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"title": "Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s what’s known as \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">surveillance pricing. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8058124943\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/person/lindsay-owens/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, executive director of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groundwork Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/asians-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-get-higher-price-from-princeton-review\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tiger Mom Tax: Asians Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Get a Higher Price from Princeton Review\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Julia Angwin, Surya Mattu and Jeff Larson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pro Publica\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The hidden way using a rewards card can cost you more\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Geoffrey A. Fowler, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Washington Post\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/sp6b-issue-spotlight.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Issue Spotlight: The Rise of Surveillance Pricing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — FTC Staff, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Trade Commission\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/05/why-surveillance-pricing-bans-are-suddenly-gaining-traction-this-year-and-not-just-in-california/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why surveillance pricing bans are suddenly gaining traction this year (and not just in California)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Khari Johnson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91544120/public-library-hack-book-cheaper-flights-mistrust-airlines\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers are peddling ‘the library hack’ as a way to score cheaper flights. Whether it works is beside the point\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Grace Snelling, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hello, Tabbies. We’ve been workshopping games. What do you think of Tab Hive? Could also go with Tab Closers? Maybe Tabdom, like Tab fandom, but I don’t know, that sounds kind of ominous. Anyway, if you’re a Close All Tabs listener and you like our deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this. It would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So online, there’s this kind of urban legend when it comes to booking flights. Basically, as the myth goes, if you’ve been looking up flights between certain destinations and you’re finally ready to book, you should always clear your cookies or book the flight from an incognito tab so you get a better price. For years, this travel hack was based on anecdotal experience, not actual evidence that airlines were using personal data to determine prices. But we do know that our personal data is kind of up for grabs anyway. We talk about this all the time on the show. It’s not wild to believe that corporations are tracking you and price gouging you based on your specific habits. But if you brought it up on travel forums or comment threads, you might get written off as a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And then in April, JetBlue just tweeted it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens, Guest: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just a really incredible story, one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens is an economic sociologist who runs the affordability think tank Groundwork Collective. She keeps a pretty close eye on this kind of thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re feeling it in your wallet, we are studying it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So back in April, a customer took to X, the site formerly known as Twitter…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To kind of complain, vent, gripe about the fact that his flight had increased by more than $200 overnight, and he was just trying to get to a funeral. And he tweeted sort of, JetBlue, what gives here? Why are you doing this? And incredibly, JetBlue’s corporate Twitter account replied.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the real travel hack. If your flight is delayed or canceled or you’re stuck in customer service hotline hell, complain about it on Twitter. There’s a chance that the airline will see it and give you a discount or at worst a snack voucher. At least that’s how they usually respond. But this time JetBlue took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said ‘try clearing your cash and cookies or booking with an incognito window.’ And then they did say, ‘we’re sorry for your loss. ‘\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, JetBlue’s official corporate social account told the customer that if he didn’t want to be overcharged, he should just trick the company’s booking software into not identifying him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this was a pretty stunning thing to see on Twitter. JetBlue’s HQ immediately weighed in and said the tweet was mistaken, that they don’t use personal information to set prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for the company told multiple news outlets that the airline fares are determined by supply and demand, not by customer data. JetBlue very quickly deleted the response, but it’s the internet, screenshots live on. This exchange went super viral.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a real confession of sorts, but it was a window into the ways in which pricing is changing right under our feet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An airline surreptitiously gleaning personal information to maximize how much money they can make off of each individual customer, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, Lindsay said that just last year, she listened in on a Delta earnings call and the company told investors about this new strategy they were piloting, a partnership with an Israel-based AI company called Fetcherr, which specialized in personalized pricing. Lindsay went on Fetcherr’s website and found a white paper.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phase two was called ‘the exploitation phase’ —really not hiding the ball with this one. That’s when they’ve learned everything they can about Delta’s competitors, about their customers, and when they start going for broke and they start increasing those prices and getting better revenues for Delta. They were guaranteeing increases in revenue of near 10% in some cases. So we’ve had quite a few of these examples with the airlines now revealing some of their plans, experiments, and things that they’re working on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay wasn’t the only one paying attention. Journalists did too. News of the earnings call spread. This set off a PR firestorm for the company with Delta’s competitors saying that they’d never do this to their valued customers, and Delta announcing that they didn’t actually plan to go through with it. But this practice is becoming the norm across industries. We’ve gotten used to dynamic pricing: price fluctuating based on supply and demand, like, how concert tickets get more expensive as seats fill up. What we’re talking about today goes further. Economists call it personalized pricing. This idea that companies charge you based on their assessment of how much you’re willing to pay for a good or service. It’s a practice more commonly known as surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re doing anything they can to learn about you, including sometimes spying on you, which is why I do think the term surveillance pricing is so apt and accurate. Companies gather a lot of data about us. Some of it we offer up willingly, our browsing history, we accept the cookies, we agree to let them sell our data, and all of that can be used to set a price for you specifically — ideally, if you’re a company, a price that gets pretty close to the maximum that you’d be willing to pay before you might walk away or start looking elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, we’re diving into surveillance pricing. Where it came from, how it works, and what we’re supposed to do to save ourselves from it. And no, clearing cookies isn’t always the answer. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the funny thing. A set price is a fairly new concept compared to the entirety of human history. Let’s talk about it. Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: History of the price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live] \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t about the, uh, cha-chang-cha-chung \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t bout the, b-bling-b-bling \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wanna make the world dance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forget about the beep beep beep boop boop boop\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …price tag. To quote the iconic Jessie J, we need to take it back in time. We don’t even have to go that far back. The price tag dates back to 1861, when Wanamakers opened its stores in Philadelphia. It was one of the first American department stores, and also invented the.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Priiiiiiiiiicetaaaaaagggg!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to Wanamaker, you really had thousands of years where we haggled. You went to the market, you picked out what you wanted, and then you started a process of bartering or haggling to set the price. The merchant at the souk or the market maybe sized you up a little and said, oh, you look like someone who could pay more. Maybe he knows a little bit about you, knows you’re wealthy, charges you more. Maybe you know a little bit about him, you have a little dirt on him, he charges you less, right? Those were the kind of rules of the bizarre economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That started to shift in the U.S. context really with the Quakers and they felt like bartering and haggling was really unfair. They felt a sort of moral conviction about this; you and I are created equal under God, they thought. Why would we be charged different amounts for the same item? So they instituted a fixed price, and everyone would pay the same amount for items at a Quaker market.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Wanamaker wasn’t a Quaker, but he was a devout Christian, and he had this brilliant idea. What if he took this Quaker concept further? Not just standardized prices, but print them on a little tag attached to each item, and then call it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…the priiiiiice taaag!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, Wanamaker wasn’t just doing this for religious reasons, he was also doing it because he was a good businessman and haggling takes a lot of time. The price tag is pretty efficient, right? It makes it pretty easy to tally up what you owe and get on with the purchase. But look, the price tag, I think, did a number of really important things. The first thing it did is it offered transparency. And transparency is really key to fair and honest markets, and that’s really key to a healthy economy. We knew how much something cost. As part of that transparency, we could comparison shop. We could look at how much anything cost in one store, we could look at how much something cost in another store, and we could take the offering that we thought provided the best value. Actually, that mechanism of bargain hunting and comparison shopping is also an important function in a healthy competitive economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the price tag also offers some stability and predictability. Of course, things like inflation and seasonal availability and wars that shut down access to major waterways can affect prices. But overall, you’d probably have an idea of how much your weekly groceries will cost.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And predictability is bedrock to home economics, to budgeting in the household. If you don’t know how much something is gonna cost from one week to the next, it is hard to know if you’re gonna clear at the end of the week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dynamic pricing has gotten out of hand and Lindsay said this wasn’t always the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do think while we have gotten very used to dynamic pricing in a whole host of settings, it is actually the case that in the not too distant past, there were other ways that companies allocated scarce resources. It has really shifted over time and I also think dynamic pricing is increasingly happening in places where resources aren’t scarce at all. You know, you see dynamic pricing in the grocery store, Target isn’t running out of wheat thins. Kroger’s not running out of Barilla pasta, right? This isn’t about managing scarcity. It’s just about charging what they can at any given time. So I think there has been a, kind of, increase in the prevalence of dynamic pricing and the types of goods that are subject to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When did this use of personal data specifically to set prices become such a common practice?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the way to think about the advent of surveillance pricing is to start with the advent of surveillance advertising, which really takes you to the internet. I mean, that’s when this starts getting really creepy, and it’s when it starts to become big business. You may have heard about a company called DoubleClick. They really pioneered and built the infrastructure for surveillance advertising on the internet. They tracked what you looked at online. And then they built an advertising system to serve it back to you. So if you’ve ever looked at an item, you didn’t buy it, and then the next day it started popping up in your feed over and over and again, and you finally relented and purchased the item, that’s just the latest iteration of surveillance advertising.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DoubleClick was eventually purchased by Google, and Google is advertising king in the early digital era. In some ways, the logical next step for many of these companies was as they get better and better at knowing what you want, predicting what you want, maybe persuading you to want something, they might as well also think about getting better and better, figuring out how much you might be willing to pay for it. And so marrying sort of dynamic pricing with surveillance advertising is how we get to the modern form of surveillance pricing that we’re starting to see today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why does the idea of dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing, why does that upset people so much?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By and large, Americans hate the idea of companies charging different amounts to different people for the same item at the exact same time from the exact same store. I think the answer is really simple. I think when you see sort of a ubiquitous response to something in culture, it’s because you’ve tapped into a core human value. And in this case, I think that value is fairness.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how does surveillance pricing work in practice? That’s a new tab, which we’ll open after a quick break. But first, we wanted to remind you that close all tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break, big data and your wallet. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back! So how does surveillance pricing work exactly? Time for a new tab: Big Data and Your Wallet. Let’s talk about some examples of surveillance pricing and how mass data collection determines those prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this one was uncovered in an analysis by ProPublica, which showed that the prices for online SAT tutoring packages at the Princeton Review, the test prep company, were varying quite substantially depending on where customers lived. So if you went online to book an online test prep package and you typed in your zip code, Some people were offered the course for $6,600. That’s, by the way, a good price, apparently, for a test prep package in 2015. I’m sure it’s more today, it’s a little staggering. But for others, the same package would be almost $2,000 more. And what they determined is that folks in zip codes with a larger percentage of Asian Americans were almost twice as likely to be offered that higher price than others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They called this the “tiger mom tax.” Yeah, and even in lower income neighborhoods, Asian Americans were quoted the highest prices by the Princeton Review.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is a good example of how companies were using zip codes and demographic information to try to estimate the likely willingness to pay for a service like test prep. We have seen similarly during that period, a study from the Wall Street Journal in 2012, which showed that the online office retailer Staples was varying prices by zip code. This one was actually a little more nefarious in some respects. If you lived in a zip code where there were other office stores nearby, like an Office Depot, you were getting better pricing. If there was not an OfficeMax or an Office Depot within 20 miles or so, you were charged more because they knew you didn’t really have any ability to go to a competitor or go anywhere else. You were probably gonna go with the Staples offering. So those are some of the early examples of companies starting to toy around with gaging your desperation, gaging your willingness to pay. Gaging how likely your exit options were, how much choice you have in a market, and then using that to put you over a barrel and charge you as much as they possibly can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s so funny that you say that because my friends and I joke that with Pride right around the corner, Target is probably jacking up prices for plain white tank tops for queer people because they know we’ll probably buy them for all the lesbian events in June. And obviously, that’s purely speculative and it’s mostly us kind of joking among ourselves like, ‘oh, this $5 tank top is going to be $12 next week.’ But it seems like this theory isn’t that far-fetched after all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is not far-fetched at all. That is exactly the kind of thing to expect. When Walmart announced that they were installing electronic shelf labels in every Walmart store throughout the country. The first thing that many consumers thought is they are going to start jacking up the of coke and ice cream and cool items on a hot summer day. When there’s a snowstorm, they are gonna charge more for soup. These are all the things that are possible when you have the ability to do dynamic pricing at scale, either online or in brick and mortar stores, which you can do with electronic shelf labels. Pricing algorithms can be controlled remotely. It is very easy to have them respond to things like the weather and other data inputs. And it starts to present, I think, a real sort of dystopian view of what shopping could look like in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are some of the pieces of personal information that could be used to set the price that you pay, which people probably aren’t thinking about?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is a long list. So you give up a lot of your information in a lot settings. Those terms and conditions when you get on a website that you click on without reading, often what you’ve done is just sort of pulled back the curtain and let the company ransack all of your data. Loyalty programs can be great, but often are sophisticated data harvesting operations. Okay, kinds of things they might know: they might be connected to your bank account and know when it’s payday. They might have information about your location. They might your purchase history, what you buy weekly, what you haven’t bought in a while that you usually buy and so you’re due for. They track your movements online, your mouse movements, what you hover over, how long you hover it, what you click on, what you put in your cart and don’t buy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay pointed to this report from former Washington Post tech columnist, Geoffrey Fowler. He requested his data from Starbucks and got a detailed dossier of everything he ever bought there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was a reporter, so he had purchased a lot of coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>Geoffrey Fowler in Washington Post story]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The more coffee I ordered, the fewer discounts I got. Sure, I was still collecting stars, but the average price I paid per cup of coffee was going up. My loyalty was working against me.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, in this case, they are collecting all the information about your caffeine habits. When you have your morning cup of copy, when you have you afternoon cup of cofee, if you have a sweet tooth and like to have a cookie with your afternoon coffee, right? All of those things they can collect. They can buy information about you from third parties. So, you know, this breadcrumb trail of data you leave when you participate in e-commerce provides a really robust set of data that companies can use to predict how much you’re willing to pay for any given item.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More and more consumers are using chatbots and AI agents to do the price comparisons for them. You know, kind of taking off the drudge work of like sifting through all these websites. Are AI agents shopping for you, the new haggling?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shopping and e-commerce and chat bots combined is really scary for folks who worry about privacy and for the potential for surveillance pricing at scale. We may be just in the first inning of our journey through the big bad world of surveillance pricing. A lot of the data that companies collect about you is behavioral and a lot of it is inferences. We think you must like this because you hovered over it for a while. So they’re guessing and using those guesses to decide what to advertise to you and how much to charge you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now with conversational LLMs, often the guesswork can be eliminated because you might just tell them, right? You might say to your chat bot, hey, I have a wedding on Friday. I’m totally screwed. I need a dress. What are some options? Show me some options. Well, you’ve really just given away the store. Right? They know you’re desperate, they know you are in a rush, they know you need it now, and they’re gonna charge you top dollar for it. They’re gonna return results that cost you a lot of money. So the types of data that you offer Chopbots is pretty helpful in commerce. And so then the question is, how will the sort of move from AI into commerce make use of that data? And I think there are real questions about what’s likely to transpire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we got a very recent hint and it was not great: a couple of researchers, one at Princeton University, one at the University of Washington, tested some LLMs and they put in some different scenarios and tried to measure how the advertising and pricing would work. You know, the results were pretty alarming. All of the current LLM’s, they tested all of them, exhibited risky behaviors, that was the researcher’s word, that favored the company over the user; steering users towards more expensive sponsored products; concealing that the products were sponsored and therefore impacted their recommendations; recommending predatory products like bad loans with high interest rates.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In practice, users were also nudged to spend more. That one we didn’t need a study to confirm, we already have data from Walmart, where the CEO has been quite candid with their investors about the fact that Sparky, the Walmart chat bot, is doing a great job of nudging consumers to spend more. And folks who use Sparky are spending 35% more than folks who don’t, in part because Sparky is bidding up their cart total very effectively.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also learned in the study that when asked to recommend between two otherwise equivalent products, The vast majority of the models in the study chose the sponsored option more than half the time, despite it being twice as expensive. I think this is really the next big frontier in surveillance pricing. It’s the next place for people like me who research this stuff and who think through and help craft policy solutions to protect consumers from this stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The good news is people aren’t overwhelmingly shopping in AI right now, although, as I mentioned, companies like Walmart are building this into their apps and into their e-commerce offerings. But it would be great to get this one fixed before the horse is out of the barn because the future doesn’t look great.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yikes, right? I mean, how is any of this even allowed? Is there anything we could do to stop it? Okay, let’s open one last tab: Is surveillance pricing even legal? I’ve googled this question many times, and the answer is never satisfying. Long story short, yes, surveillance pricing is legal. At the federal level, the U.S. is not great about comprehensive data privacy laws. And you may be asking, but what about the FTC? The Federal Trade Commission. They’re supposed to protect consumers and promote business competition. Well, under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC conducted a preliminary study on AI-driven pricing tools. It was released in January 2025, right before the Trump administration took over. And since then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, look, the federal government is not really leading the charge right now. We’re seeing much more action in the states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To understand what’s going on there, we need to talk about the flip side of surveillance pricing: surveillance wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Companies learning about you to figure out the maximum you’re willing to pay can use the exact same tools to learn about their workers and figure out the minimum they’re willing to charge in the form of wages. So it’s great news for companies who can deploy both at the same time because they can bring in more revenue from consumers and they can spend less on their workers. The processes and the systems are really similar and we’ve started to see some, oh really I think, concerning examples of this type of algorithmic wage discrimination starting to pop up in a whole host of sectors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some examples of day nurses being subjected to auctions where they bid against each other for a shift. But instead of an auction where the highest bidder wins, whoever will take the minimum to show up for work would win. We have examples of Uber offering different drivers different fares for the same trip, right? So we are starting to see some examples of algorithmic wage discrimination in parallel to these examples of surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why might this whole practice of algorithmic wage discrimination actually lead to more legal action against these companies that are using surveillance pricing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To crack down on surveillance pricing, arguably we’re gonna need new laws. We’ve now seen in 40 states and localities just this year in 2026, people cracking down on surveillance pricing, introducing bans in state legislatures to eliminate this practice. Some of those bills also include prohibitions on algorithmic wage discrimination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just last month, Colorado actually passed a bill that would do both. It bans corporations from using personal data to set individual prices and wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are some cases in which algorithmic wage discrimination will already be illegal. So we have fair labor laws and we have employment discrimination laws and it is illegal to pay men and women different amounts for the same job. And so where algorithmic discrimination falls afoul of existing employment discrimination and labor laws, there may be opportunities for enforcement agencies to go ahead and crack down on those practices even without updating the law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that this kind of legislation will be effective in combating surveillance pricing? How does it compare to other policy pushes that you’ve seen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we have seen a couple of different types of laws. We’ve seen disclosure laws, which would require companies to tell you they’re spying on you in order to overcharge you, which New York put into effect this year. If you are the victim of surveillance pricing in New York, you will know it, because you will see a disclosure that says this price was set by an algorithm using your data. So disclosure laws are interesting. They’re interesting to people like me, because it gives me a nice population of companies to study. They’re interesting to consumers because sometimes you can say, okay, I’d rather not purchase from this company anymore. But, you know, I would prefer that companies not be able to do this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened a sweeping investigation into surveillance pricing. California lawmakers have also proposed an outright ban on the practice. A similar bill failed to reach the governor’s desk last year, but this one just cleared a major milestone in the state legislature this month. If it does pass, Lindsay said it could be a really strong law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it would be a game changer for a state as large as California with as many tech companies located in California as there are to pass a bill like this and it would great to see that happen as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like we’re finally at a kind of inflection point for surveillance pricing with consumers, especially after the JetBlue tweet, kind of waking up to it and starting to push back. How are retailers responding to the policy pushbacks and also the consumer outrage?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retailers have to make some tough choices about the costs and benefits of deploying technologies like this. The benefits are clear. You can make a lot of money charging your consumer the absolute maximum they are willing to pay for every item in their cart. There is revenue to be won. But the risk is that when consumers find out about this, they are really, really ticked and you risk boycott and losing some market share. And throughout history, we have seen companies touch the stove when they, you know, went too far.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 90s, the CEO of Coke let slip that they were piloting, installing thermometers in Coke vending machines so that they could charge you more for Coke on a hot summer day. That was in 1999, it was before TikTok, but it was viral. It was on the front page of every major newspaper in the country. The Honolulu paper, the Philadelphia paper, the Wall Street Journal, hardly a bastion of consumer sentiment, weighed in on how outrageous that proposal was. Pepsi, of course, seized on the gaff. Coke immediately backtracked, said they wouldn’t be piloting it. They would never do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think the best way, absent the law, to keep companies from pursuing some of the most egregious forms of this practice, the spying on you, the overcharging you, is actually consumer pressure. There are, of course, retailers who use slightly different business models who say, you know, I’m not in the business of charging consumers the maximum they will pay. The canonical example is Costco, who uses a cost plus model. They charge between 14 and 15 percent on top of the wholesale price. It’s cost plus 14 or 15 percent, that’s the margin. They could go higher, they don’t, they pass the savings along. But, you know, generally speaking, companies are moving in the direction of getting more sophisticated with pricing and of taking their pricing to a place that’s much higher tech.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure you are asked this question constantly, but what could the average consumer do to limit surveillance pricing in their lives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really do not believe it should be every consumer’s job to bob and weave and try to beat the machine. Shopping against the robot is not a future anybody wants to have, and it should be lawmakers’ job and policymakers’ job to make sure markets are fair and honest because that’s good for everyone. It’s good for our economy, it’s good for society. The second thing I’ll say is I do really believe in the power of consumer boycotts. And I think when you see something, say something. Take to Reddit, take to TikTok, take to Twitter like our friend experiencing the JetBlue price hike did. Those are great ways to sound the alarm and sometimes to get companies’ attention. Consumer boycotts can be effective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But finally, there are a few things to think about as a modern consumer. It’s probably time to update how you think about comparison shopping. So it used to be that you would look at the same item at two different stores, see which store offered you the better price, go with that one. Now you probably need to comparison shop within stores. Look at the price in the app, look at the place on the website, look at price in the brick and mortar store, compare those three, go with the lower price. You could do some comparison shopping with your spouse, sit on the couch, both of you log in, see if one of you gets a better price. Go with that price. So I think there are some ways to sort of update how you think about comparison shopping. And then of course, all of the standard advice around browsers that offer more robust privacy protections, all of that can be useful as well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s close the loop on the JetBlue saga. They now face a class action. Everyone’s still really mad at them. It’s been weeks and they’re still getting like, comments being like, remember when you said this? Like, we’re not letting that go. How do you think the saga will end for JetBlue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, hard for me to know what the result of that class action lawsuit will be. And of course, those can take a long time to unwind. So it may be a minute before we get to read the final chapter of that book. But, you know, I do think JetBlue will face some pretty substantial damage in the interim. I think they have lost faith with a lot of consumers when consumers may look elsewhere for their travel. That being said, we’ve got a problem in the airlines, which is they’re not very competitive. We don’t have that many carriers and we actually just lost one of the main competitors to JetBlue— Spirit. So they have a lot of pricing power right now. They have a of dominance as a low cost carrier, but they certainly, I think, have lost the faith of a lot consumers and they may have lost a lot their customers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never underestimate the power of a rage tweet. That’s it for today’s deep dive, but stick around after the credits for a surveillance pricing fun fact. Actually, it’s less fun and more terrifying, but hey, it’s good trivia. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, Production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a really interesting study in 2023 that got quite a bit of attention. And it looked at how Uber was charging customers more if their phone battery was sunk. Like, you got to get in that Uber before your phone dies. As someone who is always on low battery mode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would never remember to charge my phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me neither. It’s like really scary to think about that one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity. It’s what’s known as surveillance pricing. According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s what’s known as \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">surveillance pricing. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8058124943\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/person/lindsay-owens/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, executive director of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groundwork Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/asians-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-get-higher-price-from-princeton-review\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tiger Mom Tax: Asians Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Get a Higher Price from Princeton Review\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Julia Angwin, Surya Mattu and Jeff Larson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pro Publica\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The hidden way using a rewards card can cost you more\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Geoffrey A. Fowler, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Washington Post\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/sp6b-issue-spotlight.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Issue Spotlight: The Rise of Surveillance Pricing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — FTC Staff, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Trade Commission\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/05/why-surveillance-pricing-bans-are-suddenly-gaining-traction-this-year-and-not-just-in-california/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why surveillance pricing bans are suddenly gaining traction this year (and not just in California)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Khari Johnson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91544120/public-library-hack-book-cheaper-flights-mistrust-airlines\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers are peddling ‘the library hack’ as a way to score cheaper flights. Whether it works is beside the point\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Grace Snelling, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hello, Tabbies. We’ve been workshopping games. What do you think of Tab Hive? Could also go with Tab Closers? Maybe Tabdom, like Tab fandom, but I don’t know, that sounds kind of ominous. Anyway, if you’re a Close All Tabs listener and you like our deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this. It would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So online, there’s this kind of urban legend when it comes to booking flights. Basically, as the myth goes, if you’ve been looking up flights between certain destinations and you’re finally ready to book, you should always clear your cookies or book the flight from an incognito tab so you get a better price. For years, this travel hack was based on anecdotal experience, not actual evidence that airlines were using personal data to determine prices. But we do know that our personal data is kind of up for grabs anyway. We talk about this all the time on the show. It’s not wild to believe that corporations are tracking you and price gouging you based on your specific habits. But if you brought it up on travel forums or comment threads, you might get written off as a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And then in April, JetBlue just tweeted it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens, Guest: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just a really incredible story, one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens is an economic sociologist who runs the affordability think tank Groundwork Collective. She keeps a pretty close eye on this kind of thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re feeling it in your wallet, we are studying it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So back in April, a customer took to X, the site formerly known as Twitter…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To kind of complain, vent, gripe about the fact that his flight had increased by more than $200 overnight, and he was just trying to get to a funeral. And he tweeted sort of, JetBlue, what gives here? Why are you doing this? And incredibly, JetBlue’s corporate Twitter account replied.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the real travel hack. If your flight is delayed or canceled or you’re stuck in customer service hotline hell, complain about it on Twitter. There’s a chance that the airline will see it and give you a discount or at worst a snack voucher. At least that’s how they usually respond. But this time JetBlue took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said ‘try clearing your cash and cookies or booking with an incognito window.’ And then they did say, ‘we’re sorry for your loss. ‘\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, JetBlue’s official corporate social account told the customer that if he didn’t want to be overcharged, he should just trick the company’s booking software into not identifying him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this was a pretty stunning thing to see on Twitter. JetBlue’s HQ immediately weighed in and said the tweet was mistaken, that they don’t use personal information to set prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for the company told multiple news outlets that the airline fares are determined by supply and demand, not by customer data. JetBlue very quickly deleted the response, but it’s the internet, screenshots live on. This exchange went super viral.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a real confession of sorts, but it was a window into the ways in which pricing is changing right under our feet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An airline surreptitiously gleaning personal information to maximize how much money they can make off of each individual customer, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, Lindsay said that just last year, she listened in on a Delta earnings call and the company told investors about this new strategy they were piloting, a partnership with an Israel-based AI company called Fetcherr, which specialized in personalized pricing. Lindsay went on Fetcherr’s website and found a white paper.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phase two was called ‘the exploitation phase’ —really not hiding the ball with this one. That’s when they’ve learned everything they can about Delta’s competitors, about their customers, and when they start going for broke and they start increasing those prices and getting better revenues for Delta. They were guaranteeing increases in revenue of near 10% in some cases. So we’ve had quite a few of these examples with the airlines now revealing some of their plans, experiments, and things that they’re working on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay wasn’t the only one paying attention. Journalists did too. News of the earnings call spread. This set off a PR firestorm for the company with Delta’s competitors saying that they’d never do this to their valued customers, and Delta announcing that they didn’t actually plan to go through with it. But this practice is becoming the norm across industries. We’ve gotten used to dynamic pricing: price fluctuating based on supply and demand, like, how concert tickets get more expensive as seats fill up. What we’re talking about today goes further. Economists call it personalized pricing. This idea that companies charge you based on their assessment of how much you’re willing to pay for a good or service. It’s a practice more commonly known as surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re doing anything they can to learn about you, including sometimes spying on you, which is why I do think the term surveillance pricing is so apt and accurate. Companies gather a lot of data about us. Some of it we offer up willingly, our browsing history, we accept the cookies, we agree to let them sell our data, and all of that can be used to set a price for you specifically — ideally, if you’re a company, a price that gets pretty close to the maximum that you’d be willing to pay before you might walk away or start looking elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, we’re diving into surveillance pricing. Where it came from, how it works, and what we’re supposed to do to save ourselves from it. And no, clearing cookies isn’t always the answer. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the funny thing. A set price is a fairly new concept compared to the entirety of human history. Let’s talk about it. Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: History of the price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live] \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t about the, uh, cha-chang-cha-chung \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t bout the, b-bling-b-bling \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wanna make the world dance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forget about the beep beep beep boop boop boop\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …price tag. To quote the iconic Jessie J, we need to take it back in time. We don’t even have to go that far back. The price tag dates back to 1861, when Wanamakers opened its stores in Philadelphia. It was one of the first American department stores, and also invented the.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Priiiiiiiiiicetaaaaaagggg!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to Wanamaker, you really had thousands of years where we haggled. You went to the market, you picked out what you wanted, and then you started a process of bartering or haggling to set the price. The merchant at the souk or the market maybe sized you up a little and said, oh, you look like someone who could pay more. Maybe he knows a little bit about you, knows you’re wealthy, charges you more. Maybe you know a little bit about him, you have a little dirt on him, he charges you less, right? Those were the kind of rules of the bizarre economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That started to shift in the U.S. context really with the Quakers and they felt like bartering and haggling was really unfair. They felt a sort of moral conviction about this; you and I are created equal under God, they thought. Why would we be charged different amounts for the same item? So they instituted a fixed price, and everyone would pay the same amount for items at a Quaker market.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Wanamaker wasn’t a Quaker, but he was a devout Christian, and he had this brilliant idea. What if he took this Quaker concept further? Not just standardized prices, but print them on a little tag attached to each item, and then call it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…the priiiiiice taaag!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, Wanamaker wasn’t just doing this for religious reasons, he was also doing it because he was a good businessman and haggling takes a lot of time. The price tag is pretty efficient, right? It makes it pretty easy to tally up what you owe and get on with the purchase. But look, the price tag, I think, did a number of really important things. The first thing it did is it offered transparency. And transparency is really key to fair and honest markets, and that’s really key to a healthy economy. We knew how much something cost. As part of that transparency, we could comparison shop. We could look at how much anything cost in one store, we could look at how much something cost in another store, and we could take the offering that we thought provided the best value. Actually, that mechanism of bargain hunting and comparison shopping is also an important function in a healthy competitive economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the price tag also offers some stability and predictability. Of course, things like inflation and seasonal availability and wars that shut down access to major waterways can affect prices. But overall, you’d probably have an idea of how much your weekly groceries will cost.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And predictability is bedrock to home economics, to budgeting in the household. If you don’t know how much something is gonna cost from one week to the next, it is hard to know if you’re gonna clear at the end of the week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dynamic pricing has gotten out of hand and Lindsay said this wasn’t always the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do think while we have gotten very used to dynamic pricing in a whole host of settings, it is actually the case that in the not too distant past, there were other ways that companies allocated scarce resources. It has really shifted over time and I also think dynamic pricing is increasingly happening in places where resources aren’t scarce at all. You know, you see dynamic pricing in the grocery store, Target isn’t running out of wheat thins. Kroger’s not running out of Barilla pasta, right? This isn’t about managing scarcity. It’s just about charging what they can at any given time. So I think there has been a, kind of, increase in the prevalence of dynamic pricing and the types of goods that are subject to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When did this use of personal data specifically to set prices become such a common practice?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the way to think about the advent of surveillance pricing is to start with the advent of surveillance advertising, which really takes you to the internet. I mean, that’s when this starts getting really creepy, and it’s when it starts to become big business. You may have heard about a company called DoubleClick. They really pioneered and built the infrastructure for surveillance advertising on the internet. They tracked what you looked at online. And then they built an advertising system to serve it back to you. So if you’ve ever looked at an item, you didn’t buy it, and then the next day it started popping up in your feed over and over and again, and you finally relented and purchased the item, that’s just the latest iteration of surveillance advertising.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DoubleClick was eventually purchased by Google, and Google is advertising king in the early digital era. In some ways, the logical next step for many of these companies was as they get better and better at knowing what you want, predicting what you want, maybe persuading you to want something, they might as well also think about getting better and better, figuring out how much you might be willing to pay for it. And so marrying sort of dynamic pricing with surveillance advertising is how we get to the modern form of surveillance pricing that we’re starting to see today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why does the idea of dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing, why does that upset people so much?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By and large, Americans hate the idea of companies charging different amounts to different people for the same item at the exact same time from the exact same store. I think the answer is really simple. I think when you see sort of a ubiquitous response to something in culture, it’s because you’ve tapped into a core human value. And in this case, I think that value is fairness.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how does surveillance pricing work in practice? That’s a new tab, which we’ll open after a quick break. But first, we wanted to remind you that close all tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break, big data and your wallet. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back! So how does surveillance pricing work exactly? Time for a new tab: Big Data and Your Wallet. Let’s talk about some examples of surveillance pricing and how mass data collection determines those prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this one was uncovered in an analysis by ProPublica, which showed that the prices for online SAT tutoring packages at the Princeton Review, the test prep company, were varying quite substantially depending on where customers lived. So if you went online to book an online test prep package and you typed in your zip code, Some people were offered the course for $6,600. That’s, by the way, a good price, apparently, for a test prep package in 2015. I’m sure it’s more today, it’s a little staggering. But for others, the same package would be almost $2,000 more. And what they determined is that folks in zip codes with a larger percentage of Asian Americans were almost twice as likely to be offered that higher price than others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They called this the “tiger mom tax.” Yeah, and even in lower income neighborhoods, Asian Americans were quoted the highest prices by the Princeton Review.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is a good example of how companies were using zip codes and demographic information to try to estimate the likely willingness to pay for a service like test prep. We have seen similarly during that period, a study from the Wall Street Journal in 2012, which showed that the online office retailer Staples was varying prices by zip code. This one was actually a little more nefarious in some respects. If you lived in a zip code where there were other office stores nearby, like an Office Depot, you were getting better pricing. If there was not an OfficeMax or an Office Depot within 20 miles or so, you were charged more because they knew you didn’t really have any ability to go to a competitor or go anywhere else. You were probably gonna go with the Staples offering. So those are some of the early examples of companies starting to toy around with gaging your desperation, gaging your willingness to pay. Gaging how likely your exit options were, how much choice you have in a market, and then using that to put you over a barrel and charge you as much as they possibly can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s so funny that you say that because my friends and I joke that with Pride right around the corner, Target is probably jacking up prices for plain white tank tops for queer people because they know we’ll probably buy them for all the lesbian events in June. And obviously, that’s purely speculative and it’s mostly us kind of joking among ourselves like, ‘oh, this $5 tank top is going to be $12 next week.’ But it seems like this theory isn’t that far-fetched after all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is not far-fetched at all. That is exactly the kind of thing to expect. When Walmart announced that they were installing electronic shelf labels in every Walmart store throughout the country. The first thing that many consumers thought is they are going to start jacking up the of coke and ice cream and cool items on a hot summer day. When there’s a snowstorm, they are gonna charge more for soup. These are all the things that are possible when you have the ability to do dynamic pricing at scale, either online or in brick and mortar stores, which you can do with electronic shelf labels. Pricing algorithms can be controlled remotely. It is very easy to have them respond to things like the weather and other data inputs. And it starts to present, I think, a real sort of dystopian view of what shopping could look like in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are some of the pieces of personal information that could be used to set the price that you pay, which people probably aren’t thinking about?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is a long list. So you give up a lot of your information in a lot settings. Those terms and conditions when you get on a website that you click on without reading, often what you’ve done is just sort of pulled back the curtain and let the company ransack all of your data. Loyalty programs can be great, but often are sophisticated data harvesting operations. Okay, kinds of things they might know: they might be connected to your bank account and know when it’s payday. They might have information about your location. They might your purchase history, what you buy weekly, what you haven’t bought in a while that you usually buy and so you’re due for. They track your movements online, your mouse movements, what you hover over, how long you hover it, what you click on, what you put in your cart and don’t buy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay pointed to this report from former Washington Post tech columnist, Geoffrey Fowler. He requested his data from Starbucks and got a detailed dossier of everything he ever bought there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was a reporter, so he had purchased a lot of coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>Geoffrey Fowler in Washington Post story]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The more coffee I ordered, the fewer discounts I got. Sure, I was still collecting stars, but the average price I paid per cup of coffee was going up. My loyalty was working against me.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, in this case, they are collecting all the information about your caffeine habits. When you have your morning cup of copy, when you have you afternoon cup of cofee, if you have a sweet tooth and like to have a cookie with your afternoon coffee, right? All of those things they can collect. They can buy information about you from third parties. So, you know, this breadcrumb trail of data you leave when you participate in e-commerce provides a really robust set of data that companies can use to predict how much you’re willing to pay for any given item.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More and more consumers are using chatbots and AI agents to do the price comparisons for them. You know, kind of taking off the drudge work of like sifting through all these websites. Are AI agents shopping for you, the new haggling?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shopping and e-commerce and chat bots combined is really scary for folks who worry about privacy and for the potential for surveillance pricing at scale. We may be just in the first inning of our journey through the big bad world of surveillance pricing. A lot of the data that companies collect about you is behavioral and a lot of it is inferences. We think you must like this because you hovered over it for a while. So they’re guessing and using those guesses to decide what to advertise to you and how much to charge you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now with conversational LLMs, often the guesswork can be eliminated because you might just tell them, right? You might say to your chat bot, hey, I have a wedding on Friday. I’m totally screwed. I need a dress. What are some options? Show me some options. Well, you’ve really just given away the store. Right? They know you’re desperate, they know you are in a rush, they know you need it now, and they’re gonna charge you top dollar for it. They’re gonna return results that cost you a lot of money. So the types of data that you offer Chopbots is pretty helpful in commerce. And so then the question is, how will the sort of move from AI into commerce make use of that data? And I think there are real questions about what’s likely to transpire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we got a very recent hint and it was not great: a couple of researchers, one at Princeton University, one at the University of Washington, tested some LLMs and they put in some different scenarios and tried to measure how the advertising and pricing would work. You know, the results were pretty alarming. All of the current LLM’s, they tested all of them, exhibited risky behaviors, that was the researcher’s word, that favored the company over the user; steering users towards more expensive sponsored products; concealing that the products were sponsored and therefore impacted their recommendations; recommending predatory products like bad loans with high interest rates.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In practice, users were also nudged to spend more. That one we didn’t need a study to confirm, we already have data from Walmart, where the CEO has been quite candid with their investors about the fact that Sparky, the Walmart chat bot, is doing a great job of nudging consumers to spend more. And folks who use Sparky are spending 35% more than folks who don’t, in part because Sparky is bidding up their cart total very effectively.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also learned in the study that when asked to recommend between two otherwise equivalent products, The vast majority of the models in the study chose the sponsored option more than half the time, despite it being twice as expensive. I think this is really the next big frontier in surveillance pricing. It’s the next place for people like me who research this stuff and who think through and help craft policy solutions to protect consumers from this stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The good news is people aren’t overwhelmingly shopping in AI right now, although, as I mentioned, companies like Walmart are building this into their apps and into their e-commerce offerings. But it would be great to get this one fixed before the horse is out of the barn because the future doesn’t look great.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yikes, right? I mean, how is any of this even allowed? Is there anything we could do to stop it? Okay, let’s open one last tab: Is surveillance pricing even legal? I’ve googled this question many times, and the answer is never satisfying. Long story short, yes, surveillance pricing is legal. At the federal level, the U.S. is not great about comprehensive data privacy laws. And you may be asking, but what about the FTC? The Federal Trade Commission. They’re supposed to protect consumers and promote business competition. Well, under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC conducted a preliminary study on AI-driven pricing tools. It was released in January 2025, right before the Trump administration took over. And since then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, look, the federal government is not really leading the charge right now. We’re seeing much more action in the states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To understand what’s going on there, we need to talk about the flip side of surveillance pricing: surveillance wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Companies learning about you to figure out the maximum you’re willing to pay can use the exact same tools to learn about their workers and figure out the minimum they’re willing to charge in the form of wages. So it’s great news for companies who can deploy both at the same time because they can bring in more revenue from consumers and they can spend less on their workers. The processes and the systems are really similar and we’ve started to see some, oh really I think, concerning examples of this type of algorithmic wage discrimination starting to pop up in a whole host of sectors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some examples of day nurses being subjected to auctions where they bid against each other for a shift. But instead of an auction where the highest bidder wins, whoever will take the minimum to show up for work would win. We have examples of Uber offering different drivers different fares for the same trip, right? So we are starting to see some examples of algorithmic wage discrimination in parallel to these examples of surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why might this whole practice of algorithmic wage discrimination actually lead to more legal action against these companies that are using surveillance pricing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To crack down on surveillance pricing, arguably we’re gonna need new laws. We’ve now seen in 40 states and localities just this year in 2026, people cracking down on surveillance pricing, introducing bans in state legislatures to eliminate this practice. Some of those bills also include prohibitions on algorithmic wage discrimination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just last month, Colorado actually passed a bill that would do both. It bans corporations from using personal data to set individual prices and wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are some cases in which algorithmic wage discrimination will already be illegal. So we have fair labor laws and we have employment discrimination laws and it is illegal to pay men and women different amounts for the same job. And so where algorithmic discrimination falls afoul of existing employment discrimination and labor laws, there may be opportunities for enforcement agencies to go ahead and crack down on those practices even without updating the law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that this kind of legislation will be effective in combating surveillance pricing? How does it compare to other policy pushes that you’ve seen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we have seen a couple of different types of laws. We’ve seen disclosure laws, which would require companies to tell you they’re spying on you in order to overcharge you, which New York put into effect this year. If you are the victim of surveillance pricing in New York, you will know it, because you will see a disclosure that says this price was set by an algorithm using your data. So disclosure laws are interesting. They’re interesting to people like me, because it gives me a nice population of companies to study. They’re interesting to consumers because sometimes you can say, okay, I’d rather not purchase from this company anymore. But, you know, I would prefer that companies not be able to do this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened a sweeping investigation into surveillance pricing. California lawmakers have also proposed an outright ban on the practice. A similar bill failed to reach the governor’s desk last year, but this one just cleared a major milestone in the state legislature this month. If it does pass, Lindsay said it could be a really strong law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it would be a game changer for a state as large as California with as many tech companies located in California as there are to pass a bill like this and it would great to see that happen as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like we’re finally at a kind of inflection point for surveillance pricing with consumers, especially after the JetBlue tweet, kind of waking up to it and starting to push back. How are retailers responding to the policy pushbacks and also the consumer outrage?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retailers have to make some tough choices about the costs and benefits of deploying technologies like this. The benefits are clear. You can make a lot of money charging your consumer the absolute maximum they are willing to pay for every item in their cart. There is revenue to be won. But the risk is that when consumers find out about this, they are really, really ticked and you risk boycott and losing some market share. And throughout history, we have seen companies touch the stove when they, you know, went too far.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 90s, the CEO of Coke let slip that they were piloting, installing thermometers in Coke vending machines so that they could charge you more for Coke on a hot summer day. That was in 1999, it was before TikTok, but it was viral. It was on the front page of every major newspaper in the country. The Honolulu paper, the Philadelphia paper, the Wall Street Journal, hardly a bastion of consumer sentiment, weighed in on how outrageous that proposal was. Pepsi, of course, seized on the gaff. Coke immediately backtracked, said they wouldn’t be piloting it. They would never do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think the best way, absent the law, to keep companies from pursuing some of the most egregious forms of this practice, the spying on you, the overcharging you, is actually consumer pressure. There are, of course, retailers who use slightly different business models who say, you know, I’m not in the business of charging consumers the maximum they will pay. The canonical example is Costco, who uses a cost plus model. They charge between 14 and 15 percent on top of the wholesale price. It’s cost plus 14 or 15 percent, that’s the margin. They could go higher, they don’t, they pass the savings along. But, you know, generally speaking, companies are moving in the direction of getting more sophisticated with pricing and of taking their pricing to a place that’s much higher tech.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure you are asked this question constantly, but what could the average consumer do to limit surveillance pricing in their lives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really do not believe it should be every consumer’s job to bob and weave and try to beat the machine. Shopping against the robot is not a future anybody wants to have, and it should be lawmakers’ job and policymakers’ job to make sure markets are fair and honest because that’s good for everyone. It’s good for our economy, it’s good for society. The second thing I’ll say is I do really believe in the power of consumer boycotts. And I think when you see something, say something. Take to Reddit, take to TikTok, take to Twitter like our friend experiencing the JetBlue price hike did. Those are great ways to sound the alarm and sometimes to get companies’ attention. Consumer boycotts can be effective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But finally, there are a few things to think about as a modern consumer. It’s probably time to update how you think about comparison shopping. So it used to be that you would look at the same item at two different stores, see which store offered you the better price, go with that one. Now you probably need to comparison shop within stores. Look at the price in the app, look at the place on the website, look at price in the brick and mortar store, compare those three, go with the lower price. You could do some comparison shopping with your spouse, sit on the couch, both of you log in, see if one of you gets a better price. Go with that price. So I think there are some ways to sort of update how you think about comparison shopping. And then of course, all of the standard advice around browsers that offer more robust privacy protections, all of that can be useful as well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s close the loop on the JetBlue saga. They now face a class action. Everyone’s still really mad at them. It’s been weeks and they’re still getting like, comments being like, remember when you said this? Like, we’re not letting that go. How do you think the saga will end for JetBlue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, hard for me to know what the result of that class action lawsuit will be. And of course, those can take a long time to unwind. So it may be a minute before we get to read the final chapter of that book. But, you know, I do think JetBlue will face some pretty substantial damage in the interim. I think they have lost faith with a lot of consumers when consumers may look elsewhere for their travel. That being said, we’ve got a problem in the airlines, which is they’re not very competitive. We don’t have that many carriers and we actually just lost one of the main competitors to JetBlue— Spirit. So they have a lot of pricing power right now. They have a of dominance as a low cost carrier, but they certainly, I think, have lost the faith of a lot consumers and they may have lost a lot their customers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never underestimate the power of a rage tweet. That’s it for today’s deep dive, but stick around after the credits for a surveillance pricing fun fact. Actually, it’s less fun and more terrifying, but hey, it’s good trivia. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, Production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a really interesting study in 2023 that got quite a bit of attention. And it looked at how Uber was charging customers more if their phone battery was sunk. Like, you got to get in that Uber before your phone dies. As someone who is always on low battery mode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would never remember to charge my phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me neither. It’s like really scary to think about that one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/facebook\">Facebook\u003c/a> whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams sat in silence onstage at an event after lawyers advised her not to speak because of legal action brought by Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Hay Festival, an annual literature and arts event in the United Kingdom, Wynn-Williams was silent for an hour as she sat between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, without even nodding or shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams wrote a bestselling memoir, \u003cem>Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, detailing her six years at the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It leveled\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031294/metas-efforts-to-block-explosive-expose-in-arbitration-likely-to-fail-labor-experts-say\"> incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top-level executives during her tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was paid an advance of more than $500,000 for the book, according to \u003cem>New York Magazine’s\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/article/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams-facebook-gag-order.html\"> Vulture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of 14-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them,” she wrote in the first chapter of the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson told KQED that when Wynn-Williams left the company in 2017, she signed a severance agreement that included a non-disparagement clause — which Meta is now enforcing — and received an undisclosed severance payment in exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams signed a \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">binding arbitration agreement\u003c/a> in 2025 which explicitly prohibited her from promoting her book. She faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly afterwards, in a\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/andymstone/status/1899938639540338759\"> post on the social media platform X\u003c/a> , Vice President of Communications Andy Stone wrote, “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951941\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951941 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg\" alt=\"A computer tablet screen glows with a blue and white social media logo for the company Facebook. People are blurred in the background at a cafe setting.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches Meta’s order — which bars the author from promoting her book. \u003ccite>(Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The emergency arbitrator whom Meta appealed to ahead of the Hay Festival found that Meta had “established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim.” Meta’s motion argued that she violates that order “any time she appears in public in a place where she should know that her book is available for sale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book, which appeared on numerous “Best Of” lists, including one published by\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13985169/best-2025-nonfiction-books-to-start-2026\"> NPR\u003c/a>, was on sale at the Hay Festival, although it was pulled from sale while she was there.[aside postID=news_12083109 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-SCCMETA-KQED-1-KQED.jpg']Tim Wu, who served under former President Joe Biden as Special Assistant for Technology and Competition Policy, wrote an email to KQED condemning Meta’s actions. “How can we say we have freedom of speech and also accept such blatant private censorship?” He wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wu has\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911952/click-scroll-surrender-tim-wu-warns-against-the-rise-of-big-data-in-the-age-of-extraction\"> criticized Big Tech\u003c/a> in his own book, \u003cem>The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity\u003c/em>. He added, “Is there any real difference between this [and] the authoritarian state that seeks to silence its critics?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival\"> Guardian\u003c/a>, which first reported on the Hay Festival incident, Cadwalladr said onstage, “We have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if Zuckerberg is an asshole.” At the end of the event, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation from the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cadwalladr, famous for her role in breaking the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11713801/facebooks-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year\"> Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018\u003c/a>, mocked Meta at the event. “This is not how you conduct crisis comms,” she said. “Crisis comms would just be simply to ignore this and deprive it of oxygen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the Trump administration’s NLRB, that ruling is effectively suspended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/facebook\">Facebook\u003c/a> whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams sat in silence onstage at an event after lawyers advised her not to speak because of legal action brought by Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Hay Festival, an annual literature and arts event in the United Kingdom, Wynn-Williams was silent for an hour as she sat between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, without even nodding or shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams wrote a bestselling memoir, \u003cem>Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, detailing her six years at the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It leveled\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031294/metas-efforts-to-block-explosive-expose-in-arbitration-likely-to-fail-labor-experts-say\"> incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top-level executives during her tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was paid an advance of more than $500,000 for the book, according to \u003cem>New York Magazine’s\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/article/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams-facebook-gag-order.html\"> Vulture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of 14-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them,” she wrote in the first chapter of the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson told KQED that when Wynn-Williams left the company in 2017, she signed a severance agreement that included a non-disparagement clause — which Meta is now enforcing — and received an undisclosed severance payment in exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams signed a \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">binding arbitration agreement\u003c/a> in 2025 which explicitly prohibited her from promoting her book. She faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly afterwards, in a\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/andymstone/status/1899938639540338759\"> post on the social media platform X\u003c/a> , Vice President of Communications Andy Stone wrote, “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951941\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951941 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg\" alt=\"A computer tablet screen glows with a blue and white social media logo for the company Facebook. People are blurred in the background at a cafe setting.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches Meta’s order — which bars the author from promoting her book. \u003ccite>(Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The emergency arbitrator whom Meta appealed to ahead of the Hay Festival found that Meta had “established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim.” Meta’s motion argued that she violates that order “any time she appears in public in a place where she should know that her book is available for sale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book, which appeared on numerous “Best Of” lists, including one published by\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13985169/best-2025-nonfiction-books-to-start-2026\"> NPR\u003c/a>, was on sale at the Hay Festival, although it was pulled from sale while she was there.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Tim Wu, who served under former President Joe Biden as Special Assistant for Technology and Competition Policy, wrote an email to KQED condemning Meta’s actions. “How can we say we have freedom of speech and also accept such blatant private censorship?” He wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wu has\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911952/click-scroll-surrender-tim-wu-warns-against-the-rise-of-big-data-in-the-age-of-extraction\"> criticized Big Tech\u003c/a> in his own book, \u003cem>The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity\u003c/em>. He added, “Is there any real difference between this [and] the authoritarian state that seeks to silence its critics?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival\"> Guardian\u003c/a>, which first reported on the Hay Festival incident, Cadwalladr said onstage, “We have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if Zuckerberg is an asshole.” At the end of the event, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation from the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cadwalladr, famous for her role in breaking the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11713801/facebooks-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year\"> Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018\u003c/a>, mocked Meta at the event. “This is not how you conduct crisis comms,” she said. “Crisis comms would just be simply to ignore this and deprive it of oxygen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the Trump administration’s NLRB, that ruling is effectively suspended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>This graduation season has felt different. Commencement speakers across the country are getting booed for promoting AI in their speeches – and the videos \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">have gone viral\u003c/a>. Recent college graduates were in school when ChatGPT first launched in late 2022, and \u003ca href=\"https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3955\">many are worried\u003c/a> about how AI will affect their future job prospects and society at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, we hear from three recent graduates in the Bay Area about their thoughts on AI, how it affected their education, and how they feel about their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"\" title=\"\">\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5359166520&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Episode transcript\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Erika Cruz Guevara, and welcome to The Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. I graduated from college 13 years ago, and I gotta be honest, no disrespect, but I don’t remember who the commencement speaker was or what they talked about. Most graduation speeches have the same themes. Some message about hope. Thanking your friends and family, the importance of following your passion, and perhaps a call to change the world for the better. But this graduation season has felt a little different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gloria Caulfield \u003c/strong>[00:00:38] The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:00:52] There have been several videos of students booing commencement speakers when they mention AI. These videos have gone viral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Schmidt \u003c/strong>[00:01:00] Time magazine selected its person of the year for 2025. And it was this time, it was the architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Borschetta \u003c/strong>[00:01:12] AI is rewriting production as we sit here. I know it, deal with it. Like I said, it’s a tool. Hey, like I said. You can hear me now or you can pay me later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:01:28] Today’s college graduates were in school when ChatGPT was first released in late 2022. They’ve seen it change their classrooms. Today, three recent graduates in the Bay Area tell us how they really feel about AI and about their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellena Simentel \u003c/strong>[00:01:55] My name is Ellena Simentel. I graduated with my master’s in kinesiology from San Francisco State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:02:04] Kinesiology is the study of muscle movement. It’s very interdisciplinary, so there’s kind of a lot of different aspects in the field. So we do like sports psychology. You can go into physical therapy, athletic training, occupational therapy. I wanted to be a physical therapist. I’ve been to a little bit more recently. So I did focus mostly on like muscle physiology classes and that types of things. But now I think I wanna go more into a little bit more of the psychological motivational side, either doing some kind of city planning that has to do with getting people moving, or maybe even working for some type of nonprofit like Girls on the Run or things that get people active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:02:55] So even in undergrad we take our core class which is like one of the classes that teaches you like how to read and write in the field of kinesiology and that type of thing and midway through the semester I want to say this was like 2023. Our professor had actually changed the entire course of the class to focus on AI because it had like kind of just come out and she was like you And all of us at that point were kind of like, oh, you know, like, it’ll come and go, it is what it is. But what’s funny sitting back and looking at it now, it’s like, I feel like she really changed the class for a reason. I think it helped a lot of us just kind of get a grasp on what is AI, how to use it, the advantages maybe and some of the disadvantages. And so I obviously only took that class once, but I hope that they continue to do that for that class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:00] It’s good to have immediate feedback, right? That’s, I think, one of the biggest advantages as a student. You don’t have to wait for your professor. It’s very individualized and you can really use it to fix specific things in your writing, for example, like writing essays. I think it’s a great tool to make you sound professional, help fix your grammar, maybe help you with the formatting. Um, the problem and the drawback is just sometimes it takes over your thinking. You it’s, it’s very easy to just put something in and be like, okay, now write me an essay, but there’s no thought that goes into that. There’s no critical thinking that goes in to that. Um, and at the end of the day, like it’s kind of taking away from the learning itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:54] I’m definitely less worried than other fields. I think there’s some careers in kinesiology, like if you wanted to be an athletic trainer or maybe like a personal trainer, there’s definitely a chance that AI could swoop in and take some of your clients. You can ask for a workout routine on ChatGPT so easily. However, The motivational aspect that comes with kinesiology and sports psychology that we learn with our degree I think is more helpful than talking to something online and just kind of having that like one-on-one human support is a lot more personalized. For example, like I worked in the athletic training department for a little bit and you can feel the difference in muscle when like a muscle is tense and you can kind with tell. What it needs, AI is not gonna be hands-on like that. And so having that human interaction in this field specifically is really helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:06:00] I will say though that there’s just so much negativity around it and it’s kind of hard to take yourself out of the online discourse. My friend works out in this athletic studio with some of these tech guys and they talk the pros and the cons and like how people are being let go and and you know But at the same time, maybe there’s some jobs that AI should take over. Do people really need to be coding all day every day sitting on a computer? Maybe there’s things that humans shouldn’t be doing, like computer work all day. Maybe we need to go back outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:06:43] I’m looking forward to seeing what’s out there, right? I live in San Francisco currently and I can’t really see myself. Moving away anytime soon. I think there’s just so much to experience and so many people to meet. Global pandemic, like I was in college, I was taking like 20 units a semester. Every semester I was summer classes, winter classes, and I really chased the academic route. I just turned 24 and I have my master’s and I don’t think a lot of people can say that. And so I think now kind of like finding what it is exactly that I want to do with it and kind of just getting more experience in the field is really exciting to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ada He \u003c/strong>[00:07:40] My name is Ada He, and I’m currently a fourth year student at UC San Diego set to graduate on June 14th. My hometown is San Jose in the Bay Area, and I’m currently studying cognitive science with a specialization in machine learning and neural computation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:07:59] So just to boil down to simple terms, it’s basically the study of intelligence, and it’s super duper relevant for machine learning, understanding these computational models of intelligence. The reason that I chose it and specifically the machine learning and neural computation track was because I think in high school I knew that I was curious about technology but I was also curious about more so the neuroscience and psychology side of things. And so I think I was kind of struck by this idea of like what is intelligence, how can we model it computationally and I think at the time even then there were starting to be like these buzzwords around ML and like AI and how this is going to be the next big thing of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:08:36] And so… Very practical future-oriented parents were like, you, our child, should definitely study something related to technology. And I was like, well, I’m not quite sure, so let me pick this broader major that has to do with technology, but also kind of has to do more with like the philosophy and the psychology and like the ethics of what these systems are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:01] I think when I first started in college, basically the only place that I was hearing about machine learning, artificial intelligence as a whole was through theory in my coursework. But I think all of it was very much creative and like human driven. I think where I really started hearing about these AI tools that were in mass production was during my second year of college. So I think in that time, that was when ChatGPT was sort of like released to Apollo can never start using it and it became like the big thing. And suddenly it felt like everyone was talking about chatgbc like, oh hey, it’s pretty smart, it can do all these things. In my third year of college then, like after the summer when we came back to school, then it was taking off and everyone was using it in their classes, everyone’s like asking it questions, and they were using it to code in my programming classes, they were asking it for essay advice, and then I think that was when I started to think like wait, isn’t that an academic integrity violation and then so is AI just being used to like help us cheat now? Started out in this very humanistic direction, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:10:12] I was using AI as a tool to investigate these hypotheses and to see if I could get it to predict the patterns that I could predict. They were supposed to be these helpful tools that would help us diagnose bigger problems that were facing people. I’ve heard of applications of AI to chart patterns of climate change. So in my head, I just thought AI and ML had so much potential to be used for good. With ChatGPT, I know it’s like- There’s so much progress now going on in the area of large language models that I wonder if the other areas of AI and other use cases are being neglected. This seems like all research is funneling into how these large language models can help us replace white collar jobs. And I’m like, when did that become the focus of artificial intelligence and machine learning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:10:59] I think I’ve been searching for a full-time job since January. As a student who is looking for a white collar job, it’s been very very very distressing to hear all the discourse that AI is meant to replace the work that I’ve spent four years studying. I think I honestly lost track by half to have applied for more than 300 jobs at this point. Just knowing that like the odds of getting a job are so slim even if you do get a callback and then seeing the number of callbacks I’m getting compared to the number applications I put out, that is kind of insane to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I do have summer jobs lined up. I’m currently like a student employee at the UC San Diego library. And I think like I’ve been really fortunate to have that environment because working for the web team there feels very meaningful since the work we do is like all done by hand. We have a very intentional design approach and the goal of all the work that I put out there is to serve the student body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think everything that I’ve made there has made me like feel good and I don’t like feel as much like moral confusion when I think about continuing that work this summer. But that rule runs until September, so I know that I have wiggle rooms trying to figure things out somewhat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:12:19] Every generation has faced its demons and maybe the world of AI slop these like powerfully generative tools are kind of one of the demons that my generation has to face in the sense that we have to figure out where it fits into our lives and where it fits into workflows without compromising our morals because they might be here to stay. And then we also have to figure out how to deal with them in our daily, day-to-day work, because that’s probably gonna be an inseparable part of it, whether we like it or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aaron Kim \u003c/strong>[00:12:57] My name is Aaron Kim. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in political science. I came in through the community college route and I started community college in 2019. So I had a couple of years to see like at least in community college, like what higher education was like before AI, then it dropped. And then I saw everyone kind of like scrambling to react to it. It was really interesting watching the different ways professors would try to handle it. Some of them just had like a no AI policy. Others had like a, you have to use AI policy. My gosh, yeah. I remember really early on, there was a professor that told me that like, or that told the class that don’t use AI. I can tell if you use AI because it’ll take your essay, put it in ChatGPT and ask it if it wrote it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s been a bit of a consensus that’s settled around AI, where professors just kind of understood that it’s here. So they got more specific on how we’re supposed to use it. So they’re like, oh, you can use it as a writing assistant. You can use as to help start your research, but don’t use it a source and don’t make it do all your writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:14:06] But I know some people that are really hardline against it, I kind of agree with them for the most part. Like I think that AI especially, it’s not very sustainable. I feel like it’s sometimes people over-rely on it, which I’ve seen a lot. But I’ve also seen it level the playing field, especially for like ESL speakers. Sometimes I’ll see people who are like in higher education and they’re like not speaking English as a first language I I remember before AI they were excuse my language, but they were basically just shit out of luck. They were gonna be judged the same as like a native English speaker and like sometimes like it just like people were not nice about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:14:48] Yeah, I’m like a first-gen college student, so I I just kind of went to college because I don’t know, I didn’t really know why I was going. I just did it. I’m not one of those people that was like, oh yeah, I’m gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist. I ended up doing a lot of stuff in the union world and the labor world and like the community organizing world, which is why I think AI has affected me a little less personally, like a little less directly because none of the jobs that I was really looking for are really AI exposed as much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luckily I’m one of these people, but I do think the implementation of AI in the economy has like, I’ve received a lot of the downwind effects. I think a lot tasks are having AI implemented into it. And because of that, I think there’s just less need for a lot of entry level positions that existed in the past. My friends and I joke about it being a “nepo economy” right now, because there’s just like, nobody’s getting jobs through applications, at least not a lot. It’s just all like, you have to know somebody and that’s how you’re getting jobs. I’m still trying to really figure out what direction I want to go for that. But right now I’m just like trying to find something in social impact, you know, nonprofits or unions, um, which is just because that’s like, you know, where my heart was at during college. And that’s where a lot of my experience was at. But yeah, at this point, I think I just kind of have to try to keep an open mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just don’t really think this sort of like innovation is really helping most people in a way that’s really substantial. Like I feel like, yeah, it’s like making things more convenient for a lot of us in like really minor ways, but I just feel like, like, was this all necessary? But it’s like here and we can’t like press, there’s no undo button for things like this, so I guess I just kind of have to adapt. Luckily, in terms of my personal career trajectory, it still feels pretty peripheral. Because a lot of the organizations I’m interested in working for are concerned with working people-centered kind of policies, I think mass, uncritical, enthusiastic adoption of AI is just something that hopefully a lot them just wouldn’t do. Like how would you feel if you’re like working and your union rep is like a chat GPT, like an iPad on the like a little thing that rolls around and tries to get you to sign union cards, right? Like that’s kind of something that AI can never take away. It’s like, because of so much of organizing job or so much organizing is based on building trust human to human, you know? And that’s just something AI can ever do…I hope!\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>This graduation season has felt different. Commencement speakers across the country are getting booed for promoting AI in their speeches – and the videos \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">have gone viral\u003c/a>. Recent college graduates were in school when ChatGPT first launched in late 2022, and \u003ca href=\"https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3955\">many are worried\u003c/a> about how AI will affect their future job prospects and society at large.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, we hear from three recent graduates in the Bay Area about their thoughts on AI, how it affected their education, and how they feel about their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"\" title=\"\">\u003ci>Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco-Northern California Local.\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5359166520&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Episode transcript\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This transcript is computer-generated. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Alan Montecillo, in for Erika Cruz Guevara, and welcome to The Bay. Local news to keep you rooted. I graduated from college 13 years ago, and I gotta be honest, no disrespect, but I don’t remember who the commencement speaker was or what they talked about. Most graduation speeches have the same themes. Some message about hope. Thanking your friends and family, the importance of following your passion, and perhaps a call to change the world for the better. But this graduation season has felt a little different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Gloria Caulfield \u003c/strong>[00:00:38] The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:00:52] There have been several videos of students booing commencement speakers when they mention AI. These videos have gone viral.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Eric Schmidt \u003c/strong>[00:01:00] Time magazine selected its person of the year for 2025. And it was this time, it was the architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Scott Borschetta \u003c/strong>[00:01:12] AI is rewriting production as we sit here. I know it, deal with it. Like I said, it’s a tool. Hey, like I said. You can hear me now or you can pay me later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alan Montecillo \u003c/strong>[00:01:28] Today’s college graduates were in school when ChatGPT was first released in late 2022. They’ve seen it change their classrooms. Today, three recent graduates in the Bay Area tell us how they really feel about AI and about their futures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ellena Simentel \u003c/strong>[00:01:55] My name is Ellena Simentel. I graduated with my master’s in kinesiology from San Francisco State.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:02:04] Kinesiology is the study of muscle movement. It’s very interdisciplinary, so there’s kind of a lot of different aspects in the field. So we do like sports psychology. You can go into physical therapy, athletic training, occupational therapy. I wanted to be a physical therapist. I’ve been to a little bit more recently. So I did focus mostly on like muscle physiology classes and that types of things. But now I think I wanna go more into a little bit more of the psychological motivational side, either doing some kind of city planning that has to do with getting people moving, or maybe even working for some type of nonprofit like Girls on the Run or things that get people active.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:02:55] So even in undergrad we take our core class which is like one of the classes that teaches you like how to read and write in the field of kinesiology and that type of thing and midway through the semester I want to say this was like 2023. Our professor had actually changed the entire course of the class to focus on AI because it had like kind of just come out and she was like you And all of us at that point were kind of like, oh, you know, like, it’ll come and go, it is what it is. But what’s funny sitting back and looking at it now, it’s like, I feel like she really changed the class for a reason. I think it helped a lot of us just kind of get a grasp on what is AI, how to use it, the advantages maybe and some of the disadvantages. And so I obviously only took that class once, but I hope that they continue to do that for that class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:00] It’s good to have immediate feedback, right? That’s, I think, one of the biggest advantages as a student. You don’t have to wait for your professor. It’s very individualized and you can really use it to fix specific things in your writing, for example, like writing essays. I think it’s a great tool to make you sound professional, help fix your grammar, maybe help you with the formatting. Um, the problem and the drawback is just sometimes it takes over your thinking. You it’s, it’s very easy to just put something in and be like, okay, now write me an essay, but there’s no thought that goes into that. There’s no critical thinking that goes in to that. Um, and at the end of the day, like it’s kind of taking away from the learning itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:04:54] I’m definitely less worried than other fields. I think there’s some careers in kinesiology, like if you wanted to be an athletic trainer or maybe like a personal trainer, there’s definitely a chance that AI could swoop in and take some of your clients. You can ask for a workout routine on ChatGPT so easily. However, The motivational aspect that comes with kinesiology and sports psychology that we learn with our degree I think is more helpful than talking to something online and just kind of having that like one-on-one human support is a lot more personalized. For example, like I worked in the athletic training department for a little bit and you can feel the difference in muscle when like a muscle is tense and you can kind with tell. What it needs, AI is not gonna be hands-on like that. And so having that human interaction in this field specifically is really helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:06:00] I will say though that there’s just so much negativity around it and it’s kind of hard to take yourself out of the online discourse. My friend works out in this athletic studio with some of these tech guys and they talk the pros and the cons and like how people are being let go and and you know But at the same time, maybe there’s some jobs that AI should take over. Do people really need to be coding all day every day sitting on a computer? Maybe there’s things that humans shouldn’t be doing, like computer work all day. Maybe we need to go back outside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:06:43] I’m looking forward to seeing what’s out there, right? I live in San Francisco currently and I can’t really see myself. Moving away anytime soon. I think there’s just so much to experience and so many people to meet. Global pandemic, like I was in college, I was taking like 20 units a semester. Every semester I was summer classes, winter classes, and I really chased the academic route. I just turned 24 and I have my master’s and I don’t think a lot of people can say that. And so I think now kind of like finding what it is exactly that I want to do with it and kind of just getting more experience in the field is really exciting to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ada He \u003c/strong>[00:07:40] My name is Ada He, and I’m currently a fourth year student at UC San Diego set to graduate on June 14th. My hometown is San Jose in the Bay Area, and I’m currently studying cognitive science with a specialization in machine learning and neural computation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:07:59] So just to boil down to simple terms, it’s basically the study of intelligence, and it’s super duper relevant for machine learning, understanding these computational models of intelligence. The reason that I chose it and specifically the machine learning and neural computation track was because I think in high school I knew that I was curious about technology but I was also curious about more so the neuroscience and psychology side of things. And so I think I was kind of struck by this idea of like what is intelligence, how can we model it computationally and I think at the time even then there were starting to be like these buzzwords around ML and like AI and how this is going to be the next big thing of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:08:36] And so… Very practical future-oriented parents were like, you, our child, should definitely study something related to technology. And I was like, well, I’m not quite sure, so let me pick this broader major that has to do with technology, but also kind of has to do more with like the philosophy and the psychology and like the ethics of what these systems are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:09:01] I think when I first started in college, basically the only place that I was hearing about machine learning, artificial intelligence as a whole was through theory in my coursework. But I think all of it was very much creative and like human driven. I think where I really started hearing about these AI tools that were in mass production was during my second year of college. So I think in that time, that was when ChatGPT was sort of like released to Apollo can never start using it and it became like the big thing. And suddenly it felt like everyone was talking about chatgbc like, oh hey, it’s pretty smart, it can do all these things. In my third year of college then, like after the summer when we came back to school, then it was taking off and everyone was using it in their classes, everyone’s like asking it questions, and they were using it to code in my programming classes, they were asking it for essay advice, and then I think that was when I started to think like wait, isn’t that an academic integrity violation and then so is AI just being used to like help us cheat now? Started out in this very humanistic direction, right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:10:12] I was using AI as a tool to investigate these hypotheses and to see if I could get it to predict the patterns that I could predict. They were supposed to be these helpful tools that would help us diagnose bigger problems that were facing people. I’ve heard of applications of AI to chart patterns of climate change. So in my head, I just thought AI and ML had so much potential to be used for good. With ChatGPT, I know it’s like- There’s so much progress now going on in the area of large language models that I wonder if the other areas of AI and other use cases are being neglected. This seems like all research is funneling into how these large language models can help us replace white collar jobs. And I’m like, when did that become the focus of artificial intelligence and machine learning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:10:59] I think I’ve been searching for a full-time job since January. As a student who is looking for a white collar job, it’s been very very very distressing to hear all the discourse that AI is meant to replace the work that I’ve spent four years studying. I think I honestly lost track by half to have applied for more than 300 jobs at this point. Just knowing that like the odds of getting a job are so slim even if you do get a callback and then seeing the number of callbacks I’m getting compared to the number applications I put out, that is kind of insane to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I do have summer jobs lined up. I’m currently like a student employee at the UC San Diego library. And I think like I’ve been really fortunate to have that environment because working for the web team there feels very meaningful since the work we do is like all done by hand. We have a very intentional design approach and the goal of all the work that I put out there is to serve the student body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So I think everything that I’ve made there has made me like feel good and I don’t like feel as much like moral confusion when I think about continuing that work this summer. But that rule runs until September, so I know that I have wiggle rooms trying to figure things out somewhat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:12:19] Every generation has faced its demons and maybe the world of AI slop these like powerfully generative tools are kind of one of the demons that my generation has to face in the sense that we have to figure out where it fits into our lives and where it fits into workflows without compromising our morals because they might be here to stay. And then we also have to figure out how to deal with them in our daily, day-to-day work, because that’s probably gonna be an inseparable part of it, whether we like it or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Aaron Kim \u003c/strong>[00:12:57] My name is Aaron Kim. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a major in political science. I came in through the community college route and I started community college in 2019. So I had a couple of years to see like at least in community college, like what higher education was like before AI, then it dropped. And then I saw everyone kind of like scrambling to react to it. It was really interesting watching the different ways professors would try to handle it. Some of them just had like a no AI policy. Others had like a, you have to use AI policy. My gosh, yeah. I remember really early on, there was a professor that told me that like, or that told the class that don’t use AI. I can tell if you use AI because it’ll take your essay, put it in ChatGPT and ask it if it wrote it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s been a bit of a consensus that’s settled around AI, where professors just kind of understood that it’s here. So they got more specific on how we’re supposed to use it. So they’re like, oh, you can use it as a writing assistant. You can use as to help start your research, but don’t use it a source and don’t make it do all your writing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:14:06] But I know some people that are really hardline against it, I kind of agree with them for the most part. Like I think that AI especially, it’s not very sustainable. I feel like it’s sometimes people over-rely on it, which I’ve seen a lot. But I’ve also seen it level the playing field, especially for like ESL speakers. Sometimes I’ll see people who are like in higher education and they’re like not speaking English as a first language I I remember before AI they were excuse my language, but they were basically just shit out of luck. They were gonna be judged the same as like a native English speaker and like sometimes like it just like people were not nice about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[00:14:48] Yeah, I’m like a first-gen college student, so I I just kind of went to college because I don’t know, I didn’t really know why I was going. I just did it. I’m not one of those people that was like, oh yeah, I’m gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or a dentist. I ended up doing a lot of stuff in the union world and the labor world and like the community organizing world, which is why I think AI has affected me a little less personally, like a little less directly because none of the jobs that I was really looking for are really AI exposed as much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Luckily I’m one of these people, but I do think the implementation of AI in the economy has like, I’ve received a lot of the downwind effects. I think a lot tasks are having AI implemented into it. And because of that, I think there’s just less need for a lot of entry level positions that existed in the past. My friends and I joke about it being a “nepo economy” right now, because there’s just like, nobody’s getting jobs through applications, at least not a lot. It’s just all like, you have to know somebody and that’s how you’re getting jobs. I’m still trying to really figure out what direction I want to go for that. But right now I’m just like trying to find something in social impact, you know, nonprofits or unions, um, which is just because that’s like, you know, where my heart was at during college. And that’s where a lot of my experience was at. But yeah, at this point, I think I just kind of have to try to keep an open mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just don’t really think this sort of like innovation is really helping most people in a way that’s really substantial. Like I feel like, yeah, it’s like making things more convenient for a lot of us in like really minor ways, but I just feel like, like, was this all necessary? But it’s like here and we can’t like press, there’s no undo button for things like this, so I guess I just kind of have to adapt. Luckily, in terms of my personal career trajectory, it still feels pretty peripheral. Because a lot of the organizations I’m interested in working for are concerned with working people-centered kind of policies, I think mass, uncritical, enthusiastic adoption of AI is just something that hopefully a lot them just wouldn’t do. Like how would you feel if you’re like working and your union rep is like a chat GPT, like an iPad on the like a little thing that rolls around and tries to get you to sign union cards, right? Like that’s kind of something that AI can never take away. It’s like, because of so much of organizing job or so much organizing is based on building trust human to human, you know? And that’s just something AI can ever do…I hope!\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "even-some-tech-workers-cant-afford-to-stay-when-the-bay-is-this-expensive",
"title": "Even Some Tech Workers Can’t Afford to Stay When the Bay is This Expensive",
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"headTitle": "Even Some Tech Workers Can’t Afford to Stay When the Bay is This Expensive | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Since the California Gold Rush, economic opportunities have drawn people to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">the Bay Area\u003c/a> from all over the world. But for just as long, the region’s boom-and-bust economy has made it impossible for others to stay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the 1990s, the tech industry has driven costs higher, but for some who work in the industry and haven’t struck IPO or AI gold, life in the Bay Area is not adding up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ani and Alex Vecchi, both software engineers, live in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley with their orange cat, Mushu. They haven’t been in the Bay Area long, but already, both aged 30, they’re starting to worry that the city they love may be too expensive for raising a family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden, both 62, raised their family in Northern California, but a layoff made it impossible for them to stay. Last spring, they put their house in Berkeley on the market and drove to Santa Fe with a cat, Molly, and a chihuahua, Felice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at Joint Venture Silicon Valley confirm what many already feel: the region’s economy is generating enormous wealth, but also growing impossibly unaffordable for most people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970120\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970120\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a city, with a large body of water in the bakground.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of Redwood City. \u003ccite>(Sundry Photography via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even well-paid tech workers are being forced to choose between the Bay Area and the rest of their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It distills to a few key points,” said Russell Hancock, President and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, at the organization’s annual State of the Valley conference in late February. “We have a very hot economy. It’s creating a lot of wealth. It’s not creating as many jobs. And our housing is too expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s creating \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078615/how-skyrocketing-housing-costs-and-policy-choices-reshaped-the-bay-area\">demographic churn\u003c/a> — young people move in while older folks move out.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ani and Alex\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ani and Alex Vecchi met about 10 years ago in physics class while studying software engineering at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She went into front-end, customer interface work. She’s now a senior software engineer for Banquet Health, a startup software platform for hospital meals. “Using tech for a good cause is huge for me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They came to the Bay Area in June of 2024 because Alex’s weather monitoring startup Sorcerer landed a \u003ca href=\"https://tracxn.com/d/companies/sorcerer/__iyp8-DoCQBPMaBMs4MjSSHaiRmAA4xVBX44YQJARrto\">$500,000 grant\u003c/a> from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator that launched Airbnb, Dropbox and DoorDash. It was, in startup terms, a golden ticket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12085149\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alex Vecchi and Mushu enjoy a sunny day in San Francisco’s Alamo Square. Alex and his wife, Ani, came to the city two years ago to pursue careers in tech. Now 30, the unaffordable housing market raises uncomfortable questions about whether and how they plan to raise children in the years to come. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ani and Alex Vecchi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Starting a company here, you have to do it here,” Alex said. The investors are here, or a short drive down the Peninsula. Scheduling a Zoom call? “It’s not the same,” he said. “Things spark here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sorcerer closed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2025/06/12/sorcerer-seed-weather-balloons\">$3.9 million seed round\u003c/a> last year. “That data is what powers, essentially, the forecasts on your phone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They have been having the time of their lives in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of greenery,” Ani said. “There’s a lot of people out and about. You have that drive [to succeed in business], but it’s also peaceful, in some ways.” They love walking and picnics and meals with friends. “There’s a lot going on here,” Ani said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing is, the Vechhis are starting to think about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075761/when-child-care-costs-half-a-paycheck-bay-area-parents-must-choose-kids-or-career\">having children\u003c/a>. But it’s complicated. They need both salaries, and both sets of parents, who could help them with childcare, live in Florida. And they’re not ready to make that move.[aside postID=news_12080289 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260420-SLEEP-PODS-MD-01-KQED_1.jpg']\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12061802/how-are-child-care-costs-affecting-the-lives-of-bay-area-families-you-told-us\">Rising child care costs in the Bay Area\u003c/a> are forcing parents to make painful tradeoffs, either by passing up career opportunities, cutting back work hours, or quitting altogether. For families with multiple young children, these expenses can surpass a parent’s entire salary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vecchis also shy away from the idea of leaving San Francisco for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081761/in-the-bay-area-raising-kids-comes-with-compromise\">Bay Area suburb with nominally cheaper real estate\u003c/a>. “If we were to move out of the city, we might as well move back to Florida.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you gave me the option and I had the money, I would stay here 100%,” Alex said. And the family back in Florida? “They understand. They want us to be happy where we are. They know that we’re doing a bunch of great things here. When we think about moving back, we think, ‘But we’re not going to be happy over there.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research from \u003ca href=\"https://jointventure.org/news-and-media/blog/2790-a-region-in-motion-who-s-leaving-silicon-valley-and-why?mc_cid=4aada55384&mc_eid=9b006466f1\">Joint Venture Silicon Valley\u003c/a> provides statistical confirmation of personal experience. For years, the Bay Area has created jobs faster than it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11755545/google-pledges-1-billion-to-help-fight-bay-area-housing-crisis-it-helped-create\">builds housing\u003c/a>, fueling relentless price pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Silicon Valley, just 28% of Millennials own homes, compared to 68% of Baby Boomers, giving older residents an asset to rely on even in tough times. The Vecchis, like most people their age here, are still scrambling for a financial foothold, even though they both work in tech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these things have implications for community, and now we’re seeing it. We’re living it,” Hancock told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mark and Melanie\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, Ani and Alex Vecchi and Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden are living the same story twenty years apart. Young people arrive, fall in love with a place, build a life. Then something shifts, and the place that felt like home starts to feel like a problem to be solved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades in California, Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden felt the sting of leaving somewhere that felt like home. “It does hit differently,” Wogulis said, “when it’s not your choice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wogulis and Bowden met decades ago when they were teachers in San Francisco. He was teaching science.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cj4-T9ovDc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was teaching math. They started a family. He pivoted from teaching to pharmaceuticals, then got a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceuticals and biotech are notoriously volatile, but he worked at Elan Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco for nearly eight years, then at Novozymes in Davis for nearly 13.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From there, he moved to Amyris in Emeryville, which at the time specialized in developing sustainable alternatives for chemicals traditionally derived from petroleum or wildlife that were used in the beauty, flavor and fragrance industries. “Turned out everything they were selling, they were losing money on,” Wogulis said. “When the money ran out, they went bankrupt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were three rounds of layoffs, but Wogulis remained optimistic. “I thought I had made it,” he said, because he hadn’t been laid off, even as the company went into and emerged from bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he got axed during a fourth round of layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, Wogulis thought he’d find another job, like he always had. But now in his 60s, his experience and longevity made him more expensive relative to other prospective employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079650\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079650\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden in front of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 2022. A layoff in biotech forced the couple to sell their home in Berkeley and move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in May of 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark Wogulis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s no way to prove it, but there was no doubt in my mind that there was age discrimination involved,” Bowdon said. “He would be fully qualified for a job and hear nothing on many, many, many jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were people older than me at Amyris,” Wogulis said, “but not very many.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was also true that, thanks to LinkedIn and artificial intelligence, Wogulis was competing with biochemists from all over the world, many of them willing to relocate to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah, there just was nothing,” Wogulis said. “I applied for a bunch of stuff that either I was over- or under-qualified for. I mean, I got a couple of rejections. Most of them just went off into the void.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the layoff came, the couple was living in Berkeley, in a 1,570 square foot Craftsman-style home they bought after raising their family in Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We loved the location. So close to BART and bus stops, and lots of good restaurants within walking distance. I could bike to work. We also liked the charm of such an old house,” Wogulis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they crunched the numbers and realized they didn’t have much financial runway before they’d have to take off for someplace cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We needed to get out of there. We couldn’t afford that house,” Bowden said. That’s how they decided to retire early at age 62 and move to Santa Fe, with their cat and dog in tow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple, born on the tail end of the Baby Boom, had the benefit of owning homes for much of their working lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proceeds from the sale of their house in Davis became the down payment for the house in Berkeley, so their mortgage was only $3,000 a month. Still, their utilities and property taxes added up to about $19,000 per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They moved to Santa Fe knowing nobody but their real estate agents, who helped them find a house for $600,000— half what they paid in Berkeley, even though it’s roughly the same size. They don’t even have a mortgage, something that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985468/map-what-you-need-to-earn-to-afford-a-median-priced-home-in-your-county-in-california\">seems wild\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911013/tech-layoffs-and-higher-than-average-unemployment-a-close-look-at-the-bay-areas-job-market\">most Bay Area homeowners\u003c/a> today. The property taxes are smaller, too: about $4,000 per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did it out of necessity,” Wogulis said. “I would have felt a lot better if I’d totally chosen to come here, I didn’t feel \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11933511/mass-bay-area-tech-layoffs-thrust-thousands-of-h-1b-visa-holders-into-frantic-job-hunt\">under the gun\u003c/a> to do something. Yeah, that was difficult. It does hit differently when it’s…” he said, giving Bowden a chance to finish his sentence, the way longtime partners often do. “…When it’s not your choice. We had to move. We had to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12045711\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12045711\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “For Rent” sign in Berkeley on June 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You know, there’s people I miss, definitely,” Bowden said. “Our neighbors are very nice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just takes time,” Wogulis said. “It took time in Berkeley, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Luckily, Santa Fe is a very cultural and artistic city. There’s so many museums, plays, concerts,” Bowden said. Their grown kids came to visit at Christmas. She is keeping up with masters swimming and cat rescue. They got a second cat through Felines and Friends. His name is Cyrus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the Bay Area, the AI revolution continues the region’s long tradition of minting new millionaires and billionaires. The question is whether everyone else can hold on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Since the California Gold Rush, economic opportunities have drawn people to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">the Bay Area\u003c/a> from all over the world. But for just as long, the region’s boom-and-bust economy has made it impossible for others to stay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the 1990s, the tech industry has driven costs higher, but for some who work in the industry and haven’t struck IPO or AI gold, life in the Bay Area is not adding up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ani and Alex Vecchi, both software engineers, live in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley with their orange cat, Mushu. They haven’t been in the Bay Area long, but already, both aged 30, they’re starting to worry that the city they love may be too expensive for raising a family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden, both 62, raised their family in Northern California, but a layoff made it impossible for them to stay. Last spring, they put their house in Berkeley on the market and drove to Santa Fe with a cat, Molly, and a chihuahua, Felice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at Joint Venture Silicon Valley confirm what many already feel: the region’s economy is generating enormous wealth, but also growing impossibly unaffordable for most people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11970120\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11970120\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of a city, with a large body of water in the bakground.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/GettyImages-1092771432-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view of Redwood City. \u003ccite>(Sundry Photography via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Even well-paid tech workers are being forced to choose between the Bay Area and the rest of their lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It distills to a few key points,” said Russell Hancock, President and CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, at the organization’s annual State of the Valley conference in late February. “We have a very hot economy. It’s creating a lot of wealth. It’s not creating as many jobs. And our housing is too expensive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And it’s creating \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12078615/how-skyrocketing-housing-costs-and-policy-choices-reshaped-the-bay-area\">demographic churn\u003c/a> — young people move in while older folks move out.\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ani and Alex\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Ani and Alex Vecchi met about 10 years ago in physics class while studying software engineering at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She went into front-end, customer interface work. She’s now a senior software engineer for Banquet Health, a startup software platform for hospital meals. “Using tech for a good cause is huge for me,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They came to the Bay Area in June of 2024 because Alex’s weather monitoring startup Sorcerer landed a \u003ca href=\"https://tracxn.com/d/companies/sorcerer/__iyp8-DoCQBPMaBMs4MjSSHaiRmAA4xVBX44YQJARrto\">$500,000 grant\u003c/a> from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator that launched Airbnb, Dropbox and DoorDash. It was, in startup terms, a golden ticket.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12085149\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12085149\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-04-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alex Vecchi and Mushu enjoy a sunny day in San Francisco’s Alamo Square. Alex and his wife, Ani, came to the city two years ago to pursue careers in tech. Now 30, the unaffordable housing market raises uncomfortable questions about whether and how they plan to raise children in the years to come. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ani and Alex Vecchi)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Starting a company here, you have to do it here,” Alex said. The investors are here, or a short drive down the Peninsula. Scheduling a Zoom call? “It’s not the same,” he said. “Things spark here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sorcerer closed a \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/pro/climate-deals/2025/06/12/sorcerer-seed-weather-balloons\">$3.9 million seed round\u003c/a> last year. “That data is what powers, essentially, the forecasts on your phone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They have been having the time of their lives in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of greenery,” Ani said. “There’s a lot of people out and about. You have that drive [to succeed in business], but it’s also peaceful, in some ways.” They love walking and picnics and meals with friends. “There’s a lot going on here,” Ani said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The thing is, the Vechhis are starting to think about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12075761/when-child-care-costs-half-a-paycheck-bay-area-parents-must-choose-kids-or-career\">having children\u003c/a>. But it’s complicated. They need both salaries, and both sets of parents, who could help them with childcare, live in Florida. And they’re not ready to make that move.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12061802/how-are-child-care-costs-affecting-the-lives-of-bay-area-families-you-told-us\">Rising child care costs in the Bay Area\u003c/a> are forcing parents to make painful tradeoffs, either by passing up career opportunities, cutting back work hours, or quitting altogether. For families with multiple young children, these expenses can surpass a parent’s entire salary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Vecchis also shy away from the idea of leaving San Francisco for a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081761/in-the-bay-area-raising-kids-comes-with-compromise\">Bay Area suburb with nominally cheaper real estate\u003c/a>. “If we were to move out of the city, we might as well move back to Florida.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you gave me the option and I had the money, I would stay here 100%,” Alex said. And the family back in Florida? “They understand. They want us to be happy where we are. They know that we’re doing a bunch of great things here. When we think about moving back, we think, ‘But we’re not going to be happy over there.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Research from \u003ca href=\"https://jointventure.org/news-and-media/blog/2790-a-region-in-motion-who-s-leaving-silicon-valley-and-why?mc_cid=4aada55384&mc_eid=9b006466f1\">Joint Venture Silicon Valley\u003c/a> provides statistical confirmation of personal experience. For years, the Bay Area has created jobs faster than it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11755545/google-pledges-1-billion-to-help-fight-bay-area-housing-crisis-it-helped-create\">builds housing\u003c/a>, fueling relentless price pressure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Silicon Valley, just 28% of Millennials own homes, compared to 68% of Baby Boomers, giving older residents an asset to rely on even in tough times. The Vecchis, like most people their age here, are still scrambling for a financial foothold, even though they both work in tech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these things have implications for community, and now we’re seeing it. We’re living it,” Hancock told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Mark and Melanie\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In some ways, Ani and Alex Vecchi and Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden are living the same story twenty years apart. Young people arrive, fall in love with a place, build a life. Then something shifts, and the place that felt like home starts to feel like a problem to be solved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After decades in California, Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden felt the sting of leaving somewhere that felt like home. “It does hit differently,” Wogulis said, “when it’s not your choice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wogulis and Bowden met decades ago when they were teachers in San Francisco. He was teaching science.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/6cj4-T9ovDc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/6cj4-T9ovDc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>She was teaching math. They started a family. He pivoted from teaching to pharmaceuticals, then got a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pharmaceuticals and biotech are notoriously volatile, but he worked at Elan Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco for nearly eight years, then at Novozymes in Davis for nearly 13.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From there, he moved to Amyris in Emeryville, which at the time specialized in developing sustainable alternatives for chemicals traditionally derived from petroleum or wildlife that were used in the beauty, flavor and fragrance industries. “Turned out everything they were selling, they were losing money on,” Wogulis said. “When the money ran out, they went bankrupt.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were three rounds of layoffs, but Wogulis remained optimistic. “I thought I had made it,” he said, because he hadn’t been laid off, even as the company went into and emerged from bankruptcy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then he got axed during a fourth round of layoffs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, Wogulis thought he’d find another job, like he always had. But now in his 60s, his experience and longevity made him more expensive relative to other prospective employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12079650\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1333px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12079650\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1333\" height=\"2000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED.jpg 1333w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED-160x240.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/04/260413-SILICON-VALLEY-CHURN-02-KQED-1024x1536.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1333px) 100vw, 1333px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Wogulis and Melanie Bowden in front of the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in 2022. A layoff in biotech forced the couple to sell their home in Berkeley and move to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in May of 2025. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Mark Wogulis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“There’s no way to prove it, but there was no doubt in my mind that there was age discrimination involved,” Bowdon said. “He would be fully qualified for a job and hear nothing on many, many, many jobs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were people older than me at Amyris,” Wogulis said, “but not very many.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was also true that, thanks to LinkedIn and artificial intelligence, Wogulis was competing with biochemists from all over the world, many of them willing to relocate to the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yeah, there just was nothing,” Wogulis said. “I applied for a bunch of stuff that either I was over- or under-qualified for. I mean, I got a couple of rejections. Most of them just went off into the void.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the layoff came, the couple was living in Berkeley, in a 1,570 square foot Craftsman-style home they bought after raising their family in Davis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We loved the location. So close to BART and bus stops, and lots of good restaurants within walking distance. I could bike to work. We also liked the charm of such an old house,” Wogulis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they crunched the numbers and realized they didn’t have much financial runway before they’d have to take off for someplace cheaper.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We needed to get out of there. We couldn’t afford that house,” Bowden said. That’s how they decided to retire early at age 62 and move to Santa Fe, with their cat and dog in tow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple, born on the tail end of the Baby Boom, had the benefit of owning homes for much of their working lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proceeds from the sale of their house in Davis became the down payment for the house in Berkeley, so their mortgage was only $3,000 a month. Still, their utilities and property taxes added up to about $19,000 per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They moved to Santa Fe knowing nobody but their real estate agents, who helped them find a house for $600,000— half what they paid in Berkeley, even though it’s roughly the same size. They don’t even have a mortgage, something that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11985468/map-what-you-need-to-earn-to-afford-a-median-priced-home-in-your-county-in-california\">seems wild\u003c/a> to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911013/tech-layoffs-and-higher-than-average-unemployment-a-close-look-at-the-bay-areas-job-market\">most Bay Area homeowners\u003c/a> today. The property taxes are smaller, too: about $4,000 per year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did it out of necessity,” Wogulis said. “I would have felt a lot better if I’d totally chosen to come here, I didn’t feel \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11933511/mass-bay-area-tech-layoffs-thrust-thousands-of-h-1b-visa-holders-into-frantic-job-hunt\">under the gun\u003c/a> to do something. Yeah, that was difficult. It does hit differently when it’s…” he said, giving Bowden a chance to finish his sentence, the way longtime partners often do. “…When it’s not your choice. We had to move. We had to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12045711\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12045711\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250623-BerkeleyMiddleHousing-18-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A “For Rent” sign in Berkeley on June 23, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“You know, there’s people I miss, definitely,” Bowden said. “Our neighbors are very nice.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It just takes time,” Wogulis said. “It took time in Berkeley, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Luckily, Santa Fe is a very cultural and artistic city. There’s so many museums, plays, concerts,” Bowden said. Their grown kids came to visit at Christmas. She is keeping up with masters swimming and cat rescue. They got a second cat through Felines and Friends. His name is Cyrus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in the Bay Area, the AI revolution continues the region’s long tradition of minting new millionaires and billionaires. The question is whether everyone else can hold on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>On a sunny, clear Tuesday, marine scientist Douglas McCauley surveyed the cobalt-blue waters of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-bay\">San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> from a public ferry headed to Angel Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He kept watch for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044187/another-dead-gray-whale-found-in-bay-area-marking-the-most-in-25-years\">gray whales\u003c/a> breaking the surface of the water to breathe, traveling and hungry, near the boat’s path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Five or 10 years ago, it would be unfathomable,” to be concerned about whales being struck by ships in the San Francisco Bay, said McCauley, the director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, the ferry’s path has become a feeding “hotspot,” the scientist said — putting the 90,000 lb., migratory mammals directly in harm’s way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a new thing, to be sharing this [busy] space with whales,“ McCauley continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new AI-powered camera, however, installed on the island’s Point Blunt, seeks to shine a light on the increased whale activity in the Bay, “with so much greater resolution and accuracy” than before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The camera, produced by Whalespotter, a Massachusetts-based company, searches for heat signatures of warm-blooded mammals — “a whale that’s breathing out in a cold bay,” McCauley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the thermal camera’s artificial intelligence, “that red hot heat from a warm whale is what stands out, kind of like a hot needle in a cold haystack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The WhaleSpotter long-range marine mammal detection system stands at Point Blunt on Angel Island on May 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gray whales make one of the longest migrations of any animal on Earth, from their feeding grounds in the Arctic to lagoons in Baja California, where they have their offspring. Typically, they don’t consume any additional food along the journey, which spans over 12,000 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But changes to Arctic sea ice and weather patterns have reduced the whales’ usual food supply, McCauley said. Starvation, habitat loss from climate change, and boat strikes have contributed to reducing the population of the whales to their lowest totals in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this species of gray whale is not considered endangered, their numbers dropped by half in the last ten years alone, from 26,000 to 13,000.[aside postID=science_2000810 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/08/P7A0782-scaled-e1754085326224.jpg']Nearly one in five gray whales entering the Bay dies there, often due to vessel collisions, according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/one-in-five-gray-whales-entering-san-francisco-bay-die-there/\">study\u003c/a> published by Marin County’s Marine Mammal Center and California Academy of Sciences. McCauley said 21 dead whales surfaced in the Bay last year, and that 40% of them showed signs of being struck by a boat or shipping freighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ The process really began last year in the heart of this crisis where everyone said, ‘Okay, we, we need a solution, and we need one fast.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within two hours from the moment the camera switched on two weeks ago, it had already identified 180 “blows,” or instances of whales coming to the surface of the water to breathe, according to Benioff scientist Rachel Rhodes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though this was likely a small pod lingering in front of the sensor, the researchers took it as a sign they were in the right spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I’m a not-half-bad whale watcher,” said McCauley, but “that does a much better job than I do of actually seeing whales.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to bring the camera to the Bay Area and share its data with ships that need it, the Benioff lab partnered with over a dozen groups across industry, research and government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084534\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084534\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at The Marine Mammal Center; Shawn Henry, CEO of WhaleSpotter; Gary Reed, director of VTS San Francisco; Rachel Rhodes, project scientist with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory; Tyrone Jue, director of the San Francisco Environment Department; Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory; Tom Hall, director of operations and customer experience at San Francisco Bay Ferry; and Rachel Bacal, administrative and outreach coordinator, cut a ribbon at Point Blunt on Angel Island on May 19, 2026, for the newly installed WhaleSpotter marine mammal detection system. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Marine Mammal Center, which assists Benioff researchers analyze the condition of the whales that die in the Bay was a key partner, as was the Coast Guard, which offered a spot on one of their communications towers for the camera and reports whale sightings from Vessel Traffic Control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the San Francisco Bay Ferry also switched on its own WhaleSpotter camera, which will operate on the Vallejo line and contribute to WhaleSafe, a free public database run by Benioff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WhaleSafe updates in real time using both reports from human spotters and WhaleSpotter sensors to give boats advance notice of whale traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shawn Henry, WhaleSpotter’s CEO, said the Angel Island camera is the company’s first stationary sensor of its kind in California — the company set up similar cameras on the East Coast to monitor the endangered North Atlantic right whale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Time is a major consideration in keeping whales safe from larger ships, Henry said. Freighter ships can’t quickly slow down or change direction, and can strike whales without operators even noticing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ We can provide very reliable detection of whales at long range, long enough in order for the largest vessels to take evasive action to avoid whales,” Henry said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the AI’s sightings are confirmed, the information is immediately shared with WhaleSafe users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084528\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084528\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tanker ship approaches the Golden Gate Bridge on May 19, 2026, as a new whale detection system is launched in San Francisco Bay to help prevent ship strikes on gray whales. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Henry said the cost of these cameras is comparable to that of a traditional ship radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking at the camera’s ribbon-cutting on Tuesday, McCauley said he hopes to see a “network of sensors” across the Bay to account for “blind spots” in their search to save the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, he said, residents are well-versed in climate disruption and crisis, and in helping one another through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a whale that is adapting,” he told the crowd. “We’ve extended our definition of neighbor to include this backyard and those whales, and we’re here, in many ways, to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On a sunny, clear Tuesday, marine scientist Douglas McCauley surveyed the cobalt-blue waters of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-bay\">San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> from a public ferry headed to Angel Island.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He kept watch for \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044187/another-dead-gray-whale-found-in-bay-area-marking-the-most-in-25-years\">gray whales\u003c/a> breaking the surface of the water to breathe, traveling and hungry, near the boat’s path.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ Five or 10 years ago, it would be unfathomable,” to be concerned about whales being struck by ships in the San Francisco Bay, said McCauley, the director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Barbara.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But recently, the ferry’s path has become a feeding “hotspot,” the scientist said — putting the 90,000 lb., migratory mammals directly in harm’s way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a new thing, to be sharing this [busy] space with whales,“ McCauley continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new AI-powered camera, however, installed on the island’s Point Blunt, seeks to shine a light on the increased whale activity in the Bay, “with so much greater resolution and accuracy” than before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The camera, produced by Whalespotter, a Massachusetts-based company, searches for heat signatures of warm-blooded mammals — “a whale that’s breathing out in a cold bay,” McCauley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the thermal camera’s artificial intelligence, “that red hot heat from a warm whale is what stands out, kind of like a hot needle in a cold haystack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084535\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_035-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The WhaleSpotter long-range marine mammal detection system stands at Point Blunt on Angel Island on May 19, 2026. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gray whales make one of the longest migrations of any animal on Earth, from their feeding grounds in the Arctic to lagoons in Baja California, where they have their offspring. Typically, they don’t consume any additional food along the journey, which spans over 12,000 miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But changes to Arctic sea ice and weather patterns have reduced the whales’ usual food supply, McCauley said. Starvation, habitat loss from climate change, and boat strikes have contributed to reducing the population of the whales to their lowest totals in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While this species of gray whale is not considered endangered, their numbers dropped by half in the last ten years alone, from 26,000 to 13,000.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Nearly one in five gray whales entering the Bay dies there, often due to vessel collisions, according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/one-in-five-gray-whales-entering-san-francisco-bay-die-there/\">study\u003c/a> published by Marin County’s Marine Mammal Center and California Academy of Sciences. McCauley said 21 dead whales surfaced in the Bay last year, and that 40% of them showed signs of being struck by a boat or shipping freighter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ The process really began last year in the heart of this crisis where everyone said, ‘Okay, we, we need a solution, and we need one fast.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within two hours from the moment the camera switched on two weeks ago, it had already identified 180 “blows,” or instances of whales coming to the surface of the water to breathe, according to Benioff scientist Rachel Rhodes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though this was likely a small pod lingering in front of the sensor, the researchers took it as a sign they were in the right spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think I’m a not-half-bad whale watcher,” said McCauley, but “that does a much better job than I do of actually seeing whales.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to bring the camera to the Bay Area and share its data with ships that need it, the Benioff lab partnered with over a dozen groups across industry, research and government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084534\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084534\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_040-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left, Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at The Marine Mammal Center; Shawn Henry, CEO of WhaleSpotter; Gary Reed, director of VTS San Francisco; Rachel Rhodes, project scientist with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory; Tyrone Jue, director of the San Francisco Environment Department; Douglas McCauley, director of the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory; Tom Hall, director of operations and customer experience at San Francisco Bay Ferry; and Rachel Bacal, administrative and outreach coordinator, cut a ribbon at Point Blunt on Angel Island on May 19, 2026, for the newly installed WhaleSpotter marine mammal detection system. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Marine Mammal Center, which assists Benioff researchers analyze the condition of the whales that die in the Bay was a key partner, as was the Coast Guard, which offered a spot on one of their communications towers for the camera and reports whale sightings from Vessel Traffic Control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the San Francisco Bay Ferry also switched on its own WhaleSpotter camera, which will operate on the Vallejo line and contribute to WhaleSafe, a free public database run by Benioff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WhaleSafe updates in real time using both reports from human spotters and WhaleSpotter sensors to give boats advance notice of whale traffic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shawn Henry, WhaleSpotter’s CEO, said the Angel Island camera is the company’s first stationary sensor of its kind in California — the company set up similar cameras on the East Coast to monitor the endangered North Atlantic right whale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Time is a major consideration in keeping whales safe from larger ships, Henry said. Freighter ships can’t quickly slow down or change direction, and can strike whales without operators even noticing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“ We can provide very reliable detection of whales at long range, long enough in order for the largest vessels to take evasive action to avoid whales,” Henry said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once the AI’s sightings are confirmed, the information is immediately shared with WhaleSafe users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084528\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084528\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/051926SFWHALES_GH_021-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tanker ship approaches the Golden Gate Bridge on May 19, 2026, as a new whale detection system is launched in San Francisco Bay to help prevent ship strikes on gray whales. \u003ccite>(Gustavo Hernandez/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Henry said the cost of these cameras is comparable to that of a traditional ship radar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking at the camera’s ribbon-cutting on Tuesday, McCauley said he hopes to see a “network of sensors” across the Bay to account for “blind spots” in their search to save the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, he said, residents are well-versed in climate disruption and crisis, and in helping one another through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a whale that is adapting,” he told the crowd. “We’ve extended our definition of neighbor to include this backyard and those whales, and we’re here, in many ways, to help.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "After Meta Layoffs, Newsom Signs AI Order to ‘Protect Workers’ and Jobs",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/gov-gavin-newsom\">Gov. Gavin Newsom\u003c/a> issued on Thursday what his office called a “first-of-its-kind”\u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/5.21.26-AI-Workforce-EO-FINAL-SIGNED.pdf\"> executive order\u003c/a> directing state agencies to prepare workers and businesses for artificial intelligence-driven workforce disruption.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has never sat back and watched as the future happened to us — and we won’t start now,” Newsom said, in a statement accompanying the order. “We have taken the lead on advancing innovation, safety, and transparency. But we must think bigger. This moment demands that we reimagine the entire system — how we work, how we govern, how we prepare people for the future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order mandates agencies to explore a range of policy options, including severance standards, expanded unemployment insurance, job retraining programs aimed specifically at white-collar workers, worker ownership models and a concept the governor called “universal basic capital,” giving all residents a stake in assets such as corporate stocks, bonds or wealth funds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move reflects \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much\">growing tension among Americans\u003c/a> over how AI is disrupting their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">personal lives\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076726/ai-is-changing-tech-work-heres-why-it-matters-for-the-rest-of-us\">jobs\u003c/a>, even as many business leaders continue to express optimism about the technology’s capabilities. Layoffs tied to AI are snowballing across many sectors of the economy, including Silicon Valley, and labor leaders are growing increasingly impatient with the governor’s cautious approach to regulating the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Meta announced it was laying off roughly 8,000 workers, about 10% of its workforce, as the company accelerates its shift toward AI. Intel, Cisco, Amazon and other tech giants have also dramatically reduced their headcounts in recent months, citing the need to shift spending to AI-focused employees and data center construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei has predicted that roughly half of all white-collar jobs could disappear within five years. Most other tech leaders disagree with the specific timeline but broadly agree that AI will displace white-collar workers in engineering, communications and law in the near future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055158\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055158\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left to right: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger and Head of Communications Sasha de Marigny give a press conference during Anthropic’s first developer conference in San Francisco, California, on May 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Julie Jammot/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The economic logic driving those cuts has alarmed policymakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2057507319139750057\"> posted to the social media platform X\u003c/a> shortly after signing: “California will pursue new policies that make sure working Californians — not just Big Tech — benefit from the wealth and breakthroughs coming out of this space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom telegraphed Thursday’s order earlier this week, when he appeared at the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference in Washington. “Businesses are going to make a fortune, and that’s why you cannot continue to have a payroll tax system that taxes jobs and then subsidizes automation,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, applauded the fact that the order named data privacy as a consumer protection concern and highlighted the CPPA’s automated decision-making technology regulations, which he called “the nation’s most comprehensive.”[aside postID=news_12084499 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/TeenagersMetaSocialMediaGetty.jpg']Others are more skeptical. “\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Catastrophic job loss from AI is not inevitable, it’s a political choice\u003c/span>,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, wrote in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Gonzalez noted one area of genuine agreement: the order’s emphasis on collective bargaining as a tool for protecting workers from AI displacement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That database of AI provisions in collective bargaining agreements exists, and we have introduced bills that mirror those protections over the past few years,” she wrote, going on to chide the governor for vetoing a number of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much\">Stanford HAI’s 2026 AI Index\u003c/a>, software developers ages 22 to 25 are among those most likely to see their skills made redundant earliest. This year, U.S. employment fell nearly 20% from 2024, even as headcount for older developers continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the job cuts announced at Meta, a union of Alphabet workers in the U.S. and Canada released a statement that suggests Silicon Valley’s own labor force may seek to organize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As Big Tech companies attempt to nudge ahead of each other in the AI race, our daily work lives are shifting,” Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 said in a statement. “It’s undeniable that our whole industry is being transformed by the corporate push to adopt new AI tools. It’s hard not to feel anxiety and fear when we can see more and more tech companies cutting huge portions of their workforce both in anticipation of replacing them with AI, and to fund their multi-billion-dollar bets on AI as the future of the industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" 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-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta declined to comment, and Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind and Amazon did not respond in time for this report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Gonzalez delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to Newsom: regulate AI or lose labor’s support for any future presidential run. Shuler called a potential AI-driven economic collapse a coming “crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August 2025, Newsom announced a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051433/california-teams-with-google-microsoft-ibm-adobe-to-prepare-students-for-ai-era\"> partnership with Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe\u003c/a> to expand AI education in California schools and community colleges, a workforce preparation push that now looks like a precursor to Thursday’s more sweeping order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom also announced the statewide expansion of Engaged California, a digital platform originally launched to help coordinate recovery after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which will now be used to gather public input on AI’s impact on the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A backdrop of federal inaction\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s order comes as President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was postponing signing a long-anticipated AI executive order, telling reporters, “I didn’t like what I was seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planned federal order would have created a system for the government to vet powerful new AI models before public release, a process the administration had been negotiating with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/GettyImages-2262729717-scaled-e1773182284895.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1413\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trump has argued that aggressive AI oversight could hobble the United States in its technology competition with China, calling AI “a critical engine of the economy.” He told reporters he discussed AI safeguards with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent trip to China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it remains unclear whether the federal administration will allow California and other states to take dramatic action as AI reshapes the American labor force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2025, Trump faced\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12066910/trumps-ai-order-provokes-pushback-from-california-officials-and-consumer-advocates\"> backlash\u003c/a> from California officials and consumer advocates after he issued an executive order curtailing states’ ability to regulate AI, though the order didn’t directly preempt state AI laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The move reflects \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much\">growing tension among Americans\u003c/a> over how AI is disrupting their \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12034490/ai-companions-seductive-risk-teens-senators-want-more-guardrails\">personal lives\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076726/ai-is-changing-tech-work-heres-why-it-matters-for-the-rest-of-us\">jobs\u003c/a>, even as many business leaders continue to express optimism about the technology’s capabilities. Layoffs tied to AI are snowballing across many sectors of the economy, including Silicon Valley, and labor leaders are growing increasingly impatient with the governor’s cautious approach to regulating the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this week, Meta announced it was laying off roughly 8,000 workers, about 10% of its workforce, as the company accelerates its shift toward AI. Intel, Cisco, Amazon and other tech giants have also dramatically reduced their headcounts in recent months, citing the need to shift spending to AI-focused employees and data center construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei has predicted that roughly half of all white-collar jobs could disappear within five years. Most other tech leaders disagree with the specific timeline but broadly agree that AI will displace white-collar workers in engineering, communications and law in the near future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12055158\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12055158\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/09/AnthropicAIGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left to right: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger and Head of Communications Sasha de Marigny give a press conference during Anthropic’s first developer conference in San Francisco, California, on May 22, 2025. \u003ccite>(Julie Jammot/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The economic logic driving those cuts has alarmed policymakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/CAgovernor/status/2057507319139750057\"> posted to the social media platform X\u003c/a> shortly after signing: “California will pursue new policies that make sure working Californians — not just Big Tech — benefit from the wealth and breakthroughs coming out of this space.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom telegraphed Thursday’s order earlier this week, when he appeared at the Center for American Progress IDEAS Conference in Washington. “Businesses are going to make a fortune, and that’s why you cannot continue to have a payroll tax system that taxes jobs and then subsidizes automation,” Newsom said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tom Kemp, executive director of the California Privacy Protection Agency, applauded the fact that the order named data privacy as a consumer protection concern and highlighted the CPPA’s automated decision-making technology regulations, which he called “the nation’s most comprehensive.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Others are more skeptical. “\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Catastrophic job loss from AI is not inevitable, it’s a political choice\u003c/span>,” Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, wrote in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, Gonzalez noted one area of genuine agreement: the order’s emphasis on collective bargaining as a tool for protecting workers from AI displacement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That database of AI provisions in collective bargaining agreements exists, and we have introduced bills that mirror those protections over the past few years,” she wrote, going on to chide the governor for vetoing a number of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12079472/stanford-study-ai-experts-are-optimistic-about-ai-the-rest-of-us-not-so-much\">Stanford HAI’s 2026 AI Index\u003c/a>, software developers ages 22 to 25 are among those most likely to see their skills made redundant earliest. This year, U.S. employment fell nearly 20% from 2024, even as headcount for older developers continued to grow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the job cuts announced at Meta, a union of Alphabet workers in the U.S. and Canada released a statement that suggests Silicon Valley’s own labor force may seek to organize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As Big Tech companies attempt to nudge ahead of each other in the AI race, our daily work lives are shifting,” Alphabet Workers Union-CWA Local 9009 said in a statement. “It’s undeniable that our whole industry is being transformed by the corporate push to adopt new AI tools. It’s hard not to feel anxiety and fear when we can see more and more tech companies cutting huge portions of their workforce both in anticipation of replacing them with AI, and to fund their multi-billion-dollar bets on AI as the future of the industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" 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-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta declined to comment, and Anthropic, OpenAI, DeepMind and Amazon did not respond in time for this report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Gonzalez delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to Newsom: regulate AI or lose labor’s support for any future presidential run. Shuler called a potential AI-driven economic collapse a coming “crisis.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In August 2025, Newsom announced a\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12051433/california-teams-with-google-microsoft-ibm-adobe-to-prepare-students-for-ai-era\"> partnership with Google, Microsoft, IBM and Adobe\u003c/a> to expand AI education in California schools and community colleges, a workforce preparation push that now looks like a precursor to Thursday’s more sweeping order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom also announced the statewide expansion of Engaged California, a digital platform originally launched to help coordinate recovery after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which will now be used to gather public input on AI’s impact on the workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A backdrop of federal inaction\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s order comes as President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he was postponing signing a long-anticipated AI executive order, telling reporters, “I didn’t like what I was seeing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The planned federal order would have created a system for the government to vet powerful new AI models before public release, a process the administration had been negotiating with Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12074482\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12074482\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/02/GettyImages-2262729717-scaled-e1773182284895.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1413\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington, D.C. \u003ccite>(Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Trump has argued that aggressive AI oversight could hobble the United States in its technology competition with China, calling AI “a critical engine of the economy.” He told reporters he discussed AI safeguards with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a recent trip to China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it remains unclear whether the federal administration will allow California and other states to take dramatic action as AI reshapes the American labor force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2025, Trump faced\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12066910/trumps-ai-order-provokes-pushback-from-california-officials-and-consumer-advocates\"> backlash\u003c/a> from California officials and consumer advocates after he issued an executive order curtailing states’ ability to regulate AI, though the order didn’t directly preempt state AI laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "‘Momfluencers’ for Hire: Meta’s Campaign to Reshape Its Child Safety Image Faces Scrutiny",
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"headTitle": "‘Momfluencers’ for Hire: Meta’s Campaign to Reshape Its Child Safety Image Faces Scrutiny | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>When a parenting influencer posts a glowing Instagram Reel about how Meta’s Teen Accounts are keeping kids safe online, it can look like a mom just trying to help other moms. But a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog calls it part of a paid marketing campaign from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913414/addictive-social-media-is-harmful-to-youth-jury-says\">a heavily sued Big Tech company\u003c/a> in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/meta-deploys-momfluencers-to-counter-child-safety-criticism\">Tech Transparency Project’s\u003c/a> latest investigation documents how Meta has deployed a sprawling network of paid Instagram influencers like Huff to promote its Teen Account safety features to millions of parents. Meta’s campaign coincides with an onslaught of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913414/addictive-social-media-is-harmful-to-youth-jury-says\">child safety lawsuits\u003c/a> against the company, including jury verdicts in March 2026 that found Meta liable for deliberately harming minors, and another filed just last week in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083109/santa-clara-county-takes-on-meta-scam-ads-in-lawsuit\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report cited an October 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reels/DBRJvXDPRaz/\">post\u003c/a> by influencer Sadie Robertson Huff, known for starring in the reality TV series \u003cem>Duck Dynasty\u003c/em>. “Even as the parent of a 3-year-old, I already worry about the future of social media,” she wrote. Huff typically posts about her family and Christian faith to her more than five million Instagram followers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that Instagram is thinking about this for teens and trying to help parents have a peace of mind is amazing,” the post continued. It also featured a #MetaPartner tag — but buried at the bottom of the glowing endorsement is a small print disclosure that she has a paid partnership with Instagram.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation also identified at least 11 doctors and psychologists with financial ties to Meta who publicly promoted the Teen Accounts, in some cases on television, without consistently disclosing those relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have these influencers being paid to push what is essentially a faulty product in the first place,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12038161 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The nonprofit Tech Transparency Project’s latest investigation documents how Meta has deployed a network of paid Instagram influencers to promote its Teen Account safety features to millions of parents. \u003ccite>(Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://familycenter.meta.com/our-products/instagram/\">Meta promotes Teen Accounts\u003c/a> as a safer Instagram experience for users ages 13 to 17, with content filters, screen time limits and parental supervision tools. The company has hosted what it calls \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DCmDOAOOzTk/\">Screen Smart events\u003c/a> in cities across the country, where influencers collect branded swag and hear Meta’s messaging. Many of the posts that follow include a “paid partnership” label or hashtag. Some don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One medical influencer, who spoke to TTP on background because they’d signed a non-disclosure agreement, said they felt “manipulated” after learning about the child safety lawsuits against Meta. They said Meta edited their script to remove language acknowledging social media’s negative effects on kids, before algorithmically boosting the post to millions of views.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta has also recruited influencer dads, like reality TV star Leroy Garrett, who has nearly 300,000 Instagram followers. He attended a Screen Smart event in Chicago in April 2026 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/royleethebarber/reel/DW9ZQhwkX5A/\">posted \u003c/a>a paid endorsement of Teen Accounts. In a statement to CNN, he defended the arrangement: “Partnering with Meta allows me to contribute to this important conversation and advocate for the well-being of our children in the digital landscape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement provided to KQED, a Meta spokesperson wrote, “Teen Accounts provide built-in protections for young people and give parents concrete tools to supervise their teens’ experience. We proudly work with parents and creators to spread the word about these controls and encourage people to use them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our critics claim to care about safety, but attacking efforts to educate parents proves they are more interested in headlines than actually helping families,” it continued.[aside postID=news_12072425 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/AP24134775174210-1020x680.jpg']The spokesperson also noted that partnering with influencers to raise awareness has become standard industry practice, pointing to similar arrangements at TikTok, Snap and Roblox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul didn’t dispute that other platforms use influencer marketing. But she argued that Meta warrants particular scrutiny. Though Pew Research consistently shows YouTube leadings among teens, with TikTok second, Meta’s internal documents, surfaced through litigation, demonstrate how long the company has been aware of harms to children while choosing not to act. The Teen Accounts themselves, Paul asserted, were launched in 2024 largely by repackaging safety features that the company had already announced piecemeal in prior years — timed, she argues, to counter the momentum of lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s still just passing the buck on responsibility, rather than moderating the platforms and making them safe in the first place,” Paul said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003cem>Washington Post\u003c/em> investigation found that Teen Accounts “fail spectacularly” to shield young users from content related to sex, alcohol and drugs. TTP’s own researchers found that searching a hashtag as simple as #fight from a Teen Account surfaced graphic content, the same type of content Meta explicitly claimed its filters would block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul said Meta also needs to hire more human content moderators, rather than rely heavily on artificial intelligence for moderation. “Time and again, it’s a very small team of researchers, or in some cases journalists, that are easily, at a very basic level, able to surface these issues,” Paul said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stakes are rising. A trial pitting school districts against Meta and other social media companies is expected this summer, part of a wave of litigation that legal observers say will attempt to force Silicon Valley to take accountability for child safety. TTP said it has more reporting to come on how tech companies use outside networks to shape public opinion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents trying to navigate all of this, the influencer telling you that Instagram is working hard to keep your teenager safe may genuinely believe it. She might have also been paid — and may not have understood the larger context around her claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When a parenting influencer posts a glowing Instagram Reel about how Meta’s Teen Accounts are keeping kids safe online, it can look like a mom just trying to help other moms. But a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog calls it part of a paid marketing campaign from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913414/addictive-social-media-is-harmful-to-youth-jury-says\">a heavily sued Big Tech company\u003c/a> in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/meta-deploys-momfluencers-to-counter-child-safety-criticism\">Tech Transparency Project’s\u003c/a> latest investigation documents how Meta has deployed a sprawling network of paid Instagram influencers like Huff to promote its Teen Account safety features to millions of parents. Meta’s campaign coincides with an onslaught of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101913414/addictive-social-media-is-harmful-to-youth-jury-says\">child safety lawsuits\u003c/a> against the company, including jury verdicts in March 2026 that found Meta liable for deliberately harming minors, and another filed just last week in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083109/santa-clara-county-takes-on-meta-scam-ads-in-lawsuit\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report cited an October 2024 \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/reels/DBRJvXDPRaz/\">post\u003c/a> by influencer Sadie Robertson Huff, known for starring in the reality TV series \u003cem>Duck Dynasty\u003c/em>. “Even as the parent of a 3-year-old, I already worry about the future of social media,” she wrote. Huff typically posts about her family and Christian faith to her more than five million Instagram followers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fact that Instagram is thinking about this for teens and trying to help parents have a peace of mind is amazing,” the post continued. It also featured a #MetaPartner tag — but buried at the bottom of the glowing endorsement is a small print disclosure that she has a paid partnership with Instagram.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The investigation also identified at least 11 doctors and psychologists with financial ties to Meta who publicly promoted the Teen Accounts, in some cases on television, without consistently disclosing those relationships.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have these influencers being paid to push what is essentially a faulty product in the first place,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12038161\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12038161 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/StanfordStudyAIChatbotsKidsGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The nonprofit Tech Transparency Project’s latest investigation documents how Meta has deployed a network of paid Instagram influencers to promote its Teen Account safety features to millions of parents. \u003ccite>(Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://familycenter.meta.com/our-products/instagram/\">Meta promotes Teen Accounts\u003c/a> as a safer Instagram experience for users ages 13 to 17, with content filters, screen time limits and parental supervision tools. The company has hosted what it calls \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/DCmDOAOOzTk/\">Screen Smart events\u003c/a> in cities across the country, where influencers collect branded swag and hear Meta’s messaging. Many of the posts that follow include a “paid partnership” label or hashtag. Some don’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One medical influencer, who spoke to TTP on background because they’d signed a non-disclosure agreement, said they felt “manipulated” after learning about the child safety lawsuits against Meta. They said Meta edited their script to remove language acknowledging social media’s negative effects on kids, before algorithmically boosting the post to millions of views.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta has also recruited influencer dads, like reality TV star Leroy Garrett, who has nearly 300,000 Instagram followers. He attended a Screen Smart event in Chicago in April 2026 and \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/royleethebarber/reel/DW9ZQhwkX5A/\">posted \u003c/a>a paid endorsement of Teen Accounts. In a statement to CNN, he defended the arrangement: “Partnering with Meta allows me to contribute to this important conversation and advocate for the well-being of our children in the digital landscape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement provided to KQED, a Meta spokesperson wrote, “Teen Accounts provide built-in protections for young people and give parents concrete tools to supervise their teens’ experience. We proudly work with parents and creators to spread the word about these controls and encourage people to use them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our critics claim to care about safety, but attacking efforts to educate parents proves they are more interested in headlines than actually helping families,” it continued.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The spokesperson also noted that partnering with influencers to raise awareness has become standard industry practice, pointing to similar arrangements at TikTok, Snap and Roblox.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul didn’t dispute that other platforms use influencer marketing. But she argued that Meta warrants particular scrutiny. Though Pew Research consistently shows YouTube leadings among teens, with TikTok second, Meta’s internal documents, surfaced through litigation, demonstrate how long the company has been aware of harms to children while choosing not to act. The Teen Accounts themselves, Paul asserted, were launched in 2024 largely by repackaging safety features that the company had already announced piecemeal in prior years — timed, she argues, to counter the momentum of lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s still just passing the buck on responsibility, rather than moderating the platforms and making them safe in the first place,” Paul said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003cem>Washington Post\u003c/em> investigation found that Teen Accounts “fail spectacularly” to shield young users from content related to sex, alcohol and drugs. TTP’s own researchers found that searching a hashtag as simple as #fight from a Teen Account surfaced graphic content, the same type of content Meta explicitly claimed its filters would block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Paul said Meta also needs to hire more human content moderators, rather than rely heavily on artificial intelligence for moderation. “Time and again, it’s a very small team of researchers, or in some cases journalists, that are easily, at a very basic level, able to surface these issues,” Paul said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The stakes are rising. A trial pitting school districts against Meta and other social media companies is expected this summer, part of a wave of litigation that legal observers say will attempt to force Silicon Valley to take accountability for child safety. TTP said it has more reporting to come on how tech companies use outside networks to shape public opinion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For parents trying to navigate all of this, the influencer telling you that Instagram is working hard to keep your teenager safe may genuinely believe it. She might have also been paid — and may not have understood the larger context around her claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "iran-is-winning-the-slopaganda-war",
"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The war in Iran has led to the emergence of \"slopaganda\" — where AI slop meets information warfare.",
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"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War | KQED",
"description": "AI-generated Lego videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They're shareable, surprisingly high quality and they're deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They're also propaganda. Welcome to the age of "slopaganda" — where AI Slop meets information warfare. Michał Klincewicz, professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it's doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>Elon Musk’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081290/how-to-unscramble-an-omelet-in-silicon-valley-the-musk-v-altman-trial-that-will-try\">lawsuit against his OpenAI co-founders\u003c/a> has been rejected by a federal judge in Oakland, who found his claims were outside the statute of limitations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk, who helped form OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, had alleged that co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman violated the company’s original nonprofit mission to create safe and open-source artificial intelligence in order to enrich themselves. An Oakland jury took just a few hours to declare that Musk’s claim came too late. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who had the final say in the case, agreed with the jury’s advisory verdict.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The finding of the jury confirms that what this lawsuit was, was a hypocritical attempt to sabotage a competitor and to overcome a long history of very bad predictions about what OpenAI has been and will become,” Altman’s lead counsel, William Savitt, told reporters outside the courthouse Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The verdict comes after a weekslong blockbuster trial in Silicon Valley, in which the Tesla CEO accused Altman and Brockman of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081603/elon-musk-takes-aim-at-openai-as-trial-begins-its-not-ok-to-steal-a-charity\">“stealing a charity\u003c/a>” as they built a more than $850 million company on the back of their nonprofit. Court documents and testimony from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083224/former-openai-exec-calls-decision-to-remove-sam-altman-a-hail-mary-during-musk-trial\">a score of tech elites\u003c/a>, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, shed light on the rise of OpenAI — as well as on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083278/sam-altman-defends-himself-from-elon-musks-accusations-in-openai-trial\">the interpersonal strife\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083612/lawyers-for-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-make-their-final-case-in-openai-trial\">falling out between Altman and Musk\u003c/a>, who were once close friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s high-profile testimony in the case also raised questions over Altman’s trustworthiness and leadership as the company pursues artificial general intelligence, a superintelligent form of AI and a potential trillion-dollar initial public offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084143\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084143\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The verdict is read in the trial in which Elon Musk claimed that Altman and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity rather than solely for profit in Oakland on May 18, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Altman’s defense argued that OpenAI had to form a profit-generating arm to keep up with competitors as AI technology advanced. They said that prior to leaving OpenAI, Musk was amenable to creating a for-profit, which he wanted to control. When other executives refused to agree to his terms, he left the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Monday’s verdict disregarded many of the trial’s revelations, and instead hinged on the timeline of Musk’s claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jury agreed with OpenAI’s defense that Musk missed the statute of limitations to allege a breach of charitable trust. They also dismissed a claim that Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor, aided and abetted a breach of charitable trust.[aside postID=news_12083612 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/OpenAILawyerGetty.jpg']Sarah Eddy, an attorney for OpenAI, noted in her closing argument that Musk departed the company in 2018, watched it build up a for-profit arm beginning in 2019 and made his final monetary contribution the year after that. Yet, he waited until 2024, after he’d launched a competing AI enterprise, to bring his suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She called the case a “textbook” example of why the statute of limitations exists, saying that when Musk made his last contribution and testified that he became suspicious of a breach of charitable trust in 2020, he “started the clock.” According to Eddy, Musk should have sued by 2022 at the latest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s counsel, Marc Toberoff, said there was a strong basis for appeal based on the legal components, statute of limitations aside. Musk also wrote on X, which he owns, that he planned to file an appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” he wrote. “Creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside the court, anti-AI protesters who have been present for much of the trial decried the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No matter who won, we all lost,” said Phoebe Thomas Sorgen, an activist with StopAI, which seeks to “disrupt the reckless development of destructive” AI tech, according to its website. “We all lost. Sam Altman won, but look at who he is and what he’s doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The verdict comes after a weekslong blockbuster trial in Silicon Valley, in which the Tesla CEO accused Altman and Brockman of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12081603/elon-musk-takes-aim-at-openai-as-trial-begins-its-not-ok-to-steal-a-charity\">“stealing a charity\u003c/a>” as they built a more than $850 million company on the back of their nonprofit. Court documents and testimony from \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083224/former-openai-exec-calls-decision-to-remove-sam-altman-a-hail-mary-during-musk-trial\">a score of tech elites\u003c/a>, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, shed light on the rise of OpenAI — as well as on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083278/sam-altman-defends-himself-from-elon-musks-accusations-in-openai-trial\">the interpersonal strife\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12083612/lawyers-for-elon-musk-and-sam-altman-make-their-final-case-in-openai-trial\">falling out between Altman and Musk\u003c/a>, who were once close friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s high-profile testimony in the case also raised questions over Altman’s trustworthiness and leadership as the company pursues artificial general intelligence, a superintelligent form of AI and a potential trillion-dollar initial public offering.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12084143\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12084143\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1125\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260518-MUSK-ALTMAN-TRIAL-VB-01-KQED-1200x675.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The verdict is read in the trial in which Elon Musk claimed that Altman and OpenAI abandoned their founding promise to develop AI for the benefit of humanity rather than solely for profit in Oakland on May 18, 2026. \u003ccite>(Vicki Behringer for KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Altman’s defense argued that OpenAI had to form a profit-generating arm to keep up with competitors as AI technology advanced. They said that prior to leaving OpenAI, Musk was amenable to creating a for-profit, which he wanted to control. When other executives refused to agree to his terms, he left the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Monday’s verdict disregarded many of the trial’s revelations, and instead hinged on the timeline of Musk’s claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The jury agreed with OpenAI’s defense that Musk missed the statute of limitations to allege a breach of charitable trust. They also dismissed a claim that Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor, aided and abetted a breach of charitable trust.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Sarah Eddy, an attorney for OpenAI, noted in her closing argument that Musk departed the company in 2018, watched it build up a for-profit arm beginning in 2019 and made his final monetary contribution the year after that. Yet, he waited until 2024, after he’d launched a competing AI enterprise, to bring his suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She called the case a “textbook” example of why the statute of limitations exists, saying that when Musk made his last contribution and testified that he became suspicious of a breach of charitable trust in 2020, he “started the clock.” According to Eddy, Musk should have sued by 2022 at the latest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s counsel, Marc Toberoff, said there was a strong basis for appeal based on the legal components, statute of limitations aside. Musk also wrote on X, which he owns, that he planned to file an appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is WHEN they did it!” he wrote. “Creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside the court, anti-AI protesters who have been present for much of the trial decried the decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No matter who won, we all lost,” said Phoebe Thomas Sorgen, an activist with StopAI, which seeks to “disrupt the reckless development of destructive” AI tech, according to its website. “We all lost. Sam Altman won, but look at who he is and what he’s doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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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": "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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"radiolab": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"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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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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