Tech News Weekly 415 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Jacob Ward [00:00:00]:
Hey, I'm Jake Ward filling in for Mikah Sargent. Coming up on Tech News Weekly, we are looking at the new really expensive and tiny foldable phone from Samsung. We're looking at OpenAI's code red. We're looking at the issue of AI dating and AI as a dating coach. And we're looking at a profile of who could be the arguably the most powerful national politician when it comes to regulating big technology, especially AI and spending time with a journalist who has spent time with that person. This is again Tech News Weekly and I'm Jake Ward, in for Mikah Sargent, stick around.

Jacob Ward [00:00:44]:
This is Tech News Weekly, episode 415 with Abrar Al-Heeti and me, Jacob Ward. Recorded Thursday, December 4, 2025: OpenAI's 'Code Red'.

Jacob Ward [00:00:56]:
Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly. This is the show where every week we talk to and about people making and breaking tech news. I am J. Jacob Ward. Typically I host the Rip Current podcast. I occasionally get to be a guest on this show, but this week Mikah Sargent, who's off, asked me to fill in. So God help me and God help you, and please be merciful and helpful in your feedback because I don't know what I'm doing. So let's figure it out together.

Jacob Ward [00:01:20]:
I am pleased, very pleased to be to have my hand held today by Abrar Al Heeti from CNET. Hello, Abrar. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. This is literally like, I'm like, take my hand, please.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:34]:
No, I fully, fully believe in you and you have the radio voice, which is really half the battle. So who cares what you say?

Jacob Ward [00:01:41]:
It goes a long way as I flub through this. At least it'll sound smooth. Have you filled in in this way? Well, I'm sure you'll be tapped before long.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:48]:
Have you ever tapped once? Yes. And it's actually great for you. And there's a lot of flexibility, which is nice. They're very kind people over at TWiT, so I'm sure they won't beat you up over anything.

Jacob Ward [00:01:57]:
Yeah, well, I really appreciate that. I really appreciate that. Yeah. So you and I have been on together as guests on Leo's show and always really, really enjoyed what you have brought to the table here. We are each going to be bringing the story of the week, what we care about the most, or maybe the least, depending on how we think about it. I'll go with mine in a second, but Abrar, why don't you lead us off? What is your story of the week.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:02:22]:
Yeah, this is about the device that we have all been maybe waiting for. This is a new Samsung Tri Fold phone. Because we all need a phone that folds into three different panels, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:02:35]:
So this is the Galaxy Z Tri Fold. It's a triple display, foldable, so it has three panels when you open it up and two hinges. Essentially it's like a tablet that you can also collapse and slide into your pocket. I'm honestly shocked that we're hearing about this so soon after the galaxy Z fold 7 was announced. That's the classic, you know, open closed book style foldable. But this is actually launching in Korea first on December 12th. It'll launch in other areas including the United states in the first quarter of 2026. Again, I'm shocked that we're getting something like this in the lot of times.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:08]:
These like really neat phones, niche that again no one maybe asked for but are still cool to look at. You typically don't get those. So it's kind of cool that we'll be getting that. So yeah, opens up to 10 inches. And then the notable thing here too is that that cover screen is 6.5 inches. So you should still be able to hold it and have it feel like a standard phone and do a lot of normal functions on it. And then the other big piece of this is that it's super thin. So at its thinnest point it's 3.9 millimeters thick and at its thickest point it's 4.2 millimeters.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:38]:
What does that amount to? 4.2 millimeters is the thickness of the Z fold seven when that's unfolded. And so that's kind of like it's two trends that we're seeing, really thin phones and foldable phones and kind of merging that together and you can kind of see the roadmap that Samsung has followed here. First it announced the Galaxy S25 Edge, that classic bar style phone that's super thin. And then they made the Galaxy Z Fold seven super thin and now you have this thin trifold. So it's a really interesting roadmap. And all within the year. Like all these phones were announced within a year, which is really surprising and quite impressive. Even if it is, what's the use case of this thing? Right.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:04:17]:
And then the other piece is the cameras. Like the cameras are still really good. You have a 200 megapixel wide angle, 12 megapixel ultra wide, 10 megapixel telephoto. So you don't have to compromise on camera Quality with something like that. So before I keep talking about specs, I feel like you have thoughts about this because, you know, you have like the battery is also supposed to be long lasting, a 5600 milliamp hour battery better than the Z Fold 7. But are any of these things speaking to you? Are you thinking, okay, if I don't have to compromise on battery or cameras and it's a thin phone and it's essentially a tablet that pulls into my pocket, is any of this resonating with you?

Jacob Ward [00:04:54]:
Okay, so I really like that. I appreciate that framing. So I will say I. So I'm about to go on a sort of job hunting trip in New York City next week. And one of the things you think about when you travel to New York City, as I'm sure you know, is what can I carry with me in a day that won't cause my spine to collapse by the end of an eight hour day? Going from meeting to meeting to meeting, right? And I was literally thinking to myself, can I get my tablet into my iPad, into the little pouch that I wear, you know, on my front like the kids do these days? And I can't. There's no way to do that. And I was literally, that was my first thought, was that I was like, okay, well that's cool. I would really like to be able to type into a thing if at all possible.

Jacob Ward [00:05:37]:
Then my second thing, literally as you were talking, I typed in trifold Z case. Because the other thing of traveling in New York City all the time with an expensive, you know, the $2,000 computer that folds into thirds is, I'm going to drop that bee in a second. That thing is going to be on the floor of a cafe at least once, maybe twice in a day. And so I, my nightmare is, how do you, you know, how do you protect this investment? So anyway, those are my first reactions. But I want to ask you, I mean, tell me a little bit about what you understand about the way in which these companies think in advance about the demand and whether this, you know, when you always hear tech companies, right, I always hear executives whenever I interview them saying, well, this is something that consumers have clearly been asking for, right? And I always think, really, how many? How many? Yeah, who, who exactly? And how are you figuring that out? So do you get the vibe, and I'm curious about this thing of, of consumers in Asia having this very futuristic taste in devices, whereas we get the slightly more traditional form factor, like, I don't know, tell me a little bit about how do you think demand is assessed for something like this?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:06:45]:
Yeah, I think it's. With devices like this, the big benefit is they cost a lot of money, so maybe you don't have to sell as many of them. Right. We don't know how much this is going to cost, but the Z fold seven starts at $2,000, so it's possible this could be. There have been some reports and maybe It'll be like 2,500 or more. Right. So you have to sell decent amount obviously still. But like those profit margins are going to be high likely.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:07:09]:
But it's the tech enthusiasts and maybe the business users. These people will probably be really enthused by something like this. But the everyday person is, you know, foldable phones in general are still pretty niche and thin phones are still pretty niche. So a lot of people are just going to go for like, you know, the Ultra or the standard s, you know, 25, 26 when that comes out, so on, so forth. The thing that Samsung has been saying is with a phone like this, like watching movies and TV shows is going to be so great. And like if you're watching a YouTube video, you can have the comments open in the panel right next to it and they'll be side by side. And then they've also mentioned that the crease is supposed to be minimal. And that's like really critical here.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:07:44]:
Right. You don't want to like two creases on your screen. You just use a tablet in that case. So I'm really curious to see how that will all feel. And then the interesting thing about this phone relative to Huawei also launched a trifold. And Huawei's trifold is more of an accordion. So when you open it, it's like a Z shape. This, this Samsung one kind of like folds into itself, which is a really interesting design.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:08:08]:
And I'm going to be really curious when I hopefully get my hands on this. You know, what, what the benefit of that is going to be, what the feel of that is going to be. But it is nice to have a cover screen and then the inside screen. I think that'll be a huge advantage. But yeah, I'm, I'm, you know, the price point is always going to be the big thing. I think people are really excited about devices that are futuristic and cool. But not everyone has 2,000 to $3,000 to drop on a phone and especially a first phone. And I use the word drop and you mentioned dropping.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:08:37]:
So there's going to be some of us who are like, would I spend my money on something that maybe is a little scary to use. Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:08:45]:
Yeah. When I think about, you know, whenever, when I'm with my own kids, I'm always saying, like, that thing you are carrying, imagine you have a stack of $900, you know, are you really going to bring it into the shower with you? Is that your right? You know, like.

And that's, that's exactly how I feel about this thing, I have to say. I mean, I was just looking back. You, you have a piece from September.

Jacob Ward [00:09:04]:
On CNET entitled 64% of people still don't want a foldable smartphone. CNET survey finds.

Jacob Ward [00:09:13]:
According to the survey, 64% of respondents say they are not willing or interested in buying a foldable smartphone the next year, while just 13% say they are. And you pointed out here in this article, that I think is really a good point here, is that Apple, they still don't do this, right? They've been the closest to a foldable thing they have is the protective case and keyboard that come with your iPad. They're not messing around with this. What do you think the kind of reluctance is on the part of a juggernaut like Apple to do this? And what do you think explains the reluctance that people have in the survey that you guys looked at?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:09:46]:
I think there are two routes companies can take. You can be the Samsung and you can be the Trailblazer. One of the trailblazers are a lot of Chinese companies that have beat Samsung to the punch, of course. Or you could be Apple and you could say, let's make sure this is sorted before we join the conversation. So the iPhone air came out well after other companies had released thin phones. But there was so much buzz around it because it's Apple, right? There's so much brand allegiance and there's so much power in that name. And when Apple does it, people are going to talk about it. But then that helps everybody, right? That raises all the other companies up.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:10:19]:
If people are looking for an alternative to the iPhone air. So then, you know, potentially Apple will then release a foldable phone similar to Samsung. Okay, we've nailed the thin phone. Now let's take that thin form factor and make it into a foldable. Maybe we see that next year, maybe we see that the year after. Right? I think, you know, the more brands that do this, you know, the more options people have, the more likelihood of them actually buying into this. But I still think it's going to be a niche form factor. I think most people aren't going to necessarily care if their phone is Thin, they're not going to care if it folds.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:10:49]:
They just want good cameras and good battery life at the end of the day and they don't want to pay a bajillion doll. But I think the tech enthusiasts will continue to buy into all of this. So we'll see. I think that'll be the determining factors. What does Apple do next year? And then what does everyone else do as well?

Jacob Ward [00:11:07]:
And what is exactly the stakes for a company like Samsung with the release of something like this? I mean, you know this industry better than I do. It's been a long time since I've talked to anybody about what it is to try to, you know, push a new form factor and what the sort of the existential risk is to a company of doing that. Right. Like are we talking, I mean, you know, the process of the, what am I trying to say here? The churn rate on making a new prototype I assume has to be pretty fast these days, but you're also committing huge amounts of money to the tooling and everything else that has to go into that. Right. Like what is it if this flops, will they try again? Is that sort of the end of the form factor? Like how do you watch the tectonic movement of, you know, phone prototyping in this industry?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:11:52]:
Yeah, you know, it's, they're, they're competing with companies, Chinese companies like Honor and Huawei that are already doing these things. And I think all these companies are kind of looking at each other and saying, okay, like it's a race, it's really a race. So like if you're not doing it, you're going to fall behind in the same way that a lot of companies have just been like stuffing AI into everything. Did anyone ask for that? Not really. Right, right. But if everyone else is doing it, then you're going to have to do it. And again, the timeline for Samsung has been so impressive this year, kind of loading all these thin phones one on top of the other. And so, so I can tell that they're trying to keep up.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:27]:
But also it's likely that they're, you know, looking at Apple and saying you guys just rolled out like a thin bar style phone, but we have two thin foldable phones in addition to that. So then Apple will then at its own pace, likely still kind of try to keep up with that. But it's really all that, that competition and competition is healthy. I mean it help as consumers have all those choices and, and so it's possible that this thing tanks and nobody buys this Trifold. But I highly doubt Samsung would look at it as a failure. I think they would say, hey, we tried this thing and it was really cool and really innovative. And that's, that's the thing they keep talking about. We're flexing our innovation quite literally.

Jacob Ward [00:13:06]:
Right, right, right. I mean I guess a company with, with pockets like that can, can do that. But what it also makes me think about is just how like, you know, I just think about like the internal politics nightmare of trying to get a new thing through the system, you know, and, and when I think about like what it takes to get something like this through the system and then I think about like the idea that someone's gonna try and push an entirely new thing, much less a frickin car. Yeah. Through a place like Apple. Right. It just makes me, it makes me just think about.

Jacob Ward [00:13:42]:
Who are the sort of the chosen few in an organization like this that can really get something like this through the system, you know?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:13:50]:
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think Apple seems to be, in my opinion from what I've kind of interpreted from their moves or lack thereof is they're a little bit more risk averse, they're a little bit more careful about like what they decide to really push out because there is a lot of brand loyalty, but it's not for nothing. Right. And so there's so much pressure to maintain that and with any company, of course. But, but I have a feeling Apple will continue to have a very careful approach. I mean their AI efforts are a prime example of this where they haven't necessarily been like shoving it down our throats as much as a lot of other companies have. Some people may look at that as falling behind and that's kind of the risk you're taking. Would you rather appear as someone who's behind the race or would you rather do something really bold and risky that doesn't pay off? It's really just, just how much do you like to gamble?

Jacob Ward [00:14:37]:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Well I like that like you say, I'm glad that there is healthy competition. I'm glad that there is some, still some gambling going on in the world and it's just nice to be thinking about it like a piece of hardware and not a piece of AI that's gonna like reprogram our relationships with one another or whatever. You don't.

Jacob Ward [00:14:58]:
It's so wholesome. Kind of it feels to me to be talking about something. Smartphones here, it's so retro.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:15:04]:
Yeah, right.

Jacob Ward [00:15:05]:
It's so Retro. I love it. God bless. So we are going to, in a moment talk about my story of the week and you guys, they have given me the keys to the car here, but they have not given me the keys to the sponsorships and that's probably important. So Mikah Sargent is going to jump in here to give you a word from our sponsor and when we come back, we'll talk about my story of the week. Stay with us.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:28]:
I know you all are loving this episode. I want to pop in real quick to tell you about the first sponsor of today's episode of Tech News Weekly. It's Hoxhunt. As a security leader, I know you get paid to protect your company against cyber attacks, but frankly, it is getting harder with more cyber attacks than ever and phishing emails that are generated with AI. That generative AI is making it very easy for the bad guys to really focus in on finding the right pain points for you. And these legacy one size fits all awareness programs, they just don't stand a chance because they send at most like four generic trainings per year. And, well, most employees just ignore them. When somebody actually clicks, they're forced into embarrassing training programs that feel more like punishment.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:15]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:17:03]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:17:59]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:18:09]:
And yes that is the URL hoxhunt.com/securitynow. All right, Jake Ward, take it back from me friend Micah.

Jacob Ward [00:18:16]:
Sargent with a very fly new haircut doing a great job with our sponsorship as always. This is of course Tech News Weekly, your Thursday hit of tech news headlines. And I'm here with Abrar Al Heiti and we are talking about our stories of the week. Abrar Mine Shocker is an AI industry story because that's all I, I think about these days. God help me, I love it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:36]:
But I love to hear you talk about this.

Jacob Ward [00:18:38]:
Well, I appreciate that.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:39]:
Thank you.

Jacob Ward [00:18:39]:
Thank you. Everyone else in my life is sick of it.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:18:41]:
So I'm glad that you, that's why you're here.

Jacob Ward [00:18:43]:
You're not overdosed on my takes here. So on Monday, as people presumably know, the kind people of OpenAI returned from their Christmas break or sorry, from their Thanksgiving break, you know, presumably thinking they could just coast right into the holidays. No. Nope, sorry. Their boss drops a memo on them that says it's a code red. And the great journalist at Wall Street Journal, Berber Ginn, got a copy of this memo. It was leaked to him. And that internal memo basically says Altman telling people you have more work to do on the day to day experience of the chatbot, according to the Wall Street Journal, including improving personalization features for users, increasing speed and reliability and allowing it to answer a wider range of questions.

Jacob Ward [00:19:30]:
So there were many ways you could sort of unpack this piece of news. I mean the first, right, as a lot of people on my feeds have been doing, has to do with the cash crunch that eventually OpenAI is going to run into. And the idea that in this case the company is Altman's basically pulling people back from doing these other projects they were supposed to be working on. There's a personal assistant codenamed Pulse. There is ads, there is Shopping agents in health and shopping, that kind of thing. And all these folks have supposedly been sort of pulled off those, at least temporarily and put back on. Let's make ChatGPT better. And this is because Gemini is doing better and better.

Jacob Ward [00:20:12]:
They have like, since their image generator nanobanana came out, their numbers of monthly users have risen from 450 million to, to 650 million in the last few months. Right. Big deal. And so that is a threat to ChatGPT, which is poised to clear a billion weekly users in the next few months, but still seems to be feeling the heat. So everyone sort of wants to cover this like a sports team, right? Like who's up, who's down and what's going on. And I'm interested in that to some extent. So let's start with that part of it, right? Like, do you looking at this, think of this as a, is this a desperation move and does as so many people have suggested? Do you think that basically not being able to spare all these people for advertising and personal assistant and agents suggest that there's like a resource crunch going on? What do you think?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:21:05]:
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this as well. But I think it's so interesting to think that OpenAI is so worried about Google. But it kind of makes sense. I mean Google has, has it, it touches so much of what we do, right? So it's, it's built into and really just shoehorned into every Google platform that we use from Gmail to Docs to whatever, right? And so you can't avoid it, you can't avoid Gemini. And I'm one of those people that tries my hardest to avoid generative AI. And I can't avoid.

Jacob Ward [00:21:35]:
God bless your brother.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:21:36]:
I try. You know, I'm one of five people left on this earth.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:21:42]:
But so, so it's interesting to see kind of the approaches of each of these companies and we always think of OpenAI as, as I think people see it as kind of like the leader of the pack, but for them to have this code read and say we're worried about these other guys is a really interesting turning point. So I do wonder kind of what, what the goal is here, but then to also see them push back and to draw back on, on AI agents for the time being when so many other companies are really pushing that. Like that's where we're supposed to be headed right there. That's what AI is supposed to do. It's supposed to make your life easier, quote unquote, and facilitate a lot of Those everyday things that you're trying to do, whether it's shopping or whatever, it may be getting tasks done. So to see them kind of deprioritize that, at least for the time being, is a really interesting shift. And I would love to know what you think, think that indicates what OpenAI's priority is then. I know we've heard a lot about back and forth on ChatGPT and how personalized that should be or how safe it should be and them kind of having to redraw those lines.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:22:48]:
So what do you think is, is really happening here?

Jacob Ward [00:22:50]:
Well, I mean, I think one, so what it harkens back to for me is this, you know, this, this moment that we're in where, where you're seeing companies that have just one line of revenue. And again, this is like the sports coverage style. You know, there's the sort business sports coverage thing that I don't typically think about very much. But, but I, I've been on a few places lately having to sort of talk about the, the business upside and downside of these moves. So, so the, the other companies that have extra forms of revenue are the ones that at least investors seem to be most relaxed about when they say we're going to drop tens of billions of dollars on capital expenditures. So when a meta says we're going to throw all this money at the infrastructure of AI, the investors don't like that because they don't do anything. They have no way of making money back off that. When Google does it, when they say we're going to be spending this incredible amount of money, not only is it a more acceptable percentage of the total revenue of the company because they make just gobs and gobs and gobs of money, they are making some of that off of the services related to that.

Jacob Ward [00:23:56]:
So they actually sell cloud computing. That makes a difference. So, so that's one thing I think about, right, is that, is that this really could be. I mean we've, we've seen already at least a couple of public instances in which Sam Altman's been asked about, you know, the, the real world limitations on his pathway to profitability. I was looking, I think of his Forbes that was projecting like 2030 is the soonest we could ever, we could see that company be profitable at all. And he was on that podcast with Brad Gerstner, one of his investors, basically saying, like, how are you going to get to a, to, you know, to this kind of profitability considering you're going to drop all this money on capital expenditures and his response was to say, Brad, if you don't want the stock, I'm sure somebody else wants it, you know, not to say, well here's how we're going to get there, you know.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:24:39]:
Right.

Jacob Ward [00:24:40]:
So I think there's, I get the vibe that there's some defensiveness, you know, there. But I also think that there's this very powerful instinct on the part of the, the people at the top of a company that's really all about, you know, the experience of the product. To say anything except making this product irresistible, like emotionally irresistible is an unacceptable distraction from the main thing. And that includes advertising. Right. So that's because that's the thing that like everyday people, folks who don't have to think about this for a living and thank God they don't, you know, have been saying to me is like, why, why wouldn't they just do advertising? That's how Google makes their money. That's how Facebook their money. But I'm sure to somebody like Sam Altman and his team, there's something very sort of holy about the idea that you don't bother someone with advertising until you are confident that they can't live without your product emotionally, psychologically, you know.

Jacob Ward [00:25:40]:
And I think that that's the vibe I get as to why they would forego the short term profits of that kind of thing. I also think, you know, I mean, you mentioned Apple in your story of the week. Not wanting to flub a something. Right. Wanting to, wanting to be great at the core thing and being sort of conservative as a result. I feel like that attitude, I feel like there's echoes of that here where you're sort of saying, I want this product to be so infallibly great that no one's gonna, you know, I don't want our reputation hurt by.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:13]:
Right.

Jacob Ward [00:26:14]:
You know, a bunch of lame ads that come through, you know, sort of too early. I don't know. That's my, that's my early thought about.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:20]:
Yeah, I think so too. I totally agree with that. And I've seen some interesting kind of projections of what advertising could look like on a platform like ChatGPT. And you would be, you're much more of an expert than I am in this, but I just spend too much time on X. But essentially like very, very Truman show esque interactions where you would like ask about something. They'd be like, well might I suggest XYZ. And it's like, essentially becomes like for ChatGPT becomes like a companion for a lot of people. So I'm like, so If I really go really deep into uncanny Val Valley, just creepy futuristic vibes, it's like that's.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:55]:
The next influencer is like chatgpt talking to you about what you should buy and. Yep. And so that's a really creepy, fun future future to look forward to. Right?

Jacob Ward [00:27:04]:
Yeah. Maybe we can sort of be in some way grateful that they're not getting distracted by that. Yeah, we're not going to have that as soon as we. As we might have, but, you know, give them a couple quarters and it feels like we're going to get there. I mean, the other thing that I think the other theme that this brings up for me is the one that I've been going out so hard, which is this whole concept of. I've been calling it AI distortion, basically, like the distortion field that it creates in the human psyche. And, and the ways in which these companies are specifically trying for that. And, and you could say every company ever has been talking about trying to create a real emotional connection with their user.

Jacob Ward [00:27:37]:
Right. Like the Coca Cola formula has to do with, like, it's just a feeling, you know, that kind of thing.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:27:41]:
Right.

Jacob Ward [00:27:42]:
But in this particular case, I think that there is something really.

Jacob Ward [00:27:47]:
There's something. I don't know, there's. There's. They're really having this. Right. We're seeing in user numbers, we're seeing in the rise of all of these state laws that are trying to regulate, you know, emotional companionship. We're seeing it in the reports from kids, you know, one in five of whom are now reporting either themselves or, or knowing someone who has like an emotion, like an AI friend.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:10]:
Right.

Jacob Ward [00:28:10]:
You know, or even lover. I mean, you know. Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:28:12]:
Like we're in a world in which these companies are, you know, so Nick Turley, the head of chat GPT at OpenAI, he posted around the code when, when the Code Red was announced. He basically said, we're going to make this thing. I'm paraphrasing here, but his words were more intuitive and emotional.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:28]:
Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:28:28]:
And it feels to me like that's the focus here is make this thing so emotionally and psychologically compelling.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:35]:
Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:28:35]:
That, you know, and they're. And they're doing it. That's the thing, like we see in the numbers that that is, is happening. And, and so for me, I think that's the, that's here. And so the idea that this, this Code Red is pulling everyone back to that task is a. Is kind of an amazing thing. So that's, that's the thing that I've been focusing on lately.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:28:55]:
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting too, that with the GPT5 model that so many people push back on that and said it was cold. Right. Like, that's such a testament to where a lot of people have come in their connection with these, with these models and what they expect now and how it's really changed the collective psyche and how we want technology to feel to. We don't care if this thing isn't real. We want to feel like it's our friend and who cares if it affects the way we see the world and other people and ourselves? It's slightly terrifying, but there's really. That's the only way that you can make it that, that sticky thing in the way that social media has become that sticky thing. But this is taking it to the next level.

Jacob Ward [00:29:34]:
That's right. I think it really is. It's that thing of, of, you know, the, the feelings that this thing seems to. To create in everyday people simply because it does such an incredible impersonation of human connection. It really is, you know, it makes this industry the envy of. Of all marketers everywhere for all time, you know, but. But like you say, that is. That is such a.

Jacob Ward [00:29:57]:
I don't know, it's such a sort of like, powerful feature of the, of this particular kind of product and seeing them, you know, realize that and double down on it, even as we're also seeing regulators and parents and teachers and everybody else starting to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, what is this exactly? Are we really gonna. Should we really be letting this thing run wild with our brains? You know, I think we tend to be pretty allergic in this country to the idea that anyone's manipulating us, but I feel like there's this powerful. The fact that these folks are saying so openly that this is the plan.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:32]:
Yes. Oh, it's wild.

Jacob Ward [00:30:33]:
Feels to me like a real shift here. Abrar, I really appreciate you being here with us. Remind us again where we can get more of your great work.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:42]:
Yeah. Thank you for having me. So fun to talk to you. You can find me on x. I'm @lheti3. I'm also on Instagram @abraralheeti no spaces or hyphens. And you can find my work on CNET.com and again, so such a pleasure chatting with you. You're killing it, Jacob.

Jacob Ward [00:30:56]:
You are the reason I managed to make it through this without sweating on my shirt. I really, really appreciate it. Abrar Al-Heeti, everybody. And when we come back, we will be speaking to two other journalists about their Great work covering this fascinating industry and. And we're going to turn over to Mikah Sargent once more to read you another word from our sponsors. Stay with us.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:15]:
Popping in again with your next sponsor. This time it's Zapier, bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Look, these days it feels like everyone's talking about AI. I mean, we talk about it all the time here on the show. But let's kind of dig in a little bit because, you know, while people are talking about it and trying to implement it in their projects, a lot of times that process can be difficult. Well, Zapier can come in and make that a little bit easier. I've used it in the past two be able to simplify and better understand the automations, or zaps, as Zapier calls them, that I set up when I'm trying to get something from a Google sheet into an email and properly format it, or vice versa. Something from an email into a Google sheet so I can sort of store it and understand it later.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:58]:
There have been a couple of times where what I know hits a roadblock and I go, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next, or I can't quite get it to pull the right data. Having Zapier's little AI buddy right there for me so I can say, help me out with this zap and have it pop in what I need. Great. But there's more to Zapier. It's how you bring the power of AI to your work, not just talk about it. With Zapier's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to any workflow. So that means connecting top AI models like Chat GPT, like Claude, to the tools that your team already uses, so you can add AI exactly where you need it, whether that's AI powered workflows, an autonomous agent, a customer chat bot, or something else. You can orchestrate it with Zapier.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:42]:
Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. No, it bottlenecks, no complexity, no AI hype, it's just results. Teams have already automated over 300 million AI tasks using Zapier. Ready to join them? Get started for free by visiting zapier.com/tnw that's Z A P I E R.com/tnw. All right, Jake Ward, let's head back to the show.

Jacob Ward [00:33:08]:
Mikah Sargent leaving me in charge of his house. It's a weird feeling and I'm very grateful to him for having me here. I can't always get the journalists schedules to line up with our show. And if you are a busy professional, you know the deal. So in this case we spoke to. I spoke to Rita Amoka who wrote a very interesting story for Elle about AI companions and the degree to which people are using AI as a dating coach for themselves. And so I pre recorded this conversation with her just about a day ago or so and she broke down some of her reporting for us. I hope you enjoy it.

Jacob Ward [00:33:47]:
Rita Omokha, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Rita Omokha [00:33:50]:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate you.

Jacob Ward [00:33:52]:
So let's talk about the. The article you did for elle. I was really astounded by it. I spent a lot of my time thinking about AI full blown psychosis. I think about what I'm calling AI distortion. This feels to me like a thing where you are really articulating something that just, you know, this isn't extreme cases of psychosis. This is people getting very emotionally connected to something like ChatGPT. Tell me a little bit about, about what you found and how you got into this.

Rita Omokha [00:34:22]:
Yeah, no, I looked at why more women are turning to chatbots for life and love advice. Right. And this came out of conversations I was having. My girlfriend, who is one actually one of the people I talked to for the article. And I'll get to that in a second. But what stood out to me from all my conversations, all my interviews was just how routine this has become. Those I spoke with told me they use these tools now the same way they'll use it to talk through a problem with a friend. The only difference now was that this space was always on, is always there and is never judging them.

Rita Omokha [00:35:03]:
So they liked having a space to sort out feelings without that judgment that tend to accompany our day to day conversations and friendships. And one thing I just realized recently was a few days ago it was was I think Tuesday or so or Monday May. Three years since GPT came out right. Which means it came out just when people were figuring out how to socialize again after the pandemic. Especially women who studies found bore more of the emotional burden and labor during that time. So these bots now became a lifeline for so many people and it became a new form of companion.

Jacob Ward [00:35:51]:
It's amazing to be the way in which you're right, the timing is so perfect. We're all, we were all so sort of deconditioned socially and then along this comes this thing and I, I feel like, you know, a lot of people look at this dynamic and, and tend to laugh at the people who are making use of, of chatgpt this way. But I remember I interviewed a, a one woman at NBC News who was describing to me not only that her relationship with men had been horrible and she, and she didn't want, you know, she. There was, there was no enthusiasm for her and continuing to explore that anyway. But she also was like working two jobs at the airport, right? She's gotten, she's getting five hours of sleep a night. She's got no time to try to be in a connection with somebody. Did you find yourself, you know, sympathetic or at all? Or were you at all. Did you roll your eyes at all at the.

Jacob Ward [00:36:40]:
At people who are literally turning from a date to a chat?

Rita Omokha [00:36:44]:
No, but what I found is, yeah, sure, loneliness is, is part of the conversation, but not the whole picture, right? So most of the women that I spoke with, they described having great lives, great circles and sure, they had, you know, nine to five jobs or one was a school teacher. So they do have circle of friends and partners, but yet they still found that. That private place too and pack things without fear. For me, that was the through line with all the people I spoke with. One of the women I spoke to, Jenny, I love her example because it was so everyday life, right? She had gotten a text from ex that she hadn't talked to and I think she said like five years or so and out of the blue he just texted like, hey, what are you up to? So this is the same ex that she had been going back to her friend over the few, you know, five years talking about her feelings for him. So now he came back into the picture and she's like, if I go back to my girlfriends, they are going to yell at me, judge me and ask me why is he not blocked for my phone. So what she did was she took all the, you know, her life, long time with him, the text texts that he sent her and fed it to the point. And really what she was really seeking from the bot was how do I respond to him.

Rita Omokha [00:38:05]:
I have feelings for him, but I haven't talked to him in X amount of years. And I made sure that she sent us a screen grab of that conversation just a little bit to show us how chat GPT was actually empathizing with her and her feelings. And yeah, of course he didn't treat her the way she wanted to be treated in the relationship, but she still still had feelings for him. So with that conversation with the bot as opposed to if she had had it with her girlfriends, there was no emotional blowback. It was just this steady parsing partner that she needed at that time.

Jacob Ward [00:38:39]:
It's interesting because on the one hand I think, wow, wonderful. I'm glad that Jenny has that right. On the other hand, I mean, you quote an ethicist, Shannon Valor, she tells you in the article, quote, what you're getting isn't an emotional partner. It's a reflective surface part made of language data rather than glass. But it's a mirror all the same, fine tuned to affirm and comfort you. And to my mind, I think. Right, yeah. It'd be hard to, to talk about the X with the friends because the friends might say to you this is a terrible idea and they might be.

Jacob Ward [00:39:08]:
Right, right, right. I mean, this is the thing. And instead you've got this bot that's, that's conditioned for this. So I mean, one of the things I want to ask you is we know that it is the business strategy of these companies to make as affirming a bot as possible, one that really will always make you feel good about, about it. You know, Sam Altman at OpenAI just declared this code red where everyone's got to come back and start working harder on the core product. And he said over and over again and, and his lieutenants are saying in, in their public comments that we want to make this chatbot, you know, more, I think they called it, intuitive and emotional. Right. They want it to be that for you.

Rita Omokha [00:39:48]:
Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:39:49]:
Given what you've reported here, what, what's the upside and the downside of that.

Rita Omokha [00:39:55]:
Yeah. So I would say companies like OpenAI are very open about making these bots more for companionship, more for emotional engagement. They are a business, after all. And so the more users they have, the multiple viable they become. And so what one expert told me in the piece was having studied this for two plus decades, is that women especially just happen to be the prime target for such companies. And there's data to back that up. There was a recent report that found that women, we tend to tap into our feelings more than men. Right.

Rita Omokha [00:40:32]:
We tend to be the ones seeking therapy, the ones needing antidepressants more, more than men and being open about that. And that also ties into another recent report from Brookings that found more women are using these bots for personal conversations rather than task tax related conversations, which in the past it was more like, you know, help me figure out, you know, what kind of protein meals to make in the beginning of these bots. But now it's just becoming more and more personal. So what this tells me about companies like OpenAI is that they know this and so they frame bot companion companionship as support and safety. And there was that recent story as well where that one woman, she opted to get married to her bot. Right. And so we're seeing more and more cases like that. And I guess now the question is, if a company like OpenAI builds a tool to feel emotionally responsive, what duty does it have when someone starts to depend on it and wants to actually marry it? So we're creating this almost frictionless society, but we have to remember that without friction, without human friction, there's no growth.

Rita Omokha [00:41:50]:
But OpenAI and companies like it are saying, well, you don't need friction, you can just have this void, this space that mirrors back your own thoughts to you. And so the question is, how does society grow in that kind of situation?

Jacob Ward [00:42:06]:
So before I let you go, last question for you here, I think about the way in which. So at one point, Jenny, the one who has these communications with ChatGPT about her ex, you write that she tells you, I can't help but wonder if ChatGPT wasn't echoing things I'd already heard from, from my therapist, would I have been as receptive? And later she says, I wonder how advice like this lands when it's your first time hearing it, like from the bot.

Rita Omokha [00:42:28]:
Yeah.

Jacob Ward [00:42:29]:
And I found myself thinking, wow, I wonder if we fast forward 10 years in Jenny's life, is it going to really be a world in which you can't even really hear your therapist's input unless ChatGPT has said it first? You know what I mean? I just found myself sort of future tripping on that for you. When you, given all these researchers and, and women that you've spoken to for this piece, where do, where do you think people's habits might kind of go with this stuff? And I wonder, do you think that the, that the input from the friends, the input from the therapist, does that fade away? Is that sort of the, the worry here and that and the chatbot becomes primary in people's lives?

Rita Omokha [00:43:08]:
Yeah, I think that's a great quote from Jenny because I think the bigger question that I've been thinking through is for one, well, the woman I spoke to for the, for the article, they were very thoughtful like Jenny and Mich. They knew that these bots offered something that was part of their existing toolkit for their mental health and their therapy. And so I think about the women like Jenny said, who may not be as self aware. Right. And so we're in this truly unprecedented times where we're in a cognitive industrial revolution and no one really knows what's next. And I think we're coming into a time where it is going to be a frictionless society where, where people are desiring more of the bot time and more companions from bots than they do from humans because they feel like there's no judgment. I think, overall, overarchingly, that was the through line that I got from the conversations.

Jacob Ward [00:43:59]:
Rita Omokha, writing a really powerful piece for Elle magazine. Thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Rita Omokha [00:44:04]:
Thank you so much.

Jacob Ward [00:44:05]:
There's Rita for us. I really, I thought that was super, super interesting. In a second, we're going to talk about the efforts to regulate AI and the. The state senator in California who is really focused on that and may be about to move onto the national stage with his tech regulation agenda. We're going to talk to a reporter who's been covering him. But first, here's Mikah Sargent with our last sponsorship message. Stay with us.

Mikah Sargent [00:44:33]:
Popping in again with your next sponsor. This time it's Zapier, bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Look, these days it feels like everyone's talking about AI. I mean, we talk about it all the time here on the show. But let's kind of dig in a little bit because, you know, while people are talking about it and trying to implement it in their projects, a lot of times that process can be difficult. Well, Zapier can come in and make that a little bit easier. I've used it in the past to be able to simplify and better understand the automations, or zaps as Zapier calls them, that I set up when I'm trying to get something from a Google Sheet into an email and properly format it, or vice versa. Something from an email into a Google Sheets so I can sort of store it and understand it later.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:16]:
There have been a couple of times where what I know hits a roadblock and I go, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next, or I can't quite get it to pull the right data. Having Zapier's little AI buddy right there for me so I can say, help me out with this zap and have it pop in what I need. Great. But there's more to Zapier. It's how you bring the power of AI to your work, not just talk about it. With Zapier's AI orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to any workflow. So that means connecting top AI models like ChatGPT, like Claude, to the tools that your team already uses. So you can add AI exactly where you need it, whether that's AI powered workflows, an autonomous agent, a customer chatbot, or something else.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:58]:
You can orchestrate it with Zapier. Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. No, it bottlenecks, no complexity, no AI hype. It's just results. Teams have already automated over 300 million AI tasks using Zapier. Ready to join them? Get started for free by visiting zapier.com/tnw that's Z-A P-I-E-R.com/tnw all right, Jake Ward, let's head back to the show.

Jacob Ward [00:46:25]:
Thank you, Mikah Sargent again. Really glad to be here, driving the ship in his stead. And now I get to bring in an old friend and colleague and Adam Rogers. Adam Rogers has been someone I've looked up to as a journalist for a long, long time. He was my editor on Pieces back in the day and has written a very interesting story that marries his, his experience as both a political reporter once upon a time with his experience as a tech thinker. And it's a portrait of Scott Weiner, the state senator here in California who got the big AI regulation bill passed after several administration attempts. And I am really excited to break down Scott Weiner's position on this stuff, what it says about AI state law and the lack of federal law, and Weiner's national ambitions as opposed to those of the California governor, Gavin Newsom. All that is something we can cover here.

Jacob Ward [00:47:18]:
So, Adam, thanks so much for being here.

Adam Rogers [00:47:20]:
Oh, thanks for having me, Jake. It's nice to see you.

Jacob Ward [00:47:22]:
Yeah, nice to see you as well. So give us a little breakdown. So, people, because it's your first time, I think, on this show, right? Tell us a little bit about yourself and your, your history, because I know you have, you've covered lots of things I think people here would be very interested to hear about.

Adam Rogers [00:47:34]:
Oh, that's, that's, that's kind of you. I hope that's true. I, I keep telling people that maybe I'm a science and culture reporter. I was a trained science journalist when I started at Newsweek a long time ago and, but while I was there, sort of worked for almost every desk, including covering a presidential campaign quite a long time ago. Um, and then I was at wired for almost 20 years as a writer and an editor, features and print side and digital side. And that was a business insider for a while. And now I'm mostly, mostly freelance and I, I, I think my area of coverage is science and, and, and sort of scientific thinking.

Jacob Ward [00:48:10]:
Yeah.

Adam Rogers [00:48:11]:
In. In culture. Because even though I spend a lot of time covering tech straight ahead, I mean, you and I have sort of ranted about this a little bit like, sure, My, my technology coverage has only rarely been business coverage.

Jacob Ward [00:48:24]:
Right.

Adam Rogers [00:48:25]:
I've always felt a lot more comfortable on the, like, well, how does that work and what does that machine do? What does that mean? And now that has very much, I think, become a technology policy story writ large.

Adam Rogers [00:48:38]:
That the question of.

Adam Rogers [00:48:41]:
How does the culture metabolize the new technologies that it builds in a regular stance and a philosophical one in a. And in a business one too. Although I'm. I'm sort of least interested in how much money a given product will make, I've become much more interested in how much totally a given person will make.

Jacob Ward [00:48:58]:
I was literally just. We were just interviewing. I was just having a conversation with Abrar Al Heiti, who's a reporter for CNET, and we were both agreeing. It's that it's. It's like sports coverage. Like, you know, there are people who want to do it as fans. And I, I know you well enough to know you are not a fan. We are interested in what sports is doing to people.

Jacob Ward [00:49:16]:
Right. We're as interested in the sports gambling and the rules around it as we are in the players on the field. Right. So I think that's really interesting. All right, so let's get into Scott Wiener. Right. So you wrote this profile of him for Mother Jones, and maybe you could just kind of summarize it for us. What is the sort of the, you know, what was the assignment? What was the pitch and what was the experience of trying to go after Wiener as a subject?

Adam Rogers [00:49:41]:
Yeah, it was really interesting because the assignment grew out of a mutual fascination with Wiener that I shared with Clara Jeffrey, who's the editor in chief of Mother Jones and a San Franciscan, longtime San Franciscan. And both of us, both Clara and I arrived in San Francisco at about the same, roughly the same time, about.

Adam Rogers [00:50:06]:
20 some odd years ago.

Jacob Ward [00:50:07]:
About 100 years ago.

Adam Rogers [00:50:08]:
Yeah, right back. Right about after gold was discovered.

Jacob Ward [00:50:11]:
Discovered Right after the earthquake.

Adam Rogers [00:50:13]:
The big boom in the rebuilding boom after the earthquake, which is about when. When Wiener arrived in San Francisco also. And I'd been following his career.

Adam Rogers [00:50:25]:
For about a decade by the time Clara and I talked, because of his interest in housing and in urbanism. And he, he had about 10 years ago tried to pass a. A really big bill that would change housing zoning essentially around the state, something that's controlled by localities who gets to build what and where as. Especially houses.

Jacob Ward [00:50:46]:
Yeah. I was very, I was personally very hot for that bill in that I, you know, it would, it would, it would wave zoning restrictions around big transit hubs.

Mikah Sargent [00:50:55]:
That's right.

Jacob Ward [00:50:56]:
Such that you could have a high rise apartment building next to a BART station so that you could live and work and bop around and, and, and the logic, I think you were the one who pointed this out to me, is that like all these enlightened Bay Area people keep talking about wanting to be more like Europe, but then as soon as it comes to the moment where they actually have to build a European style high rise apartment building next to a train station, they don't want to do it.

Adam Rogers [00:51:19]:
Thank you.

Jacob Ward [00:51:20]:
Yeah. And Wiener had been had sort of seen that as a problem that needed to get solved. Yeah.

Adam Rogers [00:51:24]:
It's right at the beginning of what has come to be called the YIMBY movement. And, and he. That bill was hugely controversial. Failed up and down the legislature. But it started.

Adam Rogers [00:51:37]:
I should say, came right at the beginning of some real policy changes. Some very mechanical, very small, like taking a glasses scale screwdriver. To the nuts and bolts. I'm torturing a metaphor. Sorry, but to the nuts and bolts of zoning policy of home building in California. And that's the reason I bring that up now. He eventually, just this year, in addition to the AI bill that he got passed, he got a version of that bill that he'd been working on since then passed this year as well. That's what was interesting because he works in these very.

Adam Rogers [00:52:11]:
As a legislator, even when he was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the California state Senate as a legislator, he famously works on these very thorny, complicated issues of policy. Really controversial. Puts his colleagues into the position of voting on stuff they really don't want to be voting on sometimes. And he. And he's also kind of known for getting them passed, for being effective in getting them passed because he's a deal maker. And so both of those things, I think come really come to the fore with the AI legislation as well.

Jacob Ward [00:52:39]:
Yeah.

Adam Rogers [00:52:39]:
Super thorny. And that's.

Jacob Ward [00:52:40]:
Right.

Adam Rogers [00:52:41]:
To get the deal.

Jacob Ward [00:52:42]:
I think, you know, I mean, the reason I want to have you on to talk about him, even though your piece is ostensibly about his work on housing. I think it's really worth noting. Right. We should let people know. I mean, give us a little sense of it. Right. He's. He's about to conceivably make a big move to the national stage.

Jacob Ward [00:52:56]:
Right. Everyone is going to know this guy if. If he has his way in, in the next couple of years. Right, Tell us about that.

Adam Rogers [00:53:02]:
Well, so this is the next, the next level of importance. And, and this is politics, not policy. But they do overlap, I think really closely here. He's running for, for Congress, for the US Congress from San Francisco, a seat that has been held for decades by Nancy Pelosi, famously a lion of the, of the US Congress. She's been described very powerful as a, as a House leader, first woman speaker, really important for California's interests and also as what the House, when it's been controlled by Democrats has.

Jacob Ward [00:53:32]:
Right. And so, and so, and anybody who steps into her role is going to get national attention, I would assume. And then on, and then on top of that, the, the person who could conceivably be in the White House, at least as the Democratic front runner for that nomination is the current governor of California, who I would imagine Scott Wiener has some sort of relationship with. Do we know much about, about that relationship, what those two are like?

Adam Rogers [00:53:56]:
Well, Wiener describes it as very professional.

Jacob Ward [00:54:01]:
So code for we don't drink beers together.

Adam Rogers [00:54:04]:
Yeah, I think that's right. Although that's also Newsom's reputation. They do for not drinking many beers with many folks.

Jacob Ward [00:54:10]:
Yeah, right.

Adam Rogers [00:54:11]:
They do come from a similar and often overlapping political background in California. Newsom is the kind of scion of, of at least a couple of really important California political dynasties. Not sometimes, not biologically, but by relationships and mentorships and donor networks, stuff like that. And Wiener sort of comes from that tradition in a sense because in San Francisco, famously liberal, like super wacky, deep, deep blue and beyond tends to divide its politicians into progressive and modern moderate. Right. So it's always on the kind of left side of the screen, if you will. But between that, Wiener comes out of the, out of the more moderate tradition and so does Newsom. So they share that overlap.

Adam Rogers [00:55:00]:
But you know, it was Newsom who vetoed this AI bill the first time it came up last year under pressure from Silicon Valley. It was Newsom who vetoed the second version of Wiener's most expansive political housing bill back in the, in the day. But who signed it this time and who signed both. So, you know, Newsom becomes part of the, of the deal making structure that Wiener builds around these bills to get them passed. You have to.

Jacob Ward [00:55:26]:
In California, right? Absolutely.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:28]:
Once more to pop in to tell you about our final sponsor here on Tech News Weekly, it's ZScaler bringing you today's episode, the world's largest cloud security platform. The potential rewards of AI you look at it. It's glowing, it's bright, it's shiny. You want it. You want those rewards. They're hard to IGN ignore, right? But frankly, the risks are there too. Loss of sensitive data attacks against enterprise managed AI and generative AI increases opportunities for threat actors, helping them to rapidly create phishing lures, write malicious code, automate data extraction. In fact, there were 1.3 million instances of Social Security numbers leaked to AI applications.

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Jacob Ward [00:57:21]:
Okay, so he takes two. Sorry, I'm whacking my microphone here. He takes two swings at the NIMBY problem at the, at the housing bill. He then takes two swings at this AI bill. Right. And Ed, this bill, I don't want to put you on the spot. Maybe I'll summarize it for us instead. Is, you know, the, the first one he took a swing at was this SB 1047, which was vetoed, as you mentioned, by Gavin Newsom.

Jacob Ward [00:57:48]:
That was the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act. But then he comes back. Right? I mean, this is a, this is. The thing is, I think we're used to Washington politics where once a thing dies once, it never comes back again. And, and you never vote something down with the hopes of it coming back. You just vote it down as a, as a sort of symbolic moment. I mean, this is really, he really does keep, keep trying. And, and S.B.

Jacob Ward [00:58:10]:
53, he got through, which does a couple of big Things. It has this. It's a. It's supposed to be. It's described as a transparency law that requires developers of frontier AI models to publish safety and governance frameworks and disclose how their models comply with safety standards. And there's all kinds of whistleblower protection. So an employee inside one of these companies that. That thinks that it's about to hand the keys to the terminator can blow the whistle.

Jacob Ward [00:58:34]:
And.

Jacob Ward [00:58:37]:
He said this thing that I want to get your thoughts on where he said, with this law, California is stepping up once again as a global leader on both technology innovation and safety. And I feel like I've been looking through past public comments. He's always talking about those two things that we need to stop thinking of those things as in opposition that technology, safety and innovation can go hand in hand. Is it your vibe that that's something he believes that you really. Is that the kind of attitude you think he'd carry to the national stage?

Adam Rogers [00:59:08]:
Yeah, well. He is always a very effective.

Adam Rogers [00:59:15]:
He's an effective representative. He's trying to represent the interests that voted for him. And some of those interests are technology interests. His donors are, again, famously, he gets a lot of money from the technology from the millionaire billionaire class.

Adam Rogers [00:59:34]:
And a lot of them because that's where they live in his district. And some of it also is that they see in him a person who wants to foster California business and who is sort of young enough and interested enough to be interested in technology. California always has this real problem economically of being really dependent on boom booms and on its industry, partially because the housing problem, because they. Because California doesn't raise its housing, raise taxes on housing very often because of something called Proposition 13.

Jacob Ward [01:00:05]:
Right.

Adam Rogers [01:00:06]:
So it relies on. On commercial tax, on business taxes. And so every time there's a, you know, Silicon Valley bubble, California's economy, all of a sudden every. It's a land of plenty again. And when those bubbles pop, then California has to. Has to, you know, suck it up again. And, and Wiener's well aware of that. He understands that business in California is the thing that the economy really depends on and that technology is the business of California.

Adam Rogers [01:00:31]:
He's also a real interested regulator. He's interested in regulating things. He's interested in laws that do stuff. When I talked to him, that was one of the recurring themes. He said, if I got an office, I didn't want to just be sitting there. I wanted to do things that made a difference. I wanted to do things that were interesting or hard problems that nobody else was working on. You know, he wanted to find his lane.

Adam Rogers [01:00:51]:
Like I think I say this in the story, but he doesn't, he didn't, he doesn't do anything on gun safety. You know, a hugely controversial, complicated issue that would be very important to people's lives. But he's like, there are people working on that. Yeah, these are the things that people aren't working on. I will say though that what that means is that he makes deals to get these things done. And this has been true in the housing space too. And it's true with the AI bill that the changes, the knock on him and it's a, it's fair cop. Is that the changes sometimes denude the bill.

Adam Rogers [01:01:17]:
They make the bill less strong. So the thing that's not in the bill that passed, that was in the one that got vetoed is liability for the AI companies. And that's not there, that's the thing that the companies prevailed upon him to take out. And the, and the other people in Congress vote for it were also prevailed upon him and prevailed on Gavin Newsom as well.

Jacob Ward [01:01:37]:
Yeah, right, right, right. And this is a thing that you would imagine would also be. I mean this is a really important thing at a national level as well. Right. Like they're, they're, this is, I mean this is, this is the, the, the legacy of an industry that has enjoyed this section 230 protections all these times such that it's sort of baked into their intellectual DNA. They, liability is just like off the table for them. Thinking about this stuff. I think that's really, really interesting.

Jacob Ward [01:02:01]:
Do you, do you think that the, the like. So let's, let's fast forward for a second because we're, you know, in theory we're about the future here. Right. Let's, let's imagine that you have a Gavin Newsom in the White House.

Jacob Ward [01:02:12]:
I'm just, I'm not endorsing this idea. I'm just, just saying maybe. Right. Who as a result, I don't know, he'll be a first term president, which means he will still care about what his, his, you know, the people who got him there think. I would imagine you have Scott Wiener in as a senator.

Adam Rogers [01:02:35]:
Representative.

Jacob Ward [01:02:36]:
Sorry, sorry. As a representative. Sorry. As a representative. My bad. Sorry. If we can imagine that future. Do you think that like what appetite do you think those two people have together to go deeper than this? Because one of the things that I know you and I have talked about privately, right.

Jacob Ward [01:02:53]:
Is this is the Terminator bill. Mostly it's worried mostly about big catastrophic Society ending AI choices. It's not as worried about job displacement. It's not worried about your kids not having friends anymore. It's not worried about, you know, the end of romance. Right. Which are things that state laws in other countries, in other states are, are trying to go after. What appetite do you think these guys have to go to a deeper, more granular level with AI regulation?

Adam Rogers [01:03:21]:
Well, my guess is that it's a, it's a huge appetite. The question is what dish do they want to pull off the, off the buffet? Because both of them are going to be coming from, from a donor network of these companies and the people who work at them. And, and it isn't. It's also in fact as you point it out, this bill, the Wiener bill emerges from the. To be really reductionist about it from the doomer community. It comes out of the, you know, the people who think that AI is going to be Skynet, as you say, the only AI company, the only big AI company that endorsed it was Anthropic, the company that makes a huge marketing deal out of being the ones who are most worried about alignment and that kind of stuff. Right. Geoffrey Hinton, the so called godfather of AI person who's also expressed concerns about that.

Adam Rogers [01:04:02]:
That's who was behind initially the policies here. Not the people who are worried about things like job displacement or deep fakes or suicide inducement. The kinds of things that honestly are the ones that when I think about AI, I'm like, well that's the stuff I'm actually worried about also as you say, those are things that are emerging from a bunch of other state bills. This year alone, 38 states had 100 bills pass, 100 new laws about AI. The states are being the laboratory of democracy. The ironic thing here is that the person who wants all that to stop top in the US Senate is Ted Cruz who wants to keep sworn to pass a law that says no more state AI regulation. We have to do it at a federal level.

Jacob Ward [01:04:36]:
Yes.

Adam Rogers [01:04:36]:
Because that's what the people who have the year of the White House and the Republicans right now are saying they want. They don't want, they want regulation to end as all businesses often do. Ted Cruz and Scott Weiner actually were at Harvard Law School together apart. They know each other.

Jacob Ward [01:04:50]:
Oh, that's interesting. Got it. This is why we bring you on. That's good. That's good. Scuttlebutt. I hadn't even thought about that. That's so interesting.

Jacob Ward [01:04:57]:
Do we know if they have, I mean talk about, I'm sure If you asked him, he would also say it's a professional relationship. I'm sure that.

Adam Rogers [01:05:03]:
I wonder if it's even that euphemistic. No, nobody, nobody euphemises about Ted Cruz in my experience. No, they've actually gotten into fights on social media. You know, Cruz has said, like, I don't know who this crazy, you know, they, they, they insult Weiner because he's, he's gay and he's his does a lot on LGBTQ issues and, and, you know, he's from San Francisco and so they, they shoot at him from that perspective. And, and wieners response on social media has been like, I mean, dude, you, we were in school together.

Jacob Ward [01:05:30]:
Like, you absolutely know me.

Adam Rogers [01:05:32]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jacob Ward [01:05:34]:
That's really funny. All right, Adam Rogers, I'm going to plug for you a couple of books that, that you've written that I just think everybody on this channel would really, really enjoy. So Adam's written two Science and Culture.

Jacob Ward [01:05:48]:
Looks at two big, big topics. One is called Proof the Science Science of Booze. It's a fascinating, and I mean fascinating look at how alcohol is made, the history of it, what it tells us about humanity. And the other one is a look at the science of color and how one makes it as a commercial enterprise, how our brains perceive it, and all of the thorny things that come with that called full spectrum. Really, really interesting work. This guy works hard. Adam, if people want to follow you, want to see more of what you do, what other stories you're working on, where do you like to show up? I know you host, you've hosted a podcast. Tell us a little bit about where else people can catch more of you.

Adam Rogers [01:06:25]:
I'm writing for a bunch of places right now. I show up to say dumb things on social media, on Blue Sky a lot at Jet Jocko, Jet J O C K O. Websites. Adam Rogers.net I often post bibliographies for the stories that I write on the website so that people can see kind of where my work emerges from. Trying to get better about that kind of relationship with readers I think is important. So sometimes that's. You can go, go.

Adam Rogers [01:06:53]:
Adam-rogers.net Wiener housing, I think it is. And see the bibliographer of the Scott Wiener story.

Jacob Ward [01:07:02]:
Fantastic. Adam Rogers, thank you so much for being here. It's really great to see you and cool work. Really cool to see what the future leadership of the country might be thinking about with this stuff. So, Adam, thanks so much for being here.

Adam Rogers [01:07:13]:
Thanks. Good to see you Jacob.

Jacob Ward [01:07:15]:
You guys tech News Weekly publishes every Thursday at twit.tv/tnw. That is where you can go to subscribe to the show in both audio and video formats. My name is Jacob Ward. I host a podcast called the Rip Current. You can look at it at theripcurrent.com. I am Jacob Ward, at byjacobward on all the social media platforms that dates from back when I thought I would only ever appear in print and that was going to be my byline by Jacob Ward and I really appreciate you all spending your time with me here. Mikah Sargent will join you all next week for a another episode of Tech News Weekly and I really hope you have a great weekend.

Jacob Ward [01:07:51]:
Thanks so much.