would want to really caution you about and then wherever you want to go is fine.
- [07:22]
Ronan Farrow
Yeah.
- [07:22]
Ian Bremmer
One thing to caution you about is that the Israelis have engaged in strikes up against at least 10 railroad targets in Iran today. Those are infrastructure targets. They can be used by the military. They are used for civilian purposes too. The Israelis yesterday blew up a major petrochemical facility in Iraq. Second time they've hit such a facility, causing billions of dollars of long term damage to Iran's economy. So I mean, if you're Iran, this is even before the deadline. I understand that Israel is the one doing the bombing, not the United States. But from Iran's perspective, those bombs kind of feel the same. Right. So the reality is they're fighting against the United States and Israel, and Israel is continuing to engage in this level of destruction, irrespective of the timing and the deadlines that the Americans are putting forward to, to Iran. And, and then the final point, I would raise the final cautionary point, which is, even though I think it is ludicrous to imagine that the US would use a nuclear weapon in this environment tonight, the civilizational destruction, I think it's ludicrous to imagine that even though I think it is absolutely the case, that they will not follow through with bombing them into the stone age from 8 to 12 o' clock, and that tomorrow we wake up and there's no, there's no Iran to speak of. It's been gazified. I don't believe that for a second. But. But I also understand that we are seeing mission creep. I understand that every day this war goes on, it becomes a little easier to get a little deeper in to do more damage, to have more people killed, to risk more American servicemen and women, to send more troops. I mean, Trump gave his big speech last week. He was saying two to three weeks, but privately he was saying four weeks. And then a few days later he was saying, but if we were just a little more patient than those four weeks, we could take the oil and then we've got all of these opportunities. Right. And this was after the first week of the war. He had a G7 meeting and he told the G7 heads of state that this war is going to be over within days of a matter of a few days. And it is just a question of how they surrender. They are preparing to surrender completely. So we are watching these continued expansion, incremental expansion of America's engagement in this war in a way that if it continues, will not only cause unheard of economic damage, could make this war comparable to or worse than the damage that we saw and experienced, all of us, during the pandemic, but we also could see human damage consequences in Iran and across the region that could have enormous consequence. And those things, I don't think that Trump is thinking about that today. I don't think those are the decisions he is considering taking today. But I absolutely see the knock on consequences of a few months of this getting you into an environment where you're well over your head.
- [11:06]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
- [11:07]
Ian Bremmer
The tide is dragging you in and you can't swim anymore. So, I mean, we should not. Despite the fact that I feel very confident about what we're going to see this evening, I don't feel confident at all about where I think we're heading in the medium to long term.
- [11:24]
Ed Elson
Part of why you believe, and by the way, I agree with you, that he won't drop a bomb in the next several hours is the idea that he hasn't completely lost his mind. Like he understands a little bit there is a semblance of an understanding of the implications of dropping a nuclear bomb, which I think makes sense. But I think there would be others who would say, well this tweet, this truth social, this statement is proof that he is now completely unhinged and he actually has lost his mind, which means all bets are off. I don't personally think that instinctively, but what would you say to someone who would say that to you, that you know, the guy is insane?
- [12:11]
Ian Bremmer
Well, it depends on the tenor of the person who is saying it to me. Because many of the people that are saying those things are folks that are already so far gone in the idea that this guy is Hitler reincarnate and the idea that there are no checks and balances on, on him, right? So that everything he wants to do, he can just do as if he were an actual dictator.
- [12:36]
Ed Elson
Is that not true? I mean, I mean of course that's not true.
- [12:39]
Ronan Farrow
Of course.
- [12:39]
Ed Elson
In what sense is people around him
- [12:42]
Ian Bremmer
that are, they are kissing his ass constantly and they're telling him things are going better than they actually are. And that is part of the problem. But there are still constraints, there are still restraining mechanisms, there is Congress, there is a media that actually reports on him, there are polls, there are markets, there are all these things that don't exist in North Korea, right? There are all these things that do not constrain an actual dictator, that constrain Trump. Remember the United States we've saw through a significant investigation, very well done forensically, is responsible for targeting and blowing up a girls school and well over a hundred Iranian civilians killed. This was not intentional, it was a mistargeting. The data had not been updated. It wasn't an AI mistake, but it was a mistake. But Trump's response was to blame the Iranians, it wasn't him. Why? I mean, if he doesn't care and if they're just animals, they're not humans, and if it's all the responsibility of the Islamic Republic, well then just own it. Cuz they don't have human rights at that point. Like if you're really going down that route, if you think that Trump no longer he's unhinged, he doesn't care at all about human life, then many of the things that he would have done, he would have done differently already.
- [14:08]
Ed Elson
But either way they still got killed. I mean, I think this would be the response, is that there's a little bit of a check insofar as he doesn't want to admit or not admit, but he would say that it wasn't our intention or that it was the Iranian's fault. But either way, I mean Congress exists, but he's still willing to blow past and make decisions without their approval. The media still exists, and he's still willing to do completely outrageous things, despite getting pilloried by people like, I don't know, me.
- [14:36]
Ian Bremmer
Oh, he's doing outrageous things.
- [14:37]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
- [14:38]
Ian Bremmer
Just. Again, I am pushing back against genocide. Right. I'm pushing back against a nuclear weapon. I'm also pushing back against the intentional targeting of a girl school, which he did not do. Again, the, the, the investigations from the New York Times and other sources were very clear. This was not an order of shock and awe. Let's blow up an Iranian girl school. They did not intend to do that. They don't. They are not trying to maximize civilian casualties. They're just enormously angry that the Iranian regime is not capitulating, despite all of their bravado and all of their superior military strength. And it's kind of funny in the sense that what Trump has been saying to the Iranians, again, if you take him at face value, he's been saying this is not our problem, and that other countries need to deal with this. This is their problem. Right. Other countries have been dealing with it. They're worried that they can't get their oil through, and so they are paying the Iranians $2 million a ship to get their oil through. Trump is dealing with it. You know, he's worried about oil and gas prices, so he has suspended sanctions on Iranian oil. Iranian oil, that's money that's going to the Islamic Republic. Why? Because Trump's revealed preference is, I hate these guys. I want them to lose, but I don't hate them so much that I'm willing to take even higher costs for my own gas prices in the United States that I'm gonna be punished for. So, again, at every step, he is showing that he is constrained. He's not showing that he has value, that he values human life. He's not showing that he cares about people other than himself. He's not showing that. But he's showing he's constrained. And that is the core, you know, rational conclusion from people that are watching what he is doing and not just focusing on his tweets as if they are somehow a reflection of actual reality. Now, I mean, look, it's hard because we've never had, usually presidents don't say very much in their real time public statements, and Trump obviously says far too much. And he's frequently incoherent, he's frequently self contradictory, and he allows his impulses, his id, to act in a completely unrestrained way, and the people around him facilitate that. So it Makes it harder to analyze and assess this guy. And it also makes it harder because if you're on one side or the other politically in the US or globally, you don't get any benefits from having a nuanced perspective. You know, everybody wants you to say that this guy is either America first, and no one has ever been a president like him, no one's ever accomplished much, or he is evil incarnate. He is literally Hitler. Which, I mean, neither of those two things in my view are true or useful. And so I don't take them as my, as my starting off point. I think my starting off point is I'm going to do analysis. I've spent my entire career trying to understand international relations. By the way, frequent, not that much on the United States. So I look at the US in the context of how other countries act in similar scenarios, and how might I apply that to my own country, the Americans? Right, but. And then I tell people what I think. Yes, I'm just, it's just honest analysis. And if people push back, I'm like, well, okay, I could be wrong, but at least I'm not lying to you.
- [18:37]
Ed Elson
So, so let's say, let's say you're right. People will be listening to this in the morning. Let's say Trump doesn't bomb Iran tonight. How will the story play out then? I mean, what will have changed a bit?
- [18:51]
Ian Bremmer
I mean, again, the US Continues to bomb, but he's not, he is not going to make good on the 8 to 12 o' clock end of civilization. All the bridges, all the power plants are getting hit. He will not do that. People watching this now know he has not done that.
- [19:03]
Ed Elson
Right, Right. So let's say he doesn't do that. Let's say he doesn't end the civilization, go fully nuclear, go totally insane. How will things play out from then on? Because it still seems like something has changed here. He's threatened it. I can't tell whether that means something geopolitically. I have a feeling it does. But what does that mean for the Iran situation going forward? How do you think that it will play out?
- [19:29]
Ian Bremmer
Well, look, I mean, the Iranians have called his bluff insofar as after this post, and remember, the end of the post was the whole God bless the Iranian people. So even in the unhinged post, he's trying to make a distinction between the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people. And I can promise you, everyone that's asked me about this post, no one's brought up the last sentence because the last sentence doesn't serve the narrative. The first sentence does. So, not that I care that much because the whole thing is unhinged, but if we're really digging into it, we should recognize that he wrote the whole thing. He didn't just write the first sentence.
- [20:06]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
- [20:07]
Ian Bremmer
What do I think? I think that when the Iranians saw that, they said, great, okay, we're just, we're done. We're not talking. We're breaking off the conversations with the Pakistanis for today. So let's assume that he finds a bit of an off ramp, he gives them some time, or he doesn't go fully ballistic nuclear. And now the Iranians have the ability to come back, they have the ability to engage again, and then you can have some more talks in this slightly more escalated environment. Let's keep in mind that the Iranians just let go these French prisoners that they had. So they are engaging with the French, they are engaging with the Pakistanis, they are engaging with the Chinese. The Iranians are negotiating with lots of countries right now for different things, but not with the Americans. So the qu. The one big question for, for tomorrow or today when people are now watching this is are the Iranians now having gone through the deadline and lived to see another day, are they now engaging with the Americans directly or indirectly again? And is the United States prepared to engage in that process? I suspect the answer is yes, but we don't know that. Yeah, absent that, Trump has also said this war is going to be over in two to three weeks. Now, that means one to two weeks again. I expect that he's going to continue. So I expect that he's, you know, he's pulling back on his maximalist rhetoric, but he's pushing forward on all of the constraints on his time. The problem is that when you tell the Iranians two to three weeks and then I'm done, they're thinking, if we just survive two to three weeks, yeah, you know, we're golden. You know that now we've got the influence over the straits and everything else. So, I mean, Trump's, he is his own worst enemy in so many ways on this conflict. And meanwhile, for the markets, every day we keep talking about this are weeks that the global economy is going to be experiencing the knock on damage of what's happening.
- [22:22]
Ed Elson
Yeah. I could ask you questions for hours, but I have to let you go. I guess my final question here, given what has happened now, would you say that this, it sounds like you believe that this actually extends the timeline. I was wondering, maybe we're approaching the End game here. He's now threatening what amounts to pretty much a nuke. Maybe the story's coming to a close or maybe it's just beginning. And maybe this actually to your point, we wake up, we're still alive. Let's keep fighting.
- [22:55]
Ian Bremmer
Again, we've heard explosions on Carg Island. That seems to me relevant. That seems to me it looks like it came from the United States. If that is true, and I don't have full visibility on that, but if that's true, that's softening military targets while the American troops are getting in place. The one thing we haven't talked about at all in this conversation is the most real thing here, actual physical, real thing, which is that the Americans have a third aircraft strike force and thousands of additional troops that they have deployed to the region. But they're not all there yet and they won't be until around April 16th. And so it seems to me what I see are American military engagement that is meant to set the table for eventually Trump considering using those ground forces. I mean, he has used the ground forces to rescue an American airman successfully from that F15 this weekend, but he hasn't used them in any significant way. That could easily change in two weeks.
- [24:09]
Ed Elson
Yes.
- [24:09]
Ian Bremmer
And that's again, so for me, I don't think we're close to the end game in part because we haven't yet got to that point in the conflict. The point we're in, the conflict we're in right now is just all of this continued escalation in in geopolitics by tweet that is where the 21st century is right now. And it's sad and dystopian, but it doesn't really relate that closely to what's happening in the war.
- [24:36]
Ed Elson
All right, Ian Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group. Ian, always appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
- [24:42]
Ian Bremmer
Good talk to you.
- [24:44]
Ed Elson
After the break, an inside look at the most damning Sam Altman investigation yet. And if you're enjoying the show, please follow our new Prof. G Markets YouTube channel. The link is in the description.
- [25:02]
Ronan Farrow
K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boys Breakfast
- [25:04]
Ed Elson
meal and Hunt Tricks meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans.
- [25:09]
Ian Bremmer
What do you say to that, Rumi?
- [25:11]
Ronan Farrow
It's not a battle. So glad the Sacha boys could take breakfast and give ourselves meal the rest of the day.
- [25:16]
Ian Bremmer
It is an honor to share.
- [25:18]
Ed Elson
No, it's our honor. It is our larger honor.
- [25:21]
Ronan Farrow
No, really, stop. You can really feel the respect in this battle.
- [25:27]
Ed Elson
Pick a meal to pick a side
- [25:30]
Ronan Farrow
at participating McDonald's while supplies last.
- [25:32]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
This is advertiser content brought to you by Virgin Atlantic. Ed, a couple weeks back I got you a birthday gift. Not to pat myself on the back, but it was a pretty good one.
- [25:42]
Ed Elson
It was indeed. You surprised me with Virgin Atlantic upper class tickets to London.
- [25:47]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
So tell us all about it.
- [25:49]
Ed Elson
It was pretty incredible. From the moment I entered that upper class cabin, I have to tell you, I felt like a vip. Anything I needed a drink, snack, assistance with the seats.
- [25:58]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
Flat seats.
- [25:59]
Ed Elson
Flat seats, that's the key. Flat seats, exactly. Had the four course meal, got my champagne. Very delicious. Enjoyed the food and the journey home. The journey home was great. I went to the Virgin Atlantic LHR clubhouse. That's the Heathrow Clubhouse. Heathrow Clubhouse was awesome. Got myself a coffee, headed over to the meditation pod that they call the Soma Dome. Kind of felt like a sort of spaceship where you relax and. And think. Think nice thoughts. So I did that for a little bit. Then we went over to the wing, which are these acoustically sealed booths where you could do some work. You could even record a podcast. I didn't do that, but maybe I should have. It was a very enjoyable experience.
- [26:40]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
So, Ed, the real question here is, what are you planning to get me for my birthday?
- [26:46]
Ed Elson
See the world differently. With Virgin Atlantic, flying should be more than just transport. It is part of the adventure. Go to virginatlantic.com to learn more.
- [26:55]
Ronan Farrow
Tickets and lounge access provided by Virgin Atlantic Foreign.
- [27:04]
Ian Bremmer
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- [27:36]
Ed Elson
We're back with Profg Markets. One of the most powerful people in tech might also be the least trustworthy. That is the finding of an 18 month New Yorker investigation into OpenAI CEO reported by Ronan Farrow and Andrew Morantz. They interviewed more than 100 people, reviewed hundreds of pages of previously undisclosed docum, and sat down with Altman himself more than a dozen times. The central question they pose is simple. Can Sam Altman be trusted? One former board member's an answer echoes throughout the piece. Quote, he is unconstrained by truth. Here to discuss this investigation, we are speaking with the author himself, Ronan Farrow. Ronan, thank you so much for joining us. You spent over a year and a half on this piece. You interviewed over 100 people. I guess let's just start with what were your biggest takeaways from this investigation?
- [28:29]
Ronan Farrow
Well, I think that my interest in this, and I was coming off of a body of reporting about Elon Musk, and Musk essentially having acquired in a lot of arenas, supra governmental power, was that sources around that story, including Sam Altman, who was on the record in it, we're talking about AI in a way that, you know, had some substantive, consequential promise and then also included a lot of hype. Now, of course, it's Silicon Valley. The entire foundational story, the creation myth, is hype. Building companies on hype and promise, and often that cart coming before the horse of actual functional value added in America. It was striking to me as I started looking just writ large at, like, what is it in the AI gold R that is the most in need of additional interrogation. How even above and beyond that baseline expectation of some dissembling from tech CEOs, there was this particular phenomenon around Sam Altman where across his career there have been these claims that he deceives, lies, manipulates. Are the allegations to an extent that eclipses even those norms. And so what I set out to examine with my co author Andrew Morantz, is what are the particulars? Does it actually rise to that level? Or is this just criticism from, you know, sour grapes, competitors? And if it's true, to what extent should we care about it?
- [30:08]
Ed Elson
Right.
- [30:09]
Ronan Farrow
And we really did obtain a huge density of, you know, interviews with more than 100 people in this piece, documents, many hundreds of pages of documents. And did a forensic look at this. You know, we obtained and reviewed these sort of fabled Ilya Sutskiver memos, which was some 70 pages of Slack messages and HR documents and explanatory text from him that was sent to board members before an episode where Sam was actually fired a couple of years ago. People in tech, probably most of the followers of this podcast, will remember that episode. The answers really didn't emerge at the time as to what the basis was. But what is documented in that memo is the phenomenon I was just referring to. There's a line that says, Sam exhibits a consistent pattern of. And then the first item is lying. We obtained 200 plus pages of records related to Dario Amodei, including a lot of notes that he kept. You know, and he writes, the problem with OpenAI is Sam himself. And there's a really personal chronicle that we lay out in the piece of how the rift deepened between them and ultimately led to the creation of anthropic. Some of the supposed lies documented here are significant. One of the episodes that precipitated the board's firing, you know, was a case in which Sam had assured board members that the most controversial features of a model had been safety tested. And then they went out and looked, and they hadn't been. There was a major breach that was playing out that he didn't mention to them over many hours of briefing with them. And some of them are interpersonal. You know, over the course of the deepening mistrust between him and Dario Amadei, there's an episode we describe where, you know, he calls Amade and his sister Daniela, who is also working at the company, into a room and said, you know, I believe you're plotting a coup against me. I have this on good authority from a senior executive at the company. And they called in the senior executive who said, I never said that. And then Sam right there in the room, as this account goes from the documents and other people around this, said, oh, I never said that myself. I didn't make the allegation in the first place. And Daniela Amade said, you just said it. So it's something that becomes so pervasive that, look, there's a split of opinions on how much we should care about the safety stakes of AI. There's people who say we're all doomed. You know, AI may kill us all. There could be a Terminator Skynet scenario, and therefore, the person with their finger on the button needs to have a lot of integrity. But it's not just that. There are just really nuts and bolts pragmatic investors that we talked to in this piece, board members we talked to who said, this is just too much lying for a senior executive at a major company of this size.
- [33:03]
Ed Elson
Right? Yeah. Some of the quotes that you had there, we mentioned that what we heard about his consistent pattern of lying, also, he's unconstrained by the truth. You also wrote that the board member was not the only person who, unprompted, used the word sociopathic. You also said that one of his batchmates at Y Combinator said, quote, you need to understand that Sam can never be trusted. He is a sociopath. He would do anything. And then a senior executive at Microsoft, you wrote, said, quote, there's a small but real chance he's eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff or a Sam Bankman fried level scammer. I mean, the evidence that he is somewhat sociopathic in his tendencies to lie. I mean, it's very substantial here. And I think it raises the question, like, why should we care? Who does this affect? I get the sense that it kind of affects all of us because he is the leader of the most important technology AI company in the world right now. A company that's going to go public at least a trillion dollars. At least that's the plan right now. I mean, what are your takeaways on what this means for us, for regular Americans, for people who perhaps interact with AI? I mean, what does this mean for a listener, perhaps? Why does this affect them?
- [34:20]
Ronan Farrow
Well, listen, first of all, I just want to point out this piece very carefully filters for its competitors like Amodei making a criticism. It's people with personal sour grapes. This isn't a hit piece that carries water for any of Sam's opponents. In fact, it's really strenuously generous to him wherever it can be. And as in any large scale piece like this, there's a lot that, you know isn't included that we learned because we really just wanted to convey the essential things and stay away from sensationalism.
- [34:53]
Ed Elson
Yes.
- [34:54]
Ronan Farrow
So it's very fair, it's very forensic, it's very measured. I think even with all of that said, you're exactly right that there is a pattern here that emerges that is consequential even above and beyond Silicon Valley norms. Now there's the argument that this is just dysfunctional from a business standpoint that I mentioned. And then as you're alluding to, there are the stakes for all of us. You don't have to buy into the over the top AI will go rogue and kill us all argument. Although for what it's worth, that is a scenario that Sam Altman and the co founders of OpenAI fundraised off of and formed the company around that this was a technology as dangerous as nukes. But you can look more immediately for the ways this affects us. Every credible economic projection has millions and millions of jobs exposed to disruption from this and potentially elimination from this. You have a growing number of economists warning of the risk of a recession if the AI bubble bursts. You know, this is something that you guys have talked about and covered. AI is now propping up US economic growth. Yeah, the markets are highly dependent on a few companies that are, in the view of many people, even within them, over leveraged. You know, we have a board member in this piece saying of OpenAI right now we're levered up in a way that is scary. There is an ecosystem around OpenAI to sustain the massive spend. You know, this is one of the fastest cash burn rates of any startup ever building AGI and racing to build AGI in the way that these AI labs are now is monumentally expensive. And the way that's being sustained is partners borrowing from each other. And there's analysts in this piece saying, you know, there is circularity here and someone's going to have to pay the piper. Sam Altman himself has said at various points, someone's going to lose a lot of money. So there's these economic stakes and then there's all of the other stakes. There's the fact that this is being deployed on battlefields already. The concerns about autonomous weapons firing without human oversight. That's not a fantasy. That's. There's already what appears to be a documented instance of that. It is being used to identify chemical weapons at a rate never before seen. It is being used for political disinformation. There's the whole separate conversation about, you know, suicides and in one case, a murder that a lawsuit alleges was a result of ChatGPT encouragement. So. So the stakes are real. And we have a scenario where we're in this late stage capitalist moment where the individuals and companies who have their fingers on the button here really don't have outside guardrails that are nearly as meaningful as any credible safety activist or advocate says they should be. And those same companies, the ones best positioned to track the dangers and often the ones warning about the dangers dangers, have every incentive financially to downplay those dangers and rush past them and ask forgiveness rather than permission, while the regulatory infrastructure that would be needed to hold them accountable simply doesn't exist.
- [38:01]
Ed Elson
One of the biggest questions. And then we'll let you go. I know you have other appearances. One of the biggest questions in the markets right now is this question of is AI a bubble? I mean, that is the trillion dollar question that everyone is trying to figure out right now. And some people are bulls, some people are bears, and a lot of this show is trying to figure out what is the answer to that question. Do you think that your findings from this investigation shed any light on the answer to that question? Is there anything in there that you think perhaps can lead us to an answer?
- [38:33]
Ronan Farrow
Well, look, the piece is sober on this front too, and very even. It acknowledges the ways in which AI is not just vaporous, it already has consequential and life saving applications. Medical diagnostics are transformed already by AI. Drug research is transformed already by AI. There are some Applications like emergency weather warning systems that are transformed by AI. These are real, not just hype.
- [39:01]
Ed Elson
Yeah.
- [39:02]
Ronan Farrow
That said, if you look at Sam Altman's language over recent years, and in fact, even on the day that we put this piece out, there was a concerted round of press. There were a lot of moves within this company right around this piece coming out. And one of the things that you see out there from Sam of late is a renewal of his sort of utopian projections. Right. That this is technology that's going to, I'm using his own phrases from various blog posts and also recent comments, you know, put us on other planets, cure all forms of cancer, lead to a kind of utopian scenario where all problems are solved by everyone being empowered to make their own startups. This was the same answer he provided in our conversations. When I talked about the jobs exposed to elimination, the less sunny economic projections, he. His main answer was, well, you know, we'll have a foundation that does good work on that. And Also, you know, ChatGPT is going to allow everyone to make startups. I don't know that that is going to be terribly comforting to people whose jobs are eliminated as a part of this and who need serious government investment into reskilling and into oversight in this industry. You know, not just the promise of these private companies saying it's all going to be fine. I think on the question of whether it's a bubble, one telling thing is that some of the most serious technologists in this field are in this piece and are people we had long conversations with in the course of this reporting and say, even if you believe some of them, of Altman's more bullish projections, some of the things he's saying have arrived. And this is a guy who we talk about him telling government officials, you know, five years ago or so that by 2026, you know, there'd be nuclear fusion power across the United States. He often over promises, yeah, and even these serious technologists saying, maybe we believe some of this very often also sound the note of caution of that could be years, maybe even decades away. So I think people who are watching how this evolves, I'm not going to get into prediction, but I do think they should be aware of that split of expert opinions and a lot of people saying, hey, let's tap the brakes. This is going to take time.
- [41:24]
Virgin Atlantic Advertiser
Yeah.
- [41:25]
Ed Elson
I think this should honestly be required reading for anyone who's thinking about investing in this company. I mean, if you want to invest in a company, you need to know the management. This, this article is it Ronan Farrow, we really appreciate your time. You can read the article in the New Yorker. It is out now. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [41:42]
Ronan Farrow
Thank you, Ed. Appreciate it.
- [41:48]
Ed Elson
Well, I'm currently recording this on Tuesday evening, which means that in a few hours when this episode is published, it's possible that the world will have fundamentally changed. Just a few hours ago, the president said that if a deal with Iran isn't reached by 8pm Then their, quote, whole civilization will die. This essentially sounds like a threat to drop nuclear bombs on Iran, but if it isn't that, well, then it's certainly a threat to commit war crimes against Iran. He is essentially saying, if you don't do what I say, I will kill millions of innocent civilians. Which is the kind of statement that would be made by a Marvel supervillain, which kind of forces us to consider the possibility that maybe he actually is one. Now, again, I don't know what will happen in the next few hours, nor does anyone, but my instinct tells me that he won't go through with these threats. Ian Bremmer agrees. I think we will wake up in the morning and the conflict will remain violent, but it won't be nuclear. Either way, though, the stakes have now changed because as Katie Martin once told us, you can't unsay the things that have now been said. And we are now living in a world where the president of the United States is willing to make threats of genocide out loud. In fact, he just has done. And that is an entirely new kind of world. And so the question for us is, how do we react to this new world? Does this mean that we should also change in some capacity? Should we think differently about the world? Should we behave in a different manner? The more pertinent question for this show would be, should we invest differently? And I don't know, but I think the answer to those questions is probably. We probably should change something. But then the next question is, of course, even harder, and that is, what exactly should you change? What should you do? And my answer is, I have no idea. And so far, that has been the market's answer as well. Stocks were remarkably unreactive yesterday. And I don't think that's because investors are downplaying the situation. I think it's because they simply don't know what to do. We have never seen a situation like this. We've never seen a president like this. And so to presume that, you know what's coming next is kind of to be crazy. In other words, we're all about to learn about this whole thing together. There are practically no authorities on the matter. No one on Wall street or in Silicon Valley or even in Washington who knows more about what's going on in Trump's head than you do. We all really know nothing. But it would be my hope that over the next few weeks, regardless of what happens here, that this podcast will help us to at least begin to understand this new world and this new frontier. Yes, we cannot predict the future, but we can always try to understand it. And we can perhaps try to prepare for it just a little bit more. Okay, that's it for today. This episode is produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss, edited by Joel Patterson and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our video editor is Brad Williams. Our research team is Dan Shalon, Isabella Kinsel, Kristen o' Donoghue and Mia Silverio. And our social producer is Jake McPherson. Thank you for listening to Prof. G Markets from Profg Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I will see you tomorrow.