The AI Job Disaster Congress Refuses to Fix

Former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says America is heading toward an AI jobs crisis. And she doesn't think Washington is ready. Raimondo joins Kara to explain why she's more worried about the country's political system than the technology itself, why Congress has failed to prepare workers for AI, and what she thinks should happen before millions of jobs disappear. She also discusses the future of the CHIPS Act, data centers, AI safety, higher education, and why she's launched a bipartisan effort to help workers adapt before it's too late. Recorded live at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg Center as part of the Discovery Series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:28Kara Swisher?

  What is the problem on the federal level? Why couldn't the Biden administration get this done? Why couldn't?

• 0:36Speaker 02

  I mean, like Congress--

• 0:42Kara Swisher?

  Long eye roll for people listening at home.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  This is a podcast. You can't see my face.

• 0:47Kara Swisher?

  No, you can now. We're not-- Podcasts are now video.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  No point, actually. Yeah.

• 0:52Kara Swisher?

  Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Gina Raimondo, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under the Biden administration and former governor of Rhode Island. During Gina's tenure as secretary, she held a crucial role in the passage of two huge pieces of legislation, the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Now Gina has been turning her efforts to getting the American workforce ready for AI with a nonpartisan organization she co-founded with former Indiana governor Eric Holcomb. It's really important to talk to Gina.

• 1:37Kara Swisher?

  She's one of these sort of quiet, competent people that always end up doing a lot of big things in ways that are critically important. I think the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure bill were very important. And she's someone who actually appeals to people across party lines, and she makes an effort to do so in an incredibly competent way. What she's talking about is really important. And of course, she may be a presidential candidate, too. So it's important to listen to how she thinks about these things. And of course, AI and jobs is an important issue for the American voters. This episode was recorded live at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. as part of their discovery series. Our expert question today comes from Joanna Stern. So stick around.

• 2:20Kara Swisher?

  I've wanted to get you on forever, as you know. And here we are, finally. I'm very excited. All right. Secretary Gina Raimondo, Gina, thank you for coming on On. And thanks to the Johns Hopkins University, which currently is celebrating its 150th year. If you didn't know, Hopkins is America's first research university, and I'm glad to

• 3:02Kara Swisher?

  be back at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C. So let's get started. We have a lot to cover on AI. This is something I know you were one of the first people to talk about this as Commerce Secretary and in other places that I recall hearing about. But I want to get a sense of where we are and what's coming. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how worried are you for the United States about the rapid acceleration of what we're seeing? And you know, call on the stuff you had done as Commerce Secretary and maybe as the governor of Rhode Island, which is, I think, the coolest job ever.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  It is the best job. Being the governor is the best job in American politics, I think. It's awesome. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm a big fan, and it's fun for me to be here. I'd say, you know, 9. Pretty high.

• 3:50Kara Swisher?

  Wow.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And here's why.

• 3:53Kara Swisher?

  Okay.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  You're saying concerns?

• 3:55Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. Here's why. Because I don't think the country has the laws, the institutions, the, you know, we're not ready. Commerce Secretary is an interesting job. You're half Trade Minister and half Tech Minister in the U.S. system. So I was the AI Minister.

• 4:14Kara Swisher?

  Right. You also get the Census, right?

• 4:16Speaker 02

  And Census and Fish. If you want to know anything about Red Snapper, Ketchment, I'm your woman. But if you were to say to me also, hey Gina, on a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you about its potential? I'd also say a 9. Right? Like, I think it's going to be fantastic to accelerate research, cure diseases, make life easier. I'm really bullish. But what I see now is, and you said it a little bit before, you know, I see the transition to an AI economy as potentially precipitating a period of very high unemployment, particularly amongst certain kinds of people.

• 4:59Kara Swisher?

  White collar workers.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  White collar workers, women in clerical jobs, entry-level workers. And we're just not ready for it. We don't-- Unemployment insurance was created 100 years ago. It hasn't changed. We don't have support infrastructure, incentives for companies to retrain and redeploy, very good retraining initiatives. So I worry about that, and that's what my new initiative is focused on. I'm worried about the national security implications.

• 5:26Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  You know, I mean, we don't have any laws on the books right now.

• 5:30Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 5:31Speaker 02

  Or regulations. That should worry everyone. We need standards. What is a safe model? Then we need to, you know, the government ought to test these models before they're released. And they have to pass these standards. And then if they don't pass, there's going to be consequences. So I worry about that. I worry about child safety. You know, I worry so much of a mother to kids. Like, I worry about that. So on the one hand, I'm excited. I don't actually think the technology is the problem.

• 6:04Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  I think we have a politics problem, an institution's problem, and we better get our act together fast so we can meet the challenge.

• 6:14Kara Swisher?

  So talk about that politics problem. What, I mean, what is the problem? Obviously, this is a group of people who figured out that you give money and you get to be the front of the line here. You don't get regulation, whether it's in crypto, whether it's in anything else. So talk a little bit about where we are. If that's the case, we need that. How do we get to those kind of policies, especially around the workforce, that are critical?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, you know, as you might imagine, I have a lot of views on the matter. Money has always been a problem in politics. You know, 50 years ago, people were complaining about money in politics. It is out of control. But it's not just tech. Okay? Let's be honest. It is, you know, financial services. It's every regulated industry. Pharma, financial services. The amount of money that is spent to buy influence is broken. It's a broken system. So, you know, you can say, this is a problem with these tech billionaires, and I agree. But honestly, we have to fix these systems.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  We need more transparency. You know, Citizens United was a terrible decision. People often say to me, if you could do one thing to fix American politics, what would it be? I would say this.

• 7:32Kara Swisher?

  Citizens United.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. You have to find a way to get the money reduced.

• 7:36Kara Swisher?

  So how then do you get policy around jobs? Because, as you said, this job juggernaut is coming.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:42Kara Swisher?

  You know, it was really interesting, because as I noted before, the tech people said were very doom-y, like, oh, yeah, jobs are going to be replaced, and suddenly they're changing their tune. Not so. I think they were telling the truth the first time. How do you then get good policy into place? Because everyday Americans are using AI in their daily lives and their jobs, but the anxiety has never been higher among citizens. A survey this summer from Reuters said that half of Americans fear that AI could put them out of the job. I don't know how you feel, because according to Boston Consulting Group, 10% to 15% of jobs could be eliminated by AI as soon as five years from now.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  So I, my focus in my new organization, it's called Raise Us, we're working with them through governors. Governors in a bipartisan way. So my new organization is nonprofit, nonpolitical, working with governors of both parties. They will take action. They can take action. And we are obsessed with making sure America can lead the global AI competition without leaving workers behind. That's our single mission. And in order to do that, we got to get innovating. We need new forms of training, but more than training. Training isn't going to get us through this. We need incentives for companies to do the redeployment or disincentives to just hit the easy button with layoffs.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  We're working with Governor Wes Moore in Maryland, probably some people here from Maryland, to start a year of service. Like, one group that I'm really worried about is young people. I have a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old. You know, they're stressed. What are my jobs going to be? So in Maryland, we're going to fund, and the governor will run in Maryland, a year of service for any Marylander, young person interested in a job. And we're going to put them in jobs in companies in areas with a shortage. Clinical healthcare work, maybe teaching or teacher's assistance. That's innovative. I hope it works. I hope other states do it.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  And I hope one day Congress gets its act together and puts it in national legislation. I'm very worried about, like, honestly, middle-aged clerical workers, call center workers, customer service workers, salespeople. We cannot just allow AI to rip through this economy and, you know, every middle-aged woman who has had that same job for 20 years, you say, sorry, you're out of work, you're 55-- That happens to be my age-- You're 55, no more work for you. No. How about wage insurance? How about we let that person get another job? If she gets a job at a lower rate, the government tops up her pay. How about some kind of transition support? How about job sharing?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  I mean, let's go. Let's get creative. Listen, right now, you may know this, you may not, in the United States, if you lose your job, you really get unemployment insurance. That's pretty much all there is. Okay? It's a flawed program in 100 different ways. If you start a business while you're collecting UI, chances are you get kicked off of UI because you're not really looking for a job.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  That's kind of dumb. I think. Especially if you think, as I do, that AI could unleash a lot of new

• 11:05Kara Swisher?

  Entrepreneurial.

• 11:06Speaker 02

  Entrepreneurial. Everyone knows the majority of jobs created in America's economy is from new, small companies. AI potentially could increase that, make it go up. So, one idea, very quickly, that we're going to experiment with is, we've got to pull all the levers at once to make this work. A governor will say, in our state, if you want to start your own business, you could continue to get unemployment insurance, and you can get a new thing called self-employment assistance, and then we, Raise Us, are going to fund, in that state, a startup accelerator, and help those people to start a business. So, is any of this going to work? I'm not sure. But we've got to try it.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  We've got to stop admiring the problem and get out there and do something.

• 11:53Kara Swisher?

  Why has, everyone is sort of saying the doom is coming. It's sort of like, the flood is coming, the flood is coming, the flood is, you know, and no one's building an ark, anywhere.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  That's what I'm trying to do.

• 12:04Kara Swisher?

  I understand that, but what is the problem on the federal level? Why couldn't the Biden administration get this done? Why couldn't?

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I mean, like, Congress?

• 12:16Kara Swisher?

  Long eye roll for people listening at home.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  This is a podcast, you can't see my face?

• 12:21Kara Swisher?

  No, you can now. We're not, podcasts are now video.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Good point, actually, yeah.

• 12:25Kara Swisher?

  We have changed. We're television now.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Congress doesn't get things done. Right? Congress doesn't get shit done. They're not functioning. So, in the absence of a functioning bipartisan Congress, I'm taking my message to governors, who I think will get some things done. If this plays out in the way that some think, and some number of years from now, we start to see, you know, pretty high levels of unemployment, my real hope, dream, ambition, whatever,

• 13:10Speaker 02

  is, we will, Raise Us, between now and then, will have some pilots around the country that are working. Some of these interventions that are allowing people to land jobs, transition from one job to another, not get fired, and that could become the basis for bipartisan federal legislation.

• 13:28Kara Swisher?

  We'll be back in a minute. Where the rubber meets the road, a lot of this, and I do, Scott and I talked about this today on Pivot, data centers have become how people are expressing their disgust over AI, really. And, a flashpoint, the New York Governor Kathy Hochul hit pause on new data centers in her state until, she didn't say none, she said, "We're going to figure out how to work this out correctly, we're going to give it a year." Many people, now it's up to 50%, are approving of this, about 20% aren't.

• 14:13Kara Swisher?

  Do you think their approach of moratorium as a policy answer to pushback on that ordinary citizens in Utah, they're seeing in Virginia? Same thing. So, but talk about that, because it's become, to me, there's nothing wrong with creating data centers if they're done in cooperation with the community.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Correct. I agree, you just said it. Do it in co-op, don't go where you're not wanted. Listen, people are anxious for a reason. This is what I believe. Just, like, everyone here, you get anxious if things are happening to you, making your life worse, making your bills go up, and you can't do anything about it. And, that's how people feel about data centers. Data centers, like, aren't bad, they will enable innovation, we do want innovation, we do want commerce, however, in Virginia, when there weren't the appropriate safeguards, people's bills, the electricity bills went up. That's not okay.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  So, I think you have to say to these companies, "Yes, we want your data centers, but do it right." Right? Do it right. Like, you've got to bring and figure out your own energy. Electricity bills cannot go up. Same thing with water. You've got to recycle the water, the water bills can't go up. You're not going to get a tax break to do this. There are ways to do it right. Take care of the workers that you employ, you know, take care of the area. By the way, you know, I don't want to be an apologist for any tech company, but I think if you said, "These are the rules," they would probably follow the rules, because they need to open these data centers.

• 15:49Kara Swisher?

  So, why didn't they in the first place?

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Because they have to be made to.

• 15:53Kara Swisher?

  They have to be made to, right?

• 15:55Speaker 02

  You know, they have to be made to. If you, if I were still the governor, Rhode Island doesn't have any open space, but if I were still the governor, but theoretically, if we had space for a data center, I would say, "Yeah, you can come here, under these conditions."

• 16:09Kara Swisher?

  One of the things, when you talk about job loss, you often talk about your father who lost his job at the Bulova Watch factory in the 1980s, when the company moved manufacturing to China. With AI adoption, we're walking into, as I said, something faster than anything else that's coming. Talk about that transition, and, as you said, what did we get wrong in that transition? And, that was happening at a much slower pace than what's happening now.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  So, I use that a lot as an analogy, you know, to what we're facing now. In that case, every company, every manufacturing company, they put their blinders on, they focused exclusively on efficiency, enhanced profit, from moving labor to China. They did better for a period of time, except, it really destroyed the country in many ways, you know, because the quote-unquote losers, like my dad, they were concentrated. It was non-college-educated men in a handful of states. And, that brought us, I think that sowed the seeds for a lot of this dysfunctional politics and anger and such that we see today. And, the thing of it is, it didn't have to be that way.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  We could have had a planned, intentional transition, and that's what I would like to, that's why I'm doing Raise Us. I want to play my part in having a planned, intentional transition. By the way, the same was true for the CHIPS Act. Right? Like, for those of you who don't know, one of my achievements in the Biden administration, we passed the CHIPS Act, because all manufacturing of leading-edge chips

• 17:42Kara Swisher?

  Was in Taiwan.

• 17:43Speaker 02

  Left this country, and all went to Taiwan, all of it. And, we woke up one day and said, "My god, national security risk." And, we spent hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to fix that by incentivizing Taiwanese and Korean companies to come back. Why didn't we have the foresight to say, "Hold on a minute. If we allow every stitch of chip manufacturing to go to Taiwan, we're going to wake up one day and be a less safe country." So, if you were to say to me, "Hey Gina, what's the biggest risk of AI?" And, I know a lot about China, and I know a lot about everything I went through, it's

• 18:22Speaker 02

  this jobs disruption, leading to a full-on fraying of our democracy and political institutions, which I argue is not in the interest of any tech company, it's not in the interest of any company. I don't know, a single company benefited from mass unrest, rioting in the streets, sky-high unemployment. So, get in the boat, don't wait for that to happen. Get in the boat today, have a planned transition, because the fact of the matter is, it's in everyone's interest.

• 18:58Kara Swisher?

  Do you think they're serious about that? Do you see a concern from tech companies that may be causing this damage?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  You know, look, so I'm putting, I put a big coalition of companies together, including tech companies, we have a couple dozen, so, we'll see. They're, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, you know, we have competitors working together, and so, we have to try. At the end of the day, you know, this is all going to take law, and regulations, and such, but I do think they're worried. Although, even a lot of them who are raising the alarm bell, like, a warning isn't a solution. You know what I mean? Okay, warning, what are we doing about it? And, I don't, I will not just put all the blame or responsibility at the foot of AI companies. Right?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  It's every American company implementing AI. I refuse to believe there's not a way to use AI, invent AI, lead the world in AI, and implement it in a way so that we have a smooth transition without sky-high unemployment. Like, there is a way. So, let's figure it out.

• 20:11Kara Swisher?

  So, each episode, we get a, on the podcast, we get an expert question. Here's yours from Joanna Stern.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Joanna Stern, a tech journalist and the author of "I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do Almost Everything." My question for Gina Raimondo is this. I am currently reporting on a company that pays low-wage workers to wear head-mounted cameras, and they're wearing these while doing their jobs, including housecleaning, so that the data can be used to train robots. In the short term, those workers earn money. In the long term, they may be helping train the very robots that could replace them. And, we've seen this already in customer service. What do you say to someone who's literally training the AI that is going to create their replacement? Is retraining enough, or do we need new economic models that let workers share in the value that they're helping create?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  No, retraining's not enough. It's not enough. It's a piece of the puzzle. But, you know, I've already said, we need new forms of transition support, incentives for companies, disincentives for mass layoffs. It is possible. Listen, it's a very dynamic economy. Our economy's amazing, as much as we complain about it, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world, most of the jobs in American economy today didn't exist 50, 60 years ago. And, I really am still bullish that

• 21:37Speaker 02

  In some number of years, AI is going to create new jobs, new businesses that we can't now predict. But you cannot pull the rug out from under tens of millions of Americans quickly. You just can't. And think that we're still going to have an America that we want to live in.

• 21:54Kara Swisher?

  When you look at that picture, that is what's happening. The retraining. And I recall when I went down, when they were going to, they were going to, remember it was going to be Silicon Holler, they were going to train former coworkers to be software workers, which thank goodness they didn't because they would have been replaced by AI very quickly. But I got up and said, actually, none of you are going to be doing this. You didn't get the proper education and besides, AI is going to replace you. And FYI, as soon as the guy sitting next to me, who is the coal mine owner, can use robots to replace you, he's going to do it in five seconds. And he was like, no, I'm not. I'm like, oh, you will. I know you will. I'm absolutely certain. No question. In fact, you probably already bought one. And the workers, I thought I would sort of get the workers mad at me, but they were appreciative because I was like, you're not, they're going to replace you.

• 22:38Kara Swisher?

  So how do you, if you think of where jobs are going, what is the role of the human being? And the only saving grace is right now, tokens are more expensive than people. These are the tokens you use AI for, right? So where, what kind of jobs exist? Because this, this raise AI you're doing with Eric Holcomb, who is the former governor of Indiana Republican. And you're working with Maryland, Arkansas, Utah, and Connecticut. Very nice. Two, two, two, two and two. Two blue, two red, right? Sort of. Yeah. What jobs do you imagine happening there?

• 23:10Speaker 02

  So I would say it's hard to know right now. I do think that, like I said, I think maybe a lot more startups. And you're already starting to see that. Or it's, let me say, it's very early days, very early days. I think it's a little early to tell who's losing the job, who's gaining the job. You started to see the freak out with no one could get a job in software engineering, but now software engineering, job openings are up again. My general view is this, right now, people say, oh, it's a strong economy, four-ish percent unemployment. You've got to get under the hood of that number.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  If you're working part-time in America, you're counted as employed, even if you have a crappy 20-hour-a-week job. We have a lot of people who are economically insecure, et cetera. So I think, the way I think about it is, we have to focus on entry-level workers and help them get jobs. We've got to put pressure on companies. I want to get the first company to say, we are not cutting our analyst program. Right? So we've got to focus on that. We have to focus on these call center workers. They have skills. You cannot just fire them all. You've got to figure out what they're good at and help them get another job. There's an economic theory, which I think is probably true.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  When you make stuff cheaper, people want more of it. So if because of AI, things are more productive, it's cheaper to make software, there may be more of it. All of which is to say, I don't think anyone knows where the new jobs are coming from. The companies need to know that, and I think we have to hold them to account.

• 24:51Kara Swisher?

  What jobs are you most worried about? You mentioned a few that you're worried about. Which ones do you feel are safe in the economy in that regard?

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Well, I definitely think it's a timeline, you know? Like, safe, 50 years from now, who knows what the world's going to look like?

• 25:08Kara Swisher?

  Well, we'll be dead, so what do we care?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. But any kind of trade is in hot demand right now. Technicians are in demand, fibers technicians are in demand.

• 25:22Kara Swisher?

  Helped by AI because they have more.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Exactly. Clinical jobs, like, there's, there's another thing. America's workforce system is pretty terrible. Right? We just route everybody to college and hope it works out. And it mostly doesn't. It's true. Forty percent of people who

• 25:40Kara Swisher?

  Ladies and gentlemen, she's running for president. No. It doesn't work out.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Like, you know, you, you might go to college. In any event, like, we have shortages right now of physical therapists, all respiratory therapists, all kinds of clinical workers, aides. But yet, you go try to become a physical therapist, it's really hard. It's expensive, there aren't enough spots in schools, it takes forever. So let's use the occasion of AI, which could be a crisis, and start fixing these institutions. Get people where the jobs are. There are some, and let's get going.

• 26:25Kara Swisher?

  So presumably, like, a lot of technologies, they do cut jobs and then they create them. That tends to be the historical. Many tech people will tell you that's not going to be the case this time. They do say that. Now they don't because

• 26:37Speaker 02

  I don't believe that.

• 26:38Kara Swisher?

  They're PR people. I don't either. But I do think that at some point, you wouldn't have anticipated Uber at the beginning of the internet age, or Airbnb, or any, like, you wouldn't, you might have, but you wouldn't have necessarily. And what's interesting is some of your funders of this Raise Us are tech companies because they're obviously concerned. Why would you take their money? I guess, I mean, I would take their money if it was to screw with them. I'm good with that. But you want to guard against reputation insurance with these companies, presumably. With their, for them, not you.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  Oh, for them?

• 27:16Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Look, you're going to have to ask them why they gave the money. I'm trying to solve a problem. I'm trying to come up with ways to get America through this transition, be creative, innovate new things, and they're funding the effort. So I'm going to take them at their word, and I'm, and, you know, we're going to see what works. But, you know, they're not running the company. I am, it's a nonprofit, not a company. So I just feel that it's time for action. It's time for, like I've said, let's try some new things.

• 27:51Kara Swisher?

  So say you were the head of, the President of the United States, for example.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yes. That'd be a refreshing change if I were.

• 27:59Kara Swisher?

  Yes, I know, I know.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Relative to what we have.

• 28:01Kara Swisher?

  What would be the important, what would be the first thing you would do here then? In this, you know, you helped, you were very critical to this, the CHIPS Act. What is, what kind of scale is the first thing you would do as a president in this area?

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Very first thing I would do

• 28:18Kara Swisher?

  Besides taking the gold down? Go ahead, move along.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, the gold. I have a funny story about that.

• 28:24Kara Swisher?

  No, go ahead.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  So, sorry, when I became governor, you, you get something called the gorgey. Does anyone know what a gorgey is? Anyway, it's like a giant piece of metal. It's a metal shield from the days when, you know, the governor commanded the militia in the colonies in Rhode Island. And so I'd put my head down and they put this gigantic, like, 10-pound shield around me. And when my mom, who's hilarious and dry-witted, came up to the stage to, you know, congratulate me, she said, "Nice bling, G." So when I think of gold, I think of the bling. Anyway, okay, like, first, first, first.

• 29:05Kara Swisher?

  You should go give it to Trump and get something from him.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's not gold, he wouldn't like it. First thing is

• 29:13Kara Swisher?

  Neither is what's in the White House, but go ahead.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. You know, this stuff is pretty scary. You just did a program on

• 29:23Kara Swisher?

  Nicole Pearl Roth, right?

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Cyber.

• 29:26Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I don't want to freak anyone out, but these models get pretty scary pretty fast.

• 29:32Kara Swisher?

  Yes, they do.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  With respect to cybersecurity, you know, in, in the hands of bad actors who want to take down our hospital system, want to take down our military, want to take down our infrastructure. It's pretty scary pretty fast.

• 29:45Kara Swisher?

  And average people can do it. It's not, it's not, everyone's like the Chinese. I'm like, the Chinese has no interest in our country collapsing. Some crazy person with a nuclear weapon does.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Totally, completely. Bioterrorism, same thing. It's not that hard for quote-unquote "average" people to create new pathogens. So I would be all over that. Like, like I already said, standards, pre-deployment testing, regulations with penalties. You've got to get on that pronto. And then I'd get with our allies, maybe even China. China has no interest in this stuff getting into the hands of terrorists or non-state actors. So I would be all over that right away. And then I would get very aggressive around the economics. You know, it's hard for me to sit here today and know exactly what I would do, but by

• 30:37Speaker 02

  the time I'm in that position, Raise Us will have some great pilots and we can, like, scale the good ones. No, seriously, I don't know. You need major overhaul of unemployment insurance. We need much more creative thinking about mid-career transition support and training. Companies need incentives. I mean, look, you might like CEOs, you might not, you might like companies, you might not, doesn't matter. We all respond to incentives. You're a CEO, you fire people today, your stock price goes up tomorrow. It's an incentive. You hire a human being, you pay for that human being, payroll taxes, healthcare benefits, et cetera, you use an agent, free. That is not the right set of incentives.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  So at some point, maybe we have to tax AI usage by companies. We need a different set of incentives.

• 31:29Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, I like that idea.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  When I was governor in Rhode Island, I put in a new tax on software as a service. Now, there's a lot of reasons you might not like that. However, it raised money, and you, we may have to get to that place. Right? Like, if, if we find companies buying lots of tokens and firing lots of people

• 31:55Kara Swisher?

  And dumping them on the government to deal with.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Dumping them on the government to deal with, Medicaid, food stamps, whatever, that's a free lunch that they shouldn't have. So we've got to figure out our way through it.

• 32:23Kara Swisher?

  When you think about higher education, and I see now your presidential run will be about college. What's it for?

• 32:31Kara Swisher?

  Here at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center

• 32:33Speaker 02

  I know.

• 32:34Kara Swisher?

  in Washington, DC. But how does higher education?

• 32:38Speaker 02

  I am paying a lot of bills for two kids to be in college.

• 32:41Kara Swisher?

  I know. I feel your pain. I feel your pain on that. My son's at Michigan.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Go Blue.

• 32:45Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, go Blue. Oh, God.

• 32:49Kara Swisher?

  Those people never stop. I know that. I get it. But calm down.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  I know. I know.

• 32:55Kara Swisher?

  You are the best.

• 32:56Speaker 02

  It's a disease.

• 32:57Kara Swisher?

  It is.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  It is a disease. I'm married to a Wolverine.

• 32:59Kara Swisher?

  Are you? I ran into a guy who was about 100 years old, and I was wearing a Michigan Dad hat my son got me.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:10Kara Swisher?

  It's perfect. And this guy, literally, he was 100 years old. He's like, "That was the best time of my life." And I'm like, and he goes, "Go Blue, it was the best time of my life." I was like, "You literally had the worst life ever then."

• 33:20Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 33:22Kara Swisher?

  That was the best time.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  It was all downhill after '21.

• 33:25Kara Swisher?

  All downhill after Blue.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  That's a little sad.

• 33:26Kara Swisher?

  Anyway, sorry. Let's trash other universities while we're here at Johns Hopkins. But how does higher education fit into this? Universities incorporating AI into the curriculum, preparing students for jobs, beyond creative cheating? Like, what is important about that?

• 33:46Speaker 02

  That is rampant.

• 33:47Kara Swisher?

  Yeah, it is. But again.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  So I have a lot of views on this. That might not surprise you.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  Look, I think we need many fewer colleges. There's about 4,000 in this country. Not you guys. You're awesome.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  But just like, listen, there's about 4,000 universities, colleges in this country. Many, many, many don't have great outcomes. It is expensive. 30-plus percent of kids who start college don't finish. That means they have a lot of debt, no degree, and maybe not a great job. And if you're a high school student, when you graduate in this country, there's precious few other options. You go into the military. Awesome. You can go into a labor union, do a trades job. Awesome. Otherwise, what do you do? You get routed to college, or you get some low-wage service job. That's not okay. You know? Why?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  And that's one of the things that raised us. I want to build. Why does Germany and the UK and everything? Why can you get an apprenticeship program? Like, why don't we have apprenticeships in this country? Why don't we have training options that are shorter than a four-year college and set you up for a job where they're connected to a job? So I'm hopeful that with AI, we get to the business of doing big things. You know, if you get lucky enough to go to Johns Hopkins, lucky enough to go to Notre Dame, Michigan, great. You're gonna, it's great. But, you know, not everyone can do that. I'm not an educator. I'm not going to pretend I am one. So you have to ask educators how to educate in the age of AI. I would simply say this.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Every employer I talk to, and I talk to a lot all the time,

• 35:46Speaker 02

  they want people who show up on day one, who know how to use AI to do the job. Not AI to cheat, not AI to do a simple query. So it's.

• 35:59Kara Swisher?

  Where do you get the ROI from it, right?

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Where do, exactly. You have to show up on the job knowing how to use AI for that job. So you guys in higher ed, you have to, I don't know how you do it. You've got to figure out how to teach people still critical thinking and how to write, but you can't ignore AI. You have to teach them those actual skills. Otherwise, they will never get that job.

• 36:21Kara Swisher?

  I'm sure we have some Johns Hopkins students here. What would you say to them and what to expect and how to prepare for their futures? Because they're really on the pointy end of all these changes, especially some of them. I mean, I also have older kids. My son is a cook, so no, robots aren't really good.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Well, that's great.

• 36:37Kara Swisher?

  I know. He's doing great. I just had a delicious meal in San Francisco where he's at. And I know my other son thinks about it a lot because that's why he went into mechanical engineering, because he knows energy. He did not go into software engineering on purpose because he saw AI coming. What would you say to a college student right now of how to prepare themselves for people in the audience that are students?

• 36:57Speaker 02

  So first of all, I'll tell you, I have a 22-year-old kid and who was asking me about this yesterday. And I'll tell you what I said to her, which is, "Face the future with courage." Right? Don't be afraid. There's going to be ups and downs. Face the future with courage. There are going to be jobs. Okay? I really do not buy into the, there's going to be nothing for humans to do because the agents will do everything. There's 100 reasons why that isn't true. And remember, just because a model can do something in your lab in Silicon Valley doesn't mean that it will and immediately displace everyone. I mean, in 2006, Elon was saying we'll have no truck drivers by, I think, I don't know, 2015 or something.

• 37:39Kara Swisher?

  He said a lot of things.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  He's, that's my point. But these guys.

• 37:42Kara Swisher?

  Do you know we have 50,000 Optimus Prime robots in our homes right now?

• 37:49Speaker 02

  I do not know that.

• 37:49Kara Swisher?

  He said that many years ago.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:51Kara Swisher?

  We don't have any.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, exactly.

• 37:53Kara Swisher?

  Do you know there'd be thousands of his self-driving taxis across the world? There are, but they're not his.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Perfect example.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Perfect example.

• 38:04Kara Swisher?

  Did you know we're going to be on Mars last year?

• 38:07Speaker 02

  That we're behind.

• 38:08Kara Swisher?

  You're behind.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  We're behind.

• 38:10Kara Swisher?

  But he is more than welcome to go to Mars.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  I tell this to my own kids. Look at where the jobs are open in the economy. Maybe you have your heart set on being something. Maybe you can do that at another point if there's no jobs right now. You know, there's a lot, there are open jobs now. Learn how to use the technology. Learn how to be an entrepreneur. Consider starting a business. And most of all, learn how to make good decisions, judgment, like staying calm under pressure. The only thing that's certain right now is we're in for a wild ride. So developing the skills of the resilience to get you through the wild ride and being scrappy and resourceful and self-starter,

• 38:57Speaker 02

  like, it's important to learn those skills because any individual job you plan for is going to change. And so you've just got to get ready for that. And not everyone can deal with change.

• 39:10Kara Swisher?

  Right.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  Change is scary.

• 39:11Kara Swisher?

  If you were a 21-year-old, you're a 21-year-old Gina.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  I wish.

• 39:15Kara Swisher?

  Me too. You will soon do that through technology.

• 39:21Kara Swisher?

  What job would you be doing right now? You're leaving college. What would you do?

• 39:26Speaker 02

  I'd try to start my own business. I would. You know, I think it's pretty cool that with AI, you can use AI to start a business on the cheap, but not that many. There's so many problems to solve in the world. That's the other thing. Face the future with courage. Pick a problem and try to solve it. Like, that's what I would do.

• 39:44Kara Swisher?

  What would be the problem?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 39:48Kara Swisher?

  Not enough cheesecakes? What?

• 39:51Kara Swisher?

  I don't know.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  You can make a better cheesecake. I don't have those skills.

• 39:54Kara Swisher?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Something in healthcare. It's like, there's too many people who, like, don't get healthcare in this country. Like, man, bring down the cost. You know? Bring down the cost of delivering healthcare so everybody can get some.

• 40:08Kara Swisher?

  Yeah. All right. Anyway, thank you so much, Secretary. Do I call you Secretary or Governor?

• 40:16Kara Swisher?

  Which one are you supposed to keep? I was just with Clinton and I didn't know which one to call her.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  You should just call me Gina.

• 40:21Kara Swisher?

  Gina, okay. All right. Thank you so much, Gina. And thank you, maybe Ms. President someday. And thank you again to the Johns Hopkins for hosting us here tonight at the Bloomberg Center. We'll be back later this year for more conversations about the intersection of AI innovation and public policy. And you can sign up at washingtondc.jhu.edu to find out how to join us. I'll be back with a really interesting speaker the next one. And I'm so glad you're here. And I'm so glad you come out. It's really wonderful. IRL is back. I'm sorry to tell you, but that's, and I'm so glad. Thank you so much.

• 41:12Kara Swisher?

  Today's show was produced by Tracy Hunt, Madeleine LaPlante-Douby, and Kailin Lynch. Special thanks to Dave Shaw, Steve Bone, and Julia Sharp Levine. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. And our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, your career is AI-proof. If not, then get to retraining. Go wherever you listen to podcasts. Search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.