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- [00:05]
A
From Wired, this is the big interview where we get to know the people behind the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director. And they may seem pretty far off, but the midterm elections are actually closer than they appear. Here on the big interview, we'll be talking to candidates from across the country who are shaking up their races. Today, we're speaking to a candidate from right here in New York, Assemblyman Alex Boris. Boris is running for Congress in a very crowded race to represent the city's 12th congressional district, a consistently blue one. Like many New Yorkers, the first time I heard about him was when I saw those ads. Meet Alex Boris. He's got a master's in computer science, but he's an expert in hypocrisy. The ads are funded by the pro AI pack Leading the Future, and they take direct aim at Boris previous experience as a Palantir employee. He made hundreds of thousands of dollars building and selling the tech for ice, enabling ICE and powering deportations while making bank. If you're wondering why the industry he used to work in is now lobbying against him, well, that's because Boris has become a vocal advocate for AI safety and regulation. It's actually a cornerstone of his campaign, which he joins me now to talk about. Welcome, Alex.
- [01:21]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [01:22]
A
Thank you so much for being here. It was so delightful to hear those ads again. They are particularly nasty. We are definitely going to get to them. We're going to talk all about those ads and your response to them. But I actually want to start with your. Your tech background. It was fascinating to me to realize that you had actually worked at Palantir. You've been very open about this. The company has been called interns, a data broker, a data miner. And actually, at Wired, we cover Palantir a ton. And one of our reporters very smartly had the idea a few months ago of doing a story to try to answer the question, what does Palantir actually do? And the best part of that story to me was that some of the former employees of Palantir she spoke to actually could not explain what Palantir is or does. And so I have to ask you, as a former employee of Palantir, what is your best explanation as to what Palantir actually does?
- [02:15]
B
Palantir helps organizations make use of data that they already have access to by making it easier to track changes to that data over time, by making it quicker to integrate that data, and by putting what's Called an ontology, an opinion of how the data should be structured on top of the data itself. So the best explanation of the ontology is actually from a project that I did at Palantir with the Department of Justice where we were looking at big banks role in the Great Recession. And we wanted to see if banks knew that the loans that they were putting into their securities were not up to snuff. And an easy way to prove that would be if you saw a pattern of a loan being added to a security, then being pulled out before it was issued, and then put into another one that had the same standards. Right. That would show, okay, there was some knowledge by the bank that that particular loan, there was a problem with it. The problem is that ediscovery software was made to just help lawyers read documents. And so theoretically all the data is there. You have Excel sheets with each individual loan tape, but it's being presented to lawyers as. Just read it. And you can't as a human being read 1000 loans and tape to tape to shape. Sure. Of course, we realized that the important piece of information was the loan itself, that that was an object that should be tracked. That's what an ontology is helping you do. And so we built a system that let you track individual loans, search for loans moving from tape to tape, and found numerous examples of that exact pattern. Banks realizing there was a flaw, pulling it out of a security and then sneaking it into another one later. And because we found so many of those patterns, we were able to recover $20 billion for taxpayers from settlements with.
- [04:02]
A
So this, I suppose, would be an example of Palantir for good. You sound very excited about ontology as it pertains to data. What was exciting to you about the idea of working at Palantir to begin with? I mean, your background is, if I'm not mistaken, in tech. You have a degree in computer science.
- [04:19]
B
I have a master's in computer science, but that actually came after starting this work. So my undergrad was in industrial and labor relations.
- [04:25]
A
Oh, interesting. Okay.
- [04:27]
B
I grew up actually on the picket line with my dad. I studied labor unions. In undergrad, I led a campaign against Nike for laying off 1800 workers without giving them legally mandated severance pay. And we ended up winning that campaign. We got Nike to a bad face and pay the workers the money they were owed. But during that process, another student turned to me and said, why do you care so much about these jobs? They're just going to get automated anyway. And that really stuck with me that we need to find A way to have tech work for us and not the other way around. And beyond that, I'm a Democrat. I believe that government can and should be a force for good, but that also means we take on the burden of proving it. So I was searching for places where I could actually help government deliver on its promises, help it serve people, and also figure out again, how we can have tech actually working for people and not against us.
- [05:18]
A
Now, Palantir is notorious, particularly in this moment, for some work it does with the government that it is maybe not celebrated for specifically. I'm obviously talking about the so called Department of War. I will call it the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, as will you. Excellent. And of course, ice. And I want to talk more about your decision to resign from Palantir. So you've said you decided to leave the company when it signed an ICE contract during Trump's first administration. Palantir, though, has a long track record of working with ice. I mean, I think going back to something like 2011. So walk me through that moment for you. I mean, what was the moment where you sort of said, I can't do this anymore or I'm choosing not to do this? I'm so curious about that.
- [06:00]
B
Yeah, this was work that I, to be clear, never worked on myself. I was never a part of that contract. But Palantir had started work with a division within ICE called Homeland Security Investigations during the Obama administration. And it focused on anti drug trafficking, anti human trafficking, some counterfeiting work, work that's not controversial, that everyone would support. And then when Trump came in and took office in 2017, he tried to change the nature of the work everywhere. That includes the work at the Department of Justice where they tried to make us work on civil immigration matters. And I, as the lead of the project, said no. And I had the power to do that because our contract with the DOJ was structured that it was three mutually agreed upon case types so you could structure the contract in a way that said, we're not going to do that work. Then at ice, the executives had a different calculation or a different decision. But Trump started pushing for other divisions within ice, in particular enforcement and removal operations, to get access to the software and to use it for deportations. But then there was a question on what will you put in contractual guardrails that say, yeah, it won't be used for deportation the same way I had them at the doj. And executives made clear to us that they were not going to do that, that their plan was to renew the contract without any of those guardrails. And that's when I the plan to leave.
- [07:20]
A
And so you left your lucrative tech job, I assume. I mean, I assume it was lucrative. These jobs tend to be.
- [07:27]
B
And I left, you know, I went to a startup and I'm not crying poverty in any piece there, but I was granted a number of options in I think it was in 2018, if not, it was late 2017, intended to make senior leadership stay at the company and intended to make people who were having contributions stay. And when I left, the vast majority, if not all of that additional grant had not vested. So I did leave a substantial amount of money on the table, but my principles were more important to me.
- [07:59]
A
So you left Palantir, you went to work at a startup. There were many, many things with your background that you could have done. You could have gotten another lucrative job in tech politics. Alex,
- [08:12]
B
why? Yeah, yeah. Government, as I said, had always been part of the appeal, which didn't necessarily mean politics, it didn't mean electoral work. But making government work is core to what I've done my entire career. So when I left Palantir, I went to a startup that did anti money laundering work, counterterrorist financing work. From there I went to another startup that helped municipalities and states distribute aid during COVID So you have legislature will pass a program that's like here's x millions of dollars for aid. But if you don't actually have the system set up and you don't identify hey which customers are really struggling with their utility bills and need this and help them through the process, a lot of these programs were just expiring and we would come in and actually get the money to the people that needed it. There was one project in Louisville where we helped families keep their water on and pay their utility bill. And so it was about making government work. And then the seat that I'm currently in in the state assembly opened up and I had a lot of conversations with friends, one of whom said, you know, you're always talking about how you are downstream of bad policy, trying to fix it with tech. Here's your chance to go upstream and design it right the first time and second of all, run for it. You don't know if you're going to win, but if you do win and it's awful and it's just mudslinging and it's what everyone thinks of as politics. And you can't be effective in two years, in four years, you quit, you go back to what you're doing now, but you can't in two to four years, say now I'm going to run for the open seat. This is a moment in time.
- [09:37]
A
That's a good friend. That's good advice.
- [09:39]
B
A very good friend. And so I ran, I won, and I found it to be even better than expected.
- [09:45]
A
Why?
- [09:46]
B
Because you actually can get things done. If you put your head down and you ignore the noise and you're determined and you build coalitions, eventually they run out of reasons not to do your bill. I've passed 30 bills in my time in the state legislature, which is about the same amount Congress as a whole passed in 2023. I was named by the center for Effective Lawmaking, which is a nonprofit that ranks Congress members and state legislators throughout the country as the most effective new legislator from New York City. I've been able to really get some things done and help to improve the lives of my neighbors.
- [10:19]
A
Well, and your background is particularly interesting in the context of politics. And you said, I think it was in 2022, quote, one person in Albany should know how tech works. You presumably know a lot more about technology than your average lawmaker. I mean, I think we've all seen these just like extraordinarily painful congressional testimonies that will be going on and you'll watch a very high profile politician sort of basically be like, beep, beep bop, phone does what social network is. How there are some shocking clips that we have all seen and cringed at and sort of just felt they're funny. But there's also this sort of like sick feeling in your stomach when you realize the people in charge of setting the agenda from a regulatory perspective have no idea what they're talking about. I mean, I feel that way all the time. I have felt that way for more than a decade now as we've sort of navigated this social media fallout and everything that has happened with the Facebooks of the world, and yet there has been no meaningful regulation over and over. Right. So now I'm just, I'm ranting, but I want to hear from you. One is just, is just why. Why don't more lawmakers understand technology? Why don't they understand the companies who are creating and commercializing these, these tools, these platforms, like, why? Why is this happening? Because I don't want to be so simplistic as to just say, like, it's an age thing. I don't think it's an age thing.
- [11:52]
B
I agree.
- [11:52]
A
You can understand technology no matter how
- [11:54]
B
old or young you are, 100%, you can understand it no matter how old you Are. And you can not understand it. Even if you don't understand it, what gives? Absolutely. I mean, we have a Congress that is dominated by lawyers, and I love my friends who are lawyers, but you want to have a diversity of backgrounds in office, and maybe the skill set of software engineers and the skill set of Congress has less overlap than the skill set of lawyers in Congress. And so you need people that play in a few different arenas. But it's also something that's new and moving fast. You know, we alluded to it, but while I was working, I got a master's in computer science with a specialization in machine learning. So when I was elected in 2022, I became the first Democrat elect in New York at any level with a degree in computer science.
- [12:40]
A
Wow.
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B
I will be only the second Democrat in Congress with a degree in computer science. There are two Republicans who are there, but out of 435 members.
- [12:49]
A
Yeah. I mean, that is shocking.
- [12:51]
B
It feels like having less than 1% of your congressional representatives for something moving so fast and so important is probably not the right balance and just sort
- [13:00]
A
of an unfathomably powerful industry. I put the tech industry right up there next to government in terms of who's setting the agenda. I want to talk to you about AI. We're going to talk a lot about AI. I want to talk about regulation. So several states in the United States have stepped in with their own laws, including in New York. You spearheaded the Raise Act, Right. So that stands for responsible AI safety and education. In a nutshell, it requires major AI developers to publish safety testing practices. Can you explain to our listeners and to me, how exactly does that work? What exactly does that mean AI developers are beholden to do? And why is that important? Why did you decide to focus there?
- [13:40]
B
So this applies only to the very largest AI developers. They have to have a certain complexity threshold of the models and a revenue threshold. They need to be making 500 million a year in revenue. At this point, we're talking about OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta.
- [13:55]
A
They seem like important ones to be paying.
- [13:57]
B
They seem pretty big. They seem pretty big. And what it requires is that they have a safety plan that they make public and actually stick to so you can amend it over time, but you have to amend it before you change your practices. You don't get to just ignore your safety plan and then come back and say, oh, wait, there's an amendment to that. They have to disclose critical safety incidents to the government. And that's specifically defined in the bill and is an Incredibly high threshold. It requires either having caused an injury or death or will imminently cause an injury or death. That is the standard that has to be reported. And it also sets up a government agency within New York to continue to collect data on the development of AI, to suggest additional rules and regulations, and to annually report to the state legislature on changes in law that they think are needed in order to make everyone safer.
- [14:50]
A
I am so curious, and I have so many questions and so much sort of consternation about what we are seeing play out at a state level with something like the Raise act and then what we are seeing play out federally. Right. So President Trump signed an executive order last year that essentially created a task force to go after states that pass laws that aren't consistent with national policy around AI. I'm curious for how you would describe our national policy around AI. I would describe it as nonexistent. I mean, there is. There is no regulation happening in any meaningful capacity at a federal level. It is like all gas, no breaks. Go for it, guys. Let's all have fun. It's terrifying. How does that executive order sort of intersect with what you're trying to do in New York?
- [15:35]
B
His executive order was directly targeting my recess.
- [15:38]
A
Oh, fun.
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B
Mine and other bills like it throughout the country. SB 53 and. But it was very much designed to convince New York and California. And last year there were about seven states that were working on frontier AI models to not pass those laws, to not implement them. And so they just tried to punish states. It was. If you pass a bill that does something we don't like, we're going to take away this specific funding deed. Funding is what they were often pointing at, which is to expand broadband access.
- [16:08]
A
Well, that's a classy threat.
- [16:09]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It's hurt people in rural areas that don't have access to the Internet in order to. And they talked about finding other funding, vague other funding that they want to take away, and instructed the attorney general to start suing states, which. It's the first time I've heard someone make the argument that more lawsuits will lead to more innovation, but that that was their path forward. It wasn't based on any serious policy. It was a few Trump mega donors that think that there should be no regulation of AI whatsoever, getting him to give them a gift. And it's those same Trump mega donors that are now funding Leading the Future and these super PACs coming after me.
- [16:50]
A
Right. And let's talk about those ads. So they popped up just around the time that Ray's was signed into law. And these are, I mean, millions and millions and millions of dollars being spent to prevent candidates like you from getting into higher office. I grew up in Canada, so I have to admit, it is always shocking to me when I watch political advertising in the U.S. i've lived here for almost 20 years. But the ads are so mean. Like, your politics here are nasty. Like, I've got, like, Mark Carney up there and like, Justin Trudeau, you know, politely trading barbs. We do not have this kind of political mudslinging. I mean, is a word you used earlier. What was your reaction when you first saw those ads?
- [17:35]
B
That they're desperate. That they're making clear that, A, they know they're on the unpopular side of the issue, they're not directly addressing the issue. B, that I scare them. That they're willing to put. They've already spent two and a half million. They originally pledged they were going to spend more than 10 million, and then they realized that that was helping me, that they had said that. And so now they're like, oh, we're adjusting our strategy. We might spend less, okay? But, yeah, they pledged to spend $10 million against me. And they put out these just hyperbolic, ridiculous ads because they realized that I am their greatest threat. For their quest for unbridled control over the American worker, over our education system, over the climate. I mean, they were making clear to everyone else the stakes of the race. I literally just came from a call with a tenant leader. It was about housing policy, had nothing to do with AI, but this leader said, you know, I started paying attention to your campaign because of all these new ideas.
- [18:40]
A
Well, I mean, this is the best part, this is the funniest part, because I have thought to myself, I mean, we've covered you at Wired twice. I think our sibling brand at Conde Nast, Vanity Fair did a great piece about you. How much to you has this been a gift?
- [18:56]
B
They've been wonderful partners in raising up the issue of AI regulation and AI safety. And my plan coming into this race was to talk about tech and AI5, 10% of my time. Because if that's what you care about, you're already voting for me. So let me talk to you about healthcare and my housing policy and transportation and all these other things. But they have made clear that this is a big, evolving issue, and so a lot more voters are paying attention to it. But it's certainly not fun. I am also a voter in the district, so I am on their list. I get their text messages every day about the scary Alex Boss, you get
- [19:29]
A
nasty text messages about yourself.
- [19:30]
B
I do. That's nice. I get mailers sent to me and then, you know, I don't want to throw it out. I need to know what people are saying about me. So I'll go to my mailbox in my lobby and I'll take out the mailer and then I'll ride up in my elevator with my neighbors holding this mailer saying awful things about me. And it's a surreal moment.
- [19:47]
A
Next level self harm. This is why politics. I just, I could never. I can't handle, you know, I can close, you know, X if someone's saying mean things about me on social media, I don't get physical mail. Well, and, and to anyone listening, I don't want any. Please do not send me any mean mail. I, I can't take it.
- [20:05]
B
But, but this is part of their strategy is to defeat me and they have to defeat me for the strategy to work right. If I win, it undercuts their threats to everyone else, but also part of their strategy is just to intimidate everyone else. So the ways it's making it harder is maybe less about my race in particular, but talking to other members of the New York congressional delegation, talking to Congress members elsewhere who are watching this race and I hope don't get cold feet. And the super PAC very much does hope that, you know, they'll just take a beat on this. Oh, this seems hot. This seems risky. Maybe let's let someone else take the lead on that.
- [20:44]
A
We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
- [20:50]
B
How is your credit score calculated?
- [20:52]
A
Why is health care more expensive in the US than any other country?
- [20:56]
B
We answer those questions and more on Control F, a new podcast that uses data to reveal the hidden stories in our daily lives.
- [21:04]
A
Every episode we tell you about the data that companies and the government track about us and how that data shapes our reality.
- [21:11]
B
Join the Search Listen to Control F from KUOW in Seattle. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [21:26]
A
In terms of AI regulation, what do you want to see?
- [21:31]
B
I put out a AI framework about two months ago that had eight subject areas, 43 sub points. I know Democrats in our plans and we but many bullet points. But I thought it was important to communicate exactly what I wanted to do and it covered, you know, everything from age verification for certain uses for kids to a broad data privacy bill which we're 20 years behind on but now have to deal with the fact that AI can de anonymize previously anonymized data to Regulation around the labor force to catastrophic risks to, to specific technical standards we could use to defeat the problem of deepfakes. You put that out into the world, you don't know how people are gonna react. And often in politics people just point on whatever the most controversial thing is. And I still had 43 of them, but I was really blown away by the reception to it. I had people on the left of the party saying, hey, this is what we should be pushing forward and should be our agenda. And also the Chief Futurist of OpenAI, quote, tweeted it and said, ah, quibbles around the edges, but this is the most thought out plan I've seen from an elected official.
- [22:40]
A
Did they GregBrockman?
- [22:42]
B
I asked him to, but no, no,
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A
he'd just been willing, for context, is funding this PAC that is putting out these fantastic ads.
- [22:50]
B
Well, a really surreal part is that Chris Lehane, who is OpenAI's chief policy person and master of the dark arts and helps stand up leading the future, the super PAC is very much pulling the strings on this operation. Two, three weeks ago in his blog said other states should copy the raise Act.
- [23:07]
A
I mean, I can't figure that company out. I don't think anyone can. It's a daily mind fuck to keep up with OpenAI, I have to say.
- [23:14]
B
And I do want to. You know, a lot of the engineers that work there are pro regulation.
- [23:19]
A
Oh, very model.
- [23:20]
B
It really is the executives at the top and a few that are making just really tough to explain decisions.
- [23:26]
A
So let's say we fast forward. You win this election, you look at who's in the White House, President Trump, you look at the level of tech literacy that quite frankly you would be surrounded by, which is minimal to none, if I'm being blunt about it. How are you gonna get anything done when it comes to AI regulation in the next couple of years? What could that potentially look like? What's your ideal scenario? How do you fight that fight and get some wins?
- [23:57]
B
I actually think this is an area that I am most optimistic around. Bipartisan support. I mean, I agree with Josh Hawley on basically nothing except that AI could really use some regulation. And like I did a talk with Marsha Blackburn again, someone I don't agree with on much, but at least, you know, take Trump out of the picture for a second, I'll bring him back in. But on members of Congress and certainly on just normal voters across both parties, survey after survey shows people want there to be reasonable guardrails, especially around kids is a big focus. Around labor is A big focus. I actually think we could move forward on a lot of ideas. And you're seeing it play out at the state level. Right. So my Raise act passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses. And the final passage was. Was nearly unanimous. I think there was one no vote. Even other bills that I've done on data training, transparency, where we have transparency standards on what goes into the data that goes into a model that passed unanimously last year, you're seeing red states move forward with bills. So the ability for bipartisanship on this issue is there, if you can be thoughtful in building those coalitions.
- [25:12]
A
The primary criticism around the idea of regulating AI in this country seems to be around innovation and it seems to be around China. How do you respond to that criticism? Right. The idea that regulation will throttle American innovation, we will lose this race, and yada, yada, yada, terrible things will happen. How do you respond to that?
- [25:33]
B
I have a lot of thoughts on this. The first is that the CCP is terrified of an LLM saying the wrong thing. China regulates AI so much more strongly than anything that is proposed in the Western world, not just in America. And so regulation is not going to be the reason that we win or lose the race with China. I would also point out that many of the people who are making that argument are also the same ones against export controls. And if you really believe in that, we need to win the race against China, that would be an additional reason to support export controls. And so I often ask about that. There was a provision in the Raise act, the original version, that would cover models created by knowledge distillation, which is the specific technique that mostly Chinese companies have been using to catch up with American companies. And again, these same forces lobbied hard against that and wanted that provision pulled out. So they're not actually being straightforward, they're not actually being pro American. They're using the argument to increase their profits.
- [26:38]
A
Right. It's a boogeyman.
- [26:39]
B
It's a boogeyman. But the last bit I'd say is that often safety and innovation go hand in hand. You think about the biggest capability jumps that we've gotten from AI recently, it's been things that came out of the safety community. So agentic models were made possible by chain of thought reasoning that came out of the safety community wanting to understand what was going on inside an AI model. And the jump before reinforcement, learning from human feedback came out of the safety community. And so these things are not necessarily in conflict. It's just that the market in fact undervalues a lot of the safety aspects going forward. I try to give people the perspective of especially people making that argument. I say, okay, you wouldn't use Chinese AI, right? You wouldn't trust it if you're European, why do you trust American AI? The AI that's going to win is going to be that. It's going to be what's trustworthy, it's going to be what's aligned. And so this isn't a, oh, we're going to slow down and lose to China. In fact, putting incentives for safety has its own really important benefits and also might actually be the most pro innovation stance. But safety by itself is its own reason to do it well.
- [27:50]
A
And I mean, particularly in a moment where fewer and fewer countries trust the United States with pretty much anything seems like might be a good idea. I want to move on to talk about a few sort of other issues. I am curious though. I mean there's so much in this AI conversation and debate and if you talk to different members of the AI community, you know, some of them are very much on the existential end of the spectrum. I mean, they're worried about sort of all, all in global annihilation. You have others who are much more concerned about labor and job loss. When you are lying in bed at three in the morning and you're worrying about AI, is there, is there something that stands out to you that you just feel like we need to address with urgency? What's keeping you up at night?
- [28:35]
B
My 7 month old is keeping me up at night.
- [28:37]
A
Other than that beautiful baby.
- [28:41]
B
3:00am beautiful is not always the first word that comes to mind. But there's a lot that we need to get right here. The catastrophic risks are real and need to be managed and need to be prevented. Environmental impacts are real. When I'm awake at 3am and it's because of my kid, it'll lean me to the impacts on kids. But I also think about what will accelerate and make other problems harder to solve. And I think the labor impacts could actually make the politics around AI way worse. I've talked to people that say, oh, you know, if there's, we start seeing unemployment grow, right? You look at the history of societies that have large spikes in unemployment, especially in young unemployment, especially in young men being unemployed. That's generally not a politics that I like or that I think leads to productive solutions. And so if we don't get the changes in the labor market right, we might not get the chance to get anything else right. That said, if the people who believe in short timelines end up to be true. We also won't get the chance. So, like, there is just a lot that we have to do here. There's a reason why my plan had 43 subpoints and there's probably two or three more I'd wanna add right now.
- [29:57]
A
And there's an urgency to it, you know, I mean, I sort of feel that more and more every day. Let's talk a little bit about your race. It's a crowded one, right? So you're up against, there's what, 12 of you?
- [30:07]
B
There were 15. We are down to eight.
- [30:10]
A
Oh, down to eight.
- [30:12]
B
More manageable numbers. If one more person drops out, we'll all fit in the minivan.
- [30:15]
A
Okay, perfect. Sounds fun for you guys, but you've got, you know, Jack Schlossberg, a member of the Kennedy family, is in this race. You've got George Conway, you've got Micah Lasher, who was endorsed by the outgoing incumbent. How are you looking at your opponents campaigns? What sets you apart?
- [30:34]
B
There are two campaigns in this race so far that have raised millions of dollars, plural, with an S. And those two campaigns are me and the super PAC coming against me. They really are the big opponent in this race. Now, when you're thinking broadly about how I stand out versus the field, I'm the only one with extensive private and public sector experience. We already talked about my effectiveness in office. The 30 bills being ranked the most effective new legislator from New York City. You know that you're going to get someone that can actually operate in a legislature. Because I have and I've proven it. There's also things like I'm the only one in the field I believe, that's ever had a security clearance, the only one with that degree in computer science. But I also think in a race where everyone's promising to stand up to Donald Trump, I'm the only one that his mega donors are spending millions of dollars against. They don't seem to be too worried about anyone else winning this race. They seem really worried about me winning that race. And that I think, says more than any of us could.
- [31:36]
A
You may also be the only one who quit a job over ice.
- [31:40]
B
I believe so.
- [31:41]
A
Which brings me to ask. I mean, unbelievable that we find ourselves in this situation. I mean, I was at JFK airport last week surrounded by ICE agents, drinking coconut water and eating chips. And it was baffling. It was scary, it was intimidating, it was distressing. I mean, it was all these things. And I was just getting a flight to San Francisco. Yeah, I am by no means someone who is really, truly vulnerable to what those agents are capable of and what they have already shown themselves to be willing to do. If you're elected to Congress, how do you deal with that?
- [32:14]
B
I would say one correction on that is they've shown that every American is vulnerable to what they're doing.
- [32:20]
A
Fair, fair, fair.
- [32:21]
B
I'm just trying to point out the target.
- [32:22]
A
I'm walking around with a U.S. passport.
- [32:24]
B
No, no, no, you lot of privilege in that regard. But they're coming after absolutely everyone. ICE needs to be abolished and dismantled and prosecuted. There are crimes that have been committed here, and they should be held responsible to the fullest extent of the law. That includes not just the agents. That includes the people up the chain that have made the orders. The rot of this agency has gotten so deep. Now, to be clear, Borders existed before ICE. ICE is 23 years old. Immigration existed before ICE. This is not saying there should be no immigration system in the U.S. but this particular agency that has been ballooned to be one of the largest militaries in the world and whose job is to go around the country scooping up our peaceful neighbors, that has no role in a civilized society. So the solution is to abolish them. And also, while Trump is president, he's not gonna sign a bill that's abolishing them. And so we need to be taking every step that we can to limit their power, to rein them in, to ensure that they are not wearing masks, to ensure that they are showing identification, to ensure that they are banned from sensitive locations, to hold accountable any of the misdeeds that we have seen, and to ensure that they are not collaborating with our police departments. I have a few bills in New York at the state level to make sure that we're not giving hiring bonuses to ICE agents, to ban what are colloquially called Kavanaugh stops after Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh's opinion, we should ban that at the state level. But, yeah, ultimately, ICE needs to be abolished. I'm proud to be, as far as I know, the first one in the race to have called for that. I was joining the Abolish ICE protests in April of 2025.
- [34:19]
A
So, yeah, I think there's a sentiment among a lot of Americans, why can't you guys do more? Why can't you be more coordinated? Why can't you be louder? Why can't you stop this from happening? And I do think that the Democrats, I mean, have a messaging problem. I think they could stand to turn the volume up significantly, et cetera, et cetera. But there is sort of a rubber meets the road moment here of there is actually only so much the Democrats can do right now. Am I interpreting that correctly?
- [34:47]
B
I think both things can be true. I think we can be incredibly frustrated at Democrats in Congress and the party writ large for another strongly worded letter and also realize that elections have consequences. And there have been some genuine good moves by Democrats. I mean, we've had more discharge petitions where the minority basically takes control of the House floor than we've had in 30 years. We've been able to actually legislate from the minority, which has never been seen before. We've seen Trump get outmaneuvered on some of the DHS funding. Finally, we saw a real important framing around healthcare and Republicans willingness to let the Obamacare tax credits expire. Now, I think Democrats could have stayed stronger and actually gotten a solution there. But elections have consequences and it is extremely important that we take back the majority in November.
- [35:50]
A
We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. This week on the Political Scene, from the New Yorker, Trump's rupture in the world order. Europe caught between two adversarial great powers that's basically dialing back the clock to not only Pre World War II, but really it's a pre 20th century view of the world. And I would say it's a world of permanent insecurity that we're looking at. Join me, Evan Osnos and my colleagues Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser every Friday
- [36:25]
B
on the Political Scene, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:39]
A
This was fascinating. I want to end with a quick game that we like to play.
- [36:41]
B
Okay.
- [36:42]
A
If you will indulge me. It's called Control, Alt, Delete.
- [36:44]
B
Okay.
- [36:49]
A
The game is what piece of tech would you love to control? What would you love to alt? So alter or change? And what would you delete? What would you vanquish from the earth if given the opportunity?
- [37:03]
B
Okay. Control. Like I am in control of.
- [37:05]
A
You're in. You are God and you're in control.
- [37:09]
B
That's a scary thought. I would like to control every id, every platform you use for coding, which now is mostly AI to do vulnerability testing and cybersecurity checks at the point that it happens. Wow. I think we have so many cybersecurity holes and this is only a bigger problem with AI and we could have a much more secure Internet. It would just mean slowing down basically everything. But if you were to automate that process and build secure in the first place, that would be the thing that I would.
- [37:43]
A
I'm picturing you in front of like five computer monitors with like eight arms.
- [37:47]
B
Yeah.
- [37:47]
A
Controlling all of it at the same time.
- [37:48]
B
I think I would need a few more than eight, but. And again, to be clear, it's not me doing the checks because.
- [37:53]
A
I know, but I'm imagining it that way.
- [37:55]
B
It's setting it up as a default. We're going to do actual penetration testing. We're going to do actually at the point memory testing. We're going to do all the things you're supposed to do when writing good code. That's going to be the first alts.
- [38:06]
A
What are we changing?
- [38:08]
B
We're going to alt social media.
- [38:10]
A
Please.
- [38:10]
B
The original vision was about following your friends and it is now just algorithms feeding us whatever will capture our eyeballs. And we should go back to that original vision where you were defaulted into just following your friends.
- [38:25]
A
Are you pro chronological feed?
- [38:28]
B
Yes. I hate that term.
- [38:29]
A
Okay.
- [38:30]
B
I hate that term because it can still be an algorithm on what's most important to show you. It doesn't have to literally be chronological. That's why I hate the term.
- [38:37]
A
Okay, sure.
- [38:38]
B
If I haven't logged on for a week and my friend got married, please show me that first. That's important, you know, But. But yes. The concept of you only want to
- [38:46]
A
see the content of the people you chose to follow.
- [38:48]
B
Correct. Correct.
- [38:49]
A
Seems very reasonable.
- [38:50]
B
And in fact, I carry the bill to do that in the state legislature in New York. I also carry a bill that is law in Utah and should be national that would allow you to take your data out of any social media platform and move it into another one to require interoperability so that the platforms have to compete over you instead of saying you're locked in, you can't go anywhere. And now we're going to put the screws on you.
- [39:10]
A
I didn't realize that was a thing in Utah.
- [39:12]
B
It was passed last year. Yeah, I should be up to speed on that. And lobbyists are really trying to pull it back. So it's important that other states step up. And to the bipartisan point earlier passed by a Republican controlled state legislator. The individual legislators, Doug Feafia. He's fantastic. And signed by a Republican governor. So a real bipartisan issue moving that forward. And then what would I delete?
- [39:33]
A
Yes.
- [39:34]
B
I mean there's so many like real answers here. We've seen like some horrifying chatbots that are like trying to build sexual relationships with kids. We've seen the new defy apps which we have taken steps to ban. There's a lot of like Real things that we need to ban and all of that. Justin annoys me. And a more controversial take. I can't stand Slack. I'm sorry to any of my friends that work at Slack. I can't. I can't do it. I've never. I've tried. Just doesn't. It breaks me out of the flow state every time.
- [40:01]
A
Slack is like 80% of my life.
- [40:04]
B
Yeah.
- [40:04]
A
Which says a lot about maybe me. But it's very. I mean, I have it on my phone. Like right after we finish this, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take my phone off. Do not disturb it. I'm gonna check slack.
- [40:14]
B
Yeah. My 3:00am Nightmare is the Slack ping noise.
- [40:17]
A
The ping.
- [40:18]
B
Yeah.
- [40:18]
A
We did an entire story about Slack noises and where they came from. I mean, from Satan, obviously, but yes, the noises are very bad. That's a good one. So would you go back to communicating with people via email? Email.
- [40:33]
B
Email.
- [40:33]
A
What are we doing here?
- [40:34]
B
It's fine.
- [40:35]
A
Emailing.
- [40:35]
B
What role is Slack playing?
- [40:36]
A
It's just real time communication.
- [40:38]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And this talk in person. Yeah. Not to be a Luddite. Text is fine. Email's fine. Voice calls are fine. Slack is just this weird middle ground. No one really understands what the communication protocol is. Do I need an immediate response or not? It's undefined. Different platforms are different.
- [40:54]
A
It's hard to read tone.
- [40:55]
B
It's so hard to read tone. Yeah.
- [40:57]
A
That's a challenge.
- [40:58]
B
I have lots of friends that work there. I'm sorry, you know, but. Sorry, guys, but that's my personal hot take.
- [41:02]
A
That is a very scandalous take. Thank you. What a great way to end Alex. Thank you so much. This was fantastic. Best of luck to you.
- [41:09]
B
Thank you.
- [41:10]
A
Thank you. The Big Interview is a production of Wired and Kaleidoscope content. This episode was produced by Adriana Tapia and our showrunner, Ann Marie Fertoli. Kate Osborne is our executive producer. Music and mixing by Pran Bandy this episode was fact checked by Samantha's Spengler and I am, of course, your host, Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director. Check back here on Thursday for the latest episode of Uncanny Valley, where Wired writers and editors add you to the Slack group thread. I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. Claire Duffy was one of the best. I cover artificial intelligence and other new technologies for a living. And even I sometimes get overwhelmed trying to keep up with it all. So I'm starting a new show where together we can explore how to experiment with these new tools without getting played by them. It's called Terms of Service this technology
- [42:12]
B
is so crazy powerful.
- [42:14]
A
Follow CNN's Terms of Service wherever you get your podcasts from.
- [42:21]
B
PRX.