The World of AI Regulation with Brian Merchant

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by writer Brian Merchant to talk about US AI regulation, and how governments never seem to make the effort to understand technology. https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/ https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/were-about-to-find-out-if-silicon Get $10 off a year’s subscription to my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/w08jbm4jwg YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 1:08Speaker 03

  Call Zone Media.

• 1:11Ed Zitron?

  Oink, oink. Welcome to the monologue this week, except it's a duo log. There's two of us, better offline. I'm your host, Ed Zitron.

• 1:28Ed Zitron?

  And today I'm joined by Brian Merchant, the author and writer of the book and newsletter Blood in the Machine. Brian, thank you so much for joining me.

• 1:36Speaker 05

  Uh, thanks for having me. Good to be back.

• 1:38Ed Zitron?

  So today we're talking about AI regulation, the current state of, well, California's regulatory moves, and indeed, the very confusing situation. And I think we can start with this, actually, this AI safety bill that was vetoed and then just got signed. What happened there?

• 1:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, the long story short is that, you know, the people who are actually worried about catastrophic risk, right? Like the AI doomer crowd, the people who think that like this is the number one thing to worry about with AI. They all got together last year and and and wrote this bill. Last year it was 1047. And it was, you know, again, assuming that you are worried about that kind of thing. Like this was like a legitimate stab at trying to keep the companies honest. It did things like mandated like third party audits of the systems to make sure that they

• 2:35Speaker 05

  weren't, you know, they weren't too risky or that they weren't, you know, including information about biological weapons or whatever and teaching people how to. But the AI companies hated it because it would, it mandated some sharing of information, some transparency, it mandated. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, not even a little bit, even this, even like the safe AI companies like Anthropic. Anthropic. Yeah, yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  Even those guys, they were, they were against, so everybody was against it. It passed because Scott Wiener, the the sponsor, is a fairly prominent and powerful legislator. But even though it passed both houses and was sitting on Newsom's desk, the the industry, Silicon Valley got Newsom to veto it, basically. So Newsom vetoed it. And then he said, let's try it again next year. So Scott Wiener got together with a bunch of, you know, AI ethics people and some and

• 3:39Speaker 05

  and then, so this year he comes back with like an eve, like a watered down version of even that to, again, the aim is to prevent catastrophic risk. And yes, and it had, he just signed this bill. So he, as we're recording this, you know, he signed it a few days ago. It's, it's on the, it's on the books and. It's people are like celebrating this thing for some reason. And I'm like, I'm really scratching my head.

• 4:09Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, why are you not celebrating?

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Okay, so here's what's wrong with it. Okay, here's what the bill actually does. It does four things, basically. Instead of, you know, actually mandating actual transparency and sharing data with auditors, things that could actually might, you know, maybe be considered a prescription if you're worried about things like catastrophic risk. One, the new, the new bill has, in, in, inforces the tech companies to publish privacy protocols on a website. So say, yeah.

• 4:40Ed Zitron?

  Like a privacy policy.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  Yes, it says, this is what we're doing to ensure our, and our security practices, right?

• 4:49Ed Zitron?

  Great.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  This is what we're gonna do to keep you safe from catastrophic AI.

• 4:55Ed Zitron?

  Sounds very used, yeah. So no checkup policy, no.

• 4:59Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no. No, no, no. And then.

• 5:02Ed Zitron?

  You need a page.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  You need a page that people can see. No enforcement. That'll, that'll stop it. And then you, and then if something does go wrong, and the companies have done something unsafe in there with their L L Ms, they need to report it to the state. So they, it's, it's an honor system. So, so they have to tell.

• 5:23Ed Zitron?

  And what happens if they don't report it?

• 5:25Speaker 05

  Unclear.

• 5:27Ed Zitron?

  So nothing, sick, great stuff, brilliant.

• 5:30Speaker 05

  Unclear. Uh, so the, like, the one thing that you could argue, or two things, again, like, in theory, these are fine things that it says that the other.

• 5:42Ed Zitron?

  Limp.

• 5:43Speaker 05

  Well, these, the, those first two things are, they're a limp. I think they're a complete joke. Uh, and so that, but part three and four is whistleblower protections, which.

• 5:52Ed Zitron?

  Nice.

• 5:53Speaker 05

  You're supposed already ha- supposed to have, right?

• 5:56Ed Zitron?

  Good to formalize, but.

• 5:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, it's just like, kind of like, underlining it with a sharpie, saying, okay, you, people should be able to blow the whistle if something catastrophic is happening.

• 6:08Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 6:08Speaker 05

  I have very little faith this will meaningfully change anything at all.

• 6:13Ed Zitron?

  There are no like protections actually in there like is there anything that specifies?

• 6:18Speaker 05

  There's some language that does raise the threshold again theoretically, but like you just have to think about how whistleblowers are already treated. And how difficult it is for them to come forward with all the NDAs and just sort of the norms in the industry. So like theoretically, you know, uh, but again, and it's supposed to be for for workers who are so concerned about catastrophic risk. Not about, you know, you know, if they see a company doing fraud or whatever, this is for catastrophic risk.

• 6:48Ed Zitron?

  Um, so really no real protections.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  No teeth, really no teeth. I was reading this thing and I'm not seeing really any any enforcement mechanisms other than, you know, these companies get a slap on the wrist. And maybe it's a little bit slappier if it if it comes through.

• 7:05Ed Zitron?

  Doesn't see, but it doesn't sound like there are actual remedies or anything like that.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  Not really, no. Um, it, there's a, finally, the fourth thing that it does. Again, in spirit, this is okay. Like this is, it's a good idea that it's to start like a public consort, like a called Cal Compute. Like a public A alternative for AI for researchers. It says like, let's give them. Yeah, but it's just a committee. It's a committee.

• 7:32Ed Zitron?

  Fuck yeah, bureaucracy.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  It forms a consortium to discuss.

• 7:37Ed Zitron?

  A group will get together that will discuss what might happen in the future after another meeting or two. Brilliant.

• 7:42Speaker 05

  Once, once again, so. My, my read on this all and you'll, and I've seen a lot of statements coming out of, you know, otherwise decent sort of orgs saying like, this is a step for, you know, AI safety. And I'm like, no, it's not. It's not really.

• 7:58Ed Zitron?

  It doesn't even seem like it addresses AI. It doesn't seem like it's a, an attempt to mitigate any harms.

• 8:06Speaker 05

  I mean, it is an attempt to, you could, I, I, I think that generally.

• 8:10Ed Zitron?

  Which harms?

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:13Ed Zitron?

  The most, I'm gonna guess, so in looking at AI regulation, you have probably not seen anything that addresses the environment or damage. Anything like, anything about the stealing?

• 8:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, workplace surveillance, things like this. So my read on this, right? Like, so I think, again, I think Scott Wiener and, and, and the sort of the, the group that are into, that are like the AI safety groups, like they, they believe in this stuff. They really lobbied for this. Like, they think that, that is important to have something better than nothing. But the effect of this mean is, is largely just that now Gavin Newsom gets to say like, I signed an AI bill, like I'm doing my due diligence. And meanwhile, there are a bunch of other bills that we're going to talk about that would actually, you know, do, do something that would actually sort of meaningfully rein in, uh, so the AI companies at least a little bit, or at least point a way towards doing this.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  This is just, again, putting, putting your safety policies on a website, like an honor system to alert the state if you've done something wrong, kind of just saying, okay.

• 9:18Ed Zitron?

  On a system for the most well-funded companies.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  Again, and here's the number one way that you can tell that this is entirely bullshit. And that is that Anthropic is in favor of it. They came out and said like, this is good. Number two, Meta was like, this is sensible. And they didn't support the bill, but they're not opposed to it. Even OpenAI was like, well, they, I think you could tell.

• 9:42Ed Zitron?

  It's any kind of restriction. We don't like that.

• 9:44Speaker 05

  Right. Even if it's the flimsiest one, I feel like you could see them like the, the gears turning in the corporate machinery. We were like, are we like, basically this bill requires us to like have an intern like write some copy or even just have like chat GPT generated.

• 10:01Ed Zitron?

  That's the thing.

• 10:02Speaker 05

  Put it on a website.

• 10:03Ed Zitron?

  They don't even have a thing in there saying you can't use AI to write app.

• 10:09Ed Zitron?

  I would have probably done that myself personally.

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. So number one, it does next to nothing in my eye. And I just can't, I mean, I know all these like advocacy groups and people who are like trying to get some good laws on the big, they're hungry for a win. So they want to say like, yeah, we did something. But this is, I think, to me, this is worse than nothing because it's going to let Gavin off the hook on like a handful of bills that might actually do something.

• 10:37Ed Zitron?

  And it will give the fake, the fake view that the AI companies are regulated. So they're able to continue doing all the actual harmful stuff.

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• 11:20Speaker 02

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• 11:55Ed Zitron?

  Are there any regulations you've seen that actually approach the actual harms? Any, or sorry, suggested regulations or bills or anything like that?

• 12:04Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah, there's a couple. So, and I've been talking to, I've talked to lawmakers over this process. I've talked to some of the sponsors of the bills, and I've talked to labor groups. And the one sort of through line that runs through all of this is that Silicon Valley and its lobbyists have just been out and forced trying to crush even the most sort of basic common sense regulation. And so laws or proposals that started out with some teeth have had, most of them knocked out, or have been delayed until next session. So we're left with a few things. We're left with a few things that, you know, I think more than anything, they're just

• 12:49Speaker 05

  like bellwethers as to whether or not it's even possible to like get to get anything done. Because as your listeners will know, right, like, the whole AI like for enterprise isn't working out so well right now.

• 13:04Ed Zitron?

  No. And so. No one buys it.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  No one, no one's buying it. No one wants it. So they're gonna have to make some changes in the, in the next couple of years. And the way they're gonna, I, my, my guess is that they're gonna try to find ways to sell people on its other capacities. Things like it's a, it's a surveillance tool. It'll do, you know, it'll

• 13:24Ed Zitron?

  Terrible surveillance tool. It's an, like, it's, that's what's funny about this because it's like, the actual harms to mitigate would be training and environmental and energy. Yeah. The number must go up. So it's like,

• 13:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:38Ed Zitron?

  We'll, we'll regulate, because the surveillance thing, I get that, like, there is already AI surveillance, but it's like, oh, what if they put all the data in a large language model?

• 13:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:46Ed Zitron?

  Would the large language model do anything with it? Like, what are you, like, we've already got that. But wait, so what other bills have you seen?

• 13:54Speaker 05

  Okay, so, you know, there's, there's one, I, I think the one that's still out there at, at the time of recording, who knows, it could have been vetoed or signed by the time that, that this goes to air. Uh, but the, there's one, there's, there's one bill that Silicon Valley is genuinely, uh, upset about and afraid of. And it's a bill that like sets the very lowest bar. And it says, essentially, if you are going to make a chatbot and market it to children, then you have to be able to demonstrate that this chatbot isn't going to make them harm themselves.

• 14:33Ed Zitron?

  Ah.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  So

• 14:35Ed Zitron?

  So they hate that.

• 14:37Speaker 05

  They are, and they're in, you know, they have, there, there's this Silicon Valley lobbying group that's kind of famous in California especially called the Chamber of Progress. Uh, it's like,

• 14:50Ed Zitron?

  It's like immediate reflexive.

• 14:52Speaker 05

  Immediately. I, I know, gag reflex immediately. So they, they've got this guy who's out there writing op-eds in like the San Diego Tribune and doing press for, and going, oh, it's overbroad. And let me, like, their actual line on this is, if this bill passes, then you're gonna be taking away AI that could educate children. You're gonna be taking away AI from children and they're not gonna have the same advantages that, uh, children with AI have. And they're running this, like, this big Facebook campaign. They've hired lobbyists specifically to, they don't often do this.

• 15:29Ed Zitron?

  These are fucking evil people.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  They are evil people. I mean, this, I mean, for me, this was like, you know, this was like, I, it's past the threshold. Once the Adam Rain stuff broke and OpenAI is, you know, trying to hem and ha about, you know, oh, well, you know, we're gonna do this or that. It's, we passed, we passed the Rubicon, right? There's, they've got chatbots that are, that are telling children to, you know, hide the news so that their parents don't see it. And like, it's, again, they make it seem like, oh, AI is this frontier, we're gonna work something. It's a, it's a product. It's a software product that, yeah, go ahead.

• 16:08Ed Zitron?

  But I have a theory. I have a theory. So I don't think they can control these models. I don't mean because they're intelligent. I don't mean because they're autonomous. I mean, I don't think you can actually prompt a large language model to categorically stop it doing something. I don't think it's possible.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  Then you should not be selling that, that business to children.

• 16:29Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, 100% agree. I'm just saying that I don't think they're capable.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  I think you're right. Yeah.

• 16:36Ed Zitron?

  But my theory is based on costs because of Claude Code, that they can't, that they can't do cost control. If they can't do cost control, it means the model won't listen. And I reckon that they can't be like, never talk about killing yourself. Like, they just can't do that.

• 16:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. Or it would require, like, going back through, you know, like, there's been, I've, I've seen a lot of sort of speculation that the reason that it's talking like this is that it's, like, a lot of the language is coming from, like, pro-suicide forums in the bowels of the internet. So like, they don't wanna go through and take the time to sort that out. Yeah, or discussions of suicide.

• 17:12Ed Zitron?

  Probably articles as well that say, how to deal with someone who's just horrible stuff.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, really.

• 17:18Ed Zitron?

  Fucking people. And this, is this a California bill?

• 17:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a California bill. Yeah. And it's, and it is, yeah, so if you're on Facebook, there's, so there's a, there's a front group spun up by, by some of the VC firms, like A16Z and, you know, Andreessen and these guys, and Y Combinator. Then there's a front group called the American Innovators Network. And they're running all these ads arguing that this bill, again, whose sole purpose is to ban chatbots from being marketed to children that, that also try to convince them to harm themselves.

• 17:56Ed Zitron?

  Not even banning them from being marketed, marketed to children, just.

• 18:00Speaker 05

  You have to.

• 18:00Ed Zitron?

  Stopping them being harmful.

• 18:02Speaker 05

  You have to. Yeah, it's the the way that it's freight, which is what they're all hung up on is it's just like, you have to be able to demonstrate that if you sell this to children, it will not tell them to harm themselves. And and I think you.

• 18:13Ed Zitron?

  One of the more reasonable requests you could ever ask of a company.

• 18:17Speaker 05

  The most. I cannot think of something that is more, but they're saying, oh, no, it's too broad. Everything else will get caught up in this. You can't have a chatbot because but and then it's always like, but why? Why couldn't we have this chatbot in the classroom?

• 18:28Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, well.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Because it might tell somebody to kill themselves. Like, that's why.

• 18:32Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, and they they don't. This is again, we should. These people should be. We should try and interview them. Like, because it's the question would be, say that you agreed with this bill. You disagree. Say you agree with it. How would you stop this?

• 18:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, just.

• 18:48Ed Zitron?

  How would you stop it? Can you stop it? Is that why you're upset? Is the is the reason you're mad because you literally can't stop this?

• 18:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:55Ed Zitron?

  Because that's the thing. They hammer around any kind of protections.

• 19:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:02Ed Zitron?

  Anything.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  Anything.

• 19:04Ed Zitron?

  And now, and I wonder if it's because they they can't. And they want to be like, oh, it's too powerful. No, it's too shit.

• 19:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:13Ed Zitron?

  It's because it sucks. It's not because it's it's not because of how powerful. It's because you built something shitty and hard to control.

• 19:19Speaker 05

  Exactly. It's shitty.

• 19:21Ed Zitron?

  Lava lava is hot that and can burn through most things. That doesn't make it intelligent.

• 19:26Speaker 05

  Right.

• 19:26Ed Zitron?

  Your inability to not drink lava, just like fucking. These fucking dildos.

• 19:32Speaker 05

  I mean, it's a combination of both those things. Like, like, it's either, oh, this would be really expensive to fix. Or, oh, like, I don't know if we can.

• 19:42Ed Zitron?

  I I reckon what they would have to do is they would have to just neuter it. They would just have to. They would have to just make it so that anything that gets even close to that conversation.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:52Ed Zitron?

  Would have to be just like shut down to the point that you can't even talk about superhero stuff.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 19:57Ed Zitron?

  They would probably just limit it to the point of nothingness.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, which like, yeah, I mean, if that's what they I mean, we're again, we're talking about like children here. So like, yes. Uh, that seems though, like, if that's what they have to do, then then that in in my view anyways, is something that they should do.

• 20:25Speaker 06

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• 20:56Speaker 02

  Empower is all about helping you invest well, so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  But again, it's wild because like, they don't usually hire lobbyists to oppose state-level bills, but the sponsor here, Rebecca Bauer Kahn, it's the lead act is what it's called. It's AB 1064. She's just like, "I've never seen anything like this." They're like, "Having lobbyists come and knock on my door and like, you know, yelling at me about this."

• 21:54Speaker 05

  And they're just like, it's a full-court press. And we could talk a little bit after this about like, how this is sort of like a part of a broader movement where they're, you know, Silicon Valley is sending its lobbyists out all across the country, but especially concentrated.

• 22:10Ed Zitron?

  Is this atypical to do on this level?

• 22:14Speaker 05

  I mean, Silicon Valley hasn't wanted regulation on anything for a long time, but this, the, the level of concentrated effort and sort of the campaigning is new, right? Like, I've been a tech journalist for 15 years, and I've never seen anything like we saw over the summer where they, where Silicon Valley tried to lobby for a ban on all state level AI lawmaking. They, they really got a whole sort of united front together. They got stakeholders from the different-

• 22:44Ed Zitron?

  Didn't they fail, though?

• 22:45Speaker 05

  They did fail, but they failed by basically one vote, and they failed because of a Republican in Tennessee who represents Nashville.

• 22:56Ed Zitron?

  Marsha Black?

• 22:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. And she was like, wait a minute, we have a law on the books that protects our, our, our country music industry from being sloppified, and would this overturn? And they were like, well, yeah, but, you know, yeah, yeah. And then, so she kind of came out against it, and that, if it wasn't for that, it would have, that, well, it would have passed. And-

• 23:16Ed Zitron?

  That is bonkers.

• 23:18Speaker 05

  It's bonkers.

• 23:18Ed Zitron?

  That's why the country music saved us.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, country music and Nashville's, like, no AI music slop law. And they're, they're gonna try again, though. They're gonna try again.

• 23:30Ed Zitron?

  Oh, of course.

• 23:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, Ted Cruz keeps talking about it. He's, um, he's, he's interested in, in giving it another go. So it'll be coming down the pike. But to be clear, like, no, this has never happened. If you've never seen somebody like say, okay, we're gonna ban lawmaking around search. No search engines can have any laws made around them or social networks. This is its own thing. This is AI-

• 23:51Ed Zitron?

  Anything.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:52Ed Zitron?

  There just can't be laws?

• 23:53Speaker 05

  No, it's totally anti-democratic. It's totally absurd. And all, I mean, it tells you all you need to know, really, that the Silicon Valley interests are willing to push all their chips in, and, and team up with, with the Trump administration and its allies to try to get this done.

• 24:08Ed Zitron?

  I mean, I don't know, fucking Newsom.

• 24:11Speaker 05

  No, he's, I mean, Newsom has vetoed a ton of solid AI bill. I mean, last year, Newsom vetoed a good bill that I think was good because it was, it was, it was on, so, so I don't know if you, if you caught this, but last year, the, the Teamsters and some pro labor groups fought for a bill and got it passed bipartisan, passed the House, that says, okay, if you're going to use autonomous or AI technology to, to run a truck that's like over a certain amount of, of weight, then there should be a human safety operator, making sure it's not hitting people, not running into people.

• 24:50Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 05

  It passed both houses. News, Newsom vetoes it. And two weeks later, there's the, there's the autonomous car that drags the pedestrian across San Francisco. If that timing had been different. Yeah.

• 25:04Ed Zitron?

  Thank you, Gavin. Very good, Gavin.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  It wouldn't have necessarily applied, but I think the optics would have been different. So he wouldn't have been able to, but anyways, Newsom is, is perfectly happy to veto a lot of this stuff. The difference is, is his constituents here in California, they care about this. And in the case of that, of the lead act that we were talking about, he, that one of the reasons that, that it stands to any chance at all, is that his, his wife is like a vocal supporter of the lead act. And she's been on some stages saying like, I think we should protect our children from AI slop. And, and so it's gonna, he's gonna, it's gonna be like, his wife on one hand, and all of Silicon Valley's lobbying force on the other.

• 25:49Ed Zitron?

  Newsom versus Newsom. Jesus Christ.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:52Ed Zitron?

  So it's weird. So here's something that, why does no one ever push any bills that actually, I realize that even doomed ones, why did, it seems that there's a lack of any bills that are like, actually aimed at the technology written by people who have used it, for example?

• 26:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:10Ed Zitron?

  Like, why does that never happen?

• 26:13Speaker 05

  I mean, we still have this mentality ingrained in this, in this country, especially in the political class that just doesn't really have a lot of hands-on, you know, experience with the tech. It's changing a little bit, but I think it's just, it's ideology. It's just like, oh, well, like, we don't want to stifle innovation. We don't, you know, if they need to build, you know, a million data centers and, you know, encircle the nation and in, in, in Stargate outposts, then, then I guess that's, then we'll defer to you. We've, it's, it's always been this way. It's always been deferring to industry and then, and then reacting, right? And then saying like, oh, oh, well, that was a bridge too far.

• 26:58Speaker 05

  And then they try to, you know, get some, so like, there are laws on the book now, like 10 years after social media sort of, you know, was on the scene.

• 27:07Ed Zitron?

  But they don't, they don't even direct the problem, though.

• 27:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I mean, the, the biggest, yeah, no, I mean, there's been some antitrust effort. That's the closest you've probably gotten to some decent efforts at, at, you know, reining in the giants.

• 27:21Ed Zitron?

  To close us up, what would you, what would be the regulation that you would want to push through, other than the stopping the kids getting the AI suicide LLM? That one seems pretty good, but a dream, a dream bill for you, what might it look like? What are the things that you actually think need to be restricted?

• 27:38Speaker 05

  I mean, honestly, like, I, we, we have not even touched the, the, we barely got to the tip of the iceberg here about what needs to happen, because, I mean, the things that, that, you know, that I worry about are the same ones that you cited, which is with the environmental impacts of just, but that's almost a separate issue, right? And in fact, all that has happened on the legislative and policy front is that the AI companies have convinced, they did this to Biden, by the way, it wasn't Trump, they convinced them to relax environmental regulations so they could just build more data centers without, without being subject to as many fines. So you have to get serious.

• 28:15Ed Zitron?

  I saw some regulation around they have to report their power draw somewhere.

• 28:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:19Ed Zitron?

  Like they have to talk about how much energy they're using. Wow.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 28:26Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 05

  And I, you know, I do think that, I mean, and most of these bills are written in a way that doesn't just apply to AI. Um, there's, there was a decent, there's, I mean, again, it's, everything's just been battered to bits by the lobbying machine, but there is a bill that he did sign that sort of semi restores gig workers' rights to unionize. That's, it, it, it's, it's good, but there's a big asterisk to it. It's a little wonky, so we won't get into it, but it's a good, a good step. We need gig workers to be able to organize. Right now, they can't in most of the states. So that, I do think, you know, workplace protections and protecting against automated hiring and firing shit and wage depression.

• 29:12Ed Zitron?

  The no robot boss thing?

• 29:14Speaker 05

  The no robot boss. Again, it's like even the, the sponsor of the bill, Lorena Gonzalez, who's with the California Labor Fed, I talked to her and she's like, look, this is what we could get through. Nothing else that we had in there that like really seriously banned discrimination. Um, and it's really not like, it's not about the tools again, it's about allowing bosses to use this as an accountability sink or to offload, saying, oh yeah, well.

• 29:38Ed Zitron?

  Which is kind of where you need to regulate sometimes.

• 29:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:42Ed Zitron?

  Especially when you're not going to regulate the fucking technology.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, there's a, there's a million things that need, that need to happen. I mean, I think antitrust absolutely needs to happen. Um, but I, you know, I would, I would get way more radical than, than anything that, that's being even, even talked about right now because right now it's, it's just profoundly anti-democratic where we're at right now. Silicon Valley is just calling, they're just, they're, you know, better than anybody. They're just hoarding the capital.

• 30:13Ed Zitron?

  Couldn't someone lobby again? This is the one thing, and maybe this is a dumb arse's opinion, but why'd you have to fucking listen to lobbyists?

• 30:20Speaker 05

  You, I mean, you do not.

• 30:22Ed Zitron?

  Otherwise.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  You do not.

• 30:24Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, like, I realize I'm not a big politics knower, but that feels like you could just not talk to them. I guess that sometimes they contribute to your political campaigns, but just, just don't do it.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  That's it. Yeah, just lock the door.

• 30:38Ed Zitron?

  This is how I enter politics. I'm just like, what if you didn't listen to, or you just, you just didn't pick up?

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Ed Zitrona, hero for our times.

• 30:45Ed Zitron?

  No, no. Why not? I don't want to talk to you. You sound really annoying. You keep, I want to run this bill. You keep texting and calling me saying I shouldn't. This is going to block you. Politicians, listen.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  Let's get you a soapbox. I'll vote for Ed Zitrona.

• 31:00Ed Zitron?

  All right, Brian, where can people find you?

• 31:02Speaker 05

  Uh, I am bloodinthemachine.com, uh, and, and Brian Merchant on most social media platforms.

• 31:10Ed Zitron?

  Lovely. Thank you for joining me. This has of course been your Better Offline duologue for the week. Uh, back next week with an interview with Stephen Burke from Games Nexus. Thank you for listening, everyone.

• 31:27Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com, M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot app to visit the Discord and go to r slash better offline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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