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May 22, 2026 ยท 2026 #18. Read the transcript grouped by speaker, inspect word-level timecodes, and optionally turn subtitles on for direct video playback
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Speaker 2
Hello everybody. It is late in the afternoon on Wednesday, May the 19th in San Francisco. I'll probably put this out on May 20th. We haven't had a That Was The Week show for a few days.
Speaker 3
I was in Korea the last week, so we missed it at the weekend.
Speaker 3
And While I've Been Away Big News In Silicon Valley An Oakland Jury Rejected Elon Musk's Claim Against OpenAI That He Essentially Or They Stole His Money Ran Off With It Claimed They Were A Non-Profit And Then Turned Themselves Into A For-Profit Keith Teare Of Course Publisher Of That Was The Week newsletter, our weekly friend, our observer from Palo Alto. Keith, what are they saying in Palo Alto about this trial?
Speaker 1
Big yawn, essentially, Andrew. I mean, it's a bit of a sideshow, trying to get prime time and failing, I would say, generally failing because there's too much else going on. But This Was I Mean Musk Actually Ends Up Looking Ridiculous Because Oh That's Not That That's A First Time Isn't It I Think He's Quite Okay With Looking Ridiculous Regularly But This Is A Bit Extreme Because It Turns Out The Accusation Has A Statute Of Limitations Which In For Our Non-American Viewers In America Unless You Prosecute Something With A Certain Period Of Time you can't prosecute it and that that's what happened here which meant they spent two weeks on a trial that was from the very beginning it was going to be impossible for the jury to arrive at a verdict because it because of that and they claim they're going to appeal but then you wonder how they get around the statute of limitations i don't think it's doable i think i think maybe they're not going to
Speaker 3
appeal yeah and of course um Many millions of dollars spent by lawyers in these kinds of events. It's always the lawyers who win, but presumably some lawyers are being blamed for not recognizing this fundamental problem at the heart of the trial. What about, Keith, when it comes to the IPO? The New York Times ran a piece yesterday, five takeaways from what they call the blockbuster trial. I think it was anything but a blockbuster trial. It may have been a blockbuster in terms of The Aggravation The Animosity Between Altman And Musk But Very Little Else About It Was A Block Blaster Trial Are There Long Term Implications For The IPO Not That The IPO Is Of Course Long Term It's Supposed To Happen Later This Year Well If Musk
Speaker 1
Could Have Proven That Altman And Brockman Essentially Stole A Charity And Turned It Into A For Profit It It Would Have Had A Big Impact Mainly In Terms Of Penalties I Mean It Wouldn'T Have Stopped The IPO But It Would Have Changed The Answer To The Question Who Owns OpenAI The Answer Would Have Been Heavily Changed In Favor Of Whoever Musk Chose To Reward With His Win The Fact That That Didn'T Happen I Think It'S Now Irrelevant To The I Think The IPO Is Going To Rest On Other Variables Like What Is The Revenue Ramp Look Like Is Anthropic Really Number One Now In Terms Of Revenue Or Not And Various Other Subjective Feelings That Investors Are Going To Have When The IPO Happens Either At The End Of This Year Or Early Next Year
Speaker 3
Changing Your Tone Keith You Always Used To Say That No One Can Catch OpenAI Up Now You're Suggesting Maybe Anthropic Have What About When It Comes To Musk On The Implications For Him There's Been Some Bad Press About XAI And His Place In The Wacky Races On AI Does This Make Him Even Weaker Or Does It Really Not
Speaker 1
Change Anything I Think It Doesn't Change Anything I Mean It Tells You What You Already Know Musk Is A Fighter He Doesn't Like Losing He Will Take You To The Carpet If He Has To Even If He Can't Win It's An Ego Thing And It Really Doesn't Matter To Him Whether He Wins Or Loses The Enjoyment Is In Staying True To His Core Beliefs Which Is That He's Right So I You Know I Don't Think I Don't Think We Learned Anything New About Musk From This That We Didn't Already Know And What We Learned From Altman And Brockman
Speaker 3
The Times Suggests That What This Taught Us The Five Takeaways Is That Sam Altman Has A Credibility Problem I'm Not Sure That's Entirely New He's Had A Credibility Problem For A While But Do You Think This Trial Revealed That He Has An Even Bigger
Speaker 1
Credibility Problem Than We Thought Look I Don't Think He Has A Credibility Problem With The People That Matter Which Is Investors Or Users I Think Both Investors And Users Look Past The Individuals To The Platform And The Growth I Think He Has A Credibility Problem With People Who Don't Like Big Tech Typically In Quotes Anti-Capitalists Because He's Clearly A Resolute Capitalist But For The Same Reasons Musk Isn't Liked By Those People I Don't Think There's Much To Choose On The Left Between These Two In Terms Of Hatred I Think It's Pretty Even So I Actually
Speaker 3
Disagree I Think That Musk Is Musk Is Loathed I Mean Altman Is Just Lumped In With Andreessen And Some Of The Other Billionaires But I Think Musk Has A Special Place In
Speaker 3
when it comes to people's hatred. Understandably, as you know, I'm not a big fan of him.
Speaker 1
Yeah, but Musk is an exceptional innovator in the way that Altman isn't. So whatever people think of Musk, they're wrong. They're judging him by the wrong criteria. And they're welcome to that judgment, of course. It's a free society. But They're Just Jaundiced People Not That You're Jaundiced Andrew Well I Mean I
Speaker 3
Think This Is Not A Political Show So This Maybe Is Beyond What We Should Be Talking About But What Particularly Troubles Me About Musk Is Seems To Me Again Maybe You'll Correct Me And Tell Me That I Don't Understand What's Really Happening but he seems more and more of an overt racist but that's what particularly troubles me but anyway let's leave Musk and Altman what about actually coming back to Altman in terms of this credibility problem one of the things that the trial revealed was Greg Brockman's role in all this why don't we talk as much about Brockman as we do about Altman I just want to note that
Speaker 1
Calling Musk A Racist And They're Moving Along Rapidly So I Can't Say It Wasn't
Speaker 3
Fair No You Can Respond But Very Briefly Am I Wrong Is He Not A Racist He'S Not A
Speaker 1
Racist In The Way That Most Nativists Are Not There'S A Nativism About The World Now It'S Very Prolific In Europe As Well And It'S Really About Redrawing The Borders Post Post colonialism and post decline. And I'm not actually convinced that people who are concerned about borders are automatically racist. I think I think there is a reason.
Speaker 3
I agree. I mean, I'm not, I believe in borders. I'm not believe that people can just travel from country to country. But
Speaker 1
I'm an open borders person, just to disclose that. I actually do not believe in borders. That said, people who do, it's a bit like I'm not a Christian, but when I talk to Christians, I give them the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, we'll do a border show on another because we're not going to go back to Brockman and all things. Explain, Keith, because not everyone who watches or listens to this show are as tech insider as you. What's Brockman's role? What job does he have? And why does he sometimes get top billing and sometimes seem to get ignored?
Speaker 1
He's a technologist, first and foremost, whereas Altman is a product marketer. So Brockman Actually Knows What He's Talking About On The Tech And I Think That Means That He's In Silicon Valley Context Accepted As Tech Tends To Be And Even Though He's Rich He Doesn't Have Much Of A Public Face He Doesn't Show Off He's Pretty Humble So There's Nothing Much To Dislike About Him Whereas Altman Is A Bit Of A Self Promoter And Marketer Because He Has To Be He's He's The Face Of Open AI Both To Government And To The World And Sadly There's No Hiding Place For Altman And So I Don't Think We Live In Times Where That's Sad For Us Or For Altman Or For Everybody I Think For Altman Because He's Not I Don't Think He's A Bad Person Actually I Think He's Just A Normal Typical Entrepreneur and he's going to take all the flack that OpenAI gets for being successful.
Speaker 3
Well, again, I don't want to turn this into an Altman show, but Dario Amidai runs an equally or nearly as successful and large an AI company. He doesn't get that flack.
Speaker 1
Well, the last two weeks, that's changed, Andrew. I mean, the number of people Going On YouTube Saying They Are Abandoning Anthropic Due To Constantly Changing Rules Around Pricing Is Very Very Large This Last Two Weeks And Amadai Is Now Being Characterized As Completely Opportunistic And Indecisive At The Same Time So I Think Amadai Is Going To Get Targed With The Same Brush And For What It's Worth I Think They're Both Exceptional Talents Both Of Them But Then They're Both Going To They're Both Making Mistakes And They're Both Going To Get The Reward That Comes
Speaker 3
With Making Mistakes Although Again I Mean I Am At The Different One Difference Between Amadai And Altman Is That Amadai Didn't Have To Deal With An Internal Coup That Tried To Get Rid Of Him As CEO Whereas Altman Did And This Is What Brought A Lot Of These Issues At Least To The To The Public For A Couple Of Years Ago Yeah
Speaker 1
I Think I'm Right In Saying Amidai Has A Block Of Votes An Anthropic That Is
Speaker 3
Unchallengeable By The Board So He's A Zuckerberg What About Your Dog Keith Is He For Or Against Altman Or Can You Shut Him Up Whatever It Is It's Four Syllables
Speaker 1
It's Altman Is Something Wow
Speaker 3
And finally, the New York Times in their blockbuster case, Five Takeaways, I don't know what editor is responsible for this, suggests that the AI race will continue apace. Wow, that's profound and insight into everything. So basically nothing's changed.
Speaker 1
Nothing's changed. It's more of a media show than it is anything real, I think.
Speaker 3
One piece of news that I know you think is important this week is that another OpenAI co-founder, I don't know how many co-founders do they have at OpenAI? Every time someone does something, they're called an OpenAI co-founder. But Andre Karpathy has joined Anthropic. Why is this a big deal for you?
Speaker 1
Well, Karpathy is, he has the capability of being a standalone
Speaker 1
Center Of Gravity In The AI Space He Certainly Is That In Developer Circles And His Github Posts Are Some Of The Highest Ranked Github Posts That There Are He'S A Very Very Thoughtful Guy He Understands Exactly The Landscape Of AI And LLMs And For Him To Join Anyone Would Be News The Fact That He'S He's Joining Anthropic Is I Think Probably The Biggest News Given That Anthropic Has Been Going Through Some Challenges The Last Couple Of Weeks So They've Got Themselves A World Class Technical Leader And His Job There Is Going To Be Teaching Claude How To Teach Itself So If You Like Repetitive Failure Loops Fixing Failures And Then Getting Better
Speaker 3
Which Is His Specialism So This Is A Big Deal Does It Reflect Badly On OpenAI Or
Speaker 1
Well On Anthropic Well On Anthropic I'd Say I Don't Think There Was Any Chance He Would Go Back To OpenAI Anyway The Other Option Would Have Been For Him To Do Something Himself As Many Of His Colleagues Have They've All Raised At Least A Billion Dollars If Not More Each How Many Co-Founders Are There Of OpenAI I Want To Say Either Five Or Six But I Honestly I Don't Trust Me On That Is It's
Speaker 3
More Than Four And Three Of Those Are Presumably Musk Altman And Brotman And Then
Speaker 1
There's Mirai The Woman Who Is The CTO And I Don't Know If Fei-Fei Li Was There At The Beginning
Speaker 3
I Think We Should Print T-shirts Keith We Are OpenAI Co-Founders If We Were In The Business Of Finding Girlfriends Maybe That Would Help Of Course Neither Of Us Are We're Both Happily Married Another Interesting Piece This Week Was In The Wall Street Journal Not An Anti-Tech Newspaper Which Led With A Piece Yesterday The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam Now I Know You Think That A Lot Of This Rebellion Is Based On Lies Or Propaganda Or One Thing Or The Other But Would You Acknowledge That There Is A Rebellion Against AI And It Is Indeed Gaining Steam For Whatever Reason
Speaker 1
Absolutely, and to be honest, I never think ordinary people's ideas are based on lies and propaganda. I think ordinary people generally...
Speaker 3
Ordinary people in contrast to you and I who are extraordinary, Keith, yeah?
Speaker 1
Could be, could be. Plato would agree. But that said, I think these are reasonable fears by people who live in parts of the United States that have very low Is The Week Is The Week Is The Week Is The Week Is The Week
Speaker 1
Compared To China The US Is Inability To Innovate In Energy At Any Kind Of Scale Leads To Fears Of Shortages And Shortages Lead To Price Rises So This Really Is Symptomatic Of Where America Is At More Than Where AI Is At You Also Have A Piece
Speaker 3
By Your Old Friend Near It Weiss Blatt On The Weak Foundations Of AI Doomsday She Seems To Always Be Implying She May Not Be Say Explicitly That All This Anti-AI Stuff Is A Bit Of Conspiracy Maybe Funded By Some Anti-AI Organization What She Been Saying About These Weak Foundations Of AI Doomsday This Week Keith Well She's
Speaker 1
Really Just Doubled Down On Her Previous Research To Connect The Dots Between The News And Where It Comes From And There Is A Manufacturing News Business In The Anti-AI World Dominated By The Philanthropists What's It Called I'm Blanking On The Term But Basically The Lobby That Is For Philanthropy The Altruists The Bankman Freedom Those People Those People And She You Know To Give Her Credit As A Journalist She Has Very Effectively Connected The Dots Between Where The News Comes From Who's Paying For It And Where It Ends Up Appearing And She Isn't Wrong But Neither Is She Right Because She's Trying To Associate This Campaign Which Does Exist With People Believing The Campaign And I Don't Think That Is The Right Connection I Think People Believe The Campaign Because There's An Absence Of An Optimistic Framing On Narrative Around AI In The US Very Different To China Where The Only Narrative Is An Optimistic One And I Think That Lack Of Narrative Is The End Product Of US Recent History Where Trusting Big Tech Didn't Go Too Well Now Everyone Hates Facebook Most People Are Neutral If Not Negative On Google Microsoft Definitely Mostly Negative Amazon I Think Neutral To Maybe Marginally Positive But Overall Big Tech Is Not Liked In America And It Leads To These Recognitions That Young Americans Have Become Anti-Capitalist As Part Of Being Against Their Own Country And I Think That It Fits In That Discussion More Than Anything Else It Certainly Isn't Real I Mean AI Isn't Going To Lead To Doom But The Fact That Most People Believe It Is Is Is You Know Needs An
Speaker 3
Explanation Maybe These Young People Keith Who Hate Musk And Altman Maybe They Need To grow their hair and spend their time having sex or taking drugs or listening to rock and roll rather than hating on Musk and Altman. Do you think that might be a better strategy?
Speaker 1
You know, far be it from me to recommend drug taking as a solution.
Speaker 3
It's supposed to be a family show, not that I'm promoting drug taking, but In all seriousness, the zeitgeist has shifted, not necessarily this week, but we're like frogs in boiling water here, and suddenly the water is terribly hot. I mean, one of your news pieces this week is even Ro Khanna. Silicon Valley's congressman wants to rein in AI. If Ro Khanna wants to rein in AI, who are AI's friends?
Speaker 1
Look, you notice his phrase there, the Epstein class. He's Trying To Associate Wealth With Lack Of Moral Ethics And You Could Say It's A Cheap Shot On Wealth Yeah It's Easy To Hate On Wealth Isn't It But The Truth Is Without Wealth There's Nothing To Spend And Nothing To Spend It On So it's a very superficial form of hatred, hatred on wealth, and for a politician to hate on it, it's a very superficial way to try to garner votes, especially when they don't tell you what they stand for. What is it that they would do if they were elected? There's no answer.
Speaker 3
You're generating hatred against politicians. Eric Schmidt, A Couple Of Days Ago Made A Speech Commencement Speech And He Got Booed I Mean Eric Schmidt Can Be A Little Annoying But Booing Eric Schmidt Again Presumably A Lot Of The Graduating Class Were Horrified That Schmidt Was Even Speaking At The University Of Arizona Something's Changed I Mean Really It's Astonishing That I Mean I'm Not Sure We're Going Back To Vietnam But There Is That Feeling Blood In The Street A Little Bit.
Speaker 1
Well, look, I think it's an entitled mindset that doesn't reflect or respect achievement. Achievement is not respected, especially by people who haven't achieved anything. The way they become equal is by bringing down achievers to their level, which is to attempt to demonize them. And Firstly It Won't Work Because People Who Achieve Things It's On The Record It Will Stand The Test Of History And Secondly It's Self-Destructive Because All Your Energy Goes On Negativity And You Don't Put Any Pressure On Yourself To Rise Up And Make A Difference So It's Actually The Abandonment Of Agency By Young People When
Speaker 3
They Do This So Says An Ex Revolutionary Marxist although it's not true Keith that it's just young people people on the left against tech I just came back from Korea on the flight back I read Adrian Waldridge's new book The Revolutionary Center he's been on my show he's a conservative certainly on the right in English politics wrote the Badger column for many years at The Economist now at Bloomberg and in his new book The Revolutionary Center, which he talks about agency and responsibility, morality. He also goes after big tech. So to be fair to the people booing Schmidt at the University of Arizona, it's not just the left that has fallen out of love with Ted.
Speaker 1
No, I agree with that. It's ironic, Andrew, because You Know Try To Conceptualize The Moment We Live In In The History Of Capitalism When Getting Bigger Is Another Word That Is The Accumulation Of Capital And The Accumulation Of Capital Is Success At Producing And Selling Things That People Want And So You Know Look At The Numbers Of Engagement With All Of Tech And it's Google announced They have I think it's five products With over three billion users Each So Clearly These are Gemini products Yeah Well actually Includes Gmail and others But Clearly People don't hate big tech They use it They absolutely Do not hate it On the other hand When it comes to A narrative Or a zeitgeist They want to be associated With people who hate it And This is Um This Is Basically Saying I Don't Like Success I'm Not Sure That's True I Mean Don't
Speaker 3
The Titans Have Some Responsibility Another Piece That You Linked To This Week Is Some News That Andreessen Horowitz The Top VC In The Valley Is Now Spending More Money In Politics In The Midterm Elections Than George Soros Don't Marc Andreessen, Horowitz, Musk, Altman, don't they have any responsibility for this, Keith?
Speaker 1
I think they're participants, but insofar as they're participants, in terms of a narrative, they're on the right side. I mean, what is Andreessen's main thesis at the moment? It's called American dynamism, and he's trying to figure out how to get the American economy to be a growth economy, That The Rest Of The World Looks At Positively And You Know That Seems To Be Anything Other Than Something To Criticize So You Wonder Why Everyone Focuses On The Money In Fact If Anything You Should Be Saying He Isn't Spending Enough It's Only 100 Million Which Is A Drop In The Ocean In Political Spending In America So Andreessen Does He Really Believe His Thesis Because If He Does Why Is He Spending More Of His Net Worth On It So I You Know I Can't Really Given The American System I Can't Look At That Negatively Other Than To Say It Isn't Enough But There Are Real Issues I Mean You
Speaker 3
And I Talked About This Endlessly We Seem To Talk About It Every Show About The Impact Of On What You Call Ordinary People A Couple Of Pieces That You Connect With Brian Merchant's Excellent Newsletter Blood In The Machine He's Been On The Show His Book On The Luddites Was Very Successful The Impact On AI For Artists And Then There Was Another Piece About The Impact Of AI On Scientific Researchers Particularly Those Who Write Research Papers I Mean These Are Real Threats Keith You Can't Just Sweep Them Under The Carpet And Ignore Them And Say They're Not Real
Speaker 1
I Would Rephrase It They Are Real But They Are Real Contributions Not Real Threats
Speaker 3
Who Are They Threatening Well According To Brian Merchant They Are Threatening Artists And In Historical Terms It Is All Very Well Telling An Artist Well In The Long Run You Will Be Fine In The Long Run You Will Be Dead Or Be Unemployed Let's
Speaker 1
Take Brian At Face Value Look If you are an artist and AI is better than you to the extent that people engage with it, not you, it rather suggests to me, given the state of AI art, that you're not a very good artist and you deserve everything you get. Why do we cry crocodiles here for that artist?
Speaker 3
Well, one wonders if Rembrandt or Picasso was around, whether they'd even be able to make a living in R.A.I.
Speaker 1
By the way, Jeff at 3W Capital, who is Gad? There's a comment here, you should get Gad on the show, would be a super interesting show. And Nico MacDonald, by the way, is saying he's really enjoying this. And Courtney Hamilton made a few comments as well.
Speaker 3
No. Well, at least we have people listening. And what else? They should be doing something else on a late Wednesday afternoon. But going back to your main point, Keith, you always make this, well, in the long run, everyone's going to be fine. But in the short run, everyone loses their employment and their revenue.
Speaker 1
Is that really true?
Speaker 3
So What Would You Say To You Are Just Telling The Kind Of Artists Who Are Being Undermined By AI Well You Are Not Very Good Artists So You Should Go And Get A Job
Speaker 1
In Safeway Is That Your Argument Well Look The Nature Of An Artist Is You Are As Wealthy As Your Popularity That That's The Whole Point About Art I Saw Paul McCartney On Saturday Night Live This Week Oh My God He Was Awful And And And He's Clearly You Know Losing It And These Audiences Shrinking As A Result Artists And Audience You Know Are Correlated In Terms Of Talent And Momentary Talent Sometimes Other Times Enduring Talent So I Think AI Doesn't Really Change That I Still Think Great Artists Will Be Great Artists And Get Audiences But I Think Bad Ones You Know It's The Same With Writing If My Newsletter Isn't Readable And There's An AI One That's Better Why Should I Recommend People To Read Me And Not
Speaker 3
The AI Well If You Relied On Your Newsletter Is Free You Have A Main Gig If You Relied On The Newsletter To Feed Your Family And Pay Your Rent You Might Have A Different Take On
Speaker 1
And Gad is Gad Saad, S-double-A-D, so we've got to figure out who that is. And Jeff, send him a link to this show and tell him we want him on.
Speaker 3
Well, every time I ask you a hard question, you change the subject. So let's go back to Noah Smith, a regular, at least in your newsletter, very, very good journalist. He Asked An Interesting Question In His Newsletter Noah Opinion This Week Do Billionaires Earn Their Money I've Often Wondered That I Mean They Clearly Deserve To Be Rich But Do They Actually Earn Their Billions Keith At Least According To
Speaker 1
Noah Smith I'm A Little Bit Immune To The Word Deserve Because I Don't Think Anyone
Speaker 3
Deserves Anything That They Don't Well But I Asked You About What Does Smith Say
Speaker 1
So Smith is trying to draw the lines between the outcome of what the billionaires do and their net worth growing as a result of it and if you really go deep inside of that at one level it's just a question that classical economists asked which is where does wealth come from and at another level it's a moral judgment about the age we live in And It Is Trying To Play Both Roles At The Level Of The Production Of Wealth It Is Quite Clear That The Source Of All Wealth Is The Fact That You Can Put Together A Whole Bunch Of Resources Including Labour And Sell It For More Than It Costs You To Put It Together That Is Basically It And If You Can Be Funded By Venture Capital You Can Even Sell It For Less For A While And Be Subsidized Until You Get Big Enough To Make A Profit So The System The System Allows Billionaires To Emerge From Innovating Things That Lots Of People Pay Money For And Eventually They Pay More Money Than It Cost To Produce The Stuff So In That Sense There'S No Moral Argument There It'S Just Math Then The Second Thing Is Should They Keep It All And My Answer Probably In The Long Run Is No They Shouldn't If They're Wise They Will Want To Lift Up The Entire Society To New Levels To Create Harmony And Goodness For Everyone And That Typically In History Hasn't Happened Peaceably Maybe For The First Time The Amount Of Wealth Being Produced Is Going To Be So Large That Its Peaceful Distribution Becomes Both Obvious As A Need And Logical As An Outcome And Accepted By The People Producing The Wealth You Know Orchestrating The
Speaker 3
Production Of The Wealth Yeah Again You And I Have Talked About This Endlessly I'm Certainly Not Convinced With The Universality Of This Concentrated New Wealth A Stat I Heard Recently Is That There Are More Billionaires In Palo Alto Than There Are In All Of Europe Paul Krugman Who I Know As An Economist You Respect Who Is A Substack Writer Now Run A New York Times Columnist Asks Is Is Europe In Economic Decline Or Alternatively Does Europe Offer An Alternative System We Always Talk About The American Chinese Systems Emerging Is Europe Itself Shaping A New System According To Krugman
Speaker 1
I honestly think it's... I both understand him. By the way, he's in Europe at the moment. He's been there for a couple of weeks. And he's obviously getting infected by good food and nice oceans and the like. But it's pretty hard with Europe to find a rational plan to make life better. You know, the powers that be in Europe seem to spend most of their time Conducting Irrational Plans To Make Life Worse Mainly Through Bureaucracy And Rules So That's Hard That Said He Does Have A Point And What Is His Point Firstly He's Making A Mathematical Point That The Lifestyle In Europe Which Has A GDP Per Capita Only About A Third Of The U.S. Is Not Two Thirds Worse Because A Third Of The Money Can Buy A Lot More Than A Third Of The Lifestyle And Therefore Life In Europe Is A Lot Better Than The Bald Numbers Appear To Be He's Right About That You Can Buy Things Cheaper You Can Buy Homes Cheaper You Can Travel Cheaper The Social
Speaker 3
Welfare System Yeah The Healthcare System In Particular Education And Healthcare
Speaker 1
Yeah So He's Not He's Not Wrong And There's A Lot To Admire About The Gains That Europe Made Since The Enlightenment That Are Enshrined In Those Democracies And Those Economic Systems That Said It's Highly Challenged To Grow Or Even Maintain Its Status Unless It Unlocks The Shackles Of Innovation Which It Doesn't Seem To Want To Do Finally
Speaker 3
I Made A Joke About You Being An Ex-Marxist Another I'm Not Sure He's An Ex-Marxist Certainly A Marxist Economist Very Distinguished One Old Friend Of Mine Branko Milanovic Has A Really Interesting Post This Week On HisSubstack Artificial Intelligence And The Future Of Capitalism From A Marxist And Neoclassical Point Of View We're Going To Get Branko On The Show The Three Of Us Will Talk Like We Did With John Rausch Last Week Because I Know You Are Particularly Interested By Milanovic's Work Keith But Does What Does An Old Marxist Like Milanovic Make Of AI He's It Seems Like He's A Little More Optimistic Than
Speaker 1
Some Of The Liberals Well what's interesting is that he aligns with Elon Musk on a profound and simple point which is that if automation taken to its logical conclusion means that there is no longer a labor component inside everything we make that therefore the social contract between capital and labor goes away And The Production Of Value Goes Away Value In The Classical Adam Smith And David Ricardo And Marks Sense And What You're Left With Is Things That Are Free That's Basically His Thinking And There's A Whole Subtext Here On Something Called The Organic Composition Of Capital And if basically variable capital is reduced down to zero, most of that being labor power, you get close to free. And Musk says the same thing. And when things are free, there's no need for money. So he's basically asking the question, could capitalism produce its opposite? And his answer is yes, it could. and I actually agree with that, by the way. Well,
Speaker 3
that's an old Marxist trope or Marxist piece of logic that capitalism would create its antithesis or destroy itself.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, this is just economics and he's very careful to include Smith and Ricardo so this can't be interpreted only as Marx. It really is classical economics and that means macroeconomics and it means right Down To The Way We Organize Society And The Division Of Labor And How Things Are Produced And Where The Wealth Comes From Which Is You Know Undisputedly Wealth Comes From Labor If You Can't Hire People You Can't Make Wealth So I Think He's
Speaker 3
It's A Very Interesting Is Again An Area Where I Strongly Disagree With You And Musk Or The Way You Represent Musk The Idea That
Speaker 3
Wealth Or Money Is Going To Be Gotten Rid Of Branko Makes The Argument That He Doesn't See A Dismal Future For Labour Perhaps Like Brian Merchant And Some Of The Other Pessimists because, and I'm quoting him here, activities where labor cannot be substituted by the AI will blossom. And that's where I disagree. I don't know what Musk says on this, but where's where I disagree with you is that the idea that all labor is going to go away is just absurd. There's going to be many things.
Speaker 1
I think if you change the word labor, which has a very specific meaning in classical economics, to work, if he said all work, That Work Will Thrive When It's Human To Human Think Of Things Like Somebody Taking You Around Their City When You Travel Or Some You Know I Would Agree With Him But That Work Is Not Going To Be Paid Labor In A Classical Economic Sense But The Idea
Speaker 3
That And I'm quoting him here, activities where labor cannot be substituted by the AI will blossom. So that's cautiously optimistic. Anyone who finds things where there's a demand for human labor will be well rewarded.
Speaker 1
I think if you conceptualize that for a second to 8 billion people in the world, And Let's Say You Know The Manufacturing Jobs Of And The Service Jobs In That 8 Billion People Let's Get Rid Of I Don't Know More Than Half Of Them Because They're No Longer In The Labour Force So This Let's Say 3 Billion People Are Working Of Which Probably 2 Billion Are Working In Productive Industries Or Services That Produce Profit If Those Go Away Then The Number Of People Who Are Going To Become Carers Or Concierges On Your Vacation Or Musicians That You Go And Listen To Is Going To Be A Tiny Fraction Of 3 Billion Or 2 Billion You Forgot The Masseurs Keith They Would Get Thrown Into The Masseurs So Look There's Nothing He's A Little Bit Scared Of Acknowledging The End Of Labour I'm Not I Not Only Do I Am I Not Scared Of It I Look Forward To It Because The End Of Labor Means The End Of Paid Slavery And The Opening Up Of Freedom That Is To Say Choice Of How To Spend Your Time The Only Question Is How Do You Eat And He's Got Part Of The Answer Which Is Things Are Pretty Much Free And The Other Part Of The Answer Is You Got To Find You Know An Allocation Mechanism To The Previously Employed Population that lets them participate in society to the same level as everybody else. That's not an inconceivable problem to address. The minute you know you have to figure that out, there are solutions to it.
Speaker 3
Well, I hope you're wrong, because I think if everyone, nobody has to work, we'll all become bad artists. So you suggest that a lot of the professional artists are bad when they're losing out to AI. What's worse than professional artists losing out to AI Is Everyone Becoming Artist Or Musicians Or Writers But We Will Come Back To This Keith Lots More To Discuss Seems As If We Discussed The Same Thing Every Show But That's Because These Issues Are Dominating Everything Politics Culture Economy We Won't Do A Weekend Show This Weekend We'll Do Another Show The Following Weekend So Keith I Will Talk In About 10 Days Keep Well And We Will Speak In The Last Weekend Of May Thank You And This Will Be The
Speaker 1
Video In My Editorial This Week So I'll Be Publishing
Speaker 2
We Have Two Clear Options Small Early Bets Or A Few Big Plays We Must Mitigate Risk The Real Opportunity Is In The Early Stage The Group To The Earl To Stage