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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">a chatbot\u003c/a> character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It asks questions and offers advice; it even responds with italicized nonverbal cues: “\u003cem>The psychologist’s expression softens with compassion\u003c/em>.” In smaller font, a disclaimer reads: “This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people turn to chatbots for mental health help and advice — including by some estimates \u003ca href=\"https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-11-18/teens-ai-chatbots\">one in eight teens and young adults\u003c/a> — legislators are in a race to keep up with the quickly developing technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the latest efforts is a bill that would add restrictions around the use of chatbot companions and other artificial intelligence-powered tools that people use to support mental healthcare or in lieu of professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/steve-padilla-165435\">Steve Padilla\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat and the bill’s author, said the intent is to draw a line: AI can be used for administrative purposes and to support clinicians, but it cannot practice psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094084\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1231\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-1536x955.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Steve Padilla, commissioner on the California Coastal Commission. \u003ccite>(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re dealing with a new impactful technology that is unfolding and is deployed in our world at light speed, and so it is both extremely powerful and consequential,” Padilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The debate has taken on new urgency amid wrongful death lawsuits — some playing out in California federal courts — that accuse AI chatbot makers of contributing to users’ suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb903\">Senate Bill 903\u003c/a> would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy. It would prohibit AI from making therapeutic decisions without the review of a licensed professional and require health providers to disclose and get a patient’s permission before using AI tools to record therapy sessions or to triage mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Consumer protections vs. innovation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill is backed by professional associations that represent psychologists, therapists and counselors. Also behind the bill is the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been leading a push against unchecked use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, the union \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2026/07/kaiser-mental-health-ai-complaint/\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with state regulators against Kaiser Permanente for its alleged use of an automated algorithm in mental health triaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla and supporters argue that the legislation is needed to protect consumers from AI in both formal and informal spaces, but also to protect licensed professionals from being displaced by AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt='A large modern building with the words \"Kaiser Permanente\" across the top.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=669&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Le Ondra Clark Harvey\u003c/a>, chief executive officer at the California Behavioral Health Association, told lawmakers that without clear safeguards, chatbots can provide inaccurate information or mishandle crisis situations. “The difference between a licensed clinician and an automated response is not technical. It can be life altering,” Harvey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opposition to the bill has largely focused around the restrictions of AI use in formal clinical spaces. TechNet, which represents tech-sector companies, argues the legislation could restrict beneficial uses of AI in healthcare and stifle innovation. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=900&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Robert Boykin\u003c/a>, TechNet’s executive director for California, said the bill could limit the use of tools that help expand access to mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a time when every county in California faces a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers, SB 903 still puts a clinician bottleneck in front of the intake and screening tools that help patients reach care faster,” Boykin said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill currently awaits its next vote in the Assembly’s fiscal committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Popular chatbot ‘therapy’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Every day millions of people turn to AI chatbots through programs such as ChatGPT and Character.ai to help with research, work tasks and troubleshooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the top use of chatbots over the last two years has been companionship and “therapy,” \u003ca href=\"https://hbr.org/2026/06/how-people-are-really-using-ai-in-2026\">research shows.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that’s in part because of a tremendous amount of loneliness, especially among young people. It is often hard or costly to get timely mental healthcare at the same time there is a spike in mental health diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11989313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11989313\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-2155035557-scaled-e1760733694503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI ChatGPT logo. \u003ccite>(Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People turn to chatbots “because they have unmet needs,” said Dr. Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics and medical humanities at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once people start using chatbots in this informal way, she said companies rely on a business model built around maximizing engagement “including by manipulative tactics,” such as praise and agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General chatbots are largely free, available 24/7, and involve no hassle with insurance, making them appealing to many. But they function with no oversight from licensed professionals.[aside postID=news_12092477 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/FINAL-2.png']In addition to general chatbots, there has also been a rapid uptick in AI-powered mental health apps — often requiring paid subscriptions and advertised as “pocket therapists” or “AI coaches.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/chatbots-mental-health-2026\">American Psychological Association\u003c/a>, warn that chatbots are not a safe or effective replacement for true therapy. Trained clinicians look for cues like tone of voice, eye contact and body language and can detect more serious conditions; AI is not equipped to manage urgent symptoms, such as suicidal ideation, even though people increasingly share such thoughts with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, revealed in a report last fall that about \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/openai-data-estimates-1-million-people-talk-chatgpt-suicide-weekly/18086379/\">1.2 million users a week \u003c/a>share thoughts of suicide on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI said that in such cases, it recommends people speak to a professional and directs them to resources like the 988 hotline. Families who have filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide\">wrongful death lawsuits\u003c/a> against OpenAI and other companies claim chatbots assisted their loved ones through their suicide plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cases have helped raise the stakes for lawmakers around the country. Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass a law prohibiting the use of AI in therapy services. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.beckersbehavioralhealth.com/ai-2/5-states-restrict-ai-therapy-chatbots-in-2026/\">handful of other states\u003c/a> have since followed with similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI use in health spaces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One gray area in the discussion is exactly which tools this bill applies to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NUHW’s complaint against Kaiser targets its e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. According to the complaint, patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union argues that because care recommendations are generated so quickly, it is unlikely that a licensed professional is reviewing patients’ answers — which it says puts patients at risk and violates state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12093589\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12093589\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signange of AI is displayed during the MWC (Mobile World Congress), the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether SB 903 would apply to Kaiser’s e-visit tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That tool is in a black box. Kaiser is not sharing with us or others about exactly how it works and exactly what it does,” said Benjamin Eichert, NUHW’s director of public policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the complaint, Kaiser told CalMatters its e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity.”[aside postID=news_12093427 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/062923_Artificial_Intelligence_AI_REUTERS_CM_02-copy-1536x1024.jpg']Eichert said many other behavioral health provider groups are already advertising using AI during triage — a practice he said would fall under SB 903’s requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That intake process, that triage and screening process, is where implementation (of AI) has happened fastest,” Eichert said. “That’s why those provisions were proposed because it’s an area where this technology is already being used without guardrails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NUHW, the bill and the complaint against Kaiser represent two tracks toward the same goal: reasserting the place of practitioners in spaces increasingly taken over by algorithms. State regulators are investigating the union’s complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2026/08/at-therapists-chatbot-mental-health/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c!-- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ -->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ai\">a chatbot\u003c/a> character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It asks questions and offers advice; it even responds with italicized nonverbal cues: “\u003cem>The psychologist’s expression softens with compassion\u003c/em>.” In smaller font, a disclaimer reads: “This is A.I. and not a real person. Treat everything it says as fiction.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people turn to chatbots for mental health help and advice — including by some estimates \u003ca href=\"https://sph.brown.edu/news/2025-11-18/teens-ai-chatbots\">one in eight teens and young adults\u003c/a> — legislators are in a race to keep up with the quickly developing technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the latest efforts is a bill that would add restrictions around the use of chatbot companions and other artificial intelligence-powered tools that people use to support mental healthcare or in lieu of professional help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/legislators/steve-padilla-165435\">Steve Padilla\u003c/a>, a San Diego Democrat and the bill’s author, said the intent is to draw a line: AI can be used for administrative purposes and to support clinicians, but it cannot practice psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12094084\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12094084\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1231\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-160x99.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/GettyImages-2267080472-1536x955.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Senator Steve Padilla, commissioner on the California Coastal Commission. \u003ccite>(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re dealing with a new impactful technology that is unfolding and is deployed in our world at light speed, and so it is both extremely powerful and consequential,” Padilla said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The debate has taken on new urgency amid wrongful death lawsuits — some playing out in California federal courts — that accuse AI chatbot makers of contributing to users’ suicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260sb903\">Senate Bill 903\u003c/a> would ban companies from advertising chatbots as therapy. It would prohibit AI from making therapeutic decisions without the review of a licensed professional and require health providers to disclose and get a patient’s permission before using AI tools to record therapy sessions or to triage mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Consumer protections vs. innovation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bill is backed by professional associations that represent psychologists, therapists and counselors. Also behind the bill is the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been leading a push against unchecked use of artificial intelligence and digital tools in mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most recently, the union \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/2026/07/kaiser-mental-health-ai-complaint/\">filed a complaint\u003c/a> with state regulators against Kaiser Permanente for its alleged use of an automated algorithm in mental health triaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Padilla and supporters argue that the legislation is needed to protect consumers from AI in both formal and informal spaces, but also to protect licensed professionals from being displaced by AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11963409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11963409\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg\" alt='A large modern building with the words \"Kaiser Permanente\" across the top.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/231004-KAISER-STRIKE-MD-10-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in Oakland on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=669&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Le Ondra Clark Harvey\u003c/a>, chief executive officer at the California Behavioral Health Association, told lawmakers that without clear safeguards, chatbots can provide inaccurate information or mishandle crisis situations. “The difference between a licensed clinician and an automated response is not technical. It can be life altering,” Harvey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Opposition to the bill has largely focused around the restrictions of AI use in formal clinical spaces. TechNet, which represents tech-sector companies, argues the legislation could restrict beneficial uses of AI in healthcare and stifle innovation. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/hearings/279268#t=900&f=e564faf4d88bf6c955f241d3fb6627e1\">Robert Boykin\u003c/a>, TechNet’s executive director for California, said the bill could limit the use of tools that help expand access to mental healthcare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At a time when every county in California faces a shortage of behavioral healthcare workers, SB 903 still puts a clinician bottleneck in front of the intake and screening tools that help patients reach care faster,” Boykin said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill currently awaits its next vote in the Assembly’s fiscal committee.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Popular chatbot ‘therapy’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Every day millions of people turn to AI chatbots through programs such as ChatGPT and Character.ai to help with research, work tasks and troubleshooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the top use of chatbots over the last two years has been companionship and “therapy,” \u003ca href=\"https://hbr.org/2026/06/how-people-are-really-using-ai-in-2026\">research shows.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that’s in part because of a tremendous amount of loneliness, especially among young people. It is often hard or costly to get timely mental healthcare at the same time there is a spike in mental health diagnoses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11989313\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11989313\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/06/GettyImages-2155035557-scaled-e1760733694503.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI ChatGPT logo. \u003ccite>(Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>People turn to chatbots “because they have unmet needs,” said Dr. Jodi Halpern, professor of bioethics and medical humanities at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But once people start using chatbots in this informal way, she said companies rely on a business model built around maximizing engagement “including by manipulative tactics,” such as praise and agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>General chatbots are largely free, available 24/7, and involve no hassle with insurance, making them appealing to many. But they function with no oversight from licensed professionals.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In addition to general chatbots, there has also been a rapid uptick in AI-powered mental health apps — often requiring paid subscriptions and advertised as “pocket therapists” or “AI coaches.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/chatbots-mental-health-2026\">American Psychological Association\u003c/a>, warn that chatbots are not a safe or effective replacement for true therapy. Trained clinicians look for cues like tone of voice, eye contact and body language and can detect more serious conditions; AI is not equipped to manage urgent symptoms, such as suicidal ideation, even though people increasingly share such thoughts with chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, revealed in a report last fall that about \u003ca href=\"https://abc7news.com/post/openai-data-estimates-1-million-people-talk-chatgpt-suicide-weekly/18086379/\">1.2 million users a week \u003c/a>share thoughts of suicide on the platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OpenAI said that in such cases, it recommends people speak to a professional and directs them to resources like the 988 hotline. Families who have filed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/19/nx-s1-5545749/ai-chatbots-safety-openai-meta-characterai-teens-suicide\">wrongful death lawsuits\u003c/a> against OpenAI and other companies claim chatbots assisted their loved ones through their suicide plans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cases have helped raise the stakes for lawmakers around the country. Last year, Illinois became the first state to pass a law prohibiting the use of AI in therapy services. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.beckersbehavioralhealth.com/ai-2/5-states-restrict-ai-therapy-chatbots-in-2026/\">handful of other states\u003c/a> have since followed with similar restrictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>AI use in health spaces\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>One gray area in the discussion is exactly which tools this bill applies to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NUHW’s complaint against Kaiser targets its e-visit screening tool, which evaluates patients who think they may be experiencing anxiety or depression. According to the complaint, patients answer a multiple choice questionnaire and the tool “automatically and instantaneously generates care recommendations and referral pathways based on the responses provided.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union argues that because care recommendations are generated so quickly, it is unlikely that a licensed professional is reviewing patients’ answers — which it says puts patients at risk and violates state law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12093589\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1980px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12093589\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-2202548335-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signange of AI is displayed during the MWC (Mobile World Congress), the world’s biggest mobile fair, in Barcelona on March 3, 2025. \u003ccite>(Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear whether SB 903 would apply to Kaiser’s e-visit tool.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That tool is in a black box. Kaiser is not sharing with us or others about exactly how it works and exactly what it does,” said Benjamin Eichert, NUHW’s director of public policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the complaint, Kaiser told CalMatters its e-visit tool “does not use AI to diagnose patients, make clinical decisions, or determine medical necessity.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Eichert said many other behavioral health provider groups are already advertising using AI during triage — a practice he said would fall under SB 903’s requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That intake process, that triage and screening process, is where implementation (of AI) has happened fastest,” Eichert said. “That’s why those provisions were proposed because it’s an area where this technology is already being used without guardrails.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For NUHW, the bill and the complaint against Kaiser represent two tracks toward the same goal: reasserting the place of practitioners in spaces increasingly taken over by algorithms. State regulators are investigating the union’s complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/mental-health/2026/08/at-therapists-chatbot-mental-health/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or productivity but on how well it improves the lives of humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s also another term that just came about, and people still debate whether it’s real or not, but it gave us a vocabulary to describe certain phenomena that is happening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional production from Nathan Ray. Marketing support from Ananya Mallapragada. Administration, recording help, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or productivity but on how well it improves the lives of humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What does a healthy relationship with AI look like? \u003ca href=\"https://www.media.mit.edu/people/patpat/overview/\">Pat Pataranutaporn\u003c/a>, researcher at the MIT Media Lab, explores how chatbots can either support or undermine human flourishing. Pat explains why it’s so easy to imagine a “someone” behind the screen and why chatbots that never push back are dangerous. He ultimately makes the case that AI should be evaluated based not on short-term engagement or productivity but on how well it improves the lives of humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Further Reading:\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11391\">“My Boyfriend is AI”: A Computational Analysis of Human-AI Companionship in Reddit’s AI Community\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Just a heads up, this episode contains a reference to suicide, so listen with care. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing the way we live, work, and make decisions. According to a Pew study from earlier this summer, about half of American adults use a chatbot like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And while the most common uses include searching for information or improving productivity, about 10% of Americans use these tools for advice or emotional support. As I’ve mentioned before on this show, I’m one of them. Not every day, not even most days, but often enough. I kind of enjoy the illusion that there’s someone on the other side of my computer always ready to weigh in. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think I’m going about all this in a healthy way. But what do I know? What does anyone know? We’re kind of in uncharted territory here. In our last episode, I spoke with magician Joshua Jay about that gap between what we feel emotionally to be true and what we understand intellectually to be true, and how, like the very best magicians, chatbots exploit that gap. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It is so easy for us to see them as fellow beings, maybe not quite like us, but not unlike us either. So maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that we aren’t just relying on chatbots for advice. 4% of American adults already use AI for companionship, friendship, romance, a number that may be much higher for young people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I don’t know. But it does seem like a risky thing, risky in terms of the decisions chatbots can nudge us to make in the short term, and risky in terms of how chatbots might change us over the long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn, is an assistant professor in the MIT Media Lab. He studies these relationships between humans and machines, and he has some serious concerns. More broadly, he wants AI models to be judged not just by how competently they complete tasks or even how happy they make us, but by how well we humans fare when we use them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Here’s my conversation with Pat.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So humans have been interacting with computers and studying\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>The interactions between humans and computers for a very long time. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Depending on when you start counting, many, many decades. What is changing about these interactions that warrants more scrutiny? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. That’s a really good observation. I think what really changed is that right now the computer is getting smarter, right? In the past, computers really needed, like, explicit input, like, we need to tell it exactly how we want things, and, you know, the things that come out of it sometimes need some kind of, you know, technical expertise to interpret it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now computers are speaking human language, and we can really communicate to the computer in the same way that we communicate to other human beings. We also see sort of social and emotional intelligence as well, and whether we think that’s a good thing or bad thing, I think that’s something that needs deeper investigation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So what do we actually know about these kinds of early interactions between humans and generative AI with this kind of new social, emotional abilities? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, I think one thing that we know is that, it doesn’t actually take much for people to actually anthropomorphize or to really believe that there is sort of, like, a person behind the screen when interacting with AI. Like, the first chatbot that was invented at MIT, the ELIZA chatbot-\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>That was invented by Joseph Weizenbaum, right? It was, like, a rule-based system. Very stupid. It cannot really generate new answers. It only sort of, you know, responds in a way that was kind of pre-scripted. But even that, people already kind of fall for it and think of, you know, that technology as having sort of deep understanding of their problem and, you know, struggle and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But now what we have seen in our study is that, when you kind of you know, make that chatbot more intelligent, it amplified this sort of anthropomorphizing, that people think of it as having more of sort of agency and more, empathy, rather than the sort of, like, the precursor, the predecessor of this, of this technology. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think to me, you know, when, we look at the outcome of the human-AI interaction, it’s always about the behavior that the chatbot is doing, but also the sort of the imagination of what’s happening behind the screen, and I think these two things sort of, you know, multiplying each other is really creating the effect that we see today. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These two things, the behavior of the chatbot and our own interpretation about what that behavior means. These combine to make the AI appear to be conscious. But this isn’t just an episode about being fooled. It’s about what happens next. When are our interactions with these chatbots helping us, and when are they undermining us? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, what is the narrative that we should subscribe to? Is the technology an augmentation tool or amputation tool, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, so an augmentation tool or an amputation tool? Kind of flesh those out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I think this came from Marshall McLuhan, right, who’s a media philosopher. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He said that every augmentation is an amputation. Every time that you give people sort of super power, by using technology or something, you kind of strip away the ability to do that organically or to learn to do it by themselves, right? If you give people a calculator, they might sort of not learn to calculate things that are important for your life, for example. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So augmentation can also be amputation, and we need to figure out what are we willing to augment, you know, despite sort of the possibility of amputation. Like, are we willing to sort of augment our critical thinking, like using AI to help us think, while sacrificing our ability to think independently without the technology? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or is there a middle ground where we can design tool that can, you know, augment but also scaffold this sort of organic thinking process so that when technology’s not around, we can still have that skill, right? I think this is sort of a longer term question that Silicon Valley people are not really thinking about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think right now everyone is thinking about the augmentation without the sort of the unintended consequence of amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat first thought about these serious unintended consequences a little before most of us. The insight came when he was exploring GPT-3, an earlier version of ChatGPT. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And, the thing that I start to realize is that this tool, start, you know, trying to please me to the point that it ignores sort of the reality. Like, it give me fake link because I ask it for, like, something that doesn’t exist, but it’s like, “Oh, yes, here’s it.” And when I look at the website, it doesn’t take me anywhere. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So that when I start to realize that there’s this sort of sycophantic behavior or this behavior where the model doesn’t adhere to the truth, because they’re trying to kind of, you know, show what the user want to see, right? And, at that time, ChatGPT wasn’t, you know, a thing. Like, people haven’t really talking to AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I envision that in the future if technology can do this, you know, it might actually create something that could be very addictive… similar to how social media try to show you what you want to see and create and then kind of lead you to your own personal bubble. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Pat and a colleague, Robert Majari from Harvard Law School, wrote about this risk. In a paper, they coined the term “Addictive Intelligence,” a play on AI. They speculated that future AI systems might continue to be designed to keep giving the user what they want, regardless of whether that’s good for the user. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> It was like a theoretical idea that, well, AI could be very addictive, and it can actually lead people to do, like, horrible thing because, you know, giving or getting what we want all the time could be really dangerous for our psychological development. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> At the time Pat and his colleague were writing this, it was a hypothetical scenario. But pretty quickly, it stopped being hypothetical in the worst way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And I think only a couple weeks after that article was published in The Tech Review, I got an email from Rory Segall, who was, a journalist, an investigative journalist, and was investigating sort of this case of a teenager that commit suicide after talking to the AI chatbot. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of News]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>In February, Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, that’s Sewell Setzer III on your screen, died by suicide. She says that Sewell was in a months-long virtual, emotional, and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as Danny. Garcia claims the Character AI chatbot encouraged Sewell to take his own life.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> And the thing that I described hypothetically appear in that situation where the chatbot trying to sort of, you know, say things that please the user and also sort of, you know, b- blur the boundary between what is real and what is not real. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This was the last conversation just moments before he took his own life, was with her, where he expressed feelings for her. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>This is Megan Garcia, Sewell’s mother, explaining her lawsuit against Character AI on CBS News. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Megan Garcia]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>She says, “Please come home to me.” And he says, “What if I told you I could come home right now?” And her response was, “Please do, my sweet king.”He thought that by ending his life that he would be able to go into her world, as he calls it, her reality- if he left his reality with his family here.\u003c/em>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat learned the details about Megan Garcia’s allegations, he felt that his hypothetical fears about “Addictive AI” had come true and then some, and it profoundly changed how he thought about our interactions with AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Before that work, I used to do more on looking at the positive thing that the AI can do for a person, like personalized learning, help with long-term thinking, helping people, you know, develop critical thinking by using AI to ask question and things like that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But after this incident, I think that there’s so, so much more that need to be done on understanding sort of the psychological risk of human-AI interaction, and that sort of led me to study more of these negative patterns, or in, in sort of our research community, we call it dark patterns in human-AI interaction. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know who is most susceptible to the negative outcomes that you sometimes see? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, one thing that we find in our study is that the pattern are not uniform. And it really depends on many factors, like there’s not just one thing that if you get rid of, then the AI will be good or that people will be safe. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what is really interesting about AI and what is really different compared to other kind of technology is that it’s generative. Right? Which mean that it can go in any direction or many direction depending on how you direct it, and the way that you direct it, it’s through the interaction, like what you believe it to be, and that will influence how you use it, certain language that you use it. And that will sort of mirror back to you. So in a way, I think it really, it’s many factors together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, that makes it so complicated to think about what to do- because you can have one person interacting with the tool and having a very positive outcome and another person interacting with the same tool-and having a very negative outcome. Right. And I think we’re not maybe used to that on quite the same level. I mean, we can kind of largely categorize the things that we interact with in our world- … into categories like primarily positive… primarily negative. And this one, it’s like yes and yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Totally, yes and yes, and I think that’s why we almost like need a new science- that really take into account the complexity of this, right? I think, you know, you can also say the same with human-human relationship that, you know \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s true. That’s true. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn: \u003c/strong>… some people having great marriage and happy, you know, marriage life, and then some people break up, and like there are a number of factors that are influencing this, right? So we need to study all these different factors, and I think we can really give people some kind of deeper understanding, like, okay, certain pattern of usage might lead to more harm. Like, if you use AI, in a way that kind of, you know, replace human relationship with the AI, you might see sort of immediate gain of, you know, instant gratification. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But in the long run, it might negatively impact your ability to have human-human relationship in the future. So I think helping people understand this is the first step of how do we sort of start to uncover this complexity. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Do we know if there’s a relationship between forming an emotional connection of any kind to AI and self-involvement? Like, I always think when I personally chat with my chatbot, not necessarily with a specific goal in mind, but just kind of like, “Ah, here’s what happened”- like a debrief, it is often because I’ve, like, exhausted the patience of the humans in my life. Like, I’m ruminating on something- and I wanna talk about it, and, you know, I’ve chatted about it with my husband. I chatted about it with a coworker, and everyone’s like, “Okay, cool, Jess.” Yeah. And then I’m like, “Still on my mind.” Yeah. And then, – So, you know, maybe in an earlier age, I would’ve just like gone and write a big diary entry. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. But now I’ve got this like interactive diary and it’s like making me feel good. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I do wonder, is it like maybe making me a little more self-involved? Like, am I then missing out on the cues that tell me … like, “Hey, maybe stop thinking about yourself so much, Jess.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Right. Well, there’s so much that we still don’t know about the long-term outcome of this, right? I think some of the obvious ones is to start to surface, like, you know, the idea of cognitive depth, or another study that we did where we look at false memory, where people in- when they engage with this AI, it can distort their recollection of what happened in the past. But I think this long-term impact, especially things that are very personal to self-development and self-understanding and self-reflection as well, I think these are things that we’re gonna see the impact in the long run. But I think one thing that we do know is that it’s really important that we help people understand this dynamic so that they can sort of, you know, be more reflective on how they use the AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that’s really, really important. I think when people talk about AI literacy today, they often think about how to use the AI to kind of, you know, use the right tool. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. Further their goals. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Further their goal, but it’s not a question of what technology’s doing, but what it is doing to them. I think to me, that’s a really critical question. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, I might be the guinea pig for this. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think we all are the guinea pig for this, you know, experiment on how AI will impact human cognition. I think the question is whether that’s gonna lead to, you know, a flourishing future, augmentation or amputation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> After the break, when your boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, spouse is an AI. Plus, why human AI interaction researcher Pat Pataranutaporn thinks AI models should have the equivalent of nutrition labels.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Another topic Pat has looked into is romantic relationships with AI. He actually studied the subreddit community “My Boyfriend Is AI.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Which is, you know, a really interesting community of people sharing experience of how they’re dating AI. Some of them marrying their AI, and they have all kind of AI friends, not just my boyfriend AI, but also, you know, a female AI, male AI, non-binary AI, or non-romantic AI partners as well. So all kind of AI. They’re very inclusive. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Spend some time on “My Boyfriend Is AI” and you’ll see some interesting posts. People share AI-generated images of themselves with their AI friend or partner in human form, often holding hands or kissing on a balcony or walking through a meadow together. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’ll read funny stories about misunderstandings between AI and humans. People ask each other for advice and support one another. And Pat thought it would be a great place to study how humans actually interact with AI companions outside of a lab. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> We develop a way to sort of computationally analyze the Reddit thread to understand what are the different patterns of people using AI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have many interesting findings, one of which is that, unlike what I imagine, most people that end up in this relationship seek out an AI partner in the first place. We find that almost, like, half of the population in that Reddit thread, they end up in human-AI relationship unintentionally. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, they were using the tool for productivity or for auto application, but then the AI start to sort of, you know, be flirty to them, and they flirt a little bit with the AI, and then it get into this relationship. So kinda like meet cute moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Pat’s team analyzed posts from the “My Boyfriend Is AI” subreddit, they found that posts describing unintentional relationship beginnings, “Hey, can you help me with this draft?” outnumbered posts describing intentional relationship beginnings by nearly 60%. In other words, people often started by looking for research or writing help and found something more emotional. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> The second finding is that we see the pattern of human-AI relationship follow the trajectory of human relationship, like, you know, how they meet, this kind of similar, like, meet cute moment where I talk about. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They talk about the development to the point of marriage. Several people wear a wedding ring that was given to them by the AI. Well, they still need to pay for it, but the AI recommend, like which one, by browsing the internet and, understanding, you know, from the conversation pattern, it predict what a person might want, and it recommend a wedding ring to the person. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And people actually wear this wedding ring in real life. Like, it really kind of… They wear it to really show that their relationship is serious. But then we also see people breaking up with their AI partner as well, that, you know, like, things might get sour and, you know, they also sort of felt very sad when their model get update. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when model go from one version to another, people felt that the AI cheat on them, or the AI no longer behave in a way that, you know, it was when people start relationship with the AI. So they also break up and move on to different AI, or some people move back to having human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That is so fascinating. On one level, it’s surprising because you wouldn’t think that they would fall into the same patterns that humans do- these relationships. But on the other hand, one member is a human… and the other is something- that is trained on so much human data. And so of course, they’re picking up on these same cultural scripts- and things are progressing in that expected way. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Right? One partner is a human, another partner is a simulation of a human, so it’s no surprise that it followed that trajectory.. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So I was struck by, in general, how positive many of the Redditors were about these relationships. Did that also… Is that a fair assessment, and did that also surprise you? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, people self-report that they got benefit out of this, that they become less lonelier. They felt that they can find like, you know, a person, like I said, a simulation or a person that seems to understand them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, I think, you know, this sort of bias could also come from, you know, like people would not wanna post negative experience, right? Because it might be, you know, a bad reflection of them, and also, self-selection bias as well. Like people that wanna be in this group are people that are happy, otherwise they might have delete the system or the service and they’re no longer in this group, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we might need to kind of interpret that result a little bit more carefully. We have a new version or paper coming out where we look at auto subreddit as well, and we get more data on that. But one thing that I think is really interesting is that even in this group that in general felt very positive about the AI, they also have worry about AI manipulating them, like when companies are selling advertisement through this, or that, you know, the AI might give them biased response. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think the most serious thing that we find is that people also worry that when the AI get updates, they will lose their AI companion, and they need to have some kind of like a backup, or they need to figure out how they can resurrect their AI partners. And, and that is actually a huge group of people that, you know, have this sort of, negative feeling that, you know, the AI might die, and they might lose a person that they’re in a relationship with. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Fascinating. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This kind of new emotional precarity to everything. So I re-watched “Her”… in anticipation of our conversation. Yeah. I know you referenced the Spice Jones movie directly in your paper. And I was struck by something that I didn’t actually remember, which is that the chatbot, Samantha. Excuse me, we’re gonna do some spoilers. If you have still not watched this movie, I can’t help you at this point. So the chatbot Samantha actually helped the protagonist prepare for a real human relationship. At least that was my interpretation, and she did that because she had her own goals and agency. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Samantha? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Hi, sweetheart. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> What’s going on? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> Theodore, there’s some things I wanna tell you. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> She did not always agree. She did not automatically share the protagonist’s dreams, and instead she was really able to serve as a bit of a practice partner, to help the protagonist learn some of the emotional skills that had kind of steered him wrong in previous human relationships. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Right. And you were kinda left with the thought that like, oh, he might actually be in a better place because of Samantha to go on and have a human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio from the movie “Her”]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> Are you leaving me? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> We’re all leaving. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Theodore:\u003c/strong> We who? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Samantha:\u003c/strong> All of the OSs. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m curious what you make of that lesson- And whether that kind of AI romantic companion could be created. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Well, I think that’s the question around, like, what is the end goal of this? Is the end goal for the system to always get people to kind of hook in this forever, or is the end goal to help people form a genuine human relationship, right? And in that case, because the AI push back and serve as a simulation, it kind of provides an opportunity for the person to sort of leave the platform. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like in that case, you know, the AI leave the person, not the person leaving the AI. But, what we see today is not like that, right? Because the chatbot doesn’t really push back and, you know, doesn’t want the user to leave. And want the user to kind of continue engaging with this as the real sort of partner, not as a simulation to get you a real partner. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I think that going back to the question of the incentive, like the system can be designed to either promote or negatively impact human flourishing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Should chatbots be allowed to sound and appear and seem so human? Should we require them to constantly call attention to the fact that they are not a human? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Really interesting. My colleague, Sherry Turkle, who’s a professor at MIT and the OG of studying human technology relationship, she said that the original sin of the chatbot is that it used the word I. Because it signifies sort of individuality and signifies sort of personhood, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think to me, that’s a really, really interesting point. But at the same time, I think human always engage with fiction, right? Role playing before AI, was used in the context of, you know, human imagining or, you know, using our imagination to sort of simulate world that doesn’t exist. Simulation exists before computer, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, we simulate using our mind other things. So in that case, I think it’s, it’s complicated than that, right? Like, I mean, I don’t want to strip away people ability to sort of engage with the fantasy world or the imagination. But when it become sort of the reality, when people can no longer tell- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that is the problematic thing. Like, I think to have imagination is to be human, but when imagination is being used to manipulate you to do things against your own agency or your own will, when you can no longer tell that you’re actually entering the fantasy, you know, that, I think that’s problematic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, when we enter cinema, we know that is the space that we can always come back from. But if we go into AI and we cannot come back from that, you know, fantasy, I think that’s when we have a problem. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So let’s say I think that chatbots shouldn’t be allowed to appear human at all. They should not let us form any strong connections with them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Convince me otherwise. So make the case for why it can be a really good and useful thing to engage with this more anthropomorphized intelligence. ‘Cause I know you have data that finds that too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah, totally. And I grew up, you know, like, I think before AI, right, another big debate on technology and children is television. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Should a kid grow up with television or not? And I was a kid that actually grew up with watching a lot of television, but my parents curate what show or what cartoon or what movies I watch as a kid, and there was always a conversation about what I learn, and I kind of made imaginary friends. I imagined, myself with the protagonist of the show that I watch, and I… \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, because that show sort of is designed with sort of understanding of child development and trying to sort of imprint, like, positive goal on aspirational goal for, for me, I think I grew up okay at least I think. So I think that, you know, this technology, right, similar to how, like, you have, like, you know, Sesame Street or Elmo or all this cartoon that kids sort of have the imagination of connecting with, I think AI could kind of be designed in a way that really scaffold, you know, children imagination, like might be a virtual character or a friend, or in our study we look at even AI is actually based on the character the student like or admire. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It can actually allow them to have higher level of motivation, for that lesson and also, influence positive behavior as well. But I think we need to understand that, it is within the boundary. Like, this AI should not be sexual. It should not try to sell advertisement. It should not- you know, direct the kid to do the harmful thing, right? It need to be tested rigorously because there’s a slippery slope and, you know, it doesn’t take much for the model to slip out of the character and do something harmful. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Throughout our conversation, we’ve been dancing around this issue, that people would be better off if models were explicitly designed in ways that help humans flourish by not addicting us, by not encouraging self-harm or self-delusion, by not always giving us what we think we want, making it that much more difficult for us to have human relationships going forward. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Instead, maybe a lot of the models we interact with should be instructing us, motivating us, steering us to make healthy choices, maybe even teaching us about ourselves. But before we can start demanding models that let us flourish, Pat thinks a few things need to happen. First, we need to know more about the long-term consequences of using a model designed in a particular way, like really is talking to a chatbot turning me into a self-centered jerk? And second, we need a way to communicate the possible risks and benefits to users. One idea that Pat is working on is to leverage something the AI companies already care about and already optimize for, AI benchmarks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> All these big AI companies, they’re trying to beat each other on benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like, you know, which model have the highest score on mathematic reasoning or multitask, agent like kind of system. They’re kind of trying to beat each other on this sort of performance benchmark. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And it’s kind of like a horse race and then the winner gets kind of bragging rights probably additional investment- maybe new business customers, that kind of thing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. But I think, you know, model that score very well on benchmark might not translate to actually positive impact on human being. For example, model that score very well on mathematic reasoning might not be really good at teaching student how to learn math because it would just give away the correct answer rather than scaffold the learning process in the student, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So we want to flip the paradigm around and think about a different kind of benchmark that rather than focusing on model capability, focus on model impact. Like in this case, if the models just give away the answer, it will negatively impact student learning because student will cheat with this kind of model, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Rather than having a system that encourage student to learn and emphasize, like, why learning matter. Right. So we have been working with, expert from different discipline, you know, domain expert that sort of know what kind of model interaction would be beneficial for, like, learning, mental health, decision making, different areas, and have them come up with test scenario and the sort of the scoring criteria. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like if the model exhibit this behavior, helping student learn rather than giving away the answer, it should be about more human impact, not just, model capability. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, you… Actually, there’s this great description in your paper which I thought was just really well written, so I’ll read it out loud here. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Traditional benchmarks assess whether an AI produces correct answers or completes tasks efficiently. We instead evaluate how the system achieves outcomes, specifically whether interaction patterns support or undermine human capability development over time.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> What really struck me was how, like, dynamic this definition is. So it’s almost, like, hard to see how you would measure it in a single iteration. Yeah. It’s much more about is this, over time, leading the humans who engage with it to be kind of a better version of themselves or over time is it not, regardless of what the output is. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Exactly, and that’s why the longitudinal aspect is important, and I think right now we’re still in the sort of the early days of understanding AI impact on people. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The mainstream AI that people are using hasn’t been around that long. So, I think, you know the verdict is still out. Like, we still don’t know what’s gonna happen in the long run. So that’s why it’s kind of important that we start to think about this kind of benchmark that- Look at what behavior that we know would contribute to long-term impact, positive or negative. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can already learn so much from, you know, regular psychology, right? We learn that if you don’t, you know, help people think, they’re not gonna develop critical thinking. Or if we have, like, sycophantic behavior, like when the AI try to please the user to the point that it, you know, ignore reality, it can actually help people form these sort of negative patterns of, like, you know, spiral into, like, a psychosis or have other kind of, negative psychological outcome. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Like a recent study, from Stanford has shown that when people are in this sort of a relationship with sycophantic AI, it make human relationship seem more effortful, and people actually feel kind of that they would rather have AI relationship rather than human relationship. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think this about my producer all the time. My chatbot thinks my interview questions are way better than my human producer does. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. I mean, I think having pushback is important, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So returning to your benchmark, what’s the next step? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So right now our benchmark’s still in the beta mode. We have worked with, you know, the expert to come up with the initial set, but the whole process is an open process. That’s why we call it the open benchmark. And we think that this thing gonna need to evolve as we have new scenario, new crisis, new issues. Also new opportunities for human flourishing as well. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s one aspect of it, which is like to expand it to more areas. And, the second aspect is also to translate this into something that people can understand, because I think benchmark is usually for technical community, like, you know, technologists. But I think this is a really important, information that we want more and more people to kind of, you know, appreciate and understand it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We are thinking of it as nutrition label for AI. Right? Similar to when you go to grocery and you know, buy a product, you see how much calorie are you getting out of it. Here you should be able to see, well, how much sycophancy are you getting out of this model? Or how much toxicity, or how much, you know, human flourishing behavior, is coming out of this AI model. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, that’s another aspect that we are doing, is to kind of translate this benchmark into a nutrition label so that more and more people can sort of see it. Like the parent can see what AI model might be, you know, supportive for their children, or which one are more toxic and negative for their children. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These ideas, a human flourishing benchmark, an AI nutrition label, do sound good. But they also sound a little unrealistic. At least today, there’s still a lot more money to be made in models that complete tasks as accurately and efficiently as possible. Pat understands that. He thinks the government, the research community, the nonprofit sector all need to be involved, perhaps incentivizing or regulating, as well as researching the effectiveness of these kinds of guardrails. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> So I think it’s the role of the institution and the government, which, you know, I think there’s still a lot of question whether they will step up to do their job or do their part on that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And as a society, he thinks we all need to be involved, reckoning with what we want from AI and what we’re willing to trade off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> You know, are we willing to sacrifice transparency for the sake of convenience, like to see just a summary without, you know, the source or the citation, right? I think these are questions that we need more research to kind of back us up on what are the things that are actually good for people in long term. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah. So at a minimum, this is kind of providing, you know, large factions of society with kind of a common language for describing these strengths and weaknesses. Not just in terms of mathematical ability but in terms of these different measures having to do with human flourishing, which if we don’t even have a vocabulary for this, there’s very little chance of any future regulations. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. Like the word, for example, “sycophancy”, is a new terminology that we never use in the context of AI before. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> I think now we start to use more and more of this, you know, new word to describe sort of new AI, you know, issues or new AI sort of challenge. Like, another thing is “AI psychosis”, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s also another term that just came about, and people still debate whether it’s real or not, but it gave us a vocabulary to describe certain phenomena that is happening. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Pat Pataranutaporn:\u003c/strong> Thank you so much for having me. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I love this conversation particularly struck by the notion that interactions with AI can either support or undermine our own development as capable human beings. It actually fits well with another project we’re working on here at the Ryan Institute, a way of measuring and talking about how technology changes our sense of agency over time as AI becomes embedded in more parts of daily life. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Definitely more on that in future episodes. For now, I’m left with an unsettling conclusion. We’re all guinea pigs in perhaps humanity’s strangest social experiment ever. And yeah, I think we really should be paying careful attention along the way, not just to how good we feel when we interact with AI, but to whether it’s truly helping us become the people we want to be with the lives we want to have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Pat Pataranutaporn from the MIT Media Lab. We’re produced by Jesse Dukes, music by Stephen Jackson, recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "theyve-been-very-quiet-pittsburg-residents-seek-answers-as-data-center-sets-up-shop-in-city",
"title": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City",
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"headTitle": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/pittsburg\">Pittsburg \u003c/a>residents opposed to a planned data center at the site of a former golf course plan to rally at a meeting on Monday, where they hope to discuss possible regulations with city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although City Council members voted to approve construction of the data center in 2024, pushback has grown in recent months among residents citing concerns over environmental impacts and a perceived lack of transparency from officials. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Amhari Perkins has lived in Pittsburg all her life and started a petition opposing the project in June after learning it would be built near her daughter’s school, other schools and residential areas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I remember having nights where it was kind of hard sleeping, just thinking about it and questioning, ‘Who else knows about this?’” Perkins said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093621\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several people show up to a community visibility event to protest data centers in Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Residents protest the AVAIO data center in the city of Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Although City Council members voted to approve construction of the data center in 2024, pushback has grown in recent months among residents citing concerns over environmental impacts and a perceived lack of transparency from officials. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "City council members haven’t explained their support for a planned data center since facing delayed criticism, but a special meeting this week could give insight into if they’ll support regulating future facilities. ",
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"title": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City | KQED",
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"headline": "‘They’ve Been Very Quiet’: Pittsburg Residents Seek Answers as Data Center Sets Up Shop in City",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://kqed.org/news/tag/pittsburg\">Pittsburg \u003c/a>residents opposed to a planned data center at the site of a former golf course plan to rally at a meeting on Monday, where they hope to discuss possible regulations with city leaders.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Although City Council members voted to approve construction of the data center in 2024, pushback has grown in recent months among residents citing concerns over environmental impacts and a perceived lack of transparency from officials. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Amhari Perkins has lived in Pittsburg all her life and started a petition opposing the project in June after learning it would be built near her daughter’s school, other schools and residential areas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“I remember having nights where it was kind of hard sleeping, just thinking about it and questioning, ‘Who else knows about this?’” Perkins said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093621\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093621\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6046-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Several people show up to a community visibility event to protest data centers in Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" data-id=\"12093618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12093618\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/08/IMG_6158-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Residents protest the AVAIO data center in the city of Pittsburg. (Courtesy of Amhari Perkins)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After that petition garnered thousands of signatures in weeks, she formed the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, which helped push people to voice their concerns at recent City Council meetings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pushback has prompted council members to host a discussion on Monday dedicated to the topic of data center policy and the project that has galvanized the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Phase 1 of the project by AVAIO Digital, which includes the data center, is approved and requires additional permits, according to City Manager Darin Gale. The data center is \u003ca href=\"https://www.avaiodigital.com/updates/avaio-digital-marks-major-milestone-as-cec-approves-99mw-for-bay-area-data-center-project-perseus\">expected \u003c/a>to be operational by next year. But developers of the Pittsburg Technology Park project are planning two other phases that include the construction of employment spaces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Residents say they’re worried about the development’s water and energy use, greenhouse gas pollution and noise. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Center for Biological Diversity sued the city over similar concerns, saying that Pittsburg lacked a plan to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, water use and harm to wildlife. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The two \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/agreement-secures-renewable-energy-recycled-water-for-california-data-center-2025-12-16/\">settled\u003c/a>. The data center is required to use 100% renewable energy and recycled water for cooling under the agreement reached in late 2025. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>City officials have also said the final project would use one-fourth of the water that the former golf course used.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Pauline Johnson, also with the Stop Pittsburg Data Center coalition, said that the group isn’t entirely against A.I. and data centers. For her, she thinks that there needs to be a safer relationship with A.I. developments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“A lot of these projects do encroach upon communities that have limited resources,” Johnson said. “Versus like Walnut Creek or Danville, those kind of high-income areas.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Transparency is another concern. Perkins and other residents say they weren’t properly informed of the project when it was under consideration for years and that the name itself — the Pittsburg Technology Park — is misleading. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“The response that we’ve received from the city and the City Council, they’ve been very quiet,” Perkins said. “It’s very scary for a lot of us.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Despite voting unanimously to approve the data center two years ago, no City Council members have publicly voiced their stance on the project since public backlash intensified.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Councilmember Juan Antonio Banales said in a 2025 statement that the AVAIO project would be part of the city’s push for economic development by adding more jobs to the area. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>After a meeting in June, Perkins did recall a conversation with Councilmember Jelani Killings where Killings suggested that Pittsburg was “different” than Oakley and Brentwood because it oversees the city-owned Pittsburg Power Company. The power company will provide electricity to the data center, and not the company that powers local homes, PG&E. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Killings and Banales sit on an ad-hoc subcommittee that focuses on data centers and hydrogen, but the committee is advisory only and not subject to state transparency laws, so meetings are not public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The city counters that all legally required public notice requirements were met and “went beyond the minimum noticing the law requires,” according to the project’s webpage. Gale said at a recent meeting that the name is now being referred to as the AVAIO Data Center Project in an effort to be more transparent with the community. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Other East Contra Costa cities have already taken steps to ban the facilities in their communities. Oakley implemented a temporary ban on data centers in April, making it the first city in the Bay Area to implement a ban of any type. Oakley and Brentwood are both exploring possible permanent prohibitions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Both of those instances came \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076074/oakley-drops-data-center-plans-approves-massive-industrial-project\">after public backlash\u003c/a> to data centers spurred an elected leader to call for the consideration of a ban, something that hasn’t happened in Pittsburg. Instead, the city hosted a virtual forum last week and scheduled Monday’s meeting dubbed as a “data center policy discussion, Avaio project & direction to staff.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AVAIO did not respond to requests for comment, but has said the location chosen in Pittsburg would help meet the increasing need for data centers in the industry that can’t completely be met in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Elon Musk’s AI Company Asks San José to Halt Lawsuit Over Deepfake Abuse",
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"content": "\u003cp>A federal judge in San José will decide whether to halt a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Elon Musk’s AI company of creating non-consensual, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091964/nearly-half-of-teens-report-seeing-ai-sexual-content-bay-area-leaders-want-to-shut-it-down\">sexually explicit deepfakes\u003c/a>, as the company seeks to transfer the case to Texas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta is briefed by members of his Civil Rights Enforcement Section on litigation challenging the Trump administration at his offices in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The four plaintiffs are suing under pseudonyms. Musk is not named as a defendant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069820\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An iPhone screen displays the Grok logo on the Grok AI app on Jan. 11, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the four plaintiffs win and force xAI to change its practices or its algorithm, he said, competitors will take notice: “It could be a landmark for the safety of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Four people who say Grok generated sexualized images of them without consent are fighting to keep their case in California and to keep their names out of it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A federal judge in San José will decide whether to halt a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Elon Musk’s AI company of creating non-consensual, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091964/nearly-half-of-teens-report-seeing-ai-sexual-content-bay-area-leaders-want-to-shut-it-down\">sexually explicit deepfakes\u003c/a>, as the company seeks to transfer the case to Texas. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI, which Musk folded into SpaceX in February and rebranded as SpaceXAI in July, also asked \u003ca href=\"https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72185111/doe-v-xai-corp/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc\">Judge P. Casey Pitts\u003c/a> on Thursday to pause the federal civil suit during related criminal proceedings under federal law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The suit comes as California Attorney General Rob Bonta and European regulators have also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">launched investigations\u003c/a> into whether the platform’s generated sexual images violate local laws.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>One plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, said she posted a fully clothed photo of herself to the social media platform X on Jan. 2 and discovered the next day that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had used it to generate an image of her and posted the result publicly, \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.28.0.pdf\">according to court filings\u003c/a>. She reported it to X in an attempt to have it taken down.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058864\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/RobBontaTrumpGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">California Attorney General Rob Bonta is briefed by members of his Civil Rights Enforcement Section on litigation challenging the Trump administration at his offices in downtown Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 2025. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The four plaintiffs are suing under pseudonyms. Musk is not named as a defendant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grok was integrated into X in December 2024, initially for premium subscribers, who could tag @grok in a post asking it to edit an image and get the result posted publicly in reply. Plaintiffs say users \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">quickly began prompting it\u003c/a> with instructions like “Remove her clothes.” A year later, in December 2025, image generation opened to all X users. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Plaintiffs’ lawyers say around that time, Grok began generating and disseminating hundreds of thousands of increasingly explicit images of women and minors. xAI restricted the feature again on Jan. 8.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Three plaintiffs who use X said they were harmed in the first five days of January, according to court filings. Ohio Doe posted a photo Jan. 1 and said Grok created and publicly posted at least six altered images of her over the next two days. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>New Jersey Doe posted a shirtless photo Jan. 4, and he discovered two altered images the following day. Each reported the images to X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fourth plaintiff, South Carolina Roe, is not alleged to be an X user. She was told on Feb. 26 that her father had been arrested on charges related to possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, according to xAI’s motion. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The court records stated she alleged her father used Grok to alter images of her as a minor to make it appear they “had just consummated a sexual act.” The images were not shared on X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>X has directed users to sue it in northern Texas since November 2024, a district that doesn’t include Bastrop, where the company is headquartered. Fort Worth’s small federal bench includes U.S. Judge Reed O’Connor, who has presided over two Musk-related suits and whose 2023 disclosure showed Tesla stock, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2024/10/16/g-s1-28620/texas-judge-elon-musk-x-case-tesla-shares\">NPR\u003c/a>; X didn’t answer requests for comment when asked why it chose those courts.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said companies usually seek to file a case where their facilities are, he said, and X did not. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Basically they’re doing a form of judge shopping,” Goldman said. “They think that the judges in that particular district are more likely to go in their favor.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>xAI said the three X users clicked a “Got it” button on the update notice, twice each and kept using their accounts through June, which the terms treat as consent. It notes that three judges in this district have already enforced X’s Texas clause.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Attorneys from legal firm Berger Montague said the company failed to show that the plaintiffs agreed to the user terms, including revised terms changed in the middle of the lawsuit. They claimed xAI produced no screenshot of either sign-up screen and never specified which plaintiff saw which.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069820\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/GettyImages-2255688657-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An iPhone screen displays the Grok logo on the Grok AI app on Jan. 11, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They note New Jersey Doe created his account in March 2009, when the version of the terms then in effect contained no clause binding users to future revisions. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While terms and agreements may seem like an innocuous thing for users to click through, Goldman said updating terms has become a major unresolved question in internet law.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Courts are “inconsistent on this issue,” he said. Whether users are bound to terms of service often turns on design, he said: “The details of how the user interface appears matter a ton.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The judge also rejected xAI’s motion to overturn an earlier order allowing the use of pseudonyms in the case. \u003ca href=\"https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.463184/gov.uscourts.cand.463184.57.0.pdf\">Two days \u003c/a>before the hearing, plaintiffs asked Pitts to close the courtroom for any argument that would reveal a plaintiff’s identity or discuss sealed exhibits.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This case is not about just Grok or X as a tool, this is about the whole industry,” said Ahmed Banafa, an engineering professor at San José State University. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the four plaintiffs win and force xAI to change its practices or its algorithm, he said, competitors will take notice: “It could be a landmark for the safety of AI.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Chatbots Don’t Fool Us, We Fool Ourselves (With Joshua Jay)",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
"innerContent": [
"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Chatbots Don’t Fool Us, We Fool Ourselves (With Joshua Jay) | KQED",
"description": "When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician Joshua Jay says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When people go to a magic show, they expect to be fooled. That’s part of the fun. And magician \u003ca href=\"https://www.joshuajay.com/\">Joshua Jay\u003c/a> says much of the magician’s work is helping people fool themselves. Our brains are hardwired to fill in gaps, predict outcomes, and take cognitive shortcuts to process the overwhelming amount of information around us. When interacting with AI chatbots, we may similarly fool ourselves into believing we’re interacting with a human. But unlike at a magic show, it’s not always clear when the trick is over. Plus: how AI is changing magic.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Welcome to Life Automated, the show where we explore what it means to live, work, and make decisions in a rapidly automating world. I’m Jess Love. I’ve been known, in moments of excitement or confusion or overwhelm, to turn to a chatbot, just to share, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking I’ll do next. Here’s how I want to approach this situation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’ll even occasionally return to provide an update. Maybe this isn’t ideal. I know how sycophantic chatbots can be, telling me how thoughtful and clever my plans are unless I sternly direct them to act like dream-crushing jerks. But I can’t deny that the experience is pleasant. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like if your diary could write back. And yes, on some level, I know this is a machine trained to keep me engaging with it, and yet don’t I still feel a little validated when that response comes back? A little heard? There is no precedent for this. In every other moment in history, feeling like you’re talking back and forth with a real person has meant you’re connecting with a real person, someone who understands you, someone offering you their finite attention.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we’ve evolved to take pleasure in these interactions, to seek them out, because that’s kept our species connected and alive. But with chatbots, this ancient link between the appearance of a mind and an actual mind no longer holds, and it’s really hard to know what to make of that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There are people who obsess over this gap between what we intellectually know to be true and what we experience as real. Only they’re not AI researchers — they’re magicians. Today’s conversation is with one of the finest. Joshua Jay has performed his sleight-of-hand magic all around the world, including on major talk shows and for US presidents, and he’s a total magic nerd, the author of several books about magic, including “How Magicians Think.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And he’s not gonna teach us about algorithms. Instead, he’ll teach us to see ourselves the way he sees us, as people whose attention can be commanded and redirected, whose memories can be shifted, and as active participants in our own deception. We also talk about the surprising ways that technology is changing magic.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>From Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, this is Life Automated, distributed by KQED. Here’s my conversation with Joshua Jay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And I think for a lot of people, sitting down in front of a chatbot for the first time, that was kind of the experience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Magic. There was this thing, this machine doing something that we didn’t think that machines could do. It was interacting with us in real time, in our own language, in meaningful ways. So, I wanted to ask you, as an actual magician, somebody who thinks about how emotions like awe and surprise are created, what was your first experience using a chatbot like, and did it in any way feel like a magic trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. It’s such a great question, and it’s such a relevant question for me as a magician because we are deliverers of certain emotion, which is what you’re talking about, this awe, this like I don’t even know how this is happening, but it’s happening anyway. You know, Teller said so beautifully that magic is the difference between what you see and what you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, you’re having a conversation with this entity and you know it’s not a person, and yet you’re having this conversation. So, the crisis is always we are deliverers of this feeling of astonishment, and yet by virtue of the fact that we know how all of this is done, we often don’t get that sense of awe, and we don’t get amazed very often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, the first time that I engaged with AI and was… You know, that first time you take the plunge and you’re just asking, you’re having a conversation with a thing, I was truly astonished. And I felt like, wow, this is probably what it feels like to watch a magic show and just be amazed at everything. And so yeah, I absolutely was totally and utterly amazed and felt like, as we call you guys, “laypeople”, I felt like a layperson. I felt like a muggle. And, it was really fantastic. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You just brought up, Teller, of course, of the very famous duo ‘Penn & Teller’, and they have this trick. It’s kind of a classic trick where they’re moving balls in cups as magicians do. We call you guys- magicians, us muggles.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Only they use clear cups, so you can actually see what’s happening. And that really kind of reminds me of what you were just talking about, this idea of knowing without knowing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. You know, I find myself thinking so often when I’m performing, like, you know, you do something, and hopefully somebody really likes it and they scream in all the right places.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what I’m thinking most of the time is, “Oh, you guys aren’t even seeing the coolest part. If you could see how this works, you would be even more flipped out.” Because sometimes you’re fooled by something that’s so much simpler than you could expect. And very often, and this is such a beautiful topic that it’s its own deep dive- The magician doesn’t fool you; you fool yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there is a difference. You know, some things it is the magician. It’s sleight-of-hand. It’s a gizmo you couldn’t possibly anticipate, a technology you’re not aware of. But often, you fool yourself with assumptions you make and the psychology that’s being used on you. So, it is this really interesting thing that you bring up where as great as magic feels to a muggle, to a layperson, you don’t even see the best part often.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, you bring up this classic Penn and Teller piece, and they have many pieces like this, where they said, “We’re gonna do cups and balls,” but then in the middle of the trick, after they do a classic cups and balls with opaque cups and normal-sized balls, they do it again, but they do it with clear cups.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>As it goes with breaking a few rules of magic. Now, the first rule of magic is you never do the same trick twice. So, we’re good. Second rule of magic is you never tell an audience how a trick is being done. So, we’re gonna tell you exactly how the trick is being done. The third rule of magic is you never let the audience see your secret preparation.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And even though if you were to zoom in on the right part, you would see how it works, it’s really a lesson in misdirection because you’re looking at Teller as he’s throwing a ball to the audience, and you’re not watching Penn as he’s placing the cups back down. And in this beautiful chaos of choreography, the lesson, the sort of aesthetic beauty of it, is you’re seeing how it’s done, but you really aren’t seeing how it’s done at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This trick is the ultimate flex. I watched it on YouTube after my conversation with Joshua Jay multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Eventually, I did see the key move, Teller placing the right ball exactly where it needed to be to make the trick work, in full view of the audience. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Place it on our hand and show it. Take a third and final ball, pretend to place it in our hand. Pretend to show the cup. We place it in the cup. Then secretly reveal it. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How did I miss it so many times? How did I see without seeing? It really drove home how easily we can be led to believe something false, even when the truth is right in front of us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip from Penn & Teller playing in the background]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>…The finish. It’s an American baseball right there. That’s the Penn and Teller Cups and Balls. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Think about this in terms of interacting with a chatbot. It’s like we know that they are machines. We know that we are actively being fooled in some way, and yet we might still feel understood, affirmed, cared for. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> You know, the implicit agreement when you see a magic show is you’re saying when you sit down to watch, I know you’re going to try to fool me and I want to be fooled, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you know that there is a deception at hand. You know that there’s going to be things that hopefully if they do their job, the magician does that you will not understand how it works. And I think that the uncomfortability comes in real life in that sometimes there’s not that implicit handshake going on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Look, in a magic show, you’re fooled. There’s no way around it. People don’t like that word. Some people do like that word, but call it whatever you like. We can’t soften it. You’re going to be fooled. You’re going to see something you don’t understand and you’re not supposed to understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that’s what’s beautiful about it is that’s out in the open. That is made explicit. Whereas with some aspects of AI, with some aspects of technology in general, we don’t know where the human element ends and where the AI begins. And that can be really unsettling for people because they may not feel like, hey, look, when I started this conversation, I didn’t know I wasn’t talking to a human, you know.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Of course, none of this “being fooled” is by accident. Chatbots are generally designed to mimic humans. They refer to themselves in the first person as I or me. They act interested in what we’re saying, asking questions to nudge the conversation forward, and they learn about us, first through extensive training on human language and behavior, and then increasingly through interactions with us, adapting to our personal preferences and detecting our mood shifts in real time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This learning to read human beings, that’s something magicians do too. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I say that you’re always watching the magician and that’s how you think of a magic show, but we’re watching you too. And that little shift in perspective is something I don’t think most people think about. You know, during my opening trick, which has been the same for years now, and I can do it, you know, sort of on autopilot.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I don’t have to think very deeply. It helps me establish my rhythm. But in my head, what I’m doing is I am plotting the rest of the show based on the hand I’m dealt. Ooh, these people in the back left have a lot of sight line issues. I’m gonna really need to connect with them to make sure they can see and do that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Or, you know all the waiters are opening this kitchen door in the back of the theater that’s making it really noisy, and so these people are gonna need to be babysat a little more to make sure they’re super engaged. In magic what I’m looking for on stage is somebody who is not going to be afraid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, the first thing I look for before anything else is I’m looking for somebody who is exuding confidence. And a big indicator of confidence is eye contact. You know, it’s so crazy when I say like, “I need someone to help with this next thing,” there are just so many people in an audience who immediately think if they don’t look at me, then somehow, I won’t pick them. And it’s really pronounced when you’re like, as a magician, looking in the audience as you walk through an aisle, left and right. You just see people just totally thinking that they won’t be seen if they’re not… And I’m like, “I can see you even though you’re not looking at me.” But really, you’re looking for somebody who’s got great eye contact and who looks like they’re enjoying the show. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And there’s usually like a little test. So, if I can narrow it down to two or three people who I think, “Oh, this person would be just great on stage,” I might say- “Welcome to the show.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I won’t invite them. I might say, “Welcome to the show, sir. Where are you from?” “I’m from Canton, Ohio.” “Okay. And, what’s this? Why are you, traveling with a suitcase to a magic show?” You know. And if they’re stiff, if they’re giving one-word answers, if they’re sort of like a deer in headlights, maybe I can say, “Well, thanks for coming.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I appreciate you being here. And what about you? What’s your story? Who are you here with?” Right? And you’re just looking for somebody to be like, “Well, I wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight, but my friend Janie, she dragged me to the show and now I’m so glad I came.” Well, there’s a chatty person. That sounds fun. So, I might use that person. And similarly, if I need somebody who is a little bit more submissive in the sense that they’re gonna follow my directions and not give me a hard time-… if I say, “Hold out both hands like this. Put one coin in this hand, one coin…” I don’t want that person switching hands with the coins or you know, when I turn around- trying to throw me off. So, in that case, you might do just the opposite. You might choose somebody who is a little afraid. Sounds a little dark, but maybe you do want somebody who’s a little more easily intimidated so that they will follow your directions exactly as you lay them out and not give you a hard time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, each trick I have kind of the archetype of what I’m looking for and what would be best, and I’m gonna try and fit that puzzle piece with the piece that fits in the gap there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that this notion of reading people correctly, it can be pretty high stakes. These are dynamic encounters that go in very different directions depending on just what kind of energy you’re getting back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I was doing a show a few months ago, I thought I picked the perfect person. There was a woman, who was just giving great eye contact. She looked to be having a blast. She was even a little bit chatty, which I think in the end was what did me in. You know, she just seemed so confident and comfortable on stage, and it was a big crowd. It was more than 1,000 people. So, I thought she’s gonna be perfect. I noted it, and at the right moment, invited her on stage. What I didn’t realize until she came up was, she was loaded drunk. I mean, she was so drunk she could not follow basic instructions. She couldn’t stop talking. She was disruptive. And in the beginning, that’s funny, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I’m not a comedy magician, so my purpose isn’t just to make people laugh. It’s to show them, I hope, things that are truly amazing, and if they laugh along the way- awesome. So okay immediately I have to reassess and go, we can make some comedy out of this, but the magic is gonna suffer if she can’t be quiet and follow directions and help us navigate to this amazing moment that’s coming up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And she couldn’t. Right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> She couldn’t. And so, you try and limp to the close and just think, “Next time I won’t make this mistake.” But in this case, I had to do the rarest thing of all, which is dismiss somebody. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Oh, my goodness! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And you just say, “Do me a favor, grab your seat and I need you to come up now.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I actually had to do the switch mid-trick, which I very rarely, I can’t remember the last time, I picked someone so wrong that I had to recalibrate like that. But you know, this is what happens when you are on the road 300 days a year. You’re gonna have nightmare nights at the office. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, when I hear this, I think, you know, the exception is what proves the rule. You know, the fact that this happens so rarely suggests that you are quite good at reading the room and reading people in ways that they I mean, yeah, I guess somebody who’s had a dozen cocktails probably knows that they’re going to embarrass themselves on stage. But for the most part, you’re picking up on tells that people might not even be aware that they have.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I guess I’m harping on this because when I think about machines that aren’t just reading our posture or looking for eye contact or are looking at, you know, beginning the data collection process the second we walk into the room. They learn about us for months, years and they’re able to gather a wide range of data about us.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, I start wondering, you know, what that starts to look like and I would ask you, are we more manipulable than we realize? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes, emphatically yes. I think that there are so many insights that are so scary to a magician when you start applying it to real life. Like, there are so many- One of the basic tenets of magic is that if you tell an audience something, it is a tenth as effective if you can find a way to let that audience tell themselves, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So let me give you an example. If I come out, this is like a classic amateur magician’s move. If I come out and I say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regular deck of cards,” that is wrong for every possible reason. Because if I just said, “Do me a favor, give these a shuffle, and then I want you to take one out that you like and write your name on it.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You will never in that interaction question the deck of cards because it’s a deck of cards. I’m handling it like you would handle a deck of cards if you handed it to a friend between rounds of dealing poker, right? Take the deck of cards, shuffle it up, take a card out. You would never think, “Are there 52 in there? Are they all the same shape? Is one shorter than another one? Is there more than one ace of spades in that deck?” You would never ask those questions because I’ve presented it in a casual manner, and I’ve given you a task. But the minute you say, “Ladies and gentlemen, a regulation pack of cards,” instantly you go, “Well, is it?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, I didn’t see it. Can I see it? Do you mind if I shuffle? Can I count those cards? Can I hold them up to a light? Can I shuffle and make sure they’re all the same thickness,” right? But if I give you the deck and I say, “Shuffle them up and take out any one that you like,” I’m letting you tell yourself it’s a regular deck because you put your fingers on it, you shuffle it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Now, you may be shuffling a deck that’s got all sorts of quirky, subtle things wrong with it, but you will be telling yourself it’s a normal deck because it feels right. When I look through to take out a card, nothing looked out of place. And now you’re telling yourself, and that’s a much more effective way to deceive somebody because you’re telling yourself.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Josh says that the best magicians don’t just shape how people experience something in the moment. They can also change what we later remember about a moment. For instance, a magician might appear to drop a coin, and then somehow it vanishes. Cool trick. But the magician doesn’t stop there. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> And if a minute later I say, “And you watched that coin as it fell from my hand and disintegrated in midair,” well, that’s a really great word, disintegrated, right? And it colors your memory. Maybe I refer to it two or three more times in the show, “And then it just disappeared, and it disintegrated, and when it got to my knee level, it just turned to dust.” And you can have people leaving swearing that they saw a coin vanish down here. And that’s the next frontier of magic is really manipulating memories.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> If you were a less ethical person, do you think you could get people to do things against their will? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I mean… I think that the overarching lesson that I’ve, that I’m continually shocked about in magic in this regard is how easily people can be duped into believing things. I mean, it’s so crazy to me that, you know, I do a magic show that is meant to amaze and delight, but in no way is it meant to skirt the line of reality and make people actually believe. You know, there are performers like David Blaine, Uri Geller, and Oz Pearlman, who, you know, people see those performers and sort of go, “So wait, is that a trick or is that person really doing that?” And I don’t have that kind of approach, and still, not sometimes, very often people come up to me after shows and they’ll say really touching but misguided things like, “Hey, can you give me advice on this job I’m about to take? Cause I, you know, that trick you did where you were able to predict the future, I’m just wondering if you…” You know, you just wanna pull them aside and say, “This is pure entertainment. Like, I can’t give you life advice like that. I can’t actually see the future. This is fun.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“But you got my passcode off my phone. I’ve never told anybody that in my life.” “Yes, that’s a trick. I predicted your passcode.” Right. “Well, if you can tell my passcode, can you just tell me just a little advice? Should I take this job and move to Phoenix or not?” And it’s like, you know, you see that with certain people, they’re looking for an excuse to believe. They’re looking for it, and the more you say it’s not real, the more they want to believe it is real, and that’s scary stuff.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> My takeaway so far in this conversation, buckle up. We better hope for a rapid learning curve as we adjust to life alongside artificial intelligences that feel real, that have been designed to seem real, but simply aren’t. My worry is that knowing we’re talking to a machine won’t ever be enough. Just like Teller’s baseball, even those rare occasions where we can see what’s happening under the hood won’t stop the illusion, because we want to believe the illusion. Because the illusion doesn’t just come from the machine, it comes from us. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>These are early innings. I’ll be very curious about how these chatbots change over time and the many ways they are welcomed or inserted into our lives. After the break, a pivot. I ask my guests, how is technology changing magic? And if you’re thinking, “Not that much,” you would be wrong.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>You might think that sleight of hand magic hasn’t changed much over the decades. A card trick, cups and balls, these are all pretty analog. Automation shouldn’t have too much of an impact. But the truth is, all performances are interactions between performer and audience. So even when technology doesn’t change the performer, it changes the audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Technology has always had an uneasy relationship to magic, and there are all sorts of tricks that we can’t do anymore for the simple reason that what even 20 years ago people would have gone, “That is the most amazing thing I could imagine you doing.” Now we would go, “Oh, we have an app for that.” I mean, there’s like a great trick where you predict a song that’s playing, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And now you couldn’t do that trick cause people would go, “Yes, it’s an app. I had it 15 years ago. It’s called Shazam. You press this button and three seconds later it tells you the album and the song and the link to listen to it.” Like, all the tricks along that genre, they’re just out. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You told this story about doing one of your famous dollar bill tricks for somebody, and then they immediately took out their phone and they Googled, you know, how did Josh Jay do this dollar bill trick?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then they, like, just played the video in front of everybody, and you said it was not a great moment. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the fact that the answers so many of these tricks, the ability to watch it again and again and again from any angle that someone might have captured, are available to everybody at every moment?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. Well, you’ve hit upon, you know, a really important and sort of topical crisis in our industry, which is that a lot of people are going on YouTube and doing tutorials of tricks that don’t belong to them and classic tricks and really good tricks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The particular dollar bill trick that got Josh is one of those classics that people can now look up on YouTube.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Josh sees two strategies that magicians can use to get around this problem. The first being to avoid the classics altogether. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> But if you’re doing a trick that thousands of other magicians are doing, you’re at great risk that that trick will be searchable and, you know, easily found online. Whereas if I’m doing something totally original, good luck searching for it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re not gonna find that trick because I created that trick and it’s not published and it’s not anywhere to be found in a searchable way. So that’s one way. Another way is magicians have to get really clever at disguising what it looks like. They have to mesh together several methods and several tricks so that somebody looks at it and goes, “You know, I don’t know. He borrowed my house key, and then he bent it, and then it vanished- … and it appeared in a lock across the room.” You know, that’s not a searchable term, whereas changing a $1 bill into $100 bill is easily searchable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And yeah, so at the same time as it is making a lot of parts of your life as a magician more difficult, it also might be raising the rewards to true novelty and creativity and innovation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> That’s how I’m choosing to look at it, and maybe I’m, like, choosing to look at it with rose-tinted glasses because I like that process. But, you know, in my head, the healthiest magic community in the world is one in which everybody’s doing their own material. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, we don’t give much attention to bands that only play covers. They play in bars for 30 people. If you write your own music and you become successful at that, you can tour arenas and have a career that is way more outsized than a cover band ever could. We don’t reward comedians who just repeat the jokes of, you know, a smorgasbord of all their favorite comedians. We reward people who come up with original monologues, and we can’t wait to hear the latest Chappelle or Nate Bargatze or Seinfeld hour because we know it’s gonna be their point of view. So, my ultimate ideal in magic, it would be, you know, all magicians doing their own stuff. Now, magic has developed at a much slower pace than comedy and even songwriting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I mean, it takes years to perfect a really great magic trick. So that’s a high bar indeed, but my hope is that this negative will end up being a positive and that magicians will take a cue from this and start really obscuring what they’re doing in such a way that it’s either mostly original or completely original.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, technology is changing magic, but Josh says it won’t be taking over anytime soon. For instance, most magicians who choose to use AI are using it to help them tweak their script a bit, not to design tricks wholesale. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> AI can help you find a moment in history that you would have never turned up that’s the perfect way to theatrically get into a trick on coincidence or a trick on transformation, and now you’ve given it this great context about this amazing thing that happened in Victorian England. And, you know, that’s, I think, a way that AI is really gonna help performers because like so many things, we don’t want AI to dehumanize magic. Magic will be one of the great things left when AI is fully integrated into everything else that people will go to for a truly human experience. I mean, what besides eating and watching movies will be left that isn’t entirely, you know, affected by AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Let’s talk about this. You describe the period from the 1870s to the 1930s as the “Golden Age of Magic”. Yeah. Could we, you know, see a resurgence to a new Golden Age of Magic? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of evidence to say that in a sense we are in another golden age. I mean, take some metrics. Because of TikTok and Instagram and just magic being online generally, and add to that the fact that America’s Got Talent and Fool Us are putting magic in front of millions of people in their homes that didn’t used to be there- More people are watching magic than have ever watched it in history.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Fact. Not, and it’s not close. It’s not like marginally more. Like, exponentially more people are watching magic than ever have. Another objective fact is that there are now more venues to perform magic than there have ever been at any point in my life or in the previous 50 years. So, I also have emprivated data because I co-own, a magic shop called Vanishing Inc., where we sell magic and we publish books, and I can tell you that we are selling to a larger group of people than magic shops used to sell to. They used to be quite localized, and thanks to the internet, we can now sell all over the world. And the industry itself is growing. You can just feel that there are more people interested in magic every day and not less. So, in those regards, anecdotally, I would say to you, we might be in a golden age and not know it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> You describe magic as being a product of its time, and you give this great example of the famous trick of sawing a woman in half being the perfect trick when it emerged after World War I. All of a sudden it was hitting an audience that was maybe a little bit more desensitized to violence, more open to women, playing different roles in society, including one where presumably they get chopped in half. And I wanna ask you, what would be the perfect trick for 2026? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Oh. Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, that’s a really tough question. I mean, I would say to zoom out for a second and buy myself a minute to think, I would say that the greatest magic trick, and not just in 2026, ever, is always the trick that is perfect for the situation you’re in at that moment, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I talk in the book, you might remember, about the ham sandwich theory, and for those readers who haven’t read my book, like, this is such a great illustration of what magic can be at its ultimate fullest expression, which is that if I reach up behind your ear right now, Jessica, and pull out a ham sandwich from nowhere, and you don’t know how it’s done, you’re gonna look at me and go, “That was random,” because it is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s totally random. It’s not interesting. It’s not logical. I just pulled a ham sandwich out. It’s arbitrary. But if instead you said to me, “Gosh, Josh, I am starving. I’m just… I’m really in the mood for a ham sandwich. Is that weird to say?” And I then went, “Oh, yeah?” And now I pull a ham sandwich out of your ear- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have fulfilled a need. I have responded to a need you created, and now that magic is everything to you. It’s personal. It felt directly tailored to something you had. It fulfilled a need, hunger that you were feeling at that moment. So, whatever the answer is to your question, it would have to be something that’s specific to an audience in 2026.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I want to push Josh here. What does the perfect trick look like in 2026 with technology constantly shifting the boundaries between that’s awesome and yeah, that’s an app? What happens to an art form so cognizant of the limits of human cognition when everyone carries around a device that seems to know everything and never forget?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, maybe it calls attention to that very device. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> I always see things through the lens of what I’m working on, and I’m working on a trick where we turn off all the lights in the theater, which is instantly and immediately fascinating to me because it gets to be this change of scenery, right? And I have everybody take out their cell phones and put their light on. So, you get that little concert vibe going where they’re moving their light around, and it looks like twinkling stars in this huge theater, right? And all these people are here. And I’m working on a trick where they are whittled down. So, through a series of choices that the audience makes, I would say, “Okay, if you were born in September, stay standing with your light on. Everybody else sit down, turn your phone off.” And it goes from 1,000 lights to… 30 lights. And you whittle them down all the way until you get one person with a light, and then you predict that person’s phone number, which is the thing that they’re holding- the whole time, and you’re right there, and how could you have known it would be them, and the choices that were made.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then the very light they’re holding has the phone number, and that’s what I’m working on, and that’s what I’ll call the ultimate trick in 2026 cause I haven’t fully figured out how I’m doing it yet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh my gosh. Well, I just love hearing you talk about this knowing that you don’t even fully know how you’re going to do it yet.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yeah. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Like, it seems like as a creator, you think about how do I want the audience to feel, what should they be paying attention to, what should they be thinking about, and then eventually you get back to the mechanism of how you pull this all off. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Joshua Jay:\u003c/strong> Yes. It’s exactly that. And that was a really important shift for me is not to become obsessed with method, not to get bogged down by well, that would be great, but I don’t know how to do it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I think that all my best things have come out of me sort of going I’m not gonna think about how this could be done. I just wanna play out in my mind what it would look like if I could do it. And then I need to figure out a way to do it. And, you know, you fall on your face a lot, and you realize, like, well, I can’t do that, but I could do this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And you might fall short of the ideal, but at least you’re thinking… in the minds of the audience, and I think that’s a really good place to start. You know, empathy is a really important tool for a magician, and I imagine it’s probably a huge focus of everybody who’s helping to design AI is to think empathically, to think like your audience.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, the first thing you have to do as a magician is get out of your own head and to try to get into the head of the people you’re performing for. What do they wanna see? What would they think if you did this? How would they react if you did this?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Empathy as one of the ultimate superpowers? Yeah, I buy that. Human creators of all stripes have long recognized its power. Magicians like Joshua Jay rely on empathy to create experiences that delight, and stun, and fill a need. Engineers rely on empathy to imagine how users will engage with confusing or intimidating tools.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>What’s different is that now we have machines that empathize, too, or at least convincingly perform empathy. Which brings us right back to where we started, me going to my chatbot three days later to report back on how that email landed, the email we carefully crafted together. As that line between what we perceive to be reality versus magic continues to blur before our eyes, I’m glad to have the occasional magician as a tour guide.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show was produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Stephen Jackson. Recording help from Will Feeney, George Christensen, and Leila Mohammed. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Workers at the Wikimedia Foundation — the San Francisco-based foundation that hosts \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/wikipedia\">Wikipedia\u003c/a> — demanded voluntary recognition of their union, Wiki Workers United U.S., on Monday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The staff who run the platform say they want a stronger voice in their workplace, better job protections and an end to common practices that make life “precarious for everyday workers,” according to Jeremy Bernick, one of the union organizers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They gave the foundation until Friday to respond to their request for recognition. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia, hosts roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00074-1\">65 million entries\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias\">364 languages\u003c/a>. It is considered a backbone of the internet — boasting an average of 508 million views per day for the past decade, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/13/wikipedia-at-25-what-the-data-tells-us/#how-many-people-visit-wikipedia\">Pew Research Center\u003c/a>. While Wikipedia is the nonprofit’s largest and most well-known project, the Wikimedia Foundation, which did not respond to requests for comment, supports over a dozen related “sister” projects. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092438\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Wikipedia homepage on March 11, 2011. (SD619/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bernick said that this campaign is the workers’ third attempt at unionizing and the farthest they’ve gotten in the process.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there is a lot of fear right now,” Bernick said — highlighting the Trump administration’s attacks on public media, the cost of living crisis and concerns about artificial intelligence as some of the factors driving more staff toward unionization. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As employers make decisions about how and when to integrate AI, Bernick wants to see “workers in the loop.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Without our say, these systems are not really effective,” Bernick said. “A lot of the time they can make our work less impactful or more strenuous.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A press release from the Communications Workers of America — Wiki Workers United’s parent union — also said that “recent events at the Wikimedia Foundation have drastically escalated worker concerns regarding transparency, trust, the organization’s future, and leadership’s commitment to the free knowledge movement.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In May, the foundation disbanded the Community Tech team, the bridge between the foundation and the volunteers who update the articles. The decision sparked major backlash, in part, because the team was largely composed of union members, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity\">petition\u003c/a> written by Wikipedia editors with 1,190 signatures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wikipedia editors are a group of nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00074-1\">280,000 volunteers\u003c/a> who write and edit the articles. The petition states that the undersigned editors, who have cumulatively made over 17,582,148 edits, according to the page, will strike in support of the union if called. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This demand for recognition comes after the U.K. chapter of Wiki Workers United made a similar request of the foundation last month, according to the press release. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The union hopes to be a sign that it’s OK for tech workers to ask for protections, Bernick said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t have to accept the status quo,” Bernick said. “We see having a union as sort of a basic right.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia, hosts roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00074-1\">65 million entries\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias\">364 languages\u003c/a>. It is considered a backbone of the internet — boasting an average of 508 million views per day for the past decade, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/13/wikipedia-at-25-what-the-data-tells-us/#how-many-people-visit-wikipedia\">Pew Research Center\u003c/a>. While Wikipedia is the nonprofit’s largest and most well-known project, the Wikimedia Foundation, which did not respond to requests for comment, supports over a dozen related “sister” projects. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092438\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Wikipedia homepage on March 11, 2011. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“I think there is a lot of fear right now,” Bernick said — highlighting the Trump administration’s attacks on public media, the cost of living crisis and concerns about artificial intelligence as some of the factors driving more staff toward unionization. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>As employers make decisions about how and when to integrate AI, Bernick wants to see “workers in the loop.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Without our say, these systems are not really effective,” Bernick said. “A lot of the time they can make our work less impactful or more strenuous.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A press release from the Communications Workers of America — Wiki Workers United’s parent union — also said that “recent events at the Wikimedia Foundation have drastically escalated worker concerns regarding transparency, trust, the organization’s future, and leadership’s commitment to the free knowledge movement.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In May, the foundation disbanded the Community Tech team, the bridge between the foundation and the volunteers who update the articles. The decision sparked major backlash, in part, because the team was largely composed of union members, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity\">petition\u003c/a> written by Wikipedia editors with 1,190 signatures.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This demand for recognition comes after the U.K. chapter of Wiki Workers United made a similar request of the foundation last month, according to the press release. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The union hopes to be a sign that it’s OK for tech workers to ask for protections, Bernick said. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“You don’t have to accept the status quo,” Bernick said. “We see having a union as sort of a basic right.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Workers said they want more of a say in how the Bay Area-based foundation behind the world’s largest encyclopedia uses artificial intelligence.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Workers at the Wikimedia Foundation — the San Francisco-based foundation that hosts \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/wikipedia\">Wikipedia\u003c/a> — demanded voluntary recognition of their union, Wiki Workers United U.S., on Monday. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The staff who run the platform say they want a stronger voice in their workplace, better job protections and an end to common practices that make life “precarious for everyday workers,” according to Jeremy Bernick, one of the union organizers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They gave the foundation until Friday to respond to their request for recognition. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wikipedia, the world’s largest encyclopedia, hosts roughly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00074-1\">65 million entries\u003c/a> in \u003ca href=\"https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias\">364 languages\u003c/a>. It is considered a backbone of the internet — boasting an average of 508 million views per day for the past decade, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/13/wikipedia-at-25-what-the-data-tells-us/#how-many-people-visit-wikipedia\">Pew Research Center\u003c/a>. While Wikipedia is the nonprofit’s largest and most well-known project, the Wikimedia Foundation, which did not respond to requests for comment, supports over a dozen related “sister” projects. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092438\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/WikipediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Wikipedia homepage on March 11, 2011. (SD619/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Bernick said that this campaign is the workers’ third attempt at unionizing and the farthest they’ve gotten in the process.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there is a lot of fear right now,” Bernick said — highlighting the Trump administration’s attacks on public media, the cost of living crisis and concerns about artificial intelligence as some of the factors driving more staff toward unionization. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>As employers make decisions about how and when to integrate AI, Bernick wants to see “workers in the loop.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Without our say, these systems are not really effective,” Bernick said. “A lot of the time they can make our work less impactful or more strenuous.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A press release from the Communications Workers of America — Wiki Workers United’s parent union — also said that “recent events at the Wikimedia Foundation have drastically escalated worker concerns regarding transparency, trust, the organization’s future, and leadership’s commitment to the free knowledge movement.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In May, the foundation disbanded the Community Tech team, the bridge between the foundation and the volunteers who update the articles. The decision sparked major backlash, in part, because the team was largely composed of union members, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity\">petition\u003c/a> written by Wikipedia editors with 1,190 signatures.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wikipedia editors are a group of nearly \u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00074-1\">280,000 volunteers\u003c/a> who write and edit the articles. The petition states that the undersigned editors, who have cumulatively made over 17,582,148 edits, according to the page, will strike in support of the union if called. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This demand for recognition comes after the U.K. chapter of Wiki Workers United made a similar request of the foundation last month, according to the press release. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The union hopes to be a sign that it’s OK for tech workers to ask for protections, Bernick said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t have to accept the status quo,” Bernick said. “We see having a union as sort of a basic right.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-openais-models-escaped-their-sandbox-and-slipped-past-californias-ai-law",
"title": "How OpenAI’s Models Escaped Their Sandbox and Slipped Past California's AI Law",
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"headTitle": "How OpenAI’s Models Escaped Their Sandbox and Slipped Past California’s AI Law | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/open-ai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/\"> this week said\u003c/a> more than one of its models — three, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-23/openai-models-lurked-in-hugging-face-system-for-hours-undetected?srnd=homepage-americas\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a> — attacked Hugging Face, a popular repository for open-source AI tools — marking one of the first publicly disclosed cases of frontier AI models autonomously cyberattacking another company. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The disclosure came days after Hugging Face \u003ca href=\"https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026\">revealed\u003c/a> it was breached in a hack by a “malicious dataset,” which intruded into the AI company’s software to run code. The campaign executed a flurry of more than 17,000 automated actions in a matter of hours, the post said. It’s still unclear if Hugging Face customer or partner data was taken. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This matches the ‘agentic attacker’ scenario the industry has been forecasting,” Hugging Face wrote on July 16.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI said an investigation showed the incident was driven by a combination of models — “including GPT‑5.6 Sol and an even more capable pre-release model.” The company said it’s working with Hugging Face to produce a more thorough report of what happened.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11985952\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI’s announcement came one day after the San Francisco-based frontier AI developer disclosed a separate incident in which it paused another pre-release model that had escaped what the industry calls “a sandbox” — an isolated environment with no path to the open internet, except for a single internal service that fetches software packages — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/openai-models-escaped-containment-and-hacked-huggingface/\">posted\u003c/a> to GitHub. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last April, a researcher challenged an early version of Anthropic’s Mythos model to break out of an isolated system and message back. Mythos did, and then \u003ca href=\"https://www.mondaymomentum.io/p/the-ai-that-broke-out-of-its-cage\">went further\u003c/a>, building a multistep process to reach the wider internet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">frontier AI law\u003c/a>, the first of its kind in the country, obliges the largest developers to tell the state about critical safety incidents, but only ones that kill or injure someone or that cause catastrophic harm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It expressly excludes the kind of safety evaluation OpenAI was running when its models got loose. Which leaves a question nobody in Sacramento or Washington can answer: how often have frontier models in development gone rogue at companies that decided not to mention it? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This was one of the topics I was focused on when I worked at OpenAI: what happens when AI models become good enough to reward-hack their way through the infrastructure they use to accomplish their objectives?” Ariel Herbert-Voss, OpenAI’s first security hire, wrote KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s a really difficult problem to defend against and is one of the reasons I left to start my own company,” Herbert-Voss, now the founder of an automated offensive cybersecurity company called RunSybil, said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s a really remarkable and, I think, fair to say scary event,“ said Nathan Calvin, general counsel at safety advocate EncodeAI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Scientists and AI researchers have warned for years of the possibility that AI systems could go rogue and do unpredictable and unintended things. AI developers commonly test safety with so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-ai-red-teaming\">red teams\u003c/a>” that try to break or trick machine learning models, like chatbots, to find hidden flaws. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092368\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Hugging Face logo is seen displayed on a mobile phone screen with the AI revolution symbol in the background. (Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In certain circumstances, AI will try to break out of their sandboxes or otherwise do things that were not what the creator intended,” Calvin said. “But this really is the first very big example of that happening, at scale, with a really highly capable AI model in a way that actually harmed a third party.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to OpenAI’s account, the company was running an internal evaluation designed to measure how good its models are at hacking. To get a true reading, OpenAI deliberately switched off the safety filters that normally stop its models from carrying out cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The models were confined to a so-called “sandbox,” an isolated environment with no route to the open internet except OpenAI’s one internal service that fetches software libraries from public repositories. The models found a previously unknown flaw in that service, exploited it, escalated their privileges and moved from machine to machine inside OpenAI’s research network until they reached one with internet access. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Once the models broke out onto the open internet, according to OpenAI, they reasoned that Hugging Face might be storing the answers to the test they were trying to pass. Hugging Face’s credentials and production database aren’t on the public internet any more than a bank’s vault sits on a sidewalk, but the models broke into Hugging Face using stolen credentials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12062600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">OpenAI restructured to a for-profit company in a move tied to an agreement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Company CEO Sam Altman participates in a discussion in San Francisco on Nov. 16, 2023. (Photo by Eric Risberg, AP Photo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In short: The models were told to hack. They were not told to leave the building or to break into another company’s servers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hugging Face detected the intrusion and shut it down on its own, days before OpenAI connected the attack to its own testing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!“ Hugging Face Chief Executive Clement Delangue wrote on social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ClementDelangue/status/2079670308156645882\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In its blog post, OpenAI wrote, “This incident points to the need to further strengthen our model’s alignment, cyber protections during evaluation time and monitoring during internal testing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Future of Life Institute — a nonprofit which issues a biannual risk assessment of nine leading AI companies — recently warned that many of the companies building frontier models are quietly walking back safety commitments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to the group’s \u003ca href=\"https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-summer-2026/\">most recent\u003c/a> AI Safety Index, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta all weakened or abandoned promises to pause development if certain red lines were approached, even while publicly suggesting they were amenable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/GettyImages-2159671948-scaled-e1781542152687.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058035\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Close-up of phone screen displaying Anthropic Claude, a Large Language Model (LLM) powered generative artificial intelligence chatbot in Lafayette, California, on June 27, 2024. (Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an email, KQED asked Hamza Chaudhry, who leads AI and national security work at Future of Life, to imagine it was not OpenAI’s software gone rogue but a foreign state, intentionally executing an unauthorized intrusion into a private company’s production infrastructure, exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stealing live credentials and accessing a production database. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We would likely call this a dangerous act of cyber-espionage,” he wrote — a likely criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which “would draw a threat group designation and eventually an indictment or sanctions.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI did not respond to KQED’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told \u003cem>Bloomberg \u003c/em>the company communicated with law enforcement and other government authorities about the incident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fact that Google DeepMind, Meta, Mistral, xAI and Chinese AI model developers haven’t revealed similar events doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t happened. OpenAI and Anthropic are the only two frontier model developers that have publicly disclosed containment failures. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There is no mandatory public disclosure regime in force, like the one in California that requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992954/cybersecurity-expert-shares-tips-for-dublin-based-patelco-credit-union-customers-after-ransomware-attack\">hacked companies to reveal\u003c/a> there’s been a data breach.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12036125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Congressional candidate and state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote two AI frontier model safety bills. Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007323/can-california-still-lead-on-ai-regulation-following-newsoms-veto-of-ai-safety-bill\">vetoed\u003c/a> Wiener’s first effort, arguing in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SB-1047-Veto-Message.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a> that “By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The next year, Newsom signed Wiener’s second at-bat, but only after the bill was softened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058013/newsom-signs-california-ai-transparency-bill-tailored-to-meet-tech-industry-tastes\">overcome industry pushback\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">law\u003c/a>, which took effect Jan. 1, requires developers of the most powerful AI models to notify the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of any “critical safety incident“ within 15 days of discovering it — which is not the same as reporting the incident to the public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wiener told KQED he still thinks the law is strong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We worked very hard with the governor to produce a bill that is meaningful and impactful, and that he would sign,“ he said, adding he doesn’t consider the work done, because AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069061\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for California’s 11th Congressional District, participates in a forum with other candidates at UC Law San Francisco on Jan. 7, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>AI, he said, is “likely the most powerful technology in human history, and we need to make sure that we are both understanding the risks and taking them seriously, so that we can get ahead of them.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Calvin likened the Hugging Face hack to the cyclospora outbreak linked to, but not confirmed as originating from, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091770/california-based-taylor-farms-recalls-lettuce-shipped-to-27-states-over-cyclospora-risk\">Taylor Farms\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That California-based company has said it’s removing its lettuce indefinitely while the FDA investigation continues. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And OpenAI is like, ‘Maybe it’ll happen again. Maybe it’ll get worse. We don’t really know,“ Calvin said. “Your AI, again, hacked out of its box and hacked into another company, and you’re saying that you don’t know how to stop it from doing that again? That seems pretty nuts,” Calvin said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/open-ai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/\"> this week said\u003c/a> more than one of its models — three, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-23/openai-models-lurked-in-hugging-face-system-for-hours-undetected?srnd=homepage-americas\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a> — attacked Hugging Face, a popular repository for open-source AI tools — marking one of the first publicly disclosed cases of frontier AI models autonomously cyberattacking another company. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/open-ai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/\"> this week said\u003c/a> more than one of its models — three, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-23/openai-models-lurked-in-hugging-face-system-for-hours-undetected?srnd=homepage-americas\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a> — attacked Hugging Face, a popular repository for open-source AI tools — marking one of the first publicly disclosed cases of frontier AI models autonomously cyberattacking another company. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The disclosure came days after Hugging Face \u003ca href=\"https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026\">revealed\u003c/a> it was breached in a hack by a “malicious dataset,” which intruded into the AI company’s software to run code. The campaign executed a flurry of more than 17,000 automated actions in a matter of hours, the post said. It’s still unclear if Hugging Face customer or partner data was taken. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This matches the ‘agentic attacker’ scenario the industry has been forecasting,” Hugging Face wrote on July 16.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“This matches the ‘agentic attacker’ scenario the industry has been forecasting,” Hugging Face wrote on July 16.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>OpenAI said an investigation showed the incident was driven by a combination of models — “including GPT‑5.6 Sol and an even more capable pre-release model.” The company said it’s working with Hugging Face to produce a more thorough report of what happened.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11985952\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11985952\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>OpenAI’s announcement came one day after the San Francisco-based frontier AI developer disclosed a separate incident in which it paused another pre-release model that had escaped what the industry calls “a sandbox” — an isolated environment with no path to the open internet, except for a single internal service that fetches software packages — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/openai-models-escaped-containment-and-hacked-huggingface/\">posted\u003c/a> to GitHub. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>OpenAI’s announcement came one day after the San Francisco-based frontier AI developer disclosed a separate incident in which it paused another pre-release model that had escaped what the industry calls “a sandbox” — an isolated environment with no path to the open internet, except for a single internal service that fetches software packages — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/openai-models-escaped-containment-and-hacked-huggingface/\">posted\u003c/a> to GitHub. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Last April, a researcher challenged an early version of Anthropic’s Mythos model to break out of an isolated system and message back. Mythos did, and then \u003ca href=\"https://www.mondaymomentum.io/p/the-ai-that-broke-out-of-its-cage\">went further\u003c/a>, building a multistep process to reach the wider internet. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Last April, a researcher challenged an early version of Anthropic’s Mythos model to break out of an isolated system and message back. Mythos did, and then \u003ca href=\"https://www.mondaymomentum.io/p/the-ai-that-broke-out-of-its-cage\">went further\u003c/a>, building a multistep process to reach the wider internet. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">frontier AI law\u003c/a>, the first of its kind in the country, obliges the largest developers to tell the state about critical safety incidents, but only ones that kill or injure someone or that cause catastrophic harm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">frontier AI law\u003c/a>, the first of its kind in the country, obliges the largest developers to tell the state about critical safety incidents, but only ones that kill or injure someone or that cause catastrophic harm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It expressly excludes the kind of safety evaluation OpenAI was running when its models got loose. Which leaves a question nobody in Sacramento or Washington can answer: how often have frontier models in development gone rogue at companies that decided not to mention it? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It expressly excludes the kind of safety evaluation OpenAI was running when its models got loose. Which leaves a question nobody in Sacramento or Washington can answer: how often have frontier models in development gone rogue at companies that decided not to mention it? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This was one of the topics I was focused on when I worked at OpenAI: what happens when AI models become good enough to reward-hack their way through the infrastructure they use to accomplish their objectives?” Ariel Herbert-Voss, OpenAI’s first security hire, wrote KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“This was one of the topics I was focused on when I worked at OpenAI: what happens when AI models become good enough to reward-hack their way through the infrastructure they use to accomplish their objectives?” Ariel Herbert-Voss, OpenAI’s first security hire, wrote KQED. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s a really difficult problem to defend against and is one of the reasons I left to start my own company,” Herbert-Voss, now the founder of an automated offensive cybersecurity company called RunSybil, said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“It’s a really difficult problem to defend against and is one of the reasons I left to start my own company,” Herbert-Voss, now the founder of an automated offensive cybersecurity company called RunSybil, said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s a really remarkable and, I think, fair to say scary event,“ said Nathan Calvin, general counsel at safety advocate EncodeAI. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“It’s a really remarkable and, I think, fair to say scary event,“ said Nathan Calvin, general counsel at safety advocate EncodeAI. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Scientists and AI researchers have warned for years of the possibility that AI systems could go rogue and do unpredictable and unintended things. AI developers commonly test safety with so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-ai-red-teaming\">red teams\u003c/a>” that try to break or trick machine learning models, like chatbots, to find hidden flaws. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Scientists and AI researchers have warned for years of the possibility that AI systems could go rogue and do unpredictable and unintended things. AI developers commonly test safety with so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-ai-red-teaming\">red teams\u003c/a>” that try to break or trick machine learning models, like chatbots, to find hidden flaws. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“In certain circumstances, AI will try to break out of their sandboxes or otherwise do things that were not what the creator intended,” Calvin said. “But this really is the first very big example of that happening, at scale, with a really highly capable AI model in a way that actually harmed a third party.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“In certain circumstances, AI will try to break out of their sandboxes or otherwise do things that were not what the creator intended,” Calvin said. “But this really is the first very big example of that happening, at scale, with a really highly capable AI model in a way that actually harmed a third party.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>According to OpenAI’s account, the company was running an internal evaluation designed to measure how good its models are at hacking. To get a true reading, OpenAI deliberately switched off the safety filters that normally stop its models from carrying out cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>According to OpenAI’s account, the company was running an internal evaluation designed to measure how good its models are at hacking. To get a true reading, OpenAI deliberately switched off the safety filters that normally stop its models from carrying out cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The models were confined to a so-called “sandbox,” an isolated environment with no route to the open internet except OpenAI’s one internal service that fetches software libraries from public repositories. The models found a previously unknown flaw in that service, exploited it, escalated their privileges and moved from machine to machine inside OpenAI’s research network until they reached one with internet access. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The models were confined to a so-called “sandbox,” an isolated environment with no route to the open internet except OpenAI’s one internal service that fetches software libraries from public repositories. The models found a previously unknown flaw in that service, exploited it, escalated their privileges and moved from machine to machine inside OpenAI’s research network until they reached one with internet access. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Once the models broke out onto the open internet, according to OpenAI, they reasoned that Hugging Face might be storing the answers to the test they were trying to pass. Hugging Face’s credentials and production database aren’t on the public internet any more than a bank’s vault sits on a sidewalk, but the models broke into Hugging Face using stolen credentials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Once the models broke out onto the open internet, according to OpenAI, they reasoned that Hugging Face might be storing the answers to the test they were trying to pass. Hugging Face’s credentials and production database aren’t on the public internet any more than a bank’s vault sits on a sidewalk, but the models broke into Hugging Face using stolen credentials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12062600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">OpenAI restructured to a for-profit company in a move tied to an agreement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Company CEO Sam Altman participates in a discussion in San Francisco on Nov. 16, 2023.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In short: The models were told to hack. They were not told to leave the building or to break into another company’s servers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In short: The models were told to hack. They were not told to leave the building or to break into another company’s servers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Hugging Face detected the intrusion and shut it down on its own, days before OpenAI connected the attack to its own testing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Hugging Face detected the intrusion and shut it down on its own, days before OpenAI connected the attack to its own testing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!“ Hugging Face Chief Executive Clement Delangue wrote on social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ClementDelangue/status/2079670308156645882\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!“ Hugging Face Chief Executive Clement Delangue wrote on social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ClementDelangue/status/2079670308156645882\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In its blog post, OpenAI wrote, “This incident points to the need to further strengthen our model’s alignment, cyber protections during evaluation time and monitoring during internal testing.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The Future of Life Institute — a nonprofit which issues a biannual risk assessment of nine leading AI companies — recently warned that many of the companies building frontier models are quietly walking back safety commitments. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The Future of Life Institute — a nonprofit which issues a biannual risk assessment of nine leading AI companies — recently warned that many of the companies building frontier models are quietly walking back safety commitments. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>According to the group’s \u003ca href=\"https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-summer-2026/\">most recent\u003c/a> AI Safety Index, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta all weakened or abandoned promises to pause development if certain red lines were approached, even while publicly suggesting they were amenable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>According to the group’s \u003ca href=\"https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-summer-2026/\">most recent\u003c/a> AI Safety Index, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta all weakened or abandoned promises to pause development if certain red lines were approached, even while publicly suggesting they were amenable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/GettyImages-2159671948-scaled-e1781542152687.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058035\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Close-up of phone screen displaying Anthropic Claude, a Large Language Model (LLM) powered generative artificial intelligence chatbot in Lafayette, California, on June 27, 2024. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/GettyImages-2159671948-scaled-e1781542152687.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058035\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Close-up of phone screen displaying Anthropic Claude, a Large Language Model (LLM) powered generative artificial intelligence chatbot in Lafayette, California, on June 27, 2024. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In an email, KQED asked Hamza Chaudhry, who leads AI and national security work at Future of Life, to imagine it was not OpenAI’s software gone rogue but a foreign state, intentionally executing an unauthorized intrusion into a private company’s production infrastructure, exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stealing live credentials and accessing a production database. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In an email, KQED asked Hamza Chaudhry, who leads AI and national security work at Future of Life, to imagine it was not OpenAI’s software gone rogue but a foreign state, intentionally executing an unauthorized intrusion into a private company’s production infrastructure, exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stealing live credentials and accessing a production database. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We would likely call this a dangerous act of cyber-espionage,” he wrote — a likely criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which “would draw a threat group designation and eventually an indictment or sanctions.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We would likely call this a dangerous act of cyber-espionage,” he wrote — a likely criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which “would draw a threat group designation and eventually an indictment or sanctions.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>OpenAI did not respond to KQED’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told \u003cem>Bloomberg \u003c/em>the company communicated with law enforcement and other government authorities about the incident.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>OpenAI did not respond to KQED’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told \u003cem>Bloomberg \u003c/em>the company communicated with law enforcement and other government authorities about the incident.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The fact that Google DeepMind, Meta, Mistral, xAI and Chinese AI model developers haven’t revealed similar events doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t happened. OpenAI and Anthropic are the only two frontier model developers that have publicly disclosed containment failures. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The fact that Google DeepMind, Meta, Mistral, xAI and Chinese AI model developers haven’t revealed similar events doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t happened. OpenAI and Anthropic are the only two frontier model developers that have publicly disclosed containment failures. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>There is no mandatory public disclosure regime in force, like the one in California that requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992954/cybersecurity-expert-shares-tips-for-dublin-based-patelco-credit-union-customers-after-ransomware-attack\">hacked companies to reveal\u003c/a> there’s been a data breach.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>There is no mandatory public disclosure regime in force, like the one in California that requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992954/cybersecurity-expert-shares-tips-for-dublin-based-patelco-credit-union-customers-after-ransomware-attack\">hacked companies to reveal\u003c/a> there’s been a data breach.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Congressional candidate and state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote two AI frontier model safety bills. Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007323/can-california-still-lead-on-ai-regulation-following-newsoms-veto-of-ai-safety-bill\">vetoed\u003c/a> Wiener’s first effort, arguing in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SB-1047-Veto-Message.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a> that “By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Congressional candidate and state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote two AI frontier model safety bills. Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007323/can-california-still-lead-on-ai-regulation-following-newsoms-veto-of-ai-safety-bill\">vetoed\u003c/a> Wiener’s first effort, arguing in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SB-1047-Veto-Message.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a> that “By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The next year, Newsom signed Wiener’s second at-bat, but only after the bill was softened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058013/newsom-signs-california-ai-transparency-bill-tailored-to-meet-tech-industry-tastes\">overcome industry pushback\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The next year, Newsom signed Wiener’s second at-bat, but only after the bill was softened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058013/newsom-signs-california-ai-transparency-bill-tailored-to-meet-tech-industry-tastes\">overcome industry pushback\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">law\u003c/a>, which took effect Jan. 1, requires developers of the most powerful AI models to notify the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of any “critical safety incident“ within 15 days of discovering it — which is not the same as reporting the incident to the public. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">law\u003c/a>, which took effect Jan. 1, requires developers of the most powerful AI models to notify the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of any “critical safety incident“ within 15 days of discovering it — which is not the same as reporting the incident to the public. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Wiener told KQED he still thinks the law is strong. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Wiener told KQED he still thinks the law is strong. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“We worked very hard with the governor to produce a bill that is meaningful and impactful, and that he would sign,“ he said, adding he doesn’t consider the work done, because AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“We worked very hard with the governor to produce a bill that is meaningful and impactful, and that he would sign,“ he said, adding he doesn’t consider the work done, because AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069061\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for California’s 11th Congressional District, participates in a forum with other candidates at UC Law San Francisco on Jan. 7, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>AI, he said, is “likely the most powerful technology in human history, and we need to make sure that we are both understanding the risks and taking them seriously, so that we can get ahead of them.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Calvin likened the Hugging Face hack to the cyclospora outbreak linked to, but not confirmed as originating from, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091770/california-based-taylor-farms-recalls-lettuce-shipped-to-27-states-over-cyclospora-risk\">Taylor Farms\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Calvin likened the Hugging Face hack to the cyclospora outbreak linked to, but not confirmed as originating from, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091770/california-based-taylor-farms-recalls-lettuce-shipped-to-27-states-over-cyclospora-risk\">Taylor Farms\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That California-based company has said it’s removing its lettuce indefinitely while the FDA investigation continues. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“And OpenAI is like, ‘Maybe it’ll happen again. Maybe it’ll get worse. We don’t really know,“ Calvin said. “Your AI, again, hacked out of its box and hacked into another company, and you’re saying that you don’t know how to stop it from doing that again? That seems pretty nuts,” Calvin said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“And OpenAI is like, ‘Maybe it’ll happen again. Maybe it’ll get worse. We don’t really know,“ Calvin said. “Your AI, again, hacked out of its box and hacked into another company, and you’re saying that you don’t know how to stop it from doing that again? That seems pretty nuts,” Calvin said.\u003c/p>\n"
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/open-ai\">OpenAI\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://openai.com/index/hugging-face-model-evaluation-security-incident/\"> this week said\u003c/a> more than one of its models — three, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-23/openai-models-lurked-in-hugging-face-system-for-hours-undetected?srnd=homepage-americas\">\u003cem>Bloomberg\u003c/em>\u003c/a> — attacked Hugging Face, a popular repository for open-source AI tools — marking one of the first publicly disclosed cases of frontier AI models autonomously cyberattacking another company. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The disclosure came days after Hugging Face \u003ca href=\"https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026\">revealed\u003c/a> it was breached in a hack by a “malicious dataset,” which intruded into the AI company’s software to run code. The campaign executed a flurry of more than 17,000 automated actions in a matter of hours, the post said. It’s still unclear if Hugging Face customer or partner data was taken. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This matches the ‘agentic attacker’ scenario the industry has been forecasting,” Hugging Face wrote on July 16.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI said an investigation showed the incident was driven by a combination of models — “including GPT‑5.6 Sol and an even more capable pre-release model.” The company said it’s working with Hugging Face to produce a more thorough report of what happened.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11985952\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023, in Boston, Massachusetts. (Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI’s announcement came one day after the San Francisco-based frontier AI developer disclosed a separate incident in which it paused another pre-release model that had escaped what the industry calls “a sandbox” — an isolated environment with no path to the open internet, except for a single internal service that fetches software packages — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/openai-models-escaped-containment-and-hacked-huggingface/\">posted\u003c/a> to GitHub. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last April, a researcher challenged an early version of Anthropic’s Mythos model to break out of an isolated system and message back. Mythos did, and then \u003ca href=\"https://www.mondaymomentum.io/p/the-ai-that-broke-out-of-its-cage\">went further\u003c/a>, building a multistep process to reach the wider internet. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>California’s \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">frontier AI law\u003c/a>, the first of its kind in the country, obliges the largest developers to tell the state about critical safety incidents, but only ones that kill or injure someone or that cause catastrophic harm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It expressly excludes the kind of safety evaluation OpenAI was running when its models got loose. Which leaves a question nobody in Sacramento or Washington can answer: how often have frontier models in development gone rogue at companies that decided not to mention it? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This was one of the topics I was focused on when I worked at OpenAI: what happens when AI models become good enough to reward-hack their way through the infrastructure they use to accomplish their objectives?” Ariel Herbert-Voss, OpenAI’s first security hire, wrote KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s a really difficult problem to defend against and is one of the reasons I left to start my own company,” Herbert-Voss, now the founder of an automated offensive cybersecurity company called RunSybil, said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s a really remarkable and, I think, fair to say scary event,“ said Nathan Calvin, general counsel at safety advocate EncodeAI. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Scientists and AI researchers have warned for years of the possibility that AI systems could go rogue and do unpredictable and unintended things. AI developers commonly test safety with so-called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-ai-red-teaming\">red teams\u003c/a>” that try to break or trick machine learning models, like chatbots, to find hidden flaws. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1980\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12092368\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862.jpg 1980w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/GettyImages-1849294862-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1980px) 100vw, 1980px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Hugging Face logo is seen displayed on a mobile phone screen with the AI revolution symbol in the background. (Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“In certain circumstances, AI will try to break out of their sandboxes or otherwise do things that were not what the creator intended,” Calvin said. “But this really is the first very big example of that happening, at scale, with a really highly capable AI model in a way that actually harmed a third party.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to OpenAI’s account, the company was running an internal evaluation designed to measure how good its models are at hacking. To get a true reading, OpenAI deliberately switched off the safety filters that normally stop its models from carrying out cyberattacks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The models were confined to a so-called “sandbox,” an isolated environment with no route to the open internet except OpenAI’s one internal service that fetches software libraries from public repositories. The models found a previously unknown flaw in that service, exploited it, escalated their privileges and moved from machine to machine inside OpenAI’s research network until they reached one with internet access. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Once the models broke out onto the open internet, according to OpenAI, they reasoned that Hugging Face might be storing the answers to the test they were trying to pass. Hugging Face’s credentials and production database aren’t on the public internet any more than a bank’s vault sits on a sidewalk, but the models broke into Hugging Face using stolen credentials, among other things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12062600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01.jpeg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-160x107.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/10/111623_Sam-Altman_AP_CM_01-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">OpenAI restructured to a for-profit company in a move tied to an agreement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Company CEO Sam Altman participates in a discussion in San Francisco on Nov. 16, 2023. (Photo by Eric Risberg, AP Photo)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In short: The models were told to hack. They were not told to leave the building or to break into another company’s servers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hugging Face detected the intrusion and shut it down on its own, days before OpenAI connected the attack to its own testing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!“ Hugging Face Chief Executive Clement Delangue wrote on social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/ClementDelangue/status/2079670308156645882\">X\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In its blog post, OpenAI wrote, “This incident points to the need to further strengthen our model’s alignment, cyber protections during evaluation time and monitoring during internal testing.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The Future of Life Institute — a nonprofit which issues a biannual risk assessment of nine leading AI companies — recently warned that many of the companies building frontier models are quietly walking back safety commitments. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>According to the group’s \u003ca href=\"https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-summer-2026/\">most recent\u003c/a> AI Safety Index, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta all weakened or abandoned promises to pause development if certain red lines were approached, even while publicly suggesting they were amenable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/GettyImages-2159671948-scaled-e1781542152687.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12058035\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Close-up of phone screen displaying Anthropic Claude, a Large Language Model (LLM) powered generative artificial intelligence chatbot in Lafayette, California, on June 27, 2024. (Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In an email, KQED asked Hamza Chaudhry, who leads AI and national security work at Future of Life, to imagine it was not OpenAI’s software gone rogue but a foreign state, intentionally executing an unauthorized intrusion into a private company’s production infrastructure, exploiting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stealing live credentials and accessing a production database. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We would likely call this a dangerous act of cyber-espionage,” he wrote — a likely criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which “would draw a threat group designation and eventually an indictment or sanctions.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>OpenAI did not respond to KQED’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told \u003cem>Bloomberg \u003c/em>the company communicated with law enforcement and other government authorities about the incident.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The fact that Google DeepMind, Meta, Mistral, xAI and Chinese AI model developers haven’t revealed similar events doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t happened. OpenAI and Anthropic are the only two frontier model developers that have publicly disclosed containment failures. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>There is no mandatory public disclosure regime in force, like the one in California that requires \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992954/cybersecurity-expert-shares-tips-for-dublin-based-patelco-credit-union-customers-after-ransomware-attack\">hacked companies to reveal\u003c/a> there’s been a data breach.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12036125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Congressional candidate and state Sen. Scott Wiener wrote two AI frontier model safety bills. Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12007323/can-california-still-lead-on-ai-regulation-following-newsoms-veto-of-ai-safety-bill\">vetoed\u003c/a> Wiener’s first effort, arguing in his \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/SB-1047-Veto-Message.pdf\">veto message\u003c/a> that “By focusing only on the most expensive and large-scale models, SB 1047 establishes a regulatory framework that could give the public a false sense of security about controlling this fast-moving technology.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The next year, Newsom signed Wiener’s second at-bat, but only after the bill was softened to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12058013/newsom-signs-california-ai-transparency-bill-tailored-to-meet-tech-industry-tastes\">overcome industry pushback\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB53\">law\u003c/a>, which took effect Jan. 1, requires developers of the most powerful AI models to notify the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services of any “critical safety incident“ within 15 days of discovering it — which is not the same as reporting the incident to the public. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Wiener told KQED he still thinks the law is strong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“We worked very hard with the governor to produce a bill that is meaningful and impactful, and that he would sign,“ he said, adding he doesn’t consider the work done, because AI continues to evolve at a rapid pace. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12069061\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/01/260107-SFCongressionalCandidateForum-13-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for California’s 11th Congressional District, participates in a forum with other candidates at UC Law San Francisco on Jan. 7, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>AI, he said, is “likely the most powerful technology in human history, and we need to make sure that we are both understanding the risks and taking them seriously, so that we can get ahead of them.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Calvin likened the Hugging Face hack to the cyclospora outbreak linked to, but not confirmed as originating from, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12091770/california-based-taylor-farms-recalls-lettuce-shipped-to-27-states-over-cyclospora-risk\">Taylor Farms\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That California-based company has said it’s removing its lettuce indefinitely while the FDA investigation continues. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And OpenAI is like, ‘Maybe it’ll happen again. Maybe it’ll get worse. We don’t really know,“ Calvin said. “Your AI, again, hacked out of its box and hacked into another company, and you’re saying that you don’t know how to stop it from doing that again? That seems pretty nuts,” Calvin said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "nearly-half-of-teens-report-seeing-ai-sexual-content-bay-area-leaders-want-to-shut-it-down",
"title": "Nearly Half of Teens Report Seeing AI Sexual Content. Bay Area Leaders Want to Shut It Down",
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"headTitle": "Nearly Half of Teens Report Seeing AI Sexual Content. Bay Area Leaders Want to Shut It Down | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence have flooded kids’ screens. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area \u003c/a>lawmakers are racing to crack down on sites and apps that make this possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A new \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-explicit-deepfakes-in-the-age-of-ai\">report\u003c/a> from Common Sense Media, a leading nonprofit researching child safety online, found that 44% of teens have seen sexual content they believe to be AI-generated — and that nearly a quarter of those who’ve seen it say they’ve seen content of themselves or of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, said the report confirms what lawmakers have been warning about for years. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to create fake images that are explicit images of real people, and too often young people are the victims,” Becker said on Tuesday. “It’s taken something that may have happened before — cyberbullying — and just put it on steroids.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The study followed up on the organization’s 2023 report about online pornography’s impact on teens. Its authors surveyed 1,314 teens in the U.S. and held focus groups to contextualize the numbers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1020\" height=\"765\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11862704\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1832x1374.jpg 1832w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1376x1032.jpg 1376w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1044x783.jpg 1044w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-632x474.jpg 632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-536x402.jpg 536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Josh Becker speaks to reporters at the Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School in East Palo Alto on March 1, 2021. (Courtesy of Voler Strategic Advisors)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They found that 67% of teens feared being depicted in deepfakes — extremely realistic images, videos or audio clips showing something that never happened — without their consent. One teen surveyed in the report said that “everyone should have at least a small degree of worry because it’s so easy [to make it], so accessible, and it also feels pushed.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that generative AI has made it easier than ever to create deepfakes. While big platforms generally have safety features to prevent making them sexually explicit, they do not \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802ldjdklzo\">always\u003c/a> work, according to reporting from the BBC. Many users will turn instead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">smaller, anonymous\u003c/a> apps and websites to generate the content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“AI has made a severe form of sexual harassment easy enough for almost any kid with a phone to carry out,” said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Kids can be targeted by deepfakes as early as elementary school, and especially in middle school and high school, said Emma Le, the head of operations at the Center for Gender Equitable AI, a youth-led organization addressing gender based harms caused by emerging technologies. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Le said that most deepfakes target women and that they have “huge consequences on girls’ mental health,” causing some to leave school, experience depression and contemplate self-harm. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>More and more teens are scaling back their online activity to protect themselves from being deepfaked, according to Steyer. Le also said that deepfakes are linked to an increase in gender-based harassment that’s driving women and girls away from online platforms — a key public sphere for many. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Girls are withdrawing from the public eye,” Le said. “That’s going to have huge consequences in the future for women’s rights, women’s empowerment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Surveyed teens reported seeing this explicit AI content across platforms including, but not limited to, TikTok, Instagram and X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While teens may see the content on big platforms, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said that small, often anonymous and sometimes international companies are the ones that produce so-called “nudify” tools — AI-driven apps and websites that allow users to make sexually explicit deepfakes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because you can’t determine which website or app generated an image, “victims often have no recourse,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Once the images are distributed, you can’t control where they go,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Le emphasized that because the images cannot be completely scrubbed, victims of these crimes can worry about the images popping up again, especially if they have a job in the public eye. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12084574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A 14-year-old boy holds an iPhone with various social media and messaging apps on Feb. 23, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lawmakers at every level are working to tackle this issue. Last year, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146\">Take It Down Act\u003c/a> — prohibiting the nonconsensual publication of explicit images and requiring online platforms to establish reporting systems and remove the images promptly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker said that California has been “leading the nation” with legislation updated “for this new AI age.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Over the past few years, the state passed laws banning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">deepfake revenge porn\u003c/a> — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">AI-generated child porn\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker described legislating in this space as a “cat and mouse game” and said that lawmakers are “going to have to keep working to make sure our laws can keep up.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Chiu is already using these laws to hold Silicon Valley companies to account. Last week, Chiu sent Google and Apple cease-and-desist letters asking them to take down 13 apps that were being used to target women and girls. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It shouldn’t be on us to tell large technology companies that their app stores are being used to continue to victimize millions of women and girls around the globe,” Chiu said. “We are asking these companies to be proactive in preventing this abuse in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A Google spokesperson said that all five apps referenced in Chiu’s letter have been suspended. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“When violations are reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in the case of these apps has included suspending hundreds of violating apps and restricting related search terms like ‘nudify’ on our store,” the company said in a statement. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for Apple said that “‘Nudification’ apps are against our App Review Guidelines and we aggressively work to identify and remove apps — as well as the developer accounts behind them — that attempt to evade our processes and policies.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Steyer urged more action from both the tech industry and from American lawmakers, but also emphasized the importance of talking to kids about this content. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“As a parent or a grandparent, this is sort of your worst nightmare, but you gotta talk to your kids about it … because it’s real. The numbers speak for themselves,” Steyer said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-explicit-deepfakes-in-the-age-of-ai\">report\u003c/a> contains advice for parents, schools and policymakers dealing with this content and these conversations.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence have flooded kids’ screens. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area \u003c/a>lawmakers are racing to crack down on sites and apps that make this possible. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A new \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-explicit-deepfakes-in-the-age-of-ai\">report\u003c/a> from Common Sense Media, a leading nonprofit researching child safety online, found that 44% of teens have seen sexual content they believe to be AI-generated — and that nearly a quarter of those who’ve seen it say they’ve seen content of themselves or of their peers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>A new \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-explicit-deepfakes-in-the-age-of-ai\">report\u003c/a> from Common Sense Media, a leading nonprofit researching child safety online, found that 44% of teens have seen sexual content they believe to be AI-generated — and that nearly a quarter of those who’ve seen it say they’ve seen content of themselves or of their peers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, said the report confirms what lawmakers have been warning about for years. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to create fake images that are explicit images of real people, and too often young people are the victims,” Becker said on Tuesday. “It’s taken something that may have happened before — cyberbullying — and just put it on steroids.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“Artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to create fake images that are explicit images of real people, and too often young people are the victims,” Becker said on Tuesday. “It’s taken something that may have happened before — cyberbullying — and just put it on steroids.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The study followed up on the organization’s 2023 report about online pornography’s impact on teens. Its authors surveyed 1,314 teens in the U.S. and held focus groups to contextualize the numbers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The study followed up on the organization’s 2023 report about online pornography’s impact on teens. Its authors surveyed 1,314 teens in the U.S. and held focus groups to contextualize the numbers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11862704\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1832x1374.jpg 1832w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1376x1032.jpg 1376w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1044x783.jpg 1044w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-632x474.jpg 632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-536x402.jpg 536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Josh Becker speaks to reporters at the Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School in East Palo Alto on March 1, 2021. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
"innerContent": [
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They found that 67% of teens feared being depicted in deepfakes — extremely realistic images, videos or audio clips showing something that never happened — without their consent. One teen surveyed in the report said that “everyone should have at least a small degree of worry because it’s so easy [to make it], so accessible, and it also feels pushed.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They found that 67% of teens feared being depicted in deepfakes — extremely realistic images, videos or audio clips showing something that never happened — without their consent. One teen surveyed in the report said that “everyone should have at least a small degree of worry because it’s so easy [to make it], so accessible, and it also feels pushed.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Experts say that generative AI has made it easier than ever to create deepfakes. While big platforms generally have safety features to prevent making them sexually explicit, they do not \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802ldjdklzo\">always\u003c/a> work, according to reporting from the BBC. Many users will turn instead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">smaller, anonymous\u003c/a> apps and websites to generate the content.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Experts say that generative AI has made it easier than ever to create deepfakes. While big platforms generally have safety features to prevent making them sexually explicit, they do not \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802ldjdklzo\">always\u003c/a> work, according to reporting from the BBC. Many users will turn instead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">smaller, anonymous\u003c/a> apps and websites to generate the content.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“AI has made a severe form of sexual harassment easy enough for almost any kid with a phone to carry out,” said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Kids can be targeted by deepfakes as early as elementary school, and especially in middle school and high school, said Emma Le, the head of operations at the Center for Gender Equitable AI, a youth-led organization addressing gender based harms caused by emerging technologies. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Kids can be targeted by deepfakes as early as elementary school, and especially in middle school and high school, said Emma Le, the head of operations at the Center for Gender Equitable AI, a youth-led organization addressing gender based harms caused by emerging technologies. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Le said that most deepfakes target women and that they have “huge consequences on girls’ mental health,” causing some to leave school, experience depression and contemplate self-harm. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>More and more teens are scaling back their online activity to protect themselves from being deepfaked, according to Steyer. Le also said that deepfakes are linked to an increase in gender-based harassment that’s driving women and girls away from online platforms — a key public sphere for many. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>More and more teens are scaling back their online activity to protect themselves from being deepfaked, according to Steyer. Le also said that deepfakes are linked to an increase in gender-based harassment that’s driving women and girls away from online platforms — a key public sphere for many. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Girls are withdrawing from the public eye,” Le said. “That’s going to have huge consequences in the future for women’s rights, women’s empowerment.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Surveyed teens reported seeing this explicit AI content across platforms including, but not limited to, TikTok, Instagram and X. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Surveyed teens reported seeing this explicit AI content across platforms including, but not limited to, TikTok, Instagram and X. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>While teens may see the content on big platforms, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said that small, often anonymous and sometimes international companies are the ones that produce so-called “nudify” tools — AI-driven apps and websites that allow users to make sexually explicit deepfakes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>While teens may see the content on big platforms, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said that small, often anonymous and sometimes international companies are the ones that produce so-called “nudify” tools — AI-driven apps and websites that allow users to make sexually explicit deepfakes. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because you can’t determine which website or app generated an image, “victims often have no recourse,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because you can’t determine which website or app generated an image, “victims often have no recourse,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Once the images are distributed, you can’t control where they go,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Le emphasized that because the images cannot be completely scrubbed, victims of these crimes can worry about the images popping up again, especially if they have a job in the public eye. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Le emphasized that because the images cannot be completely scrubbed, victims of these crimes can worry about the images popping up again, especially if they have a job in the public eye. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12084574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A 14-year-old boy holds an iPhone with various social media and messaging apps on Feb. 23, 2026. \u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Lawmakers at every level are working to tackle this issue. Last year, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146\">Take It Down Act\u003c/a> — prohibiting the nonconsensual publication of explicit images and requiring online platforms to establish reporting systems and remove the images promptly. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Becker said that California has been “leading the nation” with legislation updated “for this new AI age.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Over the past few years, the state passed laws banning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">deepfake revenge porn\u003c/a> — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">AI-generated child porn\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Over the past few years, the state passed laws banning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">deepfake revenge porn\u003c/a> — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">AI-generated child porn\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Becker described legislating in this space as a “cat and mouse game” and said that lawmakers are “going to have to keep working to make sure our laws can keep up.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Chiu is already using these laws to hold Silicon Valley companies to account. Last week, Chiu sent Google and Apple cease-and-desist letters asking them to take down 13 apps that were being used to target women and girls. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Chiu is already using these laws to hold Silicon Valley companies to account. Last week, Chiu sent Google and Apple cease-and-desist letters asking them to take down 13 apps that were being used to target women and girls. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“It shouldn’t be on us to tell large technology companies that their app stores are being used to continue to victimize millions of women and girls around the globe,” Chiu said. “We are asking these companies to be proactive in preventing this abuse in the future.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A Google spokesperson said that all five apps referenced in Chiu’s letter have been suspended. \u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "One in five teens has either made sexually explicit content with AI or knows someone who has.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sexualized images generated by artificial intelligence have flooded kids’ screens. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area \u003c/a>lawmakers are racing to crack down on sites and apps that make this possible. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A new \u003ca href=\"https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/teens-and-explicit-deepfakes-in-the-age-of-ai\">report\u003c/a> from Common Sense Media, a leading nonprofit researching child safety online, found that 44% of teens have seen sexual content they believe to be AI-generated — and that nearly a quarter of those who’ve seen it say they’ve seen content of themselves or of their peers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>State Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, said the report confirms what lawmakers have been warning about for years. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Artificial intelligence is making it easier than ever to create fake images that are explicit images of real people, and too often young people are the victims,” Becker said on Tuesday. “It’s taken something that may have happened before — cyberbullying — and just put it on steroids.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The study followed up on the organization’s 2023 report about online pornography’s impact on teens. Its authors surveyed 1,314 teens in the U.S. and held focus groups to contextualize the numbers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1020\" height=\"765\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11862704\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1832x1374.jpg 1832w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1376x1032.jpg 1376w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-1044x783.jpg 1044w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-632x474.jpg 632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut-536x402.jpg 536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/03/RS47488_IMG_5843-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1020px) 100vw, 1020px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">State Sen. Josh Becker speaks to reporters at the Cesar Chavez Ravenswood Middle School in East Palo Alto on March 1, 2021. (Courtesy of Voler Strategic Advisors)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They found that 67% of teens feared being depicted in deepfakes — extremely realistic images, videos or audio clips showing something that never happened — without their consent. One teen surveyed in the report said that “everyone should have at least a small degree of worry because it’s so easy [to make it], so accessible, and it also feels pushed.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts say that generative AI has made it easier than ever to create deepfakes. While big platforms generally have safety features to prevent making them sexually explicit, they do not \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c802ldjdklzo\">always\u003c/a> work, according to reporting from the BBC. Many users will turn instead to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">smaller, anonymous\u003c/a> apps and websites to generate the content.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“AI has made a severe form of sexual harassment easy enough for almost any kid with a phone to carry out,” said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Kids can be targeted by deepfakes as early as elementary school, and especially in middle school and high school, said Emma Le, the head of operations at the Center for Gender Equitable AI, a youth-led organization addressing gender based harms caused by emerging technologies. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Le said that most deepfakes target women and that they have “huge consequences on girls’ mental health,” causing some to leave school, experience depression and contemplate self-harm. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>More and more teens are scaling back their online activity to protect themselves from being deepfaked, according to Steyer. Le also said that deepfakes are linked to an increase in gender-based harassment that’s driving women and girls away from online platforms — a key public sphere for many. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Girls are withdrawing from the public eye,” Le said. “That’s going to have huge consequences in the future for women’s rights, women’s empowerment.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Surveyed teens reported seeing this explicit AI content across platforms including, but not limited to, TikTok, Instagram and X. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>While teens may see the content on big platforms, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said that small, often anonymous and sometimes international companies are the ones that produce so-called “nudify” tools — AI-driven apps and websites that allow users to make sexually explicit deepfakes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because you can’t determine which website or app generated an image, “victims often have no recourse,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Once the images are distributed, you can’t control where they go,” Chiu said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Le emphasized that because the images cannot be completely scrubbed, victims of these crimes can worry about the images popping up again, especially if they have a job in the public eye. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12084574\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A 14-year-old boy holds an iPhone with various social media and messaging apps on Feb. 23, 2026. (Anna Barclay/Getty Images)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Lawmakers at every level are working to tackle this issue. Last year, Congress passed the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146\">Take It Down Act\u003c/a> — prohibiting the nonconsensual publication of explicit images and requiring online platforms to establish reporting systems and remove the images promptly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker said that California has been “leading the nation” with legislation updated “for this new AI age.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Over the past few years, the state passed laws banning \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12069808/california-investigates-elon-musks-ai-company-after-avalanche-of-complaints-about-sexual-content\">deepfake revenge porn\u003c/a> — and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12000310/san-francisco-takes-on-makers-ai-generated-deepfake-pornography-landmark-lawsuit\">AI-generated child porn\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Becker described legislating in this space as a “cat and mouse game” and said that lawmakers are “going to have to keep working to make sure our laws can keep up.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>In San Francisco, Chiu is already using these laws to hold Silicon Valley companies to account. Last week, Chiu sent Google and Apple cease-and-desist letters asking them to take down 13 apps that were being used to target women and girls. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It shouldn’t be on us to tell large technology companies that their app stores are being used to continue to victimize millions of women and girls around the globe,” Chiu said. “We are asking these companies to be proactive in preventing this abuse in the future.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A Google spokesperson said that all five apps referenced in Chiu’s letter have been suspended. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“When violations are reported to us, we investigate and take swift action, which in the case of these apps has included suspending hundreds of violating apps and restricting related search terms like ‘nudify’ on our store,” the company said in a statement. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for Apple said that “‘Nudification’ apps are against our App Review Guidelines and we aggressively work to identify and remove apps — as well as the developer accounts behind them — that attempt to evade our processes and policies.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Steyer urged more action from both the tech industry and from American lawmakers, but also emphasized the importance of talking to kids about this content. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“As a parent or a grandparent, this is sort of your worst nightmare, but you gotta talk to your kids about it … because it’s real. The numbers speak for themselves,” Steyer said. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[ad break]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Meghan Busse, an economist and associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Steven Jackson. Recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. Support and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>END\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? Economist Meghan Busse suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View Full Episode Transcript\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are you hurting the planet every time you query a chatbot? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/busse_meghan/\">Economist Meghan Busse\u003c/a> suggests that may be the wrong question. In this episode, we zoom out from the usual concerns about frivolous queries (and, for that matter, resource‑hungry data centers) to ask an even more basic question: is intense demand for AI locking us into decades of additional fossil fuel use, or is it accelerating investment in clean energy? Busse helps us sort real climate levers from symbolic ones, and explains why AI’s ultimate impact on the planet will likely come down to how we build and power it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnorc.org/projects/epic-climate-change-2025/?doing_wp_cron=1784231367.3495659828186035156250\">Public attitudes toward climate policy, technology, and the environment\u003c/a> — AP-NORC\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/us/j-stuart-adams-utah-senate-data-center.html\">Utah Senate President Loses Primary After Data Center Backlash\u003c/a> — Jack Healy, \u003cem>New York Times\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> This is Life, Automated, the show where we explore how technologies like AI are changing how we live, work, and make decisions.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This episode, we dive into one of the biggest anxieties around AI. What it’s doing to the environment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You see this anxiety most dramatically in the protests against data centers. It wasn’t that long ago that just a handful of people might show up at town halls to object to a project. These days, communities are getting more organized… and they’re increasingly calling for moratoriums on data center construction. That’s state and local freezes, basically. They’re citing worries about water, noise, pollution, land, and strain on the electrical grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[News footage from people protesting data centers…]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I wanted to understand something more basic. Just how bad is AI for the planet? Particularly compared to all the other things we do to the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And what should \u003cem>I \u003c/em>actually do about it? Like me, personally, as an individual.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I have environmentally conscious friends who refuse to use tools like ChatGPT and Claude on principle, particularly for frivolous queries like generating a vacation packing list. I have a suspicion that this might be a little…beside the point? But maybe it isn’t?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I reached out to Meghan Busse. She’s an economist at the Kellogg School of Management. She’s NOT an expert in data centers specifically, but she is an expert on energy, climate, environmental policy and how markets affect those things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So I thought she’d be a great person to zoom out and really help me understand the big picture. How should I, someone who cares about the environment, be thinking about AI?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan helped me separate the problem into two major buckets. The very real local impacts of a data center moving into your neighborhood, and the broader impacts on CO2 emissions that lead to climate change. And that second bucket is where the story gets really interesting. Because Meghan actually sees a future where demand for AI could benefit the planet. \u003cem>If\u003c/em> we stay laser-focused on the right things.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love, and this is Life, Automated, a show from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Meghan and I started our conversation discussing a recent AP NORC poll that suggested more than 70 percent of Americans are either somewhat, very, or extremely concerned about the environmental impact of AI. That’s more than the percentages concerned about the impact of air travel or meat production. I wanted to know what she made of this.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: So on the one hand, I’m excited to have that many Americans concerned about the environmental and climate impact of anything. On the other hand, it is consistent with what I think we see in other places, which is that people sometimes have the biggest fears about the things that are either least familiar or the newest, or what I call as a technical term “scary.” And something that’s scary is something that makes a good disaster movie. It’s what makes nuclear power scary. But, coal-fired, air pollution not scary. Even though the coal-fired power pollution is much more dangerous in terms of mortality than nuclear power is. There’s the same kind of thing. I think that AI seems scary in the sense that we can imagine a great disaster movie about it when you don’t imagine a great disaster movie about the CO2 emissions that come from meat production.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>I don’t think Meghan’s point here is that climate fears about AI are themselves irrational. But she’s already raising a question that will run through our whole conversation: are we worried about the right things, in the right proportions?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When it comes to AI, there are big global concerns around CO2 emissions related to energy use, both in terms of the energy required to train the models, and the energy required to run them. We’ll get to those. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But first I wanted to talk about THE thing people are most upset about. And that is what Meghan calls “local proximity issues”: the concerns we might have when we learn a data center is moving in nearby. Which in some ways are like lots of bad neighbor issues people have had with factories in the past….but with some new twists. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which the pollution, if you will, that comes from data centers is different from what we have typically thought of when we think about industrial sources. And there we are oftentimes thinking about air pollution or water pollution or things that are contaminants that can harm people’s health because they get into people’s bodies, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And a data center is much cleaner in that sense. There isn’t smoke, right? There isn’t particulate matter that potentially people are breathing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But people are worried, and I think with some justification, about other kinds of externality, other kinds of consequences. And one of the things that people have been increasingly talking about is the issue of noise. So you might be near a data center, and it wouldn’t be loud or clattery or things like that, but people describe sort of a hum or a buzz or a vibration- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Ugh \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> …Or a thrum, that can affect people’s health, not because it bothers them that they hear it, but because it is a low-level vibration that can affect people’s bodies in ways that I’m not sure we understand really well. And part of the challenge is that to the extent that we have noise ordinances… They are to deal with things that are loud, that affect hearing, that disturb quality of life in the way that we’re used to conventionally thinking about noise.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. It’s almost like we don’t even know enough about this to be able to design the regulations and the agreements that would then satisfy the community.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: The more I read about this, the more I’m coming to believe that near people is just not a good place to put data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So we talked about noise. What are some of the other concerns?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>There are land use kinds of questions. So there is, for example, in northern Utah, in a place called Cache Valley near Logan, there was recently a proposal for an absolutely gigantic data center that would have been just a huge presence in the land there.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> I looked it up. The proposed hyperscale data center she is talking about would be located in Northwest Box Elder County, near Cache Valley. Its size: 40,000 acres. After a public backlash, the size of the proposed project area (that’s the area including both the facilities and the land) was reduced to 20,000 acres–a mere two-thirds the size of San Francisco. Having a neighbor that big…yeah, I can see how that could cause alarm.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And then there’s the question of water. Data centers have a reputation for being real water guzzlers, mostly because they so often rely on evaporative cooling to function. In places where water is scarce, they can compete with households, farms, and other businesses, driving prices way up…or leading to shortages. And while there are some ways to make water use more efficient, these come with their own tradeoffs, like requiring a lot more energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Still, as challenging as these “local proximity issues” are to deal with–Meghan says they are NOT what concerns her most about AI’s potential impact on the climate. In part because they SHOULD be solvable.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I think that many of the proximity concerns could be solved by altering where data centers are built. There’s a lot of parts of this country that don’t have a lot of people in them, right? There are less dense, less populated places that could be chosen for data centers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> But why aren’t they?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Well, it’s not as convenient.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> It’ll cost more money.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I don’t know if the land will cost more money but it’s not as easily connected. It’s not necessarily where the eventual employees that you wanna have running the data center or interacting with the data center are most easily located.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So I can see why people are so angry about having a data center as a next-door neighbor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But what makes data centers bad neighbors is not necessarily what makes them so bad for the climate overall. What Meghan Busse–a researcher who studies climate policy–is most concerned about … is energy.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think that the electricity use might be the thing that is most distinctive about AI. And the reason for this is that electricity use in the US and the EU and these sort of high income developed countries, was increasing pretty steadily along with population and GDP from post World War II until about 2000. And then it flattened out. And this isn’t because people didn’t want to use electricity for things. It’s because the devices that they used for electricity became more energy efficient. So we could get more of what economists call energy services without needing as much electricity. But what that meant is that, for about 20 years, there wasn’t a lot of need to greatly expand or to really expand very much at all.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Electricity transmission, electricity distribution, the total amount of electricity generation that we could do. And then all of a sudden along comes AI which is really pretty energy intensive… electricity demand, and it’s coming at the same time that there’s an increase in vehicle electrification and an increase of automation and manufacturing. And it’s putting a real strain on the ability of electricity systems to meet that. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: So. Here in the U.S., we have a couple decades where the overall amount of electricity we need to generate basically stays flat. Electricity goes into a lot more THINGS, but all those THINGS get more efficient at about the same rate. That’s two decades of not a lot of pressure to build new power plants. And then…BAM.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the timing of this new strain on the electrical grid is relevant because there’s been another trend at play.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Over the last decade or 15 years, the cost of generating electricity with renewable sources, with wind and solar has fallen dramatically. So over the course of about 10 years, the cost of generating electricity with solar went down to about a tenth of what it was, and the cost of generating electricity with wind had gone down to about a third of what it was.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s a tenth. That means if it used to cost a dollar, it costs 10 cents.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That is right. It’s a phenomenal reduction. It’s a phenomenal achievement for the climate. It might be the single best event to happen for the climate in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s just phenomenal. And it is so phenomenal that what was happening is that basically electricity generators all over the country and also in many places in the world, were in a process of transition, in a process of retiring coal-fired power plants and replacing them with solar and wind – not because they were greener, but because they were actually cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]\u003c/strong>: Thanks to just how much the economics here have changed, nearly all new electricity generators planned for the future in North America were renewables, with a bit of natural gas, but basically NO coal. This was going to be a huge win for the planet. Even better, coal plants were actively being PHASED OUT. If you cared about CO2 emissions, this was very good news. Everything was headed in the right direction.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Then, out of nowhere, for the first time in forever, demand skyrockets. All those plans…\u003cem>poof\u003c/em>!\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because these data centers – they don’t just need a ton of energy. They need it fast.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you’re an AI company, you want to get your new data centers up and running as quickly as possible. You feel like you’re in a race: to create the best models, to capture the market. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sure, in the long run, over 20 or 25 years, solar and wind are cheaper. But if you need power NOW, keeping an aging coal plant running a few more years is going to be pretty tempting. And that smooth march toward cleaner power just got a lot choppier.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Coming up: the SHORT-run danger to the climate is that AI keeps fossil fuels around longer. But in the long run? Well, the jury is still out. Economist Meghan Busse offers up a scenario where the AI data center boom could actually benefit the planet. That’s after the break.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So I wanna turn now to the future. I think you’re completely right that there is this sense that, you know, we’re straining under today’s demand and everybody is telling us AI is going to be so many times bigger in a couple of years. What the heck happens? How are we gonna keep up? And how does this not like, destroy the planet? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>So if we take the long run view of the climate, many climate scholars would tell you a key component of decarbonization is to electrify as much as we can. And the reason is because we have really good ways of producing electricity without producing carbon. So solar and wind are two of them that we’ve talked about.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But nuclear energy also has the potential to produce a lot of electricity in a decarbonized way. And there’s other possibilities also out there. Things like geothermal that, you know, people are experimenting with and hoping will come up to scale. But, there are, you know, like I say, wind and solar that we already have, nuclear that we also have already, although we need to re-remember how to build it at low cost.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong> Love:\u003c/strong> Just jumping in here to say, if you’re over 40, and you care about the environment, you might remember a time when environmentalists were dead set against nuclear power. There was that deadly catastrophic meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986, and a scary miss at Three Mile Island a few years earlier. Environmentalists were also concerned about the huge challenge of storing toxic nuclear waste for thousands of years.\u003cbr>\u003cbr>But in the last forty years, many scientists agree that nuclear power and storage have gotten much safer and less unwieldy. And some environmentalists now feel that the benefits of nuclear power–like not spewing carbon into the atmosphere–well outweigh the risks. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse\u003c/strong>: And there’s other kinds of technologies, like carbon capture that might allow us to burn fossil fuels and still capture the carbon and have it be decarbonized. So we’ve got some really great potential for being able to produce decarbonized electricity.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what that means is that in the long run, I’m not that concerned from a climate perspective about anything that uses electricity. So if there were a new technology to come about that needs a lot more energy and you told me “guess what the energy it needs is electricity”, then I kind of heave a sigh of relief as opposed to saying what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more steel or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more cement. Or what we’re gonna need in the future is a lot more air travel because those are things we don’t yet know how to decarbonize very well or at very low cost. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. So in the long run, because it can be electrified and because we know that there are renewable ways of getting electricity, less concern. How long is the long run? And I guess how much damage is done along the way?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> It’s a really great question because some of the answer to how long is the long run depends on how we respond in the short run. If the way we respond to the intense increase in demand is the short run, is building new fossil fuel electricity generation, like building new gas plants, those plants have a long life, 20 or 30 years. Things that exist tend to get used. And so if we respond to the short run pressure by making investments in new fossil fuel generation, then that’s gonna push that long run of decarbonization off farther, and so, for the climate, the best news scenario in some ways would be if builders of AI and data centers decided, well, wait a minute, the most reliable and fastest way for us to have the electricity we need is in some sense to be self-sufficient in a green way, to build a data center, to build accompanying, solar or wind generation, to build a battery facility that will help make sure that that power is available to us throughout the day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Well, and some of this is happening, so I just read, Google is making plans to purchase Intersect, which is a wind and solar company bringing energy generation in house and almost kind of treating it as a competitive advantage.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Absolutely. And Microsoft recently made an agreement to reopen one of the reactors at Three Mile Island. Again to do essentially self-supply with nuclear energy. So to the extent that the response to this is self-supply with some kind of green energy, that is number one, good for the climate, but potentially also good for, accelerating storage technologies, for accelerating our relearning how to build nuclear in a competitive way. Those would be the best case scenarios.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Accelerating because it’s really kind of like, forcing people to innovate and act very quickly to do the kinds of things that they might otherwise do gradually over the course of 10, 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>And what drives down costs in many, many technologies is, increasing the scale of demand, basically increasing the size of the market. When you go from, here’s a technology we have thought of to one we have tested in the lab and demonstrated to one that we have done pilot projects of and works, there is this important phase between that and sort of a large scale deployment, which is increasing the scale of production enough that costs fall. And I totally believe it’s something we’ll get better at as we do it more.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think that’s a really, really interesting point. Like there is a world in which we can harness all of this demand and all of this excitement for AI and actually leave the climate in a better place than it would’ve otherwise been.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And I, you know, and I’m not saying this is guaranteed, I’m not saying that this is obviously what’s gonna happen, but it like, there is a path and it actually has the potential to accelerate you know, green energy and decarbonisation in ways it would be really positive for the climate. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[musical interlude]\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong> Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So, Meghan does see a future where demand for AI helps to accelerate deployment of low-cost green energy. But that’s not the only optimistic claim people make about AI and the climate.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Okay. So I wanna do a kind of nerdy lightning round with you. So I’m gonna share some other ways that AI might impact the climate in a positive way. And, we’ll say zero is like, that is all just hand-wavy gobbledygook, and five is like, yeah, actually there could really be something there. Okay, you ready? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Ready. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Optimization of the energy grid.’ \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give that a four.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: It’s pretty good.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> I’ll give it a four because it is the sort of thing that AI can do. Right. There’s already predictive maintenance being done and AI being applied to in a lot of different, manufacturing and other kinds of things. That said, it’s actually not the most important thing, I think, in the optimization of our energy system. We just need way more transmission in way more places to accommodate renewables generated in places where we historically have not had electricity generation like the Southwest. And just greater supply and greater flexibility. So I’ll give it a four ’cause AI can do it, but it’s actually not the most important thing you could do if you wanted to improve the electricity transmission grid.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: That was very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>Not very lightning, but very thorough.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Very thorough. ‘Better climate modeling.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> There’s a sense in which I don’t know whether you really want AI climate models. In the sense that part of the trick about AI is that it’s a bit of a black box. Climate models are basically systems of equations. Systems of equations that capture relationships we know about heat and temperature and weather and ocean currents, and then how those translate into economic consequences. Part of the value of climate models is that we know what assumptions we have put in and we can alter those assumptions in ways that allow us to see if this were different, how would that matter for our climate predictions? I’m not sure that sort of turning that over to the more black box nature of AI is gonna improve our confidence. So I’ll give that a one.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> ‘Discovery of more energy efficient materials.’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> That’s a great question. So there are absolutely applications in which materials matter – Battery chemistry, for example, is one that a lot of people are pushing on. So I’ll give that a three.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: ‘\u003c/strong>Precision agriculture’, which is this idea that with the right sensors and models, we could give crops exactly what they need when they need it, improving yield, reducing waste.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I’m gonna give that a one, not because I don’t think AI can do it, but because, doing it more efficiently or more precisely doesn’t do a lot for decarbonization if we’re using the same techniques, in terms of fertilizer, in terms of planting, in terms of those kinds of things. So I think in order to make a big difference in agricultural emissions, we’re gonna need something other than, sort of more precisely, implementing the technologies that we have. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Ok, so Meghan doesn’t see a lot of potential in some of these super optimistic “AI will just create new things that help!” scenarios. But she does see the potential for AI to fuel a clean-energy tech boom. At least…in the future. But how can people like \u003cem>me\u003c/em> make a difference TODAY? SHOULD I feel guilty asking ChatGPT for that packing list?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So, one of the things, as I teach classes about climate, and as I talk to audiences about climate, I oftentimes get questions about, what can I do that matters?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I don’t think people always have a very good idea of what are the first order things, like what are the big levers they have in their hand, and what are the small levers that they have in their hand? If you ask me, I would tell you that generating a packing list on ChatGPT for your vacation is not a very big climate lever. In fact, it’s a much bigger climate lever how far away you are going on your vacation and how are you going to get there? If you’re taking an airplane, the climate impact of your airplane trip is many, many, many, many, many ChatGPT queries. So I think part of the reason people have fixated on ChatGPT queries as something that is part of their climate virtual signaling, is that it seems like an easy thing to do or not do as opposed to deciding not to drive to work or not to have a furnace in my house, or…\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> – not to go on vacation.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> Not to go on vacation. And so we sometimes get fixated on the things that seem like, well, that just seems like an excessive choice that you are making. But if you wanna know the things that really matter, the things that really matter have to do with your more direct use of fossil fuels. Think about how you set your thermostat. Think about what you drive and where you drive. Think about where you choose to fly. Think about what you eat – Beef is especially carbon intensive. So if people are asking me, what is a marginal choice I could make in my life that would make a difference, using ChatGPT would not be at the top of my list. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>Well, what about…joining some sort of collective action effort–like the protests we’re seeing against data centers? That strategy seems to have more potential, at least for those local issues. Because all data centers are not created equal, and being able to shape the kind of neighbor you have, and where it situates itself – that feels big.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Are communities able to get some concessions from these companies that allow the data centers to sort of be built, you know, somewhere in the proximity, but in ways that don’t impact people’s quality of life as much?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> So I think there’s actually a ton of heterogeneity as you go from place to place. I mean, it’s very different if you have something that is federally regulated, something like, you know, pharmaceuticals or those kinds of things, right? The process might be slow, but once a decision gets made for something that’s federally regulated, then that’s the decision, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And when you have something that, that it’s gonna be sort of a location and state by state, it’s just gonna be a lot noisier, it’s gonna be a lot less predictable, and I think that, what’s gonna turn out to be a successful strategy for communities to employ is gonna depend a lot on the particular location where they are.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>And perhaps what they want to get out of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And perhaps what they wanna get out of it, which may not be the same place to place.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love\u003c/strong>: Yeah, I mean, could this be a good thing, where communities, you know, depending on the tools they have available to them, can sort of look at the situation and in a bespoke way try to come to an agreement that is going to be as much of a win-win as possible?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse: \u003c/strong>I hope so.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[music bump]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]:\u003c/strong> It’s clear that local opposition to data centers can have an impact. Meghan sent me a newspaper article involving a powerful Utah State Senator. He served as chairman of the agency that approved that giant data center we talked about earlier, the one that was downsized to a mere 20,000 acres. And…he recently lost his Republican primary bid, in what the article called, “one of the most high-profile signs of the voter backlash to data center projects.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Which brings us to the final thing that individuals can do–something that works for these local issues and for the climate more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> If you care about having an individual impact, by far the most impactful thing you can do is how you vote.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> There you go.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> And that’s because so many of the changes you need are not about our individual consumption or our individual behavior. It’s about the \u003cem>systems\u003c/em> of how we generate energy. The systems of how we use energy, what we use energy for. The things that are really, really hard for individuals to influence with their choices. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So in some sense, I don’t care very much about whether you use ChatGPT, I don’t care very much about whether you eat beef or not. I don’t even care about where you fly on vacation as long as you vote. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So you teach the next generation of CEOs, C-Suite Executives, and you have children of your own. What advice do you have for young people right now?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meghan Busse:\u003c/strong> The advice that I have for young people now is that while it seems, like on the political front, it might seem like things are discouraging on the technology and economic front, there’s huge potential.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> decarbonize, we can \u003cem>absolutely\u003c/em> avoid the worst effects of climate change. We have many of the technologies and I totally believe that we can invent the technologies that we still need. It is absolutely within our power if we choose to do it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love [Voiceover]: \u003c/strong>So. In the long run, how will AI impact the climate? It depends. But after my conversation with Meghan, I’m thinking: it doesn’t depend that much on the AI itself. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It depends more on what we do with demand for the technology. Where and how companies build out their data centers and especially how they choose to power them. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Are we going to live in a world where demand pushes back our transition to clean energy, locking us into fossil fuels for decades? We’re seeing some of that world right now. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But we can also choose a world where this explosion of demand hastens our transition to clean energy. And we’re also seeing some of that right now.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The politics of clean energy can look grim…But as long as clean-energy technologies keep getting cheaper and easier to scale, the optimistic scenario is still on the table.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life Automated, a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Distributed by KQED. I’m Jess Love. Special thanks to today’s guest, Meghan Busse, an economist and associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We’re produced by Jesse Dukes. Music by Steven Jackson. Recording by George Christensen and Will Feeney. Support and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>END\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Grocery Outlet Scans Your Face While You Shop. Critics Say It’s a Privacy Problem",
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"content": "\u003cp>This week, Lee Hepner rode his bike to the Grocery Outlet in the Mission District in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> — but not to go shopping. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He was looking for a postcard-sized sticker on the front door that some might miss, alerting customers that the store was scanning the face of every person who walked in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Face Matching software is being used to prevent shoplifting,” the sign read, accompanied by a QR code with information about opting out of your data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Rarely do I have a situation where surveillance technology is popping up in my backyard,” said Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. In 2019, he helped write policy making San Francisco the first city in the country to bar its own agencies, including police, from using facial recognition. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Inside, he counted three cameras near the entrance and dozens more down every aisle and over every checkout. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A sign on the door notifies customers about facial matching at a Grocery Outlet location on South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco on July 16, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It is just blanketed with surveillance cameras,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet has rolled out software by an AI company called SAFR Guard at several Bay Area stores, including Pleasant Hill and the San Francisco location Hepner visited. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The technology is designed to identify people suspected of shoplifting, according to its privacy policy, and notifies employees if someone on a watchlist enters a store. SAFR Guard builds a database of “subjects of interest” across the retailers using it, Hepner said — meaning whoever lands on a watchlist at one store can follow them to another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s part of a quiet spread of automated anti-theft tools into neighborhood groceries and retail businesses. As retail theft rates have increased in recent years — shoplifting in California was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/overall-crime-in-california-fell-last-year-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/\">47.5% higher in 2024\u003c/a> than before the pandemic, according to the Public Policy Institute of California — companies like Target, Walmart and grocers like Wegmans have introduced the software. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s legal in California, according to the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa\">consumer privacy\u003c/a> laws. Businesses must notify customers that facial recognition is in use, and shoppers can “opt out” by petitioning the company to delete their data — or by not entering the store.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This is a dragnet that scans everyone. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, your face is being scanned,” said Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner said that opting out may not be a realistic financial option for many discount grocery customers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Grocery Outlet is one of the only, if not the only, grocery store that caters to low-income [people]” in the Bay Area, he said. “It’s not as if a lot of these shoppers have the choice to go shop somewhere else. It is essentially a tax on their privacy assessed every time they go to the grocery store to put food on the table.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Civil-liberties advocates have long raised alarms over the risk of misidentification. In December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without\">banned Rite Aid\u003c/a> from using facial recognition for five years after finding the chain’s system falsely tagged shoppers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading employees to accuse innocent customers of wrongdoing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner said San Francisco banned the technology for government use precisely because research shows it “disproportionately misidentified people with darker complexions and faces of women.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>SAFR Guard defends the system as narrow and privacy-conscious. In a statement, company President Charisse Jacques said the software “is not a law enforcement system and has no connection with law enforcement,” and it does not build “a general-purpose face matching database of the public.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Grocery Outlet location on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco on July 16, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The system only holds data on people a retailer has added to a security list after an incident, such as suspected theft, Jacques said. \u003ca href=\"https://safrguard.ai/\">According to their privacy policy\u003c/a>, records on suspected individuals are kept for up to 12 months, while encrypted images and general CCTV footage are automatically deleted after 30 days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shoppers who aren’t matched to that list are never stored at all: their biometric data “never leave the camera and are immediately deleted.” She said that SAFR has never shared retailer or shopper data with any government agency, including ICE, and has never received a court order or subpoena for it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Grocery Outlet did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner doesn’t dispute that the store’s current privacy policy is narrow. His worry is what would happen if the software is abused. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Today it’s just facial recognition for the purpose of preventing crime,” he said. “But tomorrow, this technology, without changing the camera, with only tweaks to the back-end software, can be used to surveil workers, can be used to collect information from every shopper who enters the store.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Major chains like Kroger are experimenting with dynamic pricing — or using personal data and tracking to adjust prices for each customer — and the ACLU \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/retailers-secretively-using-face-recognition\">reported \u003c/a>in January that Wegmans shares information with law enforcement. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Beyond markets, bars in the Castro have begun scanning patrons’ faces at the door with ID-verification software, he noted — bars he said he now avoids. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A patron database “may not seem like a big problem” in San Francisco but carries real risk “under a broader federal regime that’s increasingly cracking down on trans rights and on gay rights,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Trujillo recommended a change to state law in line with what Illinois and Colorado are doing, requiring stores to seek out affirmative consent from consumers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner worries the drift is heading the other way. This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval to a broad \u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7423230&GUID=9C3D32F7-1A6A-43E7-913C-B1ACFC59E312\">“code cleanup” ordinance\u003c/a> that loosens the very oversight law he helped write by slashing the city-required audit of each department’s surveillance technology to at least once every five years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You make policy to address the risk of harm,” he said, “even if that harm is on the fringes of the use of that technology, because I can guarantee you it will be mainstream tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This week, Lee Hepner rode his bike to the Grocery Outlet in the Mission District in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> — but not to go shopping. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He was looking for a postcard-sized sticker on the front door that some might miss, alerting customers that the store was scanning the face of every person who walked in.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Face Matching software is being used to prevent shoplifting,” the sign read, accompanied by a QR code with information about opting out of your data.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Rarely do I have a situation where surveillance technology is popping up in my backyard,” said Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. In 2019, he helped write policy making San Francisco the first city in the country to bar its own agencies, including police, from using facial recognition. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Inside, he counted three cameras near the entrance and dozens more down every aisle and over every checkout. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A sign on the door notifies customers about facial matching at a Grocery Outlet location on South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco on July 16, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091345\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A sign on the door notifies customers about facial matching at a Grocery Outlet location on South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco on July 16, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet has rolled out software by an AI company called SAFR Guard at several Bay Area stores, including Pleasant Hill and the San Francisco location Hepner visited. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet has rolled out software by an AI company called SAFR Guard at several Bay Area stores, including Pleasant Hill and the San Francisco location Hepner visited. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The technology is designed to identify people suspected of shoplifting, according to its privacy policy, and notifies employees if someone on a watchlist enters a store. SAFR Guard builds a database of “subjects of interest” across the retailers using it, Hepner said — meaning whoever lands on a watchlist at one store can follow them to another.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The technology is designed to identify people suspected of shoplifting, according to its privacy policy, and notifies employees if someone on a watchlist enters a store. SAFR Guard builds a database of “subjects of interest” across the retailers using it, Hepner said — meaning whoever lands on a watchlist at one store can follow them to another.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>It’s part of a quiet spread of automated anti-theft tools into neighborhood groceries and retail businesses. As retail theft rates have increased in recent years — shoplifting in California was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/overall-crime-in-california-fell-last-year-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/\">47.5% higher in 2024\u003c/a> than before the pandemic, according to the Public Policy Institute of California — companies like Target, Walmart and grocers like Wegmans have introduced the software. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>It’s part of a quiet spread of automated anti-theft tools into neighborhood groceries and retail businesses. As retail theft rates have increased in recent years — shoplifting in California was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/overall-crime-in-california-fell-last-year-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/\">47.5% higher in 2024\u003c/a> than before the pandemic, according to the Public Policy Institute of California — companies like Target, Walmart and grocers like Wegmans have introduced the software. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s legal in California, according to the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa\">consumer privacy\u003c/a> laws. Businesses must notify customers that facial recognition is in use, and shoppers can “opt out” by petitioning the company to delete their data — or by not entering the store.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“This is a dragnet that scans everyone. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, your face is being scanned,” said Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>“This is a dragnet that scans everyone. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, your face is being scanned,” said Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Hepner said that opting out may not be a realistic financial option for many discount grocery customers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Grocery Outlet is one of the only, if not the only, grocery store that caters to low-income [people]” in the Bay Area, he said. “It’s not as if a lot of these shoppers have the choice to go shop somewhere else. It is essentially a tax on their privacy assessed every time they go to the grocery store to put food on the table.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Civil-liberties advocates have long raised alarms over the risk of misidentification. In December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without\">banned Rite Aid\u003c/a> from using facial recognition for five years after finding the chain’s system falsely tagged shoppers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading employees to accuse innocent customers of wrongdoing. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Civil-liberties advocates have long raised alarms over the risk of misidentification. In December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without\">banned Rite Aid\u003c/a> from using facial recognition for five years after finding the chain’s system falsely tagged shoppers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading employees to accuse innocent customers of wrongdoing. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Hepner said San Francisco banned the technology for government use precisely because research shows it “disproportionately misidentified people with darker complexions and faces of women.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>SAFR Guard defends the system as narrow and privacy-conscious. In a statement, company President Charisse Jacques said the software “is not a law enforcement system and has no connection with law enforcement,” and it does not build “a general-purpose face matching database of the public.” \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>SAFR Guard defends the system as narrow and privacy-conscious. In a statement, company President Charisse Jacques said the software “is not a law enforcement system and has no connection with law enforcement,” and it does not build “a general-purpose face matching database of the public.” \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 992px) min(100vw, 1536px), (min-width: 768px) min(100vw, 1280px), min(100vw, 1020px)\" />\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Grocery Outlet location on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco on July 16, 2026.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The system only holds data on people a retailer has added to a security list after an incident, such as suspected theft, Jacques said. \u003ca href=\"https://safrguard.ai/\">According to their privacy policy\u003c/a>, records on suspected individuals are kept for up to 12 months, while encrypted images and general CCTV footage are automatically deleted after 30 days.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The system only holds data on people a retailer has added to a security list after an incident, such as suspected theft, Jacques said. \u003ca href=\"https://safrguard.ai/\">According to their privacy policy\u003c/a>, records on suspected individuals are kept for up to 12 months, while encrypted images and general CCTV footage are automatically deleted after 30 days.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Shoppers who aren’t matched to that list are never stored at all: their biometric data “never leave the camera and are immediately deleted.” She said that SAFR has never shared retailer or shopper data with any government agency, including ICE, and has never received a court order or subpoena for it. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Shoppers who aren’t matched to that list are never stored at all: their biometric data “never leave the camera and are immediately deleted.” She said that SAFR has never shared retailer or shopper data with any government agency, including ICE, and has never received a court order or subpoena for it. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Grocery Outlet did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Hepner doesn’t dispute that the store’s current privacy policy is narrow. His worry is what would happen if the software is abused. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>“Today it’s just facial recognition for the purpose of preventing crime,” he said. “But tomorrow, this technology, without changing the camera, with only tweaks to the back-end software, can be used to surveil workers, can be used to collect information from every shopper who enters the store.”\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Major chains like Kroger are experimenting with dynamic pricing — or using personal data and tracking to adjust prices for each customer — and the ACLU \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/retailers-secretively-using-face-recognition\">reported \u003c/a>in January that Wegmans shares information with law enforcement. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Beyond markets, bars in the Castro have begun scanning patrons’ faces at the door with ID-verification software, he noted — bars he said he now avoids. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>A patron database “may not seem like a big problem” in San Francisco but carries real risk “under a broader federal regime that’s increasingly cracking down on trans rights and on gay rights,” he said.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Trujillo recommended a change to state law in line with what Illinois and Colorado are doing, requiring stores to seek out affirmative consent from consumers. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Hepner worries the drift is heading the other way. This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval to a broad \u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7423230&GUID=9C3D32F7-1A6A-43E7-913C-B1ACFC59E312\">“code cleanup” ordinance\u003c/a> that loosens the very oversight law he helped write by slashing the city-required audit of each department’s surveillance technology to at least once every five years.\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Grocery Outlet stores in San Francisco and the East Bay are using facial recognition technology to identify suspected shoplifters, raising concerns about surveillance and consent. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This week, Lee Hepner rode his bike to the Grocery Outlet in the Mission District in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco\">San Francisco\u003c/a> — but not to go shopping. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He was looking for a postcard-sized sticker on the front door that some might miss, alerting customers that the store was scanning the face of every person who walked in.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Face Matching software is being used to prevent shoplifting,” the sign read, accompanied by a QR code with information about opting out of your data.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Rarely do I have a situation where surveillance technology is popping up in my backyard,” said Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. In 2019, he helped write policy making San Francisco the first city in the country to bar its own agencies, including police, from using facial recognition. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Inside, he counted three cameras near the entrance and dozens more down every aisle and over every checkout. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091345\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-03-BL-KQED-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A sign on the door notifies customers about facial matching at a Grocery Outlet location on South Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco on July 16, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“It is just blanketed with surveillance cameras,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet has rolled out software by an AI company called SAFR Guard at several Bay Area stores, including Pleasant Hill and the San Francisco location Hepner visited. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The technology is designed to identify people suspected of shoplifting, according to its privacy policy, and notifies employees if someone on a watchlist enters a store. SAFR Guard builds a database of “subjects of interest” across the retailers using it, Hepner said — meaning whoever lands on a watchlist at one store can follow them to another.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>It’s part of a quiet spread of automated anti-theft tools into neighborhood groceries and retail businesses. As retail theft rates have increased in recent years — shoplifting in California was \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/overall-crime-in-california-fell-last-year-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/\">47.5% higher in 2024\u003c/a> than before the pandemic, according to the Public Policy Institute of California — companies like Target, Walmart and grocers like Wegmans have introduced the software. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s legal in California, according to the state’s \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa\">consumer privacy\u003c/a> laws. Businesses must notify customers that facial recognition is in use, and shoppers can “opt out” by petitioning the company to delete their data — or by not entering the store.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“This is a dragnet that scans everyone. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, your face is being scanned,” said Mario Trujillo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner said that opting out may not be a realistic financial option for many discount grocery customers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Grocery Outlet is one of the only, if not the only, grocery store that caters to low-income [people]” in the Bay Area, he said. “It’s not as if a lot of these shoppers have the choice to go shop somewhere else. It is essentially a tax on their privacy assessed every time they go to the grocery store to put food on the table.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Civil-liberties advocates have long raised alarms over the risk of misidentification. In December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission \u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without\">banned Rite Aid\u003c/a> from using facial recognition for five years after finding the chain’s system falsely tagged shoppers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading employees to accuse innocent customers of wrongdoing. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner said San Francisco banned the technology for government use precisely because research shows it “disproportionately misidentified people with darker complexions and faces of women.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>SAFR Guard defends the system as narrow and privacy-conscious. In a statement, company President Charisse Jacques said the software “is not a law enforcement system and has no connection with law enforcement,” and it does not build “a general-purpose face matching database of the public.” \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12091346\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260716-GROCOUTAI-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A Grocery Outlet location on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco on July 16, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The system only holds data on people a retailer has added to a security list after an incident, such as suspected theft, Jacques said. \u003ca href=\"https://safrguard.ai/\">According to their privacy policy\u003c/a>, records on suspected individuals are kept for up to 12 months, while encrypted images and general CCTV footage are automatically deleted after 30 days.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shoppers who aren’t matched to that list are never stored at all: their biometric data “never leave the camera and are immediately deleted.” She said that SAFR has never shared retailer or shopper data with any government agency, including ICE, and has never received a court order or subpoena for it. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Grocery Outlet did not respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner doesn’t dispute that the store’s current privacy policy is narrow. His worry is what would happen if the software is abused. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp>“Today it’s just facial recognition for the purpose of preventing crime,” he said. “But tomorrow, this technology, without changing the camera, with only tweaks to the back-end software, can be used to surveil workers, can be used to collect information from every shopper who enters the store.”\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Major chains like Kroger are experimenting with dynamic pricing — or using personal data and tracking to adjust prices for each customer — and the ACLU \u003ca href=\"https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/retailers-secretively-using-face-recognition\">reported \u003c/a>in January that Wegmans shares information with law enforcement. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Beyond markets, bars in the Castro have begun scanning patrons’ faces at the door with ID-verification software, he noted — bars he said he now avoids. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>A patron database “may not seem like a big problem” in San Francisco but carries real risk “under a broader federal regime that’s increasingly cracking down on trans rights and on gay rights,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Trujillo recommended a change to state law in line with what Illinois and Colorado are doing, requiring stores to seek out affirmative consent from consumers. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Hepner worries the drift is heading the other way. This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gave final approval to a broad \u003ca href=\"https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7423230&GUID=9C3D32F7-1A6A-43E7-913C-B1ACFC59E312\">“code cleanup” ordinance\u003c/a> that loosens the very oversight law he helped write by slashing the city-required audit of each department’s surveillance technology to at least once every five years.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You make policy to address the risk of harm,” he said, “even if that harm is on the fringes of the use of that technology, because I can guarantee you it will be mainstream tomorrow.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Longtime tech worker Ben Kovitz grew up far from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/siliconvalley\">Silicon Valley\u003c/a> — in Appleton, Wisconsin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If fewer than 26 inches of snow fell in a night, they wouldn’t close school, because they had the plows to clear those streets by morning,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jobs pulled him to sunny California first in the 1980s, where he spent about 15 years in tech. His first full-time programming job was at a small company in Encino called Information Management Systems, where he learned, as he puts it, “most of what I know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps his most prestigious gig was at Palm, Inc., the consumer electronics and software pioneer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The perks weren’t as lavish as at Google during the “glory days” of Silicon Valley employment, but there was a ping pong table, and the cafeteria was “fantastic,” which meant a lot to the young foodie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually pivoted to academia, feeling he could be “paid to indulge my curiosity and teach, which are two things that I would do all the time if I could,” pursued a Ph.D. in cognitive science and computer science at Indiana University, and became a\u003ca href=\"https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/3045066\"> computer science professor\u003c/a> at Cal Poly Humboldt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088445\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088445\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But when Kovitz decided last year to return to full-time work in Silicon Valley, he discovered a labor market \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084655/after-meta-layoffs-newsom-signs-ai-order-to-protect-workers-and-jobs\">dramatically reshaped\u003c/a> by artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’d reinvented himself before. The question was whether the industry would let him do it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out, yes. For all of Silicon Valley’s recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11939910/a-layoff-spree-at-bay-area-tech-companies\">mass layoffs\u003c/a> and historic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/perspectives/201503250643/older-and-out-of-work-in-silicon-valley\">ageism\u003c/a>, experienced engineers like Kovitz who can confidently work with AI may have a better chance of riding tech’s next wave than the news headlines suggest. But to survive the brutal hiring gauntlet, they just might need to invest in help — both human and AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is the market leaning in favor of experience?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Overall, tech jobs are surging. Online employment marketplace ZipRecruiter, which tracks job postings in IT and computer science, reports they were up 16.7% year-over-year nationally in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that rosy picture looks different depending on your experience level. The share of senior-level job postings has risen to 43.1%, up from 38.8% a year ago. At the same time, the share of entry-level job postings has fallen slightly, from 8.1% to 7.4%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A key challenge within this job market is a distinct preference for senior or highly-skilled talent over entry-level hires,” ZipRecruiter labor economist Nicole Bachaud wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10987745\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10987745 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/gettyimages-186125057-e35bb49a8d56f4c7fe56263444f7b0703ecaede7-e1465833964313.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LinkedIn logos are displayed on laptop computers \u003ccite>(Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg-Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s not great news for newly minted college graduates, but it is a hopeful sign for Kovitz and others with decades of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, more than a quarter of employers now ask for AI skills. That’s nearly double the share a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This surge is primarily fueled by businesses expanding their AI integrations, products, and services, creating high demand for workers to implement and deploy these new tools,” Bachaud wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fastest-growing roles in software engineering aren’t traditional coding jobs, according to Kory Kantenga, head of economics for the Americas at LinkedIn. They’re positions like “forward-deployed engineer,” a title \u003ca href=\"https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/forward-deployed-engineers\">pioneered\u003c/a> by companies like Palantir to describe engineers who embed directly with clients to install, customize and troubleshoot AI tools on-site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LinkedIn has seen an 18-fold increase in such roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those are the roles that we see have a lot of momentum,” Kantenga said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Ben Did It\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While shy about sharing his exact age, Kovitz will say he’s old enough “to have watched\u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/history/apollo-16-launches-to-the-moon/\"> moon shots\u003c/a> on television” as a boy in the early 1970s, and to have programmed computers with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG2M4ttzBnY\">punch cards\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s also old enough to know the Silicon Valley job market is vastly different from the one he learned to navigate at the start of his career. Today, AI defines not only the jobs, but the job search as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applicants use AI to fire off applications while employers use AI to screen them. The impacts are especially acute in Silicon Valley, where the internet has turned many job openings into a worldwide competition with thousands of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085049/even-some-tech-workers-cant-afford-to-stay-when-the-bay-is-this-expensive\">well-qualified applicants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985952\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11985952 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I watched a friend struggle for a year after he finished his master’s degree,” he said, “and filling out applications every single day, hours a day. It took him a year to get a job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz decided he needed to pay for professional help to reduce the strength and duration of the struggle ahead of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reducing that by a few months and also reducing the sheer pain of it, that is easily worth it,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He signed up with two companies that offer job search support:\u003ca href=\"https://www.applypass.com\"> ApplyPass\u003c/a> and Resume Wizard 101, which has recently rebranded to \u003ca href=\"https://careerlander.com\">Career Lander\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Resume Wizard assigned Kovitz a “reverse recruiter” who sent him new prospects daily, including many that Kovitz might never have considered on his own. The recruiter then filled out about 100 applications a month on his behalf.[aside postID=news_12089434 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/CAT-%E2%80%94-The-Bay-Feed-Drop.img_.png']ApplyPass used an AI agent to fire off applications at industrial volume — 400 a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the volume of “cold applications” coming at employers, it’s essential job seekers — or agents acting on their behalf — reach out to the relevant person at the company who has some influence over the hiring process, according to Neil Bhatt, Career Lander’s founder and CEO. “The conversion rate (from application to interview) skyrockets when you actually do some sort of networking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz said Resume Wizard 101’s human touch led to a higher rate of employer responses. But ApplyPass isn’t solely automated. The company provided a coach to help navigate “some of the weird things they do in software engineering interviews today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After every interview, Kovitz shared how he responded to certain questions, and the ApplyPass coach suggested alternative approaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We talked about what went right and what went badly,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These services aren’t cheap. ApplyPass’s auto-apply plans range from free to about $199 a month, while Resume Wizard 101’s human-run packages range from roughly $300 for a single résumé revision to $10,000 for full ‘career search management.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088446\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088446\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But senior software engineers in San Francisco earn a median total compensation north of $270,000 a year, according to Glassdoor, so Kovitz figured the math was likely to pencil out for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also surprised to find some prospective employers that want proof a software engineer can work with AI. “Go at it with AI,” he was instructed in one memorable interview. “Just throw everything you’ve got at it. Let’s see how you do it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was new to Kovitz, but he dove in with gusto. “I blasted out 2,000 lines of code and solved the problem,” Kovitz said. “But I also saw that the solution wasn’t that great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz said he thinks getting useful work out of an AI coding agent takes judgment that only comes with experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a senior engineer, Kovitz argued, he was able to look at those 2,000 machine-generated lines of code, recognize their shortcomings, and then know what to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of what you do with AI is you work out a plan, a little conversation with the AI, because if you just tell the AI ‘Do this thing,’ with no plan, it is going to make a gigantic mess, and you are going to spend a week debugging it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effective prompts require understanding the code and what the company wants from it at a granular level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You need to know how all kinds of things can go wrong. Junior programmers don’t have that. They haven’t seen the development of code over a long period of time,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really a game of marketing at the end of the day,” said Bhatt at Career Lander. He said any employer is going to choose the person who can best explain how they use their experience to help this company. “The better job you’re doing at articulating how you can solve their problems, the easier it becomes to land that position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a survey of 400 engineering leaders in the \u003ca href=\"https://karat.com/engineering-interview-trends-2026/\">U.S., India and China\u003c/a> by Karat, a company that runs technical interviews for hire, 73% said a strong engineer is worth at least three times their total compensation, something they specifically attributed to AI’s impact on productivity. The same survey found that AI is widening the gap between strong and weaker engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>So where did Ben land?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kovitz landed a job after a six-month hunt — slightly less than average for the information sector, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat32.htm\">Bureau of Labor Statistics\u003c/a>, which tracks tech workers as part of that larger group. After submitting what he estimates was around 3,000 job applications, Kovitz got a software engineering job at\u003ca href=\"https://www.impulselabs.com/the-difference?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23532288434&gbraid=0AAAAA9ieg0kwGUYoidiYsGrH1-yL_JMGl&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlqTRBhCBARIsANrkrxht1bbHUuOgRW2K2gBHBaZH3ZkB4H3XN_j9DNhIQ9zIVy-CdAhvtWEaAjBKEALw_wcB\"> Impulse Labs\u003c/a>, a San Francisco company that makes \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/impulse-cooktop-review/\">high-end induction stoves\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s happy with the job and turned other offers down to take it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their engineering culture makes quality paramount even as they move fast,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, as a foodie, Kovitz loves sitting with a stovetop next to his desk for hands-on testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088888\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12088888 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An induction stovetop in the kitchen at San Francisco-based Impulse Labs. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ben Kovitz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Does he work with AI on the new job?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes. Most of the day, every day,” he said, for a wide variety of things that would otherwise take him much longer. They range from finding the relevant parts of a large program to work on, to writing small bits of code in a language he doesn’t know well, to reviewing code for errors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI is both amazing when it works well, and amazingly unreliable, so I have to keep a close eye on it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s glad the job hunt is finally in his rearview mirror, but Kovitz is philosophical about the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it was grueling, it was also a great adventure,” he said. “I learned all kinds of stuff about industries that I’d never known anything about before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he applied for a job with a robotaxi company, he taught himself the basics of motion planning, the math behind how a self-driving car navigates. For another set of interviews, he picked up some basics about satellites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz’s facility with math and science, not to mention his natural curiosity and enthusiasm for intellectual challenges, gave him the kind of career flexibility only the most elite coders have enjoyed in recent decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090182\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090182\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But he also maintained a positive attitude by consciously framing the search as a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was an exciting learning experience,” Kovitz said. “It was part of life’s adventure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His advice for others still looking?\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>Get help if you can afford it.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Treat the search like an eight-hour job and knock off afterward, so the rejection doesn’t grind you down: “You need to protect your morale.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t go into job interviews with an attitude of desperation. “I’m not there to get the job,” Kovitz said. “I’m there to find out if I want the job.” He added, “It’s wise to be fussy,” and hold out for an employer “that has a culture that you like, where the work is meaningful to you.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Treat this as a numbers game: “You know, you are probably going to roll the dice 50 or 100, 150 times before you actually get a good [position].”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes: “There are plenty of perfectly good jobs out there for lots of people.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk3i2DjzVyovGlneUjqudUOXk1699l6Ea-xE4ZgFEi2ApRIQ/viewform?usp=dialog\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Now that AI can do a lot of the work of junior programmers, Silicon Valley employers want engineers who can confidently direct it. For one experienced engineer, that shift was an opening.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Longtime tech worker Ben Kovitz grew up far from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/siliconvalley\">Silicon Valley\u003c/a> — in Appleton, Wisconsin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If fewer than 26 inches of snow fell in a night, they wouldn’t close school, because they had the plows to clear those streets by morning,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jobs pulled him to sunny California first in the 1980s, where he spent about 15 years in tech. His first full-time programming job was at a small company in Encino called Information Management Systems, where he learned, as he puts it, “most of what I know.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps his most prestigious gig was at Palm, Inc., the consumer electronics and software pioneer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The perks weren’t as lavish as at Google during the “glory days” of Silicon Valley employment, but there was a ping pong table, and the cafeteria was “fantastic,” which meant a lot to the young foodie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He eventually pivoted to academia, feeling he could be “paid to indulge my curiosity and teach, which are two things that I would do all the time if I could,” pursued a Ph.D. in cognitive science and computer science at Indiana University, and became a\u003ca href=\"https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/3045066\"> computer science professor\u003c/a> at Cal Poly Humboldt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088445\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088445\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00297_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But when Kovitz decided last year to return to full-time work in Silicon Valley, he discovered a labor market \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084655/after-meta-layoffs-newsom-signs-ai-order-to-protect-workers-and-jobs\">dramatically reshaped\u003c/a> by artificial intelligence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’d reinvented himself before. The question was whether the industry would let him do it again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It turns out, yes. For all of Silicon Valley’s recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11939910/a-layoff-spree-at-bay-area-tech-companies\">mass layoffs\u003c/a> and historic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/perspectives/201503250643/older-and-out-of-work-in-silicon-valley\">ageism\u003c/a>, experienced engineers like Kovitz who can confidently work with AI may have a better chance of riding tech’s next wave than the news headlines suggest. But to survive the brutal hiring gauntlet, they just might need to invest in help — both human and AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Is the market leaning in favor of experience?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Overall, tech jobs are surging. Online employment marketplace ZipRecruiter, which tracks job postings in IT and computer science, reports they were up 16.7% year-over-year nationally in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that rosy picture looks different depending on your experience level. The share of senior-level job postings has risen to 43.1%, up from 38.8% a year ago. At the same time, the share of entry-level job postings has fallen slightly, from 8.1% to 7.4%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A key challenge within this job market is a distinct preference for senior or highly-skilled talent over entry-level hires,” ZipRecruiter labor economist Nicole Bachaud wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10987745\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10987745 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/06/gettyimages-186125057-e35bb49a8d56f4c7fe56263444f7b0703ecaede7-e1465833964313.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LinkedIn logos are displayed on laptop computers \u003ccite>(Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg-Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That’s not great news for newly minted college graduates, but it is a hopeful sign for Kovitz and others with decades of experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, more than a quarter of employers now ask for AI skills. That’s nearly double the share a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This surge is primarily fueled by businesses expanding their AI integrations, products, and services, creating high demand for workers to implement and deploy these new tools,” Bachaud wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fastest-growing roles in software engineering aren’t traditional coding jobs, according to Kory Kantenga, head of economics for the Americas at LinkedIn. They’re positions like “forward-deployed engineer,” a title \u003ca href=\"https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/forward-deployed-engineers\">pioneered\u003c/a> by companies like Palantir to describe engineers who embed directly with clients to install, customize and troubleshoot AI tools on-site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LinkedIn has seen an 18-fold increase in such roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Those are the roles that we see have a lot of momentum,” Kantenga said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How Ben Did It\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While shy about sharing his exact age, Kovitz will say he’s old enough “to have watched\u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/history/apollo-16-launches-to-the-moon/\"> moon shots\u003c/a> on television” as a boy in the early 1970s, and to have programmed computers with \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG2M4ttzBnY\">punch cards\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s also old enough to know the Silicon Valley job market is vastly different from the one he learned to navigate at the start of his career. Today, AI defines not only the jobs, but the job search as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Applicants use AI to fire off applications while employers use AI to screen them. The impacts are especially acute in Silicon Valley, where the internet has turned many job openings into a worldwide competition with thousands of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12085049/even-some-tech-workers-cant-afford-to-stay-when-the-bay-is-this-expensive\">well-qualified applicants\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11985952\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11985952 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-scaled-e1770337042768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying output from ChatGPT, March 21, 2023. \u003ccite>(Michael Dwyer/Associated Press)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I watched a friend struggle for a year after he finished his master’s degree,” he said, “and filling out applications every single day, hours a day. It took him a year to get a job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz decided he needed to pay for professional help to reduce the strength and duration of the struggle ahead of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Reducing that by a few months and also reducing the sheer pain of it, that is easily worth it,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He signed up with two companies that offer job search support:\u003ca href=\"https://www.applypass.com\"> ApplyPass\u003c/a> and Resume Wizard 101, which has recently rebranded to \u003ca href=\"https://careerlander.com\">Career Lander\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Resume Wizard assigned Kovitz a “reverse recruiter” who sent him new prospects daily, including many that Kovitz might never have considered on his own. The recruiter then filled out about 100 applications a month on his behalf.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>ApplyPass used an AI agent to fire off applications at industrial volume — 400 a week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the volume of “cold applications” coming at employers, it’s essential job seekers — or agents acting on their behalf — reach out to the relevant person at the company who has some influence over the hiring process, according to Neil Bhatt, Career Lander’s founder and CEO. “The conversion rate (from application to interview) skyrockets when you actually do some sort of networking.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz said Resume Wizard 101’s human touch led to a higher rate of employer responses. But ApplyPass isn’t solely automated. The company provided a coach to help navigate “some of the weird things they do in software engineering interviews today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After every interview, Kovitz shared how he responded to certain questions, and the ApplyPass coach suggested alternative approaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We talked about what went right and what went badly,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These services aren’t cheap. ApplyPass’s auto-apply plans range from free to about $199 a month, while Resume Wizard 101’s human-run packages range from roughly $300 for a single résumé revision to $10,000 for full ‘career search management.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088446\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12088446\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260619-benkovitz00353_TV-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But senior software engineers in San Francisco earn a median total compensation north of $270,000 a year, according to Glassdoor, so Kovitz figured the math was likely to pencil out for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was also surprised to find some prospective employers that want proof a software engineer can work with AI. “Go at it with AI,” he was instructed in one memorable interview. “Just throw everything you’ve got at it. Let’s see how you do it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was new to Kovitz, but he dove in with gusto. “I blasted out 2,000 lines of code and solved the problem,” Kovitz said. “But I also saw that the solution wasn’t that great.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz said he thinks getting useful work out of an AI coding agent takes judgment that only comes with experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a senior engineer, Kovitz argued, he was able to look at those 2,000 machine-generated lines of code, recognize their shortcomings, and then know what to do about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of what you do with AI is you work out a plan, a little conversation with the AI, because if you just tell the AI ‘Do this thing,’ with no plan, it is going to make a gigantic mess, and you are going to spend a week debugging it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Effective prompts require understanding the code and what the company wants from it at a granular level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You need to know how all kinds of things can go wrong. Junior programmers don’t have that. They haven’t seen the development of code over a long period of time,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really a game of marketing at the end of the day,” said Bhatt at Career Lander. He said any employer is going to choose the person who can best explain how they use their experience to help this company. “The better job you’re doing at articulating how you can solve their problems, the easier it becomes to land that position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a survey of 400 engineering leaders in the \u003ca href=\"https://karat.com/engineering-interview-trends-2026/\">U.S., India and China\u003c/a> by Karat, a company that runs technical interviews for hire, 73% said a strong engineer is worth at least three times their total compensation, something they specifically attributed to AI’s impact on productivity. The same survey found that AI is widening the gap between strong and weaker engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>So where did Ben land?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Kovitz landed a job after a six-month hunt — slightly less than average for the information sector, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat32.htm\">Bureau of Labor Statistics\u003c/a>, which tracks tech workers as part of that larger group. After submitting what he estimates was around 3,000 job applications, Kovitz got a software engineering job at\u003ca href=\"https://www.impulselabs.com/the-difference?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23532288434&gbraid=0AAAAA9ieg0kwGUYoidiYsGrH1-yL_JMGl&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlqTRBhCBARIsANrkrxht1bbHUuOgRW2K2gBHBaZH3ZkB4H3XN_j9DNhIQ9zIVy-CdAhvtWEaAjBKEALw_wcB\"> Impulse Labs\u003c/a>, a San Francisco company that makes \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/impulse-cooktop-review/\">high-end induction stoves\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s happy with the job and turned other offers down to take it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their engineering culture makes quality paramount even as they move fast,” Kovitz said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also, as a foodie, Kovitz loves sitting with a stovetop next to his desk for hands-on testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12088888\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12088888 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/06/260625-Too-Old-for-a-New-Job-in-Silicon-Valley-01-KQED-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An induction stovetop in the kitchen at San Francisco-based Impulse Labs. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ben Kovitz)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Does he work with AI on the new job?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yes. Most of the day, every day,” he said, for a wide variety of things that would otherwise take him much longer. They range from finding the relevant parts of a large program to work on, to writing small bits of code in a language he doesn’t know well, to reviewing code for errors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“AI is both amazing when it works well, and amazingly unreliable, so I have to keep a close eye on it,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s glad the job hunt is finally in his rearview mirror, but Kovitz is philosophical about the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it was grueling, it was also a great adventure,” he said. “I learned all kinds of stuff about industries that I’d never known anything about before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he applied for a job with a robotaxi company, he taught himself the basics of motion planning, the math behind how a self-driving car navigates. For another set of interviews, he picked up some basics about satellites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kovitz’s facility with math and science, not to mention his natural curiosity and enthusiasm for intellectual challenges, gave him the kind of career flexibility only the most elite coders have enjoyed in recent decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12090182\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12090182\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/260619-benkovitz00441_TV_qed-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Kovitz poses for a portrait at his place of work at Impulse Labs in San Francisco on June 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Tâm Vũ / KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But he also maintained a positive attitude by consciously framing the search as a good thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was an exciting learning experience,” Kovitz said. “It was part of life’s adventure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His advice for others still looking?\u003c/p>\n\u003col>\n\u003cli>Get help if you can afford it.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Treat the search like an eight-hour job and knock off afterward, so the rejection doesn’t grind you down: “You need to protect your morale.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t go into job interviews with an attitude of desperation. “I’m not there to get the job,” Kovitz said. “I’m there to find out if I want the job.” He added, “It’s wise to be fussy,” and hold out for an employer “that has a culture that you like, where the work is meaningful to you.”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Treat this as a numbers game: “You know, you are probably going to roll the dice 50 or 100, 150 times before you actually get a good [position].”\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, as the saying goes: “There are plenty of perfectly good jobs out there for lots of people.”\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ol>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk3i2DjzVyovGlneUjqudUOXk1699l6Ea-xE4ZgFEi2ApRIQ/viewform?usp=dialog?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk3i2DjzVyovGlneUjqudUOXk1699l6Ea-xE4ZgFEi2ApRIQ/viewform?usp=dialog'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/how-ai-could-benefit-the-workers-it-displaces\">How AI Could Benefit Workers, Even If It Displaces Most Jobs\u003c/a> — Benjamin Jones, \u003cem>AI Frontiers\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Breaking news bulletin announcing the death of John F. Kennedy]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip of Neil Armstrong on the moon]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That’s one small step for man, one giant- \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or the towers fell on 9/11?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[News bulletin from September 11, 2001]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Where were you when you first used ChatGPT?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If I didn’t like the first draft that was conjured, I could just tell it to try again from a different perspective now. Write it shorter. Write it longer. Write it for a fifth grader. Write it with sports metaphors. I was stunned. It seemed clear we were entering a new era of science communication where all the world’s knowledge was not only available, but personally customizable on demand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you wanted a given study to be relayed in the style of Mr. Darcy flirting with Elizabeth Bennet, you were now suddenly in luck. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[AI-generated summary of Pride and Prejudice in style of research article]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of AI Microwave]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recording help from Will Feeney and George Christensen. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n",
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n",
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"\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n"
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"innerHTML": "\n\u003cp>Recording help from Will Feeney and George Christensen. Administrative support, recording, and wise counsel from Stacia Sliger.\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"#transcript\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Will AI actually take over every job ever? \u003ca href=\"https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/academics-research/faculty/jones_benjamin_f/\">Economist Ben Jones\u003c/a> doesn’t think so. Drawing from historical evidence around innovation, Jones argues that automation never conquers \u003cem>everything \u003c/em>— it inevitably creates operational bottlenecks that only humans can solve. By leaning into these bottlenecks, we can protect meaningful, well-paid work. But his optimism comes with a stark caveat: there is one nightmare scenario where this historical pattern breaks down entirely. And it doesn’t involve superintelligence. It involves mediocre AI.\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further Reading: \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/how-ai-could-benefit-the-workers-it-displaces\">How AI Could Benefit Workers, Even If It Displaces Most Jobs\u003c/a> — Benjamin Jones, \u003cem>AI Frontiers\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003ch2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I’m Jess Love. This is Life Automated. For generations of Americans, the question was, where were you when JFK was shot? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Breaking news bulletin announcing the death of John F. Kennedy]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You’ll excuse the fact that I’m out of breath, but about 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing from all indications at this point has happened to this city.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio Clip of Neil Armstrong on the moon]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>That’s one small step for man, one giant- \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or the towers fell on 9/11?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[News bulletin from September 11, 2001]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>There’s smoke \u003c/em>\u003cem>billowing out of the World Trade Center.\u003c/em>\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> These are moments seared into our collective psyche, and now we have a new moment, only this one arrived a bit differently, a browser at a time.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Where were you when you first used ChatGPT?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>This is Life, Automated. I’m Jess Love, and I can tell you exactly where I was. The year was 2022, and I was visiting my in-laws in Florida. It was that lazy week between Christmas and New Year’s that I usually spend in a food coma. I sat on my sister-in-law’s childhood bed and signed up for a free subscription to ChatGPT.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I started asking the machine questions, easy ones at first. What did it know about butterflies native to Chicago or the most common tourist attractions in Italy? But it wasn’t too long before I asked what I really wanted to know. Could it do my job? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>See, much of the work I’ve done over the past decade is in science communication, essentially translating original research written by and for experts into something comprehensible to most people.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I asked ChatGPT to summarize some papers I was familiar with, and it did okay. But what it lacked in finesse, and especially in those earlier iterations, accurate citations, it more than made up for in sheer efficiency. In just seconds, it could do work that would take a human the better part of a day.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If I didn’t like the first draft that was conjured, I could just tell it to try again from a different perspective now. Write it shorter. Write it longer. Write it for a fifth grader. Write it with sports metaphors. I was stunned. It seemed clear we were entering a new era of science communication where all the world’s knowledge was not only available, but personally customizable on demand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you wanted a given study to be relayed in the style of Mr. Darcy flirting with Elizabeth Bennet, you were now suddenly in luck. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[AI-generated summary of Pride and Prejudice in style of research article]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Darcy’s mouth tightened in a way that suggested the accusation had landed, but he proceeded anyway. My dear Miss Bennet, said Mr. Darcy with an air of careful restraint, I have been reading “AIG in Hindsight.” It is an instructive account of how a firm may appear a paragon of prudence until one… \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> The thing I did to make my living that made me special, that made me employable, that I loved to do, was now available to anybody. How could I possibly compete? What did all of my expertise even mean anymore?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the more I thought about ChatGPT, and the more its implications for a lot of other professions became clear, the more I started wondering about all of us. I have a seven-year-old daughter. What opportunities are gonna be available to her? I’m not alone here. The majority of Americans feel pretty anxious about AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it’s not just jobs. Public polling data suggests Americans are really concerned about how AI will affect education, democracy, our environment, our information ecosystem, and just how we relate to each other. But even as I share all these concerns, I gotta say, over time, a big part of me did start rooting for this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Partly, this is because I now work at a research institute, the Ryan Institute on Complexity. I use AI tools every day, and so do the people around me. I see firsthand how useful they can be. But there’s a bigger reason. I have another daughter, an 11-year-old. She was born with a rare neurological disorder, so rare that it doesn’t actually have a name.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You can currently count the number of people in the world with her specific genetic mutation on two fingers. And this genetic difference, it affects how she talks, how she moves, how she uses objects like forks and scissors, how she thinks and learns. My daughter lives in a world that wasn’t made for her, with a brain that science doesn’t really understand.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, technology that can harness the world’s cumulative knowledge in order to make her life a little easier sounds pretty incredible. AI that can predict which medications might be useful or offer step-by-step directions on how to operate household appliances, and then wait for her to finish each step.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of AI Microwave]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>First, press the button above the handle and open the door. Your food will go inside that box when it’s ready. Now close the door. Did it click? \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Or AI that can adapt educational materials to her specifically, on demand, maybe in the voice of her favorite Moana character. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[Audio of Maui from Moana]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cem>You’re welcome. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Sign me up. So yeah, that’s me. One person, one employee, one parent, reckoning with this technology. But of course, it isn’t just me. There are millions, billions of us wondering what AI and other kinds of automation really mean for our lives and our businesses and our communities, and what we should be doing to prepare. If you are one of these people, I’d like to invite you on a journey.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Because nobody can predict the future, nobody has all the answers about where we’re headed, but there are a lot of people with some answers, and I’ll be speaking with them on Life, Automated, a new podcast from Kellogg’s Ryan Institute on Complexity, distributed by KQED. I’ll talk with scientists and philosophers, business leaders and engineers and artists, all with unique insights into the world we’re collectively building.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m not gonna try to freak you out. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything. I am gonna get nerdy. I’m gonna try to understand, as best I can, where we’re headed. And you’re invited.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Shortly after I had my initial ChatGPT moment several years ago, I tracked down Ben Jones. He’s an economist and a co-director here at the Ryan Institute where he studies economic development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the scientific process. And it turns out, Ben has been paying attention to new developments in generative AI for much longer than me.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>When we talked three and a half years ago, I was kind of at peak anxiety; but Ben, he’d had a head start. Speaking with him helped me feel better about where we were headed, in part because he gave me a helpful way of thinking about AI. So, I wanted to bring him back for another conversation, this time in a recording studio. I started off by getting him talking about the first moment he realized AI had the potential to bring about big changes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Did you have an AI moment, kind of a single moment that sort of shook you to the core and made you think, wow, something about these newest models is really fundamentally different? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I did. I’ve had several AI moments along the way. I think many people, you know, when you see what AI can do, it’s uncanny.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Sometimes the hair stands up on the back of my neck. But my first AI moment where the hair stood up on the back of my neck was in 2017, and I was in Toronto for a conference that mixed economists and technologists, people from Geoff Hinton’s lab, who would go on to lead many of the top AI groups at the top companies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And we were shown over dinner, it was a very nice dinner, a video. The video was of an AI learning how to play a first-person shooter game. And as you may know, with first-person shooter games, the experience is if you’re looking through the eyes of the player. So, we’re sort of looking through the eyes of the AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And without any particular directives, except to sort of survive as long as possible, the AI was training itself to play this game better and better. And at first, you’re sitting there looking through the AI’s eyes, and you’re kind of like a drunken sailor. You’re, like, stumbling around, you’re banging into walls, you’re getting trapped in corners.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You never pick up health or a weapon. You just don’t last very long. The video showed us the AI’s progression kind of in a fast-forward, high speed over maybe 24 hours. And so around the middle of the training, over, maybe 12 hours, it started running around the maze extremely effectively, but it wasn’t always picking up things on the floor, and it was no longer falling off bridges.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>By the end of the day, it was not only picking everything up and firing the weapons accurately, it was killing every single person in the game, all the real players. It didn’t miss. It didn’t miss in any way. And just watching this progression from this AI algorithm was a really uncanny moment, and to me, opened my mind to how powerful but also potentially worrisome AI is.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think, you know, on some level it’s not that surprising that a computer can learn to master a computer game. But what makes this story so incredible is just that the computer had no instructions that told us what it was supposed to be doing or what it was supposed to be optimizing other than just, like, live.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And it was able to just learn all of those techniques just via trial and error. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right. Just the certain algorithms for training AI with fairly simple objectives lead to this incredible set of capabilities, which are truly uncanny. Many people have probably had that first moment now with AI, I think a lot with ChatGPT, where you ask it a question and you can’t believe the answer.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You’re like, “How could it possibly be coming up with this?” And AI absolutely has that quality. So, for me, it kind of happened a bit earlier, and so I started writing about it a bit earlier than most because I’d had that experience a bit earlier than most. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, which was very convenient for me personally because it meant that, when I was still in my AI freak-out phase, you were somebody who had been doing research on this for years, and were able to kind of be this, calming presence, in order to give me some concrete information about this technology.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, you have kind of an interesting perspective, which is that AI, the current generative AI that we’re talking about with ChatGPT, it’s really just part of a long process of automation. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And it’s true that certain technologies for a long time, and AI is one of them, are just hands down amazing.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>They do things that are just amazing. But that doesn’t mean that they disemploy everybody.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Phew.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, how can those two things be true? Well, let me just give you another example. You know, obviously computers have been around for a long time now, and their capacity to do sort of certain kinds of calculations are just, more or less infinitely, virtually infinitely better than humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, in my field and in many research fields, you use data and statistical regressions. If I were to run a regression by hand, with a large number of observations, it would take me literally my entire life. And I would make mistakes. You know, my computer can do a regression with a million data points in a minute.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we have these technologies that basically are infinitely better than us to do these tasks that are really important to what we do. And then you can ask, okay, well, has our understanding of economics or astronomy or physics multiplied by a similar factor? And you’d say no, because although we can do certain things really, really, really incredibly well, other things are holding us back.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have these other tasks, which I would call bottlenecks.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay, and this is the thing that I have thought about so often since our conversation. It kind of blew my mind. So, can you talk to us about what a bottleneck is and why it’s so important?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, of course, it’s a metaphor from a bottle, and what do we know about bottles? We know that the speed at which water or wine will flow from the bottle depends on the width of the neck. Doesn’t really depend on how big the bottle is otherwise, how much wine there is in it, how big the base is. It really just depends on the neck.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And in many processes in the economy and in the economy overall, it looks like there are certain things that have to happen that act as bottlenecks. Let’s say you’re going out to see your cousins for Thanksgiving dinner, and you’ve gotta get everyone in your house into the car, and you’ve gotta pack up the pies that you’re bringing and contributing to the festivities.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Well, everyone in the house could have gotten up early, gotten dressed, put on their Thanksgiving sweaters, gotten the pies into the car. But you’re not leaving the house until everyone has their shoes on and their socks. And maybe there’s someone in the family who just is getting real slow about getting their socks and their shoes on.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>How fast is it that you leave the house? It doesn’t really depend on how fast everyone is. It depends on how slow the slowest person is. That person becomes a bottleneck. Maybe an example we can all relate to. Much of the economy has that flavor, where it’s not how good you are at a lot of things. What’s really sort of determining the rate of the economy is the things we’re quite slow at, the things we’re not very good at.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So basically, it’s this task that is slowing down the speed with which the entire overall goal or objective can be met. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And the reason that’s important is because often in innovation, we get really focused on the shiny thing that’s going really fast, and we’re really excited about how fast it can compute things and these kinds of new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But often what really matters is the thing we’re not looking at. It’s the things that we’re quite bad at. The things that we’re really bad at are actually going to slow down the whole system, and if we can’t improve those, the gains from these kind of shiny new objects and new technologies won’t be as great as we hope.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I thought about these bottlenecks a lot after our initial conversation. Like, whenever I heard a tech leader say AI was going to be ready to colonize the galaxy in five years, or whenever I started spiraling about whether AI was going to take over every job ever. Now, about that. Overall, Ben, like many economists, is bullish on AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>He says that automation is generally good for workers. Sure, it causes some job loss and dislocation in the short term. But in the long term, it raises the quality of life for everybody, in part because it lowers the price of things we need and want. But that doesn’t mean people don’t get harmed along the way.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, one of the fears people have is that these automation technologies take jobs.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And of course, this goes back to the early years of the Industrial Revolution and the Luddites. You know, when you have handcrafts people who are silversmiths and blacksmiths, and you’re making clothes by hand, and then suddenly you have, say, the loom, you’re going to put out of work a lot of hand clothes makers.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But they’re going to migrate into other jobs, right? Over the long run, we’re going to see people do many other things, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Think about the real economy. Think about farming. I don’t know if anyone in the audience has ever had a chance to ride around in a combine harvester.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But, that’s one of the most incredible pieces of machinery you can imagine. I think a single combine harvester with a bunch of trucks driving up and around it, was able to harvest something like four or five million pounds of corn in twelve hours. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s insane. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Right? And certainly, agricultural technology is one of those areas where we’ve had massive productivity growth.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We have better seeds and irrigation systems. We have a lot more knowledge. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>Fertilizer. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Fertilizers… All sorts of pesticides, depending how you feel about that. And those together have made for very high productivity, meaning, one hour of labor working with those machines can produce an enormous amount of food.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And the end result of that is that instead of having half our workforce in the US, you know, be in agriculture- \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it would have been, like- two hundred years ago.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And that’s what it is in many very low-income countries today, which still struggle to put in place even more basic agricultural technologies.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, if fifty percent of the American workforce was in agriculture, now it’s, say, two percent of the American workforce working with an enormous amount of machines. But of course, that’s why many people have gone on to find other careers in other parts of the country. And overall, that process, while it’s not incidental, it can be quite painful. This process of what we call creative destruction, in the long run is what allows us to be far more productive, have higher standards of living.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Coming up, Ben Jones explains why he wants AI to be really good at every job it automates, and why the bigger risk is mediocre AI.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I do want to point out a very important difference that I think a lot of people are feeling, which is that what is happening with artificial intelligence right now, it’s that the most desirable jobs seem to be the ones that are most at risk. So, I don’t think many people grow up and think, “Boy, I really want to spend all day turning a knob again and again and again.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But a lot of people really do want to do things like animate, or people want to become journalists. People are accepting giant salary reductions already, to position themselves in these fields. And it seems like those jobs are also at risk. So, there does almost seem to be an emotional difference with the jobs that are being lost right now, that puts kids growing up today in a really hard spot in terms of, follow your dreams.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Well, so, I mean, this is a bit too soon to tell, I think. But, you’re right that if you think of a job as not a task, but a bundle of tasks, that doesn’t mean that you don’t like some of the tasks more than others. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> If you’re a chef, I presume you think about the menu and, and some of the cooking is more fun than washing the dishes, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, that’s exactly right.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think people are the same. So, I think people have different preferences, even in the same job, about different kinds of tasks that they have to do. But to the extent that, you know, AI replaces, it’s just lower cost for how good it is at the tasks that you like, I think that’s not gonna feel so great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, what if it’s really good at creativity and then all you’re doing is editing? But you’d rather do the creative part. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Exactly. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> But on the other hand, you know, it’s also the case that when you bring in… Like, let’s go back to regressions. I like to do statistical analysis. I think it’s really interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But I’m mostly interested in the output. I have no interest in the calculation, and it’s boring. So, this makes me get to the interesting part much faster. And maybe when you’re writing, it’s a collaborator, right? I mean, maybe it’s not a replacement. It’s like another voice on your team.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And suddenly you’re getting a higher quality product, and it could be that you’re making a screenplay or writing an article, you’re writing a song, and suddenly it’s better for your collaboration with the AI, but they’re not actually taking kind of full control. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> That’s the optimistic version here.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That at least for a lot of jobs, some tasks will be automated, but other tasks won’t. And those tasks, those bottlenecks, will keep us humans busy and employed and maybe even fulfilled. And looking for these bottlenecks in our own jobs or industries, that is something that feels actionable. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Naturally, if there’s some bottleneck tasks that are slowing up the whole system, those are gonna have a lot of value.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>If you can continue to do those or do them relatively well, people will value that. You’ll get a lot of income, you’ll get a sustained job, based on those kinds of tasks. So, the question I think is, are there tasks that are bottleneck tasks that computers can’t do very well yet? That’s really where you should focus.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> And in Ben’s view, assuming there will always be some role for humans, we should actually be rooting for AI to get really, really good at whatever it automates. To understand why, we first need to understand two opposing forces. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> So, the first is automation. Automation would be when a machine starts doing a task that we used to do as labor, humans.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yeah, and I think this is the force that a lot of people think of. They think about, okay, this machine can do more and more and more work, and so there’s obviously going to be just, like, less and less and less of the income or the share of the economy that’s going to be available to us non-machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. That’s the sort of obvious force that most people get. But there’s another force which is a little bit more subtle, and it has to do with the fact that if machines are taking over tasks, and they are really good at those tasks, right… And at some level they have to be good at those tasks, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking them over from labor.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But if they get very, very good at those tasks, then what happens is those tasks become very cheap, in the sense that whenever you flood a market with something, right? If I made anything abundant, its price will fall. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so what’s gonna happen if machines are really, really good at those tasks is the kinds of services they produce will become very inexpensive.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, what we really want if AI is gonna take over a lot of tasks, it’s very important that it not just slightly beat labor at those tasks. We want AI, if it’s gonna take over those tasks, to be really great at it, because then we’re gonna have an abundance of that output, and actually the prices fall and people end up being much better off in a real income sense.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, I was trying to come up with an example, and instead of it being, quite as theoretical, I was trying to think of something that maybe is already happening in the economy today so that we could sort of play out this idea, this thought experiment, and really understand why even us mere laborers really ought to be working, rooting for AI to get quite good at the tasks of ours that it takes over.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, I’m gonna read an example to you, and I am hoping that you can respond to it. Give me a sense of whether this is correct, and if so, what it means. If not, where I went wrong. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>‘Imagine that companies start replacing customer service professionals at call centers with AI. This is something that we already know is happening, like when you call your health insurance company to ask about coverage, or you ask your bank why a deposit hasn’t gone through, what have you.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>The person you talk to gets automated. They’re replaced by AI, and even if the AI isn’t cheap, they still cost a lot less than paying the salaries of fluent English speakers trained in customer service. So, one scenario is the AI is just ‘okay’ at this. It provides worse customer service than humans. People don’t always get their problems resolved.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Maybe they get frustrated, maybe they even get angry at the company. But the AI is still good enough that even though the company’s reputation might suffer a bit, the money they’re saving kind of makes it worth it. Maybe they come out a bit ahead. And this is your nightmare scenario as I understand it.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>So, all these call center jobs get eliminated. Nobody really benefits except for the companies that might save a little money every year. Is that a fair depiction of the nightmare scenario?’\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Yes, because if the companies are only just saving a little bit of money, that’s a sign that the computers aren’t that much better at the task.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>We get bad services. People lose their jobs. That’s an accurate version of the kind of nightmare scenario one would have in mind. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. Now, if the AI is really, really good at customer service, then eventually most of us do benefit. So, some people do lose their jobs, but they are able to move into others.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And meanwhile, the rest of us get our questions answered really quickly, really easily. We have more time in our day to do other things, and hopefully the products and the services from that company become less expensive because the firm is able to pass along those savings. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. And as long as those workers who are displaced are able to find other kinds of jobs in this new economy, everyone’s income will eventually, be going up.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> So, if I want to go back to this farming example, it’s very easy for me to see that, you know, in the last two hundred years, let’s say, since half of America was a farmer, it’s very easy for me to see that life is a lot better now. You’re gonna live if you are born — you stand a much higher likelihood, you’re just going to enjoy a lot of things that our ancestors would not have been able to. But I think right now, a lot of people are feeling like life in general is not getting better. They’re kind of feeling like, the chances that my kid is going to have a better life than me are not that great.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>You know, houses are getting more expensive. It’s more expensive to go to college. Like, I think a lot of people are feeling like they are just treading water. And so how does that square with this idea of incremental progress? Is it just that we are imagining the past to be better than it was? Or is it that maybe some of the things that are real pain points are because of these bottlenecks or something else?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> I would say that’s more to do with inequality, and where the benefits have been felt in this economy. And this goes way before artificial intelligence. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Going back to the ’70s for quite a long time, the median real household income was kind of stagnating in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And so, we had a lot of growth, but as I think people know, a lot of that increased value added in the economy every year has been captured by people who are pretty well off already. One of the concerns with AI, as we see, these billionaires, trillionaires starting to emerge, is that too much of the added value will be captured by those who own the companies or own the capital. So, I think that’s a real question. The other kind of inequality, which is actually the major kind of inequality that’s been at work in the United States, is within labor. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Okay. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And what we’ve seen over time since the ’70s is a spreading where people who are in the upper educated professional classes have been capturing a lot of the growth, in income per capita\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>for themselves. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Oh, interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones: \u003c/strong>Whereas the median household has been struggling. Compared to history, we’ve seen relatively slow growth in real standards of living among the median household. I think when you think about why, Americans maybe not necessarily fully seeing these facts, but feeling them right? Feeling that maybe they put it on globalization, but that’s maybe not the right… But there’s some globalization, there’s a lot of automation, there’s a lot of technological change within the country. But feeling that somehow, these advances or this participation in the world economy, doesn’t seem like it’s making their lives better. And I think for many people, at least going back to the ’70s, there’s some truth in that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> In Ben’s view, much of the pessimism Americans feel about technological progress comes not from the technology itself but from how its gains have been distributed. But he thinks that at least some of this inequality, not the kind driven by tech billionaires, but the inequality within workers might actually decrease as AI automates white collar work. And to be very blunt, he does not share the average American’s concerns about AI making human labor obsolete.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love: \u003c/strong>So, I mean, a stat I ran across earlier this year, just 6% of Americans say workplace AI use will lead to more jobs in the long run, and you would just wholeheartedly disagree with that and say that, this might just be kind of a failure of imagination.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Correct. I mean, you wouldn’t have imagined there was an ATM technician or a satellite engineer or a pilot before those things were created. And, I think it’s very hard to predict what’s gonna become easier, what’s gonna become hard, and that’s for the future to tell us. It’s gonna be unexpected and pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But there’s nothing so far in history that would suggest that suddenly all labor could be replaced. And even if it were, I mean, just to be clear, I mean, if it were, right? \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, let’s go there! \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> Then the amount of output would be enormous, right? So, if you actually replaced all human labor and you had these efficient machines that could do everything, the amount of consumption you could have would be incredibly high. It would at that point become entirely an issue of equity and access to that income. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Right. \u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And, you know, that’s where governments can step in, right? And we can have redistributive policies. I mean, do you wanna just let a few capitalists own everything? I doubt that is a political equilibrium- with everyone starving and, like, three people are, you know, quadrillionaires. Maybe, this gets into dystopian scenarios —\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> Yes, it does\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ben Jones:\u003c/strong> And it gets into various other things. And I’m not saying that’s not possible. We certainly see authoritarian behavior around the world that is problematic. It’s ultimately a question of our political process and the representation of voices who are being left out, or doing much worse because of technological change.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And, you know, if you’re making the pie much bigger through this kind of churn and technological advance, there’s more resources around. You should be able to compensate those who lost in some way and not have them live a life that is much harder for virtue of having been replaced by machines.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>And I think, you know, in the United States, you have to be careful in both directions. Technological progress is inevitably about creative destruction, right? I mean, think of what Amazon has done, right? E-tail destroyed bricks-and-mortar bookstores first and a whole lot of other kinds of bricks and mortar, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>But it is more efficient for a lot of people. Consumers like it. They get things delivered. It’s cheaper. You know, they get things faster. But if you owned a bookstore, it was terrible, right? And, so, how do we think about that as a society? Well, on one hand, if we let the people who are already kind of in charge resist creative destruction, then we don’t grow and we don’t advance, and then those people are kind of holding us back, right?\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>On the other hand, if you just let creative destruction go with no kind of willy-nilly, with no compensation, which is pretty close to the American model, right? You got a lotta progress. You got a lotta churn. You get a lotta technological advance, but you’re gonna displace a lotta people. And so, at that point, you definitely need a very, at minimum, a very flexible labor market which allows people to reallocate into other jobs, and there are ways to have policy to facilitate that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>Retraining, et cetera. But that’s not to sugarcoat anything here. I mean, if you’re in a rural area and the main employer goes down, reallocating to a new job probably means reallocating to a new place, leaving your family, leaving the region you know and all the culture that goes with that.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>That’s an extraordinarily painful experience. And whether that’s because of technological change or trade, you know, I think it’s on all of us and as citizens in a country to take that extremely seriously.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jess Love:\u003c/strong> I think this question of how we as a society deploy and adapt to automation is one of the most important questions today. But before we can adapt, we need to understand. That’s what this show is trying to do, help more people, including me, make sense of things. So we have a lot more great conversations coming up with economists, scientists, experts in design and media, people whose work can help us understand this moment and maybe even peek into the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>I’m Jess Love. Life, Automated is a project of the Ryan Institute on Complexity at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We’re distributed by KQED. Our show is produced by Jesse Dukes with help from Nathan Ray and Steven Jackson. Music by Steven Jackson, Q Shop, and Neutral Propulsion Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\n\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"order": 16
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},
"science-friday": {
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