AI and the Enshittification Era w/ Cory Doctorow | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

0:00CORY DOCTOROW: The people who oppose Donald Trump's agenda

0:02in both parties have completely failed to speak to the things

0:06that people need and that people want,

0:08and to show them that there is the possibility

0:10of an alternative.

0:11So one of the things I've been trying

0:13to work into this conversation here

0:16is how we ended up in this situation, just in respect

0:19to privacy. JON STEWART: OK.

0:21CORY DOCTOROW: When I testified that the Consumer Finance

0:22Protection Bureau in the last couple of days of the Biden

0:25admin when they were banning data brokers,

0:27which Trump unbanned, and the speaker before me was speaker

0:30from the American Association of Retired People who wanted

0:33the committee to know that the ad broker

0:35industry would sell you ad targeting

0:37to people with dementia.

0:39And then the person after me was from the Pentagon, who

0:42wanted them to know that you can buy as an ad targeting

0:45group military personnel on base

0:47who have gambling problems.

0:48JON STEWART: Oh, Jesus Christ.

0:50CORY DOCTOROW: So, like, this-- so

0:51how do we end up in this horrible place with privacy?

0:54Well, here it is.

0:55The last time Congress passed a federal consumer

0:57privacy law was in 1988.

1:00And that was a law that makes it

1:01illegal for video store clerks to disclose

1:03your VHS rental history.

1:05[JON LAUGHING] Right?

1:07And every other form of privacy invasion is legal in America.

1:12They spy on you because they can.

1:15[MUSIC PLAYING]

1:18JON STEWART: Hey, everybody.

1:19Welcome to The Weekly Show podcast.

1:21My name is Jon Stewart.

1:23My name is Jon Stewart, and I will be

1:26your host for today's program.

1:27It's Tuesday, July 28.

1:30We're all recovering from the bombing raid

1:33that the President of the United States

1:35pulled on the White House Correspondents Dinner.

1:37Not so fucking easy, is it, buddy boy?

1:44As a comedian, when you watch somebody bombing like that,

1:48the traditional thing to say is, "hey,

1:50don't quit your day job."

1:52But, I think in the President's case,

1:53I think we would all make an exception.

1:56And if he would like to quit his day job

1:58and pursue full time--

1:59I think he can improve.

2:00I think he's got some timing.

2:01The weave didn't quite work with some

2:03of the more concise roasts.

2:04And, once again, in the battle between Kaitlan Collins and

2:10Donald Trump-- point Collins.

2:13I believe the score now somewhere around 328 to 0.

2:21Her sophistication, focus in class

2:24is just wiping the floor with that dude.

2:27But, moving on from those events,

2:30I have been in a bit of a doomer spiral

2:33concerning AI and its effects on how it will be changing,

2:38the way we work, the way we interact with each other,

2:40and all those things.

2:41And I recently read a book that changed

2:44my perspective slightly.

2:46I don't want to tell you it gave me a tinge of optimism.

2:49But, in fact-- and it was a feeling

2:52I'm not so comfortable with.

2:53But I thought, well, geez, let me talk to this just incredibly

2:58wonderful and prolific author who wrote this book

3:02that I'm talking about.

3:03The book is actually called The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life

3:06After AI--

3:07How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It's

3:09Too Late.

3:10So let's get to him.

3:12Let's bring on in our guest for today, Cory Doctorow.

3:16[MUSIC PLAYING]

3:19Ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted and honored to have

3:22with us today maybe one of the most prolific writers

3:26that I know.

3:27And his work is just phenomenal.

3:29You know him from Enshittification.

3:31The new book is The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life

3:34After AI.

3:35Science fiction writer, activist,

3:37journalist, author-- for God's sakes, Cory Doctorow.

3:39Thanks for joining us.

3:41CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, what a pleasure.

3:42Thank you very much for having me on, Jon.

3:43This is a real bucket list.

3:45JON STEWART: I'm delighted and just an enormous fan

3:47of your work and your writing-- disturbed at how much of it

3:50you're able to do in how many different genres,

3:53but we're putting that aside for the moment.

3:58I am an AI--

3:59I'm a doomer.

4:01I believe I am a doomer.

4:02And, reading your book, you are far less pessimistic, not just

4:10about its ability to destroy our civilization as we know it,

4:14the existential threat, but even the promise of it as a job

4:20destroying cyclops that comes in and gathers

4:25up all of our productivity and puts

4:28us all on Elon Musk's dole.

4:31So let's go through--

4:34talk me out of a tree, Cory.

4:37CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

4:38So I'm really indebted to this STS, society and technology

4:42studies, scholar at Virginia Tech, a guy called

4:44Lee Vinsel, coined this very useful term,

4:47which is criti-hype.

4:49This is when you repeat the hype of the tech industry.

4:53And then at the end of it, you put in brackets,

4:54"and that's bad."

4:56And the thing is, you're repeating the hype.

4:58You're just helping them sell it.

5:00So Mark Zuckerberg shows up one day and says,

5:02hey, everyone, I don't know if you know,

5:03but I'm, like, Cyber Rasputin.

5:05I'm a dopamine hacking wizard.

5:08Where Mesmer failed, and MKUltra, and pickup artists,

5:11and neurolinguistic programming weirdos failed,

5:13I have succeeded.

5:14I built the mind control ray out of big data.

5:16And then his critics go around and go like, Cyber Rasputin--

5:19The reason Grampy is a QAnon is Cyber

5:22Rasputin made him a QAnon.

5:23It's not because, like, Grampy was always racist,

5:25and Mark Zuckerberg introduced him to a lot of other racists

5:28so they could just do racist shit all day.

5:30It's because he was brainwashed by Mark Zuckerberg.

5:33And then Mark Zuckerberg's sales guys go out,

5:35and they're like, you asking me why you should spend 40%

5:39more to advertise on Facebook?

5:40Well, I don't know, but my critics will tell you

5:43my boss is an evil, dopamine hacking wizard,

5:45and he can sell anything to anyone.

5:47So you just don't want to do the work for them, right?

5:50JON STEWART: Right.

5:51But is that any of that hype-- so when you talk about that,

5:55is the algorithm not designed-- isn't it designed purely to do

6:01exactly what you're saying?

6:03He might not be the wizard, but in the same way that--

6:06I've talked about this a little bit--

6:08in the same way that Doritos are not food.

6:13They're designed in a lab to get past your body's

6:19ability to say, two bags?

6:21That's not enough at all.

6:23I need three.

6:24Aren't they doing that to us?

6:26CORY DOCTOROW: So, yeah.

6:27I mean, this idea of palatability, which is, like,

6:30a problem with highly processed food,

6:32I see where you're coming from when we talk

6:34about social media algorithms.

6:36But I think that, like, this idea of Occam's razor--

6:40finding the more parsimonious explanation-- yeah, sure.

6:43Like, things that are entertaining are entertaining

6:45and you'll watch them, right?

6:47But also, it's really hard to get the people you love to act

6:53in a coordinated fashion.

6:55Economists have a term for this.

6:56They call it the collective action problem.

6:59You love your besties, but, like, the six people

7:01in your group chat, can't agree on where

7:02to go for beers on Friday.

7:04So, there's 200 of you on Facebook.

7:06And some of you are there because, like, you

7:08share a rare disease with a community there.

7:09And some of you are there because you,

7:11like, moved from another country

7:12and that's where everyone is.

7:13Some of you are there because that's

7:14how you're organizing the carpool

7:15for your kid's Little League.

7:16And some of you are there because like your customers,

7:18your audience are there.

7:20And Mark Zuckerberg, he kind of understands

7:22that if you love your friends more than you hate him,

7:24you'll probably stick around.

7:25And so he can turn the screws.

7:27And so you have this thing that's

7:28like, why am I on Facebook all the time when I hate it?

7:31Well, because your friends are there.

7:33And you can say, well, my friends are there because they

7:36are also brainwashed.

7:38Or you can say, my friends are there

7:39because it's just really hard to coordinate our departure.

7:42Now, I have a personal example of this,

7:44which is that my grandmother was a Soviet refugee.

7:46And she had been a child soldier

7:48in the siege of Leningrad.

7:49So from, like, 12 to 15 was, like, hauling bodies.

7:52And then she gets evacuated across the winter ice,

7:54ends up in Siberia, gets knocked up by my grandfather.

7:57They desert, they go to Azerbaijan.

7:59My dad is born.

8:00And then, they go all the way to Canada, you know?

8:03And, like all the best Americans, I'm Canadian, right?

8:06JON STEWART: Fair enough.

8:07CORY DOCTOROW: So they go all the way to Canada.

8:08No one else leaves Leningrad.

8:09They're all there.

8:10Because what had happened with my grandmother is she'd had,

8:13like, some important bonds shattered-- like,

8:16this bond where she was in this relationship, where she was

8:19taking care of the older people,

8:20they were taking care of her, and so on.

8:22The people who stayed behind, that's not what happened.

8:24They all stayed.

8:25And there has not been a moment since

8:27that their lives weren't worse than my branch

8:29of the family's life.

8:30And now, we get on these Zoom calls with my Russian family

8:33and, like, all the men are worried about getting

8:34drafted and sent to Ukraine.

8:36And it's just awful, right?

8:38So, like, why didn't they leave?

8:39It's not because they were brainwashed by Stalin.

8:43They didn't leave because, like, they

8:45wanted to be with each other.

8:47And, as much as they loved each other--

8:48Sartre was an optimist, hell is other people-- you can't get

8:51anyone to do anything ever.

8:53And so you're all just stuck there.

8:55JON STEWART: It's nothing more than a body at rest,

8:58tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion

9:01tends to stay in motion.

9:02Because it does-- and I certainly

9:05can't quote studies on this--

9:07but it feels like if it doesn't rewire the mind,

9:13it has added in an accelerant into maybe some

9:19of our lesser impulses as--

9:22CORY DOCTOROW: Sure.

9:23Yeah-- six of one, half dozen of the other.

9:26I mean, we have this problem all the time

9:27because, like, people exist in a society, right?

9:29So, like-- JON STEWART: Right.

9:31CORY DOCTOROW: --yeah, we go for a junk food

9:33social interactions instead of the meaningful ones.

9:35But also, like, my mom's dad, who's the oldest of 10

9:40and dropped out of school at 13 to take

9:42care of his brothers and sisters when his dad died--

9:44by the time my mom came around and her two siblings, he was,

9:48like, a 35-year-old door-to-door insurance salesman

9:51who owned his own home, played bowling on the weekend,

9:54also golfed, also was, like, in a fraternal organization.

9:58They went to picnics.

9:59And they took six weeks off on one income, right?

10:02Like, I don't know anyone who's not working, like, five jobs.

10:06So, yeah, why do we squeeze in all of our social interactions

10:09around the edges?

10:10Well, maybe because, like, getting a whole evening

10:12free to go bowling and then, like, also

10:15being a member of, like, your local Kiwanis

10:17and whatever requires that you not be, like,

10:20stuck in the gig economy working every hour

10:22that God sends to pay for a house

10:23that doesn't cost 20% of your income, but 60% of your income.

10:27And, sure, like, all this stuff might be bad for you.

10:28It might be hyper-palatable.

10:30You might be getting sucked into it.

10:31But, like, let's not give Mark Zuckerberg credit

10:34that we don't know he deserves, especially

10:36when it helps him sell ads.

10:38JON STEWART: In other words, intentionality is not

10:40necessarily what he's doing.

10:41It may just be a byproduct.

10:44And that if you hype them, that helps them.

10:47And that gets us to AI.

10:49CORY DOCTOROW: Yes.

10:50JON STEWART: Which you have-- the idea is AI

10:56is going into that same model.

10:58The feeling that you have is we are hyping it as a planet

11:03killer, as a Death Star, and that is helping

11:06them in terms of valuation?

11:09Is that the mistake we're making by over-blessing them?

11:15CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

11:16I mean, there's lots of different stories

11:17that AI tells that are quite outlandish.

11:19So there are ways in which AI is a planet killer, right?

11:22The carbon emissions are definitely not

11:24doing the planet any favors.

11:25JON STEWART: An actual planet killer.

11:26Yes.

11:27CORY DOCTOROW: Right.

11:28But this idea that, like, oh, my god, what

11:29if we teach the word guessing program too many words,

11:32and it wakes up, and turns into God

11:34and makes us into paperclips, right?

11:36Like, that is--

11:37[JON LAUGHING]

11:39It's like, what if we breed these horses

11:41to run so fast that one of the mares

11:43gives birth to a locomotive?

11:45Like, it's just not--

11:47JON STEWART: By the way, favorite sentence in the book,

11:52The Reverse Centaurs Guide to Life

11:54After AI, you're talking about how they talk about AI is--

11:57the long mission truckers.

12:02CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, long haul truckers.

12:03JON STEWART: Long haul truckers--

12:04that the AI is going to turn them into autonomous long

12:08haul truckers.

12:09And that's going to disrupt the largest industry

12:13in America, which is trucking.

12:15And you break it down very nicely that there's only

12:18like 25,000 of them.

12:21But you say, first of all, congratulations.

12:24You've just invented a shitty version of a train.

12:27CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

12:28Yeah.

12:29A bunch of large vehicles following

12:31each other at a constant distance in a dedicated lane.

12:34I mean--

12:35[JON LAUGHING]

12:36You know, great.

12:38Great. That's awesome.

12:39JON STEWART: But that's one of the greatest

12:41sort of puncturing of the bubble of its importance.

12:48And is that something we need to continue to do?

12:50CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

12:51So this is another one of the stories that they tell.

12:54So there's one story that they tell--

12:55and they're all interrelated.

12:56But there's one story they tell-- the AI is just going

12:59to keep getting better, and eventually

13:00it's going to be caught.

13:01And it'll either solve all of our problems

13:02or use us as fuel, right?

13:04And then there's the other story,

13:06which is that the AI can do so many jobs

13:11that have such high wages--

13:14that the fact that right now, like,

13:16the sector is making $50 billion a year.

13:19They claim it's $60 billion a year. $10 billion of that

13:22is, like, money that Microsoft gave to OpenAI,

13:25and OpenAI gave back to Microsoft--

13:26JON STEWART: They're just passing back and forth.

13:28CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

13:29Look, I write thrillers about forensic accounting.

13:32And in my considered professional opinion,

13:34to call that an accounting trick

13:35is to do violence to the noble accounting trick.

13:38[JON LAUGHING]

13:39Like--

13:40JON STEWART: The CPAs of America salute you, sir.

13:43CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

13:44So, like, $50 billion a year-- when

13:45I wrote the book, the total capital expenditure to date

13:49was $700 billion.

13:50They've added at least another $1 trillion since.

13:53And if you believe--

13:54JON STEWART: Added $1 trillion?

13:56CORY DOCTOROW: In the last year.

13:57And if you believe Gartner, who, admittedly, did

14:00say that by now we'd all be spending six hours a day

14:02in the metaverse-- but if you believe Gartner,

14:05it's going to be $2.5 trillion in total

14:07by the end of the year, right?

14:08So on $50 billion revenue.

14:11And they have to keep spending it,

14:13because the data centers, the GPUs, they're, like, replacing

14:17them every two to five years.

14:19So, like, this expenditure just recurs.

14:21It's not like you train the model

14:22and then you're like, well, we got the model now.

14:25I guess it's all set, right?

14:26JON STEWART: We can sit back.

14:27CORY DOCTOROW: It's new model, new model, new model.

14:29And so you have these ongoing operational expenditures.

14:32You have these ongoing capital expenditures.

14:33And their answer to, how do you turn $50 billion of revenue

14:36into profit when you're spending $1 trillion a year

14:39to make it-- like, look, if you want $50 billion revenue

14:42and you've got $1 trillion, I can do it for you.

14:45I'll give you $100 billion back.

14:47JON STEWART: It's called just put it all in an index fund,

14:49and you should be OK.

14:51CORY DOCTOROW: I'll put it under the mattress,

14:52and give you $100 billion back, and we'll call it a day.

14:55JON STEWART: It'll be fine.

14:57CORY DOCTOROW: Like, Sam Altman's out there running

14:59the money-losingest venture in the history of the human race,

15:01and his story about how it stops losing money

15:04is eventually you displace enough wages

15:06that bosses split the savings with Sam Altman,

15:10and he comes out ahead.

15:11[JON LAUGHING]

15:12Right?

15:14[MUSIC PLAYING]

15:15JON STEWART: Are you at work right now?

15:17Are you the boss?

15:18Are you the boss.

15:19And you're listening to the podcast

15:21to taunt the other workers that you

15:23domineer over because you're a terrible boss?

15:28My point is simply this--

15:31this is an intervention.

15:32Stop being a control freak and doing

15:35everything yourself at work.

15:37You're busy.

15:38You're multitasking.

15:39You're value-- hire experts.

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17:01Cory, let me ask you--

17:02CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

17:03JON STEWART: --what is that, when you say it generates

17:05$50 billion in revenue, and then you

17:08say they've added another $10 billion,

17:09but that's really just an accounting

17:11gimmick, what is the way that AI returns that investment?

17:15What is that $50 billion?

17:17Is it user fees?

17:18CORY DOCTOROW: People buying subscriptions.

17:20JON STEWART: That's all it is? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

17:21It's subscriptions. Yeah.

17:23It's enterprise licenses and subscriptions.

17:25JON STEWART: Government contracts and things like that.

17:27CORY DOCTOROW: Government contracts.

17:28Yeah. All that stuff.

17:29It sums up to $50 billion.

17:31Now, there'll be new numbers and then whatever.

17:33And you may have noticed that Anthropic just said that they

17:35were profitable, but not using generally

17:36accepted accounting practices, which is just awesome.

17:39It's like we are profitable, but the math is so cool that we

17:43can't even describe it to you.

17:45If you use regular math, it's not going

17:47to look like we're profitable.

17:48We've got this new math.

17:49And the same week they had this other announcement,

17:51which is we have this tool, Mythos, that's

17:53such a cool security tool that we can't show you how it works.

17:57But it's really good.

17:58JON STEWART: It's too dangerous.

18:00It's too dangerous.

18:01CORY DOCTOROW: It's too dangerous.

18:02The fact that our IPO, that we're trying to get, like,

18:05this IPO in shape-- like, nothing to do with it.

18:10Don't look under the blanket.

18:11What's under the blanket's amazing.

18:12It's definitely worth buying into the IPO at, like,

18:14$150 odd.

18:15But don't look under the blanket.

18:17You look under the blanket, you're

18:18going to turn into a pillar of salt. And then, you know,

18:21it'll be on your head.

18:23And also, don't ask us to explain the math

18:25by which we're profitable.

18:27And also, we've been selling $100 bills for $1 each.

18:30And, like, when we started down this IPO road,

18:32we were like, why don't we start charging

18:33$5 for these $100 bills?

18:34JON STEWART: Oh, god.

18:35CORY DOCTOROW: And every CEO who's been buying $100 bills

18:38was like, I'm sorry.

18:39At $5, these $100 bills are not worth it.

18:42JON STEWART: So does this, then, reframe,

18:44is the threat of AI not that it will turn us into paperclips

18:48or that it will replace all of our high paying jobs,

18:51but that, because it is a three card Monte,

18:55it will utterly shatter our economy?

18:59I mean, the Mag Seven-- most of the growth

19:02in the American economy is driven by this AI

19:05promise, right?

19:07I mean, we went through this in the internet boom.

19:09And the internet, I think, has become standardized

19:11and is a valuable part of the economy.

19:15So is this truly a Potemkin village?

19:19What are we dealing with?

19:20CORY DOCTOROW: So let me give you some--

19:22because that often comes up, right?

19:23This is like the web.

19:24The web lost money.

19:25AI lost money. JON STEWART: Right.

19:26CORY DOCTOROW: That's like this food is delicious,

19:28that food is delicious.

19:29Therefore, they're the same food.

19:30Like, the fact that they share this one trait

19:32doesn't make them the same thing.

19:34JON STEWART: They both go in your mouth.

19:35CORY DOCTOROW: They both go in your mouth.

19:37JON STEWART: Yes.

19:38CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

19:39There's some Monty Python bits about this.

19:40JON STEWART: I'm sure there is.

19:42CORY DOCTOROW: If it floats, it's a duck.

19:43It's a witch. Yeah, yeah.

19:44So here's the thing--

19:46the web had very good unit economics.

19:48Like, no one should do--

19:49JON STEWART: What is unit economics?

19:50What is that? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

19:51So I was just going to say no one should

19:52do an economics degree because you'll end

19:54up with a neurological injury.

19:55But learning something about economics is useful.

19:57And so learning, like, what unit

19:59economics are-- super useful.

20:00Unit economics are what happens to your business

20:02when you get a new customer or make a new sale, right?

20:04JON STEWART: OK.

20:05CORY DOCTOROW: Like, how much money do you make.

20:07Like, per unit, how does your business do?

20:09So in the web, like, yeah, they were losing money.

20:11But every new customer made them more profitable.

20:14Every use by a new customer made the web

20:17as a sector more profitable.

20:18And also, every generation of the web

20:19is more profitable than the previous one.

20:21Compare that to AI.

20:23Every new AI customer costs the company

20:26that just acquired them money.

20:27The more that AI customer uses their products,

20:29the more money they lose.

20:31And every generation of AI has lost more

20:33money than the previous one.

20:36JON STEWART: Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta.

20:37CORY DOCTOROW: Ta, ta, ta, ta.

20:38JON STEWART: Tease that out.

20:39Because we talked a little bit about Zuckerberg

20:41and the evil genius.

20:42Clearly, the incentives on social media

20:45were an attention incentive.

20:48The more they can keep you on social media, the more money

20:51they can make, because I guess the more ads they can sell

20:54and that type of thing.

20:56Is AI, the incentives are inverse to that?

21:00So the more you use their AI, how does that cost them more?

21:05CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, well, because every time you use AI,

21:07it costs them money to run the inference.

21:11Can I sidebar here just a little on inference?

21:13JON STEWART: Man, anytime you want, Cory Doctorow.

21:15CORY DOCTOROW: OK.

21:16JON STEWART: Sidebar away.

21:17CORY DOCTOROW: Because I want to mention one of the very best

21:20researchers on AI economics, which is this guy

21:22called Ed Zitron, who you should have on.

21:24JON STEWART: Eddie Zitron.

21:26Big Z.

21:27CORY DOCTOROW: Amazing guy. Zed.

21:29He's British.

21:30JON STEWART: Zed. All right.

21:32CORY DOCTOROW: So, Ed, someone leaked

21:33OpenAI's finances to him, right, their balance sheet.

21:36Because it's all private.

21:38So he gets a look at it, and it really looks

21:41like their inference costs.

21:42So inference is like you type in, "draw me Sonic

21:45the Hedgehog with big boobs."

21:47And then it makes Sonic--

21:48that step is the inference.

21:51JON STEWART: Have you been reading my diary, Doctorow?

21:53Where did you--

21:54CORY DOCTOROW: They leak your queries.

21:56JON STEWART: Oh, son of a bitch.

21:57CORY DOCTOROW: So, yeah, you asked that,

22:00and that's the inference step.

22:01That's using it part.

22:02In economics speak, that would be the operating expense of AI.

22:06So, like, it looks like their opex is going down,

22:09which is like, OK, that's all right.

22:11Because if they can just do the capex once, make the model,

22:13and then they just start making money from the opex,

22:16then you can make money from it-- just like you build

22:18a railroad, and then you sweat the asset by running

22:20rail cars up and down it.

22:21But here's the thing--

22:23their marketing budget is as big as Coca-Cola's.

22:25JON STEWART: What?

22:26CORY DOCTOROW: Now, Coca-Cola has,

22:28like, three full time ad agencies,

22:31right, and ads everywhere.

22:33So where's the OpenAI, like, army of marketers?

22:39So here's Ed's theory, and I think he's right-- what they're

22:41doing is they're saying when we sell you that $100 bill for $1

22:45and let you do $100 worth of inference

22:47for $1, that's not inference.

22:49That's marketing.

22:51So we're just putting it somewhere else

22:52on the balance sheet.

22:53JON STEWART: But even--

22:55Cory, let's say it's a loss leader.

22:58Let's say-- they used to do that in the mall.

23:01Somebody would stand out there with a little plate

23:03with little cheese cubes, and you'd walk by

23:05and go, oh, this is delicious.

23:06We'll come into Hickory Farms, and they figure you'll buy--

23:09the loss leader is take this cheese,

23:12and you'll buy $100 worth of Vienna sausages

23:15or whatever else is in there.

23:17But if the money that they are spending

23:21to bring in new people, but each new person who's using it

23:26costs them more money than they're making,

23:29well, that's the shittiest business model--

23:31I've never even heard of anything like that.

23:34CORY DOCTOROW: So there's two poles of finance wisdom

23:38that I turn to in these moments, right?

23:40One is this thing called Stein's

23:42Law, which is anything that can't go on forever

23:44eventually stops.

23:46The other, Jon Kenneth Galbraith--

23:50the market can remain irrational longer

23:52than you can remain solvent.

23:54JON STEWART: Bars.

23:55CORY DOCTOROW: So you're spending more than you're

23:57making, you're eventually going to have a reckoning

23:59of some kind, right?

24:01But when does that reckoning come?

24:03Well, like, if you're Elon Musk,

24:06you take your money furnace, which is called Grok,

24:08and you stuff it inside your, like, Beltway bandit rocketry

24:12company that builds uncle sucker billions of dollars

24:15for rockets that is profitable, and then you IPO it,

24:18and you get a special deal from NASDAQ

24:21so that it IPOs in the NASDAQ 100

24:23instead of having to wait a couple of quarters the way

24:25it normally would, which means that every fund manager who's

24:28managing a NASDAQ index fund has to go out and buy

24:32SpaceX at whatever price.

24:33They're, like, legally obliged.

24:35That's what it means to run an index fund.

24:37And you list very few shares when you go public.

24:41Instead, what you do is you get another exemption--

24:44again, from the feds--

24:46that let insiders unload without the normal

24:49lockout period.

24:51And so now, you have these fund managers who need to buy SpaceX

24:53at any price, which is just a way to offload

24:56GrokX in the money furnace.

24:57They need to buy it at any price.

24:59And there's no shares available from SpaceX, which

25:02means that the Emiratis and the billionaire Silicon Valley

25:05guys who backed him when he bought Twitter for $40 billion,

25:09who backed him when he built the money furnace for GrokX,

25:13now, they get to be made whole by your pension fund,

25:19which you stuck in an index.

25:22JON STEWART: Oh, my god.

25:23CORY DOCTOROW: Which, like, was just

25:25supposed to be, like, the thing-- remember Warren

25:27Buffett, like, three pieces of investing advice,

25:30fits on the back of a postcard, this

25:31is what I told my wife to do with my money when I die?

25:34Just put it in an index fund and forget it.

25:36JON STEWART: That's right.

25:37CORY DOCTOROW: If you did that, Elon Musk just unloaded on you.

25:41You're his liquidity.

25:42Now, they were supposed to also do it with the S&P 500.

25:45And, to their credit, not a thing I would often say about

25:47Standard and Poor's-- but, to their credit,

25:49S&P said no at the last minute after a lot of public pressure.

25:53And S&P is like--

25:56it's got a lot more old money.

25:57I think there was some millionaire on billionaire

25:59violence there.

26:00I think there were, like, a lot of rich people

26:01who were like, don't do this to the S&P. Do it to NASDAQ.

26:05NASDAQ's the Bernie Madoff exchange.

26:07JON STEWART: That's a UFC fight that you've

26:09got nobody to cheer for. That's just--

26:10CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

26:11JON STEWART: There's nowhere to go there.

26:13Let them fight.

26:14But, Cory, what you're describing

26:17is a time bomb that's going to make mortgage backed securities

26:21look like a lemonade stand.

26:24Because, I mean, is that why all these guys

26:26are trying to get to Mars?

26:28Like, they figure when this thing--

26:30CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, sidebar.

26:31Adam Becker, astrophysicist, you should have him on someday,

26:35wrote an amazing book about this.

26:37He points out that if you detonated every nuke on Earth

26:41at the same moment as the meteor that killed

26:44the dinosaurs struck us again, Earth would still

26:47be more habitable than Mars could ever be because it would

26:50still have water, oxygen, gravity, a magnetosphere,

26:53and a troposphere.

26:54Like, we're not going to Mars.

26:56We should send robots to Mars.

26:58Maybe we'll send a person someday.

26:59We're not going to go live on Mars.

27:01That's just nuts.

27:02JON STEWART: It's not happening.

27:03CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

27:04JON STEWART: The whole idea of this bubble

27:05is they've sold us a future that is not actionable

27:11because the technology that they've created

27:15isn't the job killing wonder, isn't

27:20the intelligence, the sentient creature

27:24that they're telling us.

27:25And they're using it as a way to amass assets as a growth

27:33story for their valuations.

27:36Would this be a way of--

27:37CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah.

27:39JON STEWART: --reframing this?

27:40CORY DOCTOROW: That's right. Yeah.

27:41Yeah.

27:42So, you know, like, here's the paradox of a growing company.

27:44The market loves a growing company.

27:46JON STEWART: Of course.

27:47CORY DOCTOROW: It's called the price to earnings ratio, right?

27:49Like, just how much money your company is worth based

27:52on how much money it earns--

27:53goes up if you're growing for, like, the obvious reason

27:56that a share is a claim on the future revenue of the company.

28:00Like, a company that's made a million this year, but we think

28:02is going to make $2 million next year,

28:04it's worth more than a company that made $1 million this year

28:06and is going to make $1 million next year.

28:07JON STEWART: It's a growth story.

28:08CORY DOCTOROW: What happens when you have

28:09grown to the maximum size?

28:12What happens when you're Google,

28:13and you have a 90% market share?

28:15Well, suddenly, you're overvalued.

28:17Like, where are you going to grow

28:18if you've got 90% of the market searching with Google?

28:21You can raise a billion humans to maturity in the hopes

28:23that they become your customers.

28:25That product is called Google Classroom, right?

28:27But Google Classroom is going to take a decade to pay off.

28:30Wall Street wants growth now.

28:31And so you've got to have some other story.

28:33And, first, we had these stories that

28:36were sort of plausible, right?

28:37Google's like, oh, we're going to be Facebook

28:38because we got Google Plus.

28:40And Facebook was like, oh, we're

28:41going to be YouTube because we're pivoting to video.

28:43The problem with that is, like, well,

28:44Facebook has got ideas about why Google can't be Facebook.

28:47And Google's got ideas about why Facebook can be YouTube.

28:49You get these arguments, right?

28:50So then it's like, oh, no, we're

28:51actually going to grow into a sector that doesn't exist.

28:54And while, like, it doesn't exist,

28:55which means it's hard to know how much it's worth,

28:57who's to say it's not worth infinity

28:59since I just made it up?

29:00I'm the expert-- Blockchain, Web3, Metaverse,

29:03blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

29:04Right?

29:05And, like, they're just guys running

29:06across the river in the back of an alligator

29:08without losing their legs, right?

29:09They just got to keep going.

29:10Like, as soon as your belief collapses in DAOs and NFTs,

29:15they've got to have Web3 in the chute for you.

29:18And now, we get to AI.

29:19And AI is different.

29:20It's different because, like, from a computer science

29:22perspective, AI is real.

29:23JON STEWART: There is a value to it.

29:25CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah.

29:26JON STEWART: And there is an actionable-- look,

29:28there's not a person that I know that has not availed

29:31themselves of the cogent organizational abilities

29:36of ChatGPT, or Claude, or whatever they're getting--

29:39or even the agentic abilities.

29:40CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

29:41I have a local model on my laptop

29:43that I downloaded with Ollama, which is, like, some software

29:46that Meta released, and it's just an open source

29:48model that runs locally.

29:49It doesn't talk to the internet.

29:50And I use it to find typos.

29:52And it finds a bunch of typos that, like,

29:54my spell checker misses.

29:56JON STEWART: So this is going to destroy our world,

29:58and you're just grammar policing.

30:00You're just going through--

30:01CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

30:02I'm sure you've encountered this--

30:04my readers are very invested in my knowing

30:05when I've made a typo.

30:07And so if I publish a typo, I'm going to hear about it.

30:10And I actually have this weird thing

30:12where I don't want to get locked into the platforms

30:13because I've seen how they go.

30:15So I publish everywhere at once all at once.

30:17It's called POSSE-- post, own, site, share, everywhere--

30:19which means that I'm just, like,

30:21manually turning everything into, like,

30:22threads on Bluesky and Mastodon and putting it on Tumblr--

30:25I still use Tumblr, Medium, email, RSS, like, all of it.

30:29And then I make a typo, and, like,

30:30I have to change it in all of those places, which

30:32is, like, 20 minutes work.

30:33Sucks.

30:34So it finds typos for me.

30:35And, like every spell checker I've ever used,

30:38it flags a bunch of things that aren't typos.

30:40So here's one absolute rock solid truth about AI

30:44is unless you know your subject,

30:48AI is not going to be a consistent help

30:51for you in using it.

30:53I have discernment.

30:54JON STEWART: You already have to be versed.

30:56CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

30:57Yeah, yeah.

30:58So, look, I've written more than 30 books.

31:01I've been telling copy editors and publishers,

31:02lawyers that they're wrong for 25 years.

31:05I've been telling spell checkers

31:07to go to hell for 40 years.

31:08Now, when I look at the suggestions that come back,

31:12like, I have collaborators who are, like, institutionally

31:15using Microsoft Office 365, which has all this incredibly

31:19intrusive AI suggestion stuff built in,

31:21and so we're working on a document together,

31:23and I'm like, this is the worst advice I've ever seen.

31:26And if you don't know what you're doing

31:28and you take that advice, your writing's going to suck.

31:30But it's true in different ways for other spell checkers.

31:34JON STEWART: And there is an uncanny--

31:35there's an uncanny valley to what

31:38is brought out by those chatbots

31:40and those other things.

31:41And when you read it, it's pretty clear,

31:44as much as it flatters you with,

31:46wow, that's a great idea that you just came up with,

31:48and then it creates it-- there's definitely, as you read

31:51it, you think to yourself, there's

31:52something not quite right here, whether it's

31:55soul, or art, or anything.

31:57CORY DOCTOROW: And you've just reminded me of something.

31:59So this flattery-- earlier, you talked about AI

32:03as a job killing technology.

32:04Is it or isn't it?

32:05I think it is, but not the way that the AI guys say it is.

32:08JON STEWART: OK.

32:09CORY DOCTOROW: Right?

32:10The AI guys say this can do your job.

32:12And getting back to criti-hype-- we

32:14should distinguish between this can do your job

32:16and an AI salesman can convince your boss

32:18to fire you and replace you with this, even

32:20though it can't do your job.

32:22Because your boss is a credulous dolt

32:26who is infinitely horny for replacing

32:28workers with chatbots.

32:30[JON LAUGHING]

32:32I was out on the picket line during the writers strike.

32:35JON STEWART: Yeah.

32:36CORY DOCTOROW: And I'm a member of an affiliated union.

32:39I'm in the animators guild and the writers union.

32:41So I was out there carrying a sign.

32:42It was around the corner from my place in Burbank.

32:45And a writer told me something really important.

32:47He said, you give shitty notes to a writer's

32:50room the same way you prompt a chatbot, right?

32:52JON STEWART: Oh, that's so smart.

32:55CORY DOCTOROW: Like, give me ET, but it's about a dog.

32:59Put a love interest in it and, like, a car chase.

33:02And, admittedly, that's just Air Bud.

33:04But you tell that to a writers' room,

33:10and either explicitly or implicitly, they're

33:11going to go, like, why don't you fuck off

33:13and make a spreadsheet?

33:14We're writing a movie here.

33:16[JON LAUGHING]

33:17Whereas you say it to a chatbot,

33:19and it just shits out the script,

33:20and you go off to the steakhouse, and you come back,

33:23and the movie's made.

33:25Now, the fact that it's, like, unproducible, I think,

33:29may not matter as much as we think it would when that's

33:33weighed against the ego shattering confrontation

33:35with people who know how to do things,

33:37and who roll their eyes, and tell you

33:38that your brilliant idea is stupid, illegal, or will

33:41kill people-- or impossible.

33:43JON STEWART: Right.

33:44CORY DOCTOROW: Right?

33:45Because you're the boss, right?

33:47You tell yourself you're in the driver's seat.

33:49But you know if you don't show up for work,

33:50everything is fine.

33:51And if they don't show up for work, nothing happens.

33:54You're in the back seat with a Fisher-Price steering wheel,

33:56and AI might wire that toy steering wheel

33:58directly into the drivetrain.

34:00So you can be sold that technology.

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34:12That's a new song I've been working on.

34:14You know I'm in a band.

34:16We do original songs.

34:19I have not presented this song yet to the band to see what

34:22they think of it, but I might.

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35:37[MUSIC PLAYING]

35:41This is where your book is really-- what you're talking

35:44about is who's zooming who.

35:46So are we in control of a tool, or is a tool

35:50and a story in control of us?

35:52And that's where you get into your story of centaurs.

35:55CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

35:57JON STEWART: So how do you become its master blaster?

36:02Are you the little guy sitting on top of the big guy,

36:05or are you the big guy and the little guy's

36:07sitting on top of you?

36:09CORY DOCTOROW: Or are you Tina Turner in just

36:10the best fit you've ever seen?

36:12JON STEWART: Or are you Tina Turner-- you

36:13look so good in Thunderdome.

36:15CORY DOCTOROW: God damn.

36:17Yeah.

36:18JON STEWART: But, like are we master or are we blaster?

36:20CORY DOCTOROW: Or Mel Lastman hunting the last Jew

36:22across the wasteland.

36:23JON STEWART: Yes.

36:24What are we?

36:25CORY DOCTOROW: Not Mel Lastman--

36:27Mel Gibson. JON STEWART: Mel Gibson.

36:29CORY DOCTOROW: Mel Lastman was the terrible mayor of Toronto.

36:31He wasn't an anti-Semite as far as I know.

36:32He was Jewish.

36:33JON STEWART: Mel Lastman was the mayor of Toronto?

36:35Was there an era before the Fords?

36:37I thought the Fords had always run Toronto.

36:39CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, yeah. No, no, no.

36:41Yeah.

36:42He walked so Rob Ford could run.

36:44JON STEWART: Oh, beautiful. Somebody had to.

36:46CORY DOCTOROW: He was a buffoon.

36:47Yeah, he was a--

36:48and also, he had a secret family.

36:50It was awesome.

36:51A small plug here--

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36:56My favorite podcast in the world right now.

36:58JON STEWART: Oh, my god. That's hilarious.

37:00CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, my god. It's so good.

37:01So, yeah, centaurs, reverse centaurs.

37:06It won't surprise you to know that this

37:07isn't the first time that labor and automation came

37:09into conflict.

37:10So there is a literature.

37:11We know, like, how this works.

37:13And, broadly, when labor drives automation,

37:16it's in service to quality.

37:18And when capital drives automation,

37:20it's in service to throughput-- to quantity.

37:22And that's because, like, if you buy a subscription,

37:25you want to get maximum value out of it.

37:27Or if you acquire an asset and it's depreciating,

37:29you want to use it before it depreciates off the

37:31books, right?

37:32So this is why, especially when you have a market dominated

37:37by, like, cartels, and monopolies, and duopolies,

37:39automation often makes things worse but more plentiful,

37:43because-- remember Lily Tomlin doing the phone operator

37:47on Saturday Night Live?

37:48JON STEWART: One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy.

37:49CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah.

37:50We don't care.

37:51We don't have to.

37:52We're the phone company.

37:54When you're the only game in town,

37:56you can make things worse.

37:57And if you can make them cheaper and worse, well.

37:59So, in automation theory, we call a person assisted

38:03by a machine a centaur.

38:05And the analogy here is you've got the human head.

38:07It's got all the judgment.

38:08It's got the discernment.

38:09It's got the intellect.

38:11And it is on the body of a horse.

38:12And the horse is strong. It's tireless.

38:14It's dexterous.

38:15It's fast.

38:16And the horse takes orders from the person, Master Blaster.

38:19So when you're riding a bicycle,

38:21you're kind of a centaur.

38:22You even look like a centaur.

38:23But, like, when you're using a spell checker,

38:25you're a centaur, too-- or a calculator.

38:27A reverse centaur is the reverse.

38:29It is the horse's head on the human body.

38:31It's the machine giving orders to the person.

38:34And so that is because there's a part of the job

38:37the machine can't do.

38:39So think here of, like, Lucy and Ethel

38:41at the end of the conveyor belt putting the chocolates

38:43in the chocolate box.

38:45The conveyor belt can do everything except

38:47get the chocolates in the box.

38:48JON STEWART: Right.

38:49CORY DOCTOROW: Why is the conveyor belt running so fast?

38:51Because if you automate the chocolate factory,

38:54you're not going to run the conveyor

38:55belt more slowly than the workers at the end of it.

38:57You're going to run it at the limit

38:59of their speed and endurance.

39:00JON STEWART: Right.

39:01Productivity, I believe they call it.

39:03CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

39:04And this is why Amazon warehouses are the most

39:06automated warehouses the human race has ever

39:08seen and have triple the injury rate of other warehouses

39:10in the sector.

39:11That's not a coincidence.

39:12It is the consequence.

39:14When you spend seven figures to automate a warehouse,

39:16you're not going to run it slower than you need to.

39:19And so if you're a human and you're the peripheral

39:22for the machine, right, doing the part of the job

39:25at the perimeter that the machine can't do,

39:28and you're working at the absolute limit

39:30of your endurance, you're working at the absolute limit

39:32of your dexterity and the absolute limit

39:34of your strength over long periods,

39:36you will eventually make a mistake.

39:38And in a warehouse, you get impaled on a forklift

39:40when that happens.

39:41And so that's the difference between a centaur

39:43and reverse centaur.

39:44As you mentioned at the start of this,

39:46I'm a science fiction novelist.

39:47And a good science fiction is not about what gadgets do.

39:51It's about who the gadget does it for

39:53and who the gadget does it to.

39:54It's about the social arrangements of our technology.

39:57Because while objects do have politics,

40:00those politics are still contingent on the society

40:03that they're based on and the way they come into being.

40:06And if you finance an AI bubble by raising $1 trillion a year

40:10on the promise of firing workers, a lot of workers

40:12are going to get fired, even if the AI can't do the job.

40:15And when you run out of money and those chatbots get shut

40:17off, you end up with this circumstance-- we take people

40:20who do a job that needs doing.

40:21We replace them with chatbots that do that job badly.

40:24And then the chatbots go away.

40:26You can't find those workers again, right?

40:27They've retired, they've become discouraged, they've retrained,

40:30they've exited the workforce.

40:31All the process knowledge they had about,

40:33like, how things work and where things are

40:35stashed, that's gone forever.

40:37It's vaporized, incinerated.

40:40And then you spend generations rebuilding it.

40:43This is asbestos in the walls of the

40:44technological civilization.

40:46And that's not because it's AI.

40:48It's because the force of the AI bubble is fire workers

40:52and replace them with automation.

40:54JON STEWART: Because that's the dream.

40:56The dream is this is-- and I've heard them say it-- not to us,

40:59but to each other-- which is AI is a way for people who run

41:03companies to get more productivity without the tax of

41:08labor-- they refer to labor.

41:09So it almost feels like this AI bubble

41:13is kind of the final boss battle

41:16between capital and labor.

41:20It's this idea-- yeah, go ahead.

41:21CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

41:22Never say "final," right? Who knows?

41:24JON STEWART: The second to last battle.

41:25CORY DOCTOROW: What's the Albert Einstein quote?

41:26I don't know what World War 3 will be fought with,

41:28but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

41:30JON STEWART: Sticks and stones.

41:31Yes, yes.

41:32CORY DOCTOROW: So maybe that's the final battle, right?

41:34But you mentioned the Magnificent Seven.

41:3835% of the S&P 500 is seven companies.

41:42Six of them are losing money on AI,

41:43and the seventh one is the one they're losing the money to.

41:45They're all passing around the same $100 billion

41:48IOU really fast and pretending it's in all of their bank

41:50accounts at once.

41:52Someday, because anything that can't go on forever

41:55eventually stops-- someday, they will implode.

41:59And, look, we don't have to greet environmental calamity

42:04with austerity.

42:05Even, like, Trump during the pandemic,

42:08like, figured out that stimulus is

42:09what you do when the private sector

42:11is no longer employing people.

42:12JON STEWART: Jon Maynard Keynes, baby.

42:14Everybody forgets about Jon Maynard Keynes.

42:16Bring him home.

42:17CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

42:18Yeah.

42:19So we don't have to do that.

42:21But if we fall into the pattern we've done for the last 25

42:24years, our response to vaporizing

42:26a third of the economy is going to be more austerity.

42:29And, like, again, like, the jury is no longer out on this.

42:32When you do austerity, you make people into fascists.

42:34JON STEWART: That's right.

42:35CORY DOCTOROW: There was just a study--

42:37I live in the UK now.

42:38My wife quit her job in Hollywood,

42:40and I followed her to London to work at the BBC.

42:43And there was just a study here about what

42:47happens to your voting when your doctor's office closes.

42:50Because, remember, we have socialized

42:52medicine here with the NHS.

42:53And they've been doing austerity for 15 years.

42:56JON STEWART: How are you not all dead?

42:58I don't understand.

42:59We've been told if that happens, everyone is dead.

43:02CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

43:03Well, I've got to go see the death panel later.

43:04I'll let you know how that works out.

43:05JON STEWART: Thank you.

43:07I'd love to know what they decide.

43:08CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah.

43:09So when your NHS doctor's office, what's

43:13called the surgery-- that's what they call a doctor's

43:14office-- when your primary care physician

43:16surgery shuts down, in the next election,

43:18you vote for the Fascist Party.

43:20You just become a sucker for people who show up and say

43:23undeserving others are the reason

43:25you don't have what you need.

43:27And not everyone falls for that.

43:30JON STEWART: Good thing that could

43:31never happen here in America.

43:33CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, right?

43:35So this is what I'm afraid of.

43:36I'm not afraid that AI is going to turn us into paper clips.

43:39I'm not afraid that AI can do your job right.

43:41I am afraid that you might get fired and replaced with AI

43:43that can't do your job.

43:44And I like the job you do.

43:46And I like the job lots of people do.

43:48And I don't want them fired.

43:49I like benefiting from their careful and

43:52conscientious labor.

43:54And I'm worried that the economy is going to collapse.

43:56JON STEWART: The real threat is the economic disruption.

44:01This takes me back to a more analog time of the world

44:05before all this, but I remember AOL.

44:08AOL came out, and it was this revolutionary community.

44:13And you could go on, and there were message boards,

44:15and there were little--

44:16it was sort of a mini Facebook and Twitter--

44:20it was before the social media companies specialized.

44:25And it looked monopolistic.

44:27And it looked inevitable.

44:29And their market cap, in the same way that we're

44:33talking now, soared.

44:35And it was the future.

44:37And they bought Time Warner.

44:41AOL came in and went, we're the future.

44:45There's this other company, sort of a sustainable

44:48analog growth company-- yeah, they make money every year,

44:52shit tons of it.

44:54We're going to absorb them.

44:55And then the bottom fell out.

44:58CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

44:59JON STEWART: Now, there was enough around it

45:01to absorb some of that damage.

45:03And we went through a recession during that time.

45:05Are we in a position now where we can't even

45:07absorb-- there's too big to fail,

45:11and then there's too big to recover from.

45:13CORY DOCTOROW: Well, look, people have dug themselves

45:15out of bigger holes, right?

45:16And I always say this when we talk about monopolies more

45:19broadly, because Enshittification, you mentioned

45:21this other book I wrote, it's really

45:23a story about monopolies.

45:24It's a story about what Lina Khan calls too big to care.

45:27JON STEWART: And the cycle of how these companies bring

45:31you in and then abuse you.

45:33CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

45:34And the businesses that they bring

45:36in because you're stuck there.

45:37So people say if you're not paying for the product,

45:39you're the product.

45:40Ask a Facebook advertiser what kind of deal

45:42they're getting from Facebook, right?

45:43Everybody gets screwed.

45:44It doesn't matter if you're paying for the product or not.

45:47Productization is a function of capability,

45:50not, like, a customer loyalty perk

45:52for giving them enough money.

45:53JON STEWART: Right.

45:54CORY DOCTOROW: So I often talk to people about monopolization,

45:59as you'd expect.

46:00And people get very discouraged.

46:02They're like, well, what hope do we have of breaking

46:05up these giant monopolies?

46:07And I'm like, guys, the anti-monopoly laws that we

46:11stopped enforcing 45 years ago, they weren't passed because it

46:14seemed like a good idea in case a monopoly

46:17emerges in the future.

46:18They were passed because people were being crushed

46:21by rapacious monopolists.

46:24And we figured out how to shatter their power.

46:28And we didn't have the internet we could

46:30use to coordinate ourselves.

46:31They were running different scams in different countries,

46:33so enforcers didn't really have any common cause.

46:35If you hated John D. Rockefeller in Germany,

46:37it was because he was screwing up your ports.

46:39If you hated him in Pennsylvania,

46:40it was because he was screwing up your refineries.

46:42Even if US enforcers and German enforcers

46:45were, like, firing a Zeppelin across the ocean every day

46:47full of files, it's not like they had the same case.

46:49Google?

46:50Google does the same thing in every country.

46:52JON STEWART: But even back then,

46:53when they would do that, at least

46:55they would build you a fucking park.

46:58Like, at least those guys--

47:00CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, no, that came later.

47:01That came later.

47:03You need-- yeah, no, no, that was

47:04when they started to clean--

47:05that's when they got worried about guillotines

47:08on their lawns.

47:09No, no, no.

47:10They weren't building parks.

47:11They were hiring Pinkertons to beat your brains out.

47:14JON STEWART: Right.

47:15CORY DOCTOROW: So here's the thing.

47:16Here's the point I'm making, though, is, like,

47:18what these people did is not the lost art of a stolen

47:21of a fallen civilization.

47:23When I say we need to break up monopolies,

47:25I'm not asking you to figure out how to embalm a pharaoh

47:27or, like, build a pyramid without power tools.

47:31There are people alive today who

47:32learned their trust busting from the people who

47:34broke up Rockefeller's empire.

47:37Like, this is-- like, they did it.

47:39We can do it.

47:40They weren't smarter than us.

47:41JON STEWART: We did it with Ma Bell.

47:42We did it-- and guess what?

47:44People still use phones.

47:45CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

47:46JON STEWART: And the other thing

47:47that drives me nuts, and you brought it up earlier,

47:49which is the thing you worry about in all this,

47:52is in the inevitable hollowing out of this, what that

47:56does to a society that's going to move

47:58towards authoritarianism.

48:00And we're living through another Red Scare moment.

48:02But they always say the biggest threat to this country

48:04is communism or socialism.

48:07And my view is the biggest threat to this country

48:10is the inability to positively reform the kind of capitalism

48:15we practice now, which will lead

48:18to the kind of social unrest that

48:21allows demagogues and authoritarians to take over.

48:25That's the real issue.

48:27CORY DOCTOROW: You, and FDR, and Henry Ford all agree.

48:30Like--

48:31JON STEWART: It's the only thing the three of us agree on.

48:33CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah.

48:34Henry Ford does not agree about Jews in any way.

48:36Let's make that very clear.

48:37JON STEWART: No, he's not--

48:38Henry Ford, not a big fan of me being

48:40allowed to speak like this.

48:42CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

48:43But, no, I mean, look, there's been lots

48:44of people who recognize this.

48:46That, like, to put this in economics terms,

48:49there is an equilibrium between the cost of stopping people

48:53from building guillotines on your lawn

48:54by hiring chuds in, like, body armor,

48:58and the cost of, like, building hospitals and roads

49:00so that no one wants to build a guillotine on your lawn.

49:02JON STEWART: That's right-- of a social safety

49:04net that makes sense. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

49:05JON STEWART: Right.

49:06CORY DOCTOROW: And since the Snowden

49:07days, one of the questions I've asked

49:09myself, because I should say--

49:11I should have said this before--

49:12I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

49:14You just talked to my old boss, Cindy Cohen, about her--

49:16JON STEWART: Cindy Cohen.

49:17She's fantastic-- a fantastic woman.

49:19CORY DOCTOROW: Amazing.

49:20I've been there 25 years.

49:21Not as long as Cindy, but I've been there for 25 years.

49:25And so I've worked on all these issues.

49:26And, like, back to object permanence.

49:28Like, I saw the policies that we made

49:30that led to this happening.

49:31And I know that when those policies

49:33were coming in, we said, hey, this is going to happen.

49:35And then it happened.

49:36And, like, one of the things I'm on a mission to do

49:39is to make people understand this isn't the weather.

49:41It's not the great forces of history.

49:43It's not the iron laws of economics.

49:44It's just these assholes who did

49:46things that they were warned would fuck shit up and did it.

49:50And then, like, if we call it the weather,

49:52right, then we don't know how to fix it.

49:54Like, what do you-- everybody complains about the weather.

49:56No one does anything about it.

49:57If you actually know that there's some space lasers out

49:59there-- thank you, Marjorie Taylor Greene--

50:01then you can get to the guys with the space lasers, right?

50:03So these guys, they did this to us.

50:06They stopped enforcing anti-monopoly law.

50:09They allowed a string of mergers.

50:11When Google bought Waze--

50:14Tim Wu tells the story, it's great.

50:15When Google bought Waze, Tim Wu was at the Federal

50:17Trade Commission.

50:18He's like, why are we letting the company

50:19that owns Google Maps by the maps company everyone

50:22started to use?

50:23And they said, oh, well, we figured that Google Maps is how

50:26you know where you are, and Waze is how

50:29you find out how to get there.

50:30[JON LAUGHING]

50:31That's, like, the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

50:34JON STEWART: Waze is how you find out

50:36that there might be a car abandoned

50:38on the side of the route.

50:39CORY DOCTOROW: Like, what the hell?

50:41JON STEWART: So are they falling for this?

50:44Or are they enabling this?

50:46Because there's a distinction between are they being fooled,

50:50or are they enabling the scam?

50:54I understand if the rubes--

50:56I'll fall for it.

50:57I'll download the ChatGPT and go buh buh buh.

51:00CORY DOCTOROW: Right.

51:01JON STEWART: But how is it that the experts, the investors,

51:05the economists, the banks-- how the fuck

51:08did they not understand this?

51:11CORY DOCTOROW: Well, let's start with the top

51:12layer, right?

51:13Let's start with the capital allocators, the billionaires.

51:15So to be a billionaire, I think, like, a lot of them

51:17are basically solipsists.

51:19You can't really think other people are

51:21real if you inflict the kind of pain that you have to inflict.

51:24JON STEWART: We're all NPCs in their game.

51:26CORY DOCTOROW: This is what Elon Musk says.

51:27Everyone's an NPC.

51:30And they are surrounded by sycophants.

51:32And so they're already living, like, the AI future where

51:34no one's real, and everyone tells you you're great,

51:36and just glazes you all day.

51:38So those people, I think they're, like,

51:40kind of primed to believe we can

51:41replace humans with chatbots.

51:43But there's also, I think, a cohort of cynics.

51:46So, like, imagine-- think about,

51:47like, all the vast panoply of chuds

51:50we've met thanks to Trumpland.

51:52JON STEWART: By the way, if Vast Panoply of Chuds

51:55is not the name of your next book,

51:57I don't know what we're doing here.

51:59CORY DOCTOROW: It'll be a chapter.

52:01It'll be a chapter.

52:02I just started work on the next book.

52:03It's a novel.

52:04It's called Once is Enemy Action.

52:07It's a James Bond quote--

52:08James Bond reference.

52:09Anyway, that might be a chapter.

52:11So this vast panoply of chuds.

52:12And some of these guys, they're like RFK, right?

52:15They really believe-- like, there is no peptide that guy

52:18hasn't met that he won't, like stick under his eyelids,

52:20like Jimi Hendrix doing acid.

52:22JON STEWART: But vaccines are the problem.

52:24Peptides are safe.

52:26They haven't been tested.

52:27Nobody knows what they do.

52:28But put as many of them as you can into your body.

52:30CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

52:31But there's a ton more who are, like, I

52:33don't know if this shit works, but Andrew Tate can sell it.

52:37Joe Rogan can sell it.

52:38I don't have to believe it works to do it.

52:40You don't have to believe that putting a Jade

52:42egg in your vagina is good for you

52:44to believe that Gwyneth Paltrow can sell a lot of vagina rocks.

52:48JON STEWART: Right, right, right.

52:49CORY DOCTOROW: So I think at the top,

52:50you've got these two groups, right?

52:53And they're kind of a toxic mix.

52:56Because, like, the true believers and the cynics--

52:58where one says, well, maybe that's

53:00not the right thing, that's where

53:01the other group is actually, like, in their sweet spot.

53:04And so there's a bit of acceleration there.

53:05And then I just think that, like, to ask,

53:07like, how can the banks put this money

53:09into is to invite the question, where were you in 2007?

53:13JON STEWART: Oh.

53:15But that's my point.

53:17Are learning curves for losers?

53:20Like, are we ever going to understand that inflating

53:25these kinds of bubbles with the sorts of futurist,

53:29utopian nonsense is going to come

53:33back and create giant craters?

53:37CORY DOCTOROW: This time, it's different, supposedly.

53:39It's always different.

53:41And, like, I just think that we have really fallen prey

53:49to this story about the efficient market,

53:52despite all of the times that the market has been inefficient

53:56and grossly inefficient.

53:58JON STEWART: Or the fact that we've manipulated it to--

54:00the other story we tell ourselves is there

54:02is a free market.

54:03And that somehow, the government hasn't been picking

54:06winners and losers forever.

54:08And that the free money that they give to corporations

54:10in terms of subsidies and not taxing capital in the same way

54:14that labor is taxed is somehow not them making a choice.

54:19There is no free.

54:20CORY DOCTOROW: Sure.

54:21And, like, look, I think there's, like, two ways

54:24to think about regulatory capture.

54:25If you ask the Chicago school people,

54:27they'll tell you regulatory capture

54:29is as soon as you have a business that's

54:31going to try and capture the state, therefore,

54:33you can't have a state.

54:34Which is just, like-- we have to get rid of the regulators.

54:37JON STEWART: That's the libertarian.

54:38That's all the Hayek and everybody else.

54:41As long as the government's not involved in anything,

54:43they can't be corrupt. OK.

54:44CORY DOCTOROW: Sure.

54:45But, like, I always tell my friends, like, the libertarians

54:48I know, like, even if you're so, like, Musk addled that you

54:51can't even open your copy of Atlas Shrugged

54:53because the pages are all stuck together,

54:55and you think the only reason we should have a government

54:58is to, like, enforce contracts, you still

55:02want-- you still want the people who are, like, making

55:05the contracts to be held to account by the person

55:07who's enforcing the contract.

55:08They have to be more powerful.

55:09The referee has to be more powerful than the players

55:11on the field.

55:12Which means that the largest government-- or the smallest

55:15government you can have is determined

55:16by the largest corporation you're willing to tolerate.

55:19So the decision 40 years ago to allow runaway mergers, right,

55:22this kind of orgy of consolidation--

55:25and, like, now we have these cartels that are so inbred,

55:27they have corporate Habsburg jaws, right?

55:29And they just, like, they can't do anything.

55:32They're completely unintelligible.

55:34[JON LAUGHING]

55:35And, like, this decision has produced the circumstances

55:40for regulatory capture.

55:42So, like, people-- like, a lot of the bad stuff that we worry

55:46about with AI, I should say, is actually

55:48just worrying about privacy.

55:50Same with algorithms.

55:51It's just worrying about privacy.

55:52JON STEWART: Well, they're data Hoovers,

55:54and they're bringing it up-- CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

55:55JON STEWART: And, by the way, you do make the point

55:57in the book that I think the way that it's generally

55:59utilized is not efficiency.

56:02It's surveillance state.

56:03It's basically your boss can now learn a lot more about,

56:07you are now very much an NPC in a game

56:11that they are moving around on.

56:13And they're watching you.

56:14And what they're using the technology for

56:16is not what they've promised it for everybody else, which

56:19is doing these great jobs.

56:20It's finding ways to make sure that you are more

56:26controlled by your bosses.

56:29CORY DOCTOROW: Sure.

56:30Well, and let me ground that in,

56:31like, something material and not, like, mind control race.

56:35So one thing that, like, AI is genuinely good at,

56:38and it's actually quite exciting,

56:39is multivariate statistical analysis.

56:41That's, like, a kind of--

56:42JON STEWART: Nothing more exciting than that.

56:44CORY DOCTOROW: It is if you want to do cancer research.

56:47It is if you want to, like, find out about, like,

56:49what's going to happen with rising seas.

56:52You're got, like, a whole bunch of variables--

56:53JON STEWART: Crunching numbers.

56:54CORY DOCTOROW: --and you're trying to like make

56:56statistical analyses of them.

56:58So one of the things that you can do with AI

57:01is surveillance pricing and algorithmic

57:03wage discrimination.

57:05So surveillance pricing, your rabbi on this

57:07is a woman called Lindsey Owens, who's got a book

57:09coming out called Gouged.

57:11JON STEWART: She's the best.

57:12CORY DOCTOROW: She's amazing.

57:13And then algorithm wage discrimination,

57:15Veena Dubal is a lawyer and a scholar has written about this.

57:18And they're both the same thing.

57:19It's when you use an algorithm to segment

57:24an audience based on behavioral surveillance data--

57:26I've seen what you do.

57:27I've followed you around and your use of a service.

57:30And then you start running experiments on the segments

57:33to see what the highest price they'll accept

57:35or the lowest wage they'll accept.

57:36So on the wage side, this started with Uber,

57:38where drivers who accepted lowball offers-- and, remember,

57:41when you're an Uber driver, you have

57:4220 seconds to decide whether the offer is good or

57:44bad, right?

57:45So you're, like, looking at the mileage.

57:46You're looking at the time. You're driving in traffic.

57:48You have 20 seconds to go yes or no.

57:49JON STEWART: Oh, wow. OK.

57:51CORY DOCTOROW: So if you accept a lowball offer,

57:52your next offer is lower.

57:54And it keeps pushing you down.

57:56Now, if you're picky, it's higher.

58:00And then if you start taking the lowball

58:02offers they sneak into there, they push it down again.

58:04So whatever it is that's your side

58:05hustle that lets you be picky, eventually, you lose it.

58:08JON STEWART: Wait, that's the Uber algorithm

58:11doing that to its own drivers?

58:13CORY DOCTOROW: To drivers. Yeah.

58:14JON STEWART: Why?

58:15CORY DOCTOROW: So this is algorithm--

58:16to push their wages down.

58:17That's how Uber got profitable.

58:19For 13 years, they lost $31 billion of the Saudi royal

58:23family's money. $0.41 on every $1.00 they

58:25brought in, they pissed away.

58:26They eventually, like, put all the other cab companies out

58:29of business, induced a lost decade in transit investment,

58:32became the only game in town, started screwing the drivers,

58:34and started raising prices on riders.

58:36And they decoupled riders from drivers.

58:38You remember it used to be if you got surge priced

58:40for the ride you were paying for,

58:42they got surge paid for the ride they delivered.

58:44Now, it's totally decoupled.

58:45JON STEWART: That's decoupled.

58:46CORY DOCTOROW: It's, like, bizarro world Marxism where you

58:49pay according to your ability, and they

58:51work according to their need.

58:52JON STEWART: It's Enshittification.

58:54It goes back to the other book.

58:56It's that Enshittification.

58:58CORY DOCTOROW: That is Enshittification.

59:00So I'm going to make you really angry here.

59:03JON STEWART: Cory, no.

59:05CORY DOCTOROW: Groundwork collaborative

59:06and the Roosevelt Institute.

59:07So Groundwork Collaborative is Lindsay Owens'

59:09outfit, and the Roosevelt Institute

59:11published report on nurses.

59:13So it used to be contract nurses

59:14were hired through like a local body shop, a staffing agency.

59:17JON STEWART: The travel nurses and people like that.

59:18CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

59:19JON STEWART: Yeah.

59:20CORY DOCTOROW: Now, it's four national apps

59:22that compete with each other.

59:23They all call themselves Uber for nursing.

59:25So maybe you can see where this is going.

59:26JON STEWART: Oh, boy.

59:27CORY DOCTOROW: They buy credit card data from data brokers.

59:31And the more outstanding credit card debt you have,

59:33the lower the wage you're offered.

59:35JON STEWART: Oh, my fucking god.

59:37CORY DOCTOROW: Because it's a desperation premium, right?

59:42JON STEWART: The company that you're working for looks

59:45to see your level of desperation

59:48so that they can lowball you and--

59:53CORY DOCTOROW: So, Jon, like me, you have

59:55heard of Tennessee Ernie Ford.

59:57You know that there are coal bosses

59:58who would have done this shit if they could have, right?

1:00:00But they weren't going to be able to hire

1:00:02the army of Pinkertons to follow every coal miner around

1:00:05and figure out who was in the most debt,

1:00:06and then get the boiler room full of guys in green eyeshades

1:00:09to mark up the ledgers and change their wages 10 times

1:00:11a minute, right?

1:00:12This is the thing you need AI for.

1:00:15This is what automation gets you on the wage side.

1:00:19And the same thing is happening on the price side

1:00:22where, again, like, it used to be demographers would do

1:00:24this kind of cute Mad Men style thing

1:00:26where they'd be like, well, we got

1:00:27the little old ladies who own seven

1:00:28cats who live in Sheboygan.

1:00:30And we've got this and that.

1:00:31And they would go do focus groups.

1:00:32AI just naively buckets people into groups based

1:00:35on behavioral data, and then automatically

1:00:37runs experiments to see the highest price they will accept.

1:00:39JON STEWART: OK.

1:00:40So hear this out, then.

1:00:42All right, so we've been talking a little bit about,

1:00:44like, well, what is, then, the value of AI?

1:00:46What does it do?

1:00:47Why would it fulfill this promise of investment

1:00:50that is being made?

1:00:51You're almost making the case that AI

1:00:55is a kind of metaverse globalization tool.

1:01:00One of the things that globalization

1:01:02did is it allowed companies to become

1:01:05much more profitable because it allowed them to search--

1:01:11CORY DOCTOROW: Shift the wage bill.

1:01:12Yeah. JON STEWART: Right.

1:01:13Look for the worst conditions, look

1:01:15for the most desperate people, look for who you can exploit.

1:01:20CORY DOCTOROW: The lowest tax rate.

1:01:22JON STEWART: Exactly.

1:01:23And so, in some ways, you're making the case for AI's value.

1:01:30You're diffusing the bubble.

1:01:33But the effect of it is to diffuse the bubble,

1:01:37you have to abuse the worker.

1:01:39CORY DOCTOROW: Sure. I mean, that's the promise.

1:01:41But back to, like, criti-hype.

1:01:43So now, let's talk about the values here.

1:01:45So not the human values-- the costs.

1:01:48The dollar figures.

1:01:49JON STEWART: Yes, yes, yes.

1:01:50CORY DOCTOROW: Pauperize all the cab drivers in the country.

1:01:53Do it again to all the nurses.

1:01:55Do it to all the poor commercial illustrators who

1:01:57are already the poorest people I know-- poor as church mice--

1:02:00and you do not touch the sides of the operating

1:02:03expenditure bills of the AI companies, right?

1:02:06You have to come for, like, very high waged workers.

1:02:10And those are the areas where I think we're going to notice it,

1:02:12although I don't think they won't try.

1:02:14So, look, I have an extremely treatable form of cancer.

1:02:17I don't want to alarm you.

1:02:19And I see oncologists, radiologists, and so on.

1:02:24And so I've been following the stories

1:02:26about radiologists and AI.

1:02:27JON STEWART: Sure.

1:02:28Well, that's the one they always say like you won't even

1:02:30need radiologists anymore.

1:02:31CORY DOCTOROW: Some solid mass tumors, probably the AI

1:02:35can spot some that the human misses, right?

1:02:37I think that's fine.

1:02:39So I've been getting my treatment

1:02:41at the Kaiser Hospital in LA.

1:02:42Despite it being private medicine, I have no complaints.

1:02:45They took really good care of me.

1:02:46Four weeks ago, a radiologist told me I'm cancer free.

1:02:48JON STEWART: Congratulations, young man.

1:02:49CORY DOCTOROW: Very happy about it.

1:02:51Yeah, yeah.

1:02:52JON STEWART: I'm looking forward to your next 50 books.

1:02:54CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. There you go.

1:02:55So if, right now-- you know, the Kaiser Hospital on Sunset

1:03:00in LA, I don't know if you know it--

1:03:01next to the big Church of Scientology,

1:03:02because that's how we roll in LA.

1:03:04So if right now there was, like,

1:03:06a salesman for [INAUDIBLE] Sam Altman deking out

1:03:09some Scientologist who wanted to give him a personality

1:03:11test, going up to talk to the CEO of Kaiser

1:03:14and say, look, here's my pitch to you.

1:03:17You've got 10 radiologists on the strength.

1:03:20They cost you $300 grand each.

1:03:21That's $3 million a year in wages.

1:03:23You give me another $1 million dollars on top of that,

1:03:25and I'm going to sell you an algorithm.

1:03:26And it's just going to sit behind them.

1:03:28A couple of days times a day, it's

1:03:29going to tap them on the shoulder

1:03:30and say, take another look at that one.

1:03:32And sometimes you're going to save a life doing that.

1:03:36It's going to cost you an extra $1 million.

1:03:38Plus, you're probably, like, going to go from 100 x-rays

1:03:40a day to 98.

1:03:41So you might have to hire another part time radiologist.

1:03:43As a cancer survivor, that's fine with me.

1:03:46JON STEWART: Yes, sir.

1:03:47CORY DOCTOROW: I think that's great.

1:03:48No one has invested in AI on the thought

1:03:52that someday it would make the things

1:03:53that people do more expensive.

1:03:56JON STEWART: Or need more labor.

1:03:57CORY DOCTOROW: Right.

1:03:58So the sales call right now is salesman

1:03:59rushes past the Scientology trying to give them

1:04:01the personality test up to the CEO's office and says,

1:04:04you got 10 radiologists on the strength.

1:04:06They cost you $3 million a year.

1:04:07You fire nine of them, you save $2.7 million a year.

1:04:10You give $1.35 of that to my boss, Sam Altman.

1:04:13You keep the other half of it for yourself.

1:04:15That one radiologist, he marks the AI's homework.

1:04:19If someone dies because he's doing this at a speed

1:04:22that no human could pay sustained attention to,

1:04:24he is what Dan Davies calls the accountability sync.

1:04:27And we blame him for the person who dies.

1:04:30And I tell this to radiologists,

1:04:31and they're like, OK, but we have labor power.

1:04:33They do.

1:04:34They're in short supply right now.

1:04:36When we use AI, it's on our own terms.

1:04:38But the point of AI is to take away your labor power.

1:04:40JON STEWART: Yes.

1:04:41CORY DOCTOROW: Right?

1:04:42It's to find ways to erode your wages and segment you.

1:04:44JON STEWART: It's that globalization.

1:04:46It's that same-- it's another frontier.

1:04:49It's the vast expanse of the ocean or space

1:04:52that they haven't explored yet.

1:04:53It's taking what they've tried to do in the real world

1:04:58and laying it into the virtual world in that same

1:05:01exploitative manner.

1:05:02But I'll tell you a story--

1:05:04this goes to the flip side of it,

1:05:06and I talked to Daron Acemoglu, who you may know,

1:05:09who's the economist from MIT.

1:05:10CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

1:05:11I've been on a panel with him at the American

1:05:13Association for the Advancement of Science.

1:05:14JON STEWART: I'm sure. Wonderful guy.

1:05:15CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

1:05:16JON STEWART: Really, really smart.

1:05:17His concern is always when AI begins to marry robotics

1:05:22and how that will come together.

1:05:25But I'll tell you a story--

1:05:26I happen to be a fan of what I like to call

1:05:28the Crunchwrap Supreme.

1:05:30Every now and then, I'll go with a Nachos Bellgrande.

1:05:32If you're a vegetarian, it's a great place to get whatever--

1:05:36diarrhea epidemics say otherwise.

1:05:38CORY DOCTOROW: Be damned. JON STEWART: Be damned.

1:05:40I still go in.

1:05:41But I drove in--

1:05:43I have my local.

1:05:44And they know me.

1:05:45When I hit my order, they know me.

1:05:47I drive up one day, and I hear this-- hello,

1:05:50may I take your order?

1:05:53And I'm like, they're never this happy.

1:05:56It's AI.

1:05:57They've replaced the person at the takeout drive-thru with AI.

1:06:03My order is no beef, but can you put in the refried beans?

1:06:07Well, that blew AI's fucking mind.

1:06:11And to the point where, like, then the person in the thing

1:06:13had to come out and go, like, hey, man, what do you need?

1:06:15I'll get it for you.

1:06:16I pull up.

1:06:18So now all I do is I talk to the AI,

1:06:20and then I pull up to the drive-in window

1:06:22and just talk shit with the person who's at the register

1:06:25about the AI bot.

1:06:26And we talk shit a little bit, and we share anecdotes.

1:06:28CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

1:06:29JON STEWART: The point being, people hate it.

1:06:32I hate it.

1:06:34People hate it.

1:06:35It hasn't saved them any labor.

1:06:36And, by the way, if you think replacing the guy making

1:06:40your Crunchwrap Supreme with a robot will be cheaper,

1:06:43you've never tried to service an ice machine.

1:06:46Like, machines are wickedly more expensive

1:06:50than human beings who will work when they're sick

1:06:53and break down.

1:06:54And you're not on the hook for any of it.

1:06:58So they think they're getting the high level people.

1:06:59They can't even get the lower income.

1:07:02CORY DOCTOROW: Totally.

1:07:03And going back to the '90s-- going back to the late

1:07:05'90s, early 2000s, the dotcom era-- you go, you pull out,

1:07:08like, the Harvard Business Review, you pull out, like,

1:07:11the business press of the day, Wall Street Journal,

1:07:13full of these op-eds wringing their hands and going,

1:07:15what are the CEOs going to do when all these young

1:07:17workers who insist on using the web show up in the workplace?

1:07:21You go pull those same periodicals off the shelf

1:07:23today, and they're like, CEOs are

1:07:26firing workers because they're refusing to use AI.

1:07:29JON STEWART: Wow. CORY DOCTOROW: Right?

1:07:30And saying, if you don't use AI,

1:07:31we're going to fire you, right?

1:07:33So I think back to, like, automation driven by labor

1:07:36is in service of quality.

1:07:37Automation driven by capital is in service to throughput.

1:07:39And when capital has a monopoly or cartel,

1:07:42they can lower quality.

1:07:43JON STEWART: Right.

1:07:44CORY DOCTOROW: This is we don't care.

1:07:45We don't have to.

1:07:46We're the burrito company is what you're going through

1:07:49at your local drive-thru.

1:07:50JON STEWART: So, Cory, how do you--

1:07:52you said something earlier that I think really

1:07:54struck me, which is it is no mystery

1:07:58how to diffuse this bomb.

1:08:01There really isn't.

1:08:02The last 40 or 50 years economically,

1:08:05we have valued capital to the expense of labor.

1:08:09And it is that imbalance that has driven,

1:08:13I think, a lot of the turbulence

1:08:15in our political scene, in our social scene,

1:08:18in all of those things.

1:08:19Rebalancing that is not revolutionary.

1:08:24CORY DOCTOROW: No.

1:08:25JON STEWART: It's incremental.

1:08:26It's what if we just taxed capital gains at the same level

1:08:31as salary gains?

1:08:32If you work and earn $100,000, shouldn't that be taxed

1:08:36the same way if you bought an investment and it

1:08:39just threw off $100,000?

1:08:41Why is that different?

1:08:42CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah.

1:08:43Yeah.

1:08:44Look, there's a joke from Eastern Canada.

1:08:48[JON LAUGHING]

1:08:49The punch--

1:08:51JON STEWART: People in Winnipeg won't know what

1:08:53the hell you're talking about.

1:08:54CORY DOCTOROW: They won't.

1:08:55No, I'm talking about Newfoundland.

1:08:56But the problem is, if you say there's

1:08:57a joke from Newfoundland, people

1:08:58think you're going to tell a Newfie joke,

1:08:59which is like an Irish joke. It's not a Newfie joke.

1:09:01It's a joke told by people from Newfoundland.

1:09:03JON STEWART: Got it.

1:09:04CORY DOCTOROW: There's a joke from Newfoundland

1:09:05whose punchline is, if you wanted to get there,

1:09:07I wouldn't start from here.

1:09:08[JON LAUGHING]

1:09:09Right?

1:09:11And, look, when America had more unionized workers,

1:09:16when it had more fair electoral districts,

1:09:19when it had people who had more disposable time because they

1:09:23had a better split with capital in terms of the disposition

1:09:27of the surplus generated by their labor,

1:09:29it would have been easier to do this.

1:09:31But, again, like, we are starting from a place that's

1:09:34still better from the place our forebears

1:09:36started from back when the labor movement was

1:09:40starting in America.

1:09:41Now, Donald Trump thinks that you get rid

1:09:43of the National Labor Relations Board,

1:09:44and you end labor activism.

1:09:46He's like the Grinch that Stole Christmas.

1:09:48He thinks that you steal the tinsel,

1:09:49and Christmas goes away.

1:09:51Like, the reason you have tinsel

1:09:53is that Christmas is in the hearts of the Whos

1:09:54down in Whoville.

1:09:55The reason we have the labor law

1:09:57is because workers struck and formed unions

1:10:00when they were wildly illegal.

1:10:01They risked beatings, and murder, and lynchings.

1:10:04They created so much pain for capital,

1:10:07the capital sued for labor peace.

1:10:09And Donald Trump's big mistake here

1:10:10is he thinks that when you fire the referee, the game ends.

1:10:13And we all know when you fire the referee, all bets are off.

1:10:16There's no rules.

1:10:18For a guy who claims to be a wrestling guy,

1:10:20he seems to, like, not really understand this.

1:10:22JON STEWART: Well, that's because he's

1:10:23all hat, no cattle.

1:10:24I mean, Donald Trump is, as they say, he's all trailer,

1:10:28no movie.

1:10:29And that's why we find ourselves in these situations.

1:10:31His attention span does not allow him.

1:10:34He's the announcement guy.

1:10:36It's liberation day.

1:10:37I'm going to destroy Iran.

1:10:39And then when things don't come to pass,

1:10:41but it's been two weeks, he's like, OK,

1:10:44what's my next episode of The Apprentice?

1:10:46He just wants to move on to that next level.

1:10:49But what strikes me more here-- and I

1:10:52don't know if you have an insight into this

1:10:54or what your feelings are--

1:10:56is that it's less about Donald Trump's inability to understand

1:11:01it and more about the opposition party's inability

1:11:05to harness this energy in a manner that

1:11:09is accessible and reachable for voters thirsty

1:11:16for this kind of rebalancing.

1:11:18CORY DOCTOROW: So, look, on this call,

1:11:21I have mentioned my affiliation with the FF.

1:11:22And we're a 501(c)3, so I can't endorse a party.

1:11:26But what I can say is that the people who

1:11:28oppose Donald Trump's agenda in both parties

1:11:31have completely failed to speak to the things that people need

1:11:36and that people want and to show

1:11:39them that there is the possibility of an alternative.

1:11:43So one of the things I've been trying

1:11:44to work into this conversation here

1:11:47is how we ended up in this situation just in respect

1:11:50to privacy.

1:11:51So, like, you have these companies--

1:11:52they're screwing nurses.

1:11:54They're, like, fueling data theft, and identity theft,

1:11:57and so on.

1:11:58When I testified at the Consumer Finance Protection

1:12:00Bureau in the last couple of days of the Biden admin

1:12:03when they were banning data brokers, which Trump unbanned,

1:12:06and the speaker before me was a speaker from the American

1:12:08Association of Retired People, who wanted the committee

1:12:11to know that the ad broker industry would sell you

1:12:14ad targeting to people with dementia,

1:12:16and then the person after me was from the Pentagon, who

1:12:19wanted them to know that you can buy,

1:12:22as an ad targeting group, military personnel on base who

1:12:25have gambling problems.

1:12:26JON STEWART: Oh, Jesus Christ.

1:12:27CORY DOCTOROW: So, like, this-- so

1:12:29how do we end up in this horrible place with privacy?

1:12:32Well, here it is.

1:12:33The last time Congress passed a federal consumer

1:12:35privacy law was in 1988.

1:12:37And that was a law that makes it

1:12:39illegal for video store clerks to disclose

1:12:41your VHS rental history.

1:12:42[JON LAUGHING]

1:12:45Right?

1:12:46And every other form of privacy invasion is legal in

1:12:49America, right?

1:12:51They spy on you because they can.

1:12:53JON STEWART: Because that's where the money is, Cory.

1:12:55We talked about it earlier.

1:12:56CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, but the money's there because they can.

1:12:58JON STEWART: Yes.

1:12:59CORY DOCTOROW: If every time you spied on someone--

1:13:01look, if Visa could 10% of the time just keep the money

1:13:04and not give it to the merchant,

1:13:06and they were the only game in town, they would.

1:13:08Just like your dog licks its balls because it can.

1:13:11and no one makes them stop.

1:13:12Like, it takes an act of will to not connect the fact

1:13:16that we don't have a new privacy law

1:13:18to the harms of surveillance.

1:13:20JON STEWART: Right.

1:13:21CORY DOCTOROW: In the same way that, like, we're like,

1:13:23how do we get all these monopolies?

1:13:24Well, we had these economists who, 40 years ago, told

1:13:26us monopolies were efficient and told us to not

1:13:28enforce anti-monopoly law.

1:13:30And now, we have monopolies.

1:13:31And they're like, what do you mean it's my fault?

1:13:34I did tell you not to put down the rat poison.

1:13:36And rats are eating your face off.

1:13:37But, like, it's the time of the rat, dude.

1:13:40JON STEWART: But I think because they're extorting

1:13:41our economy-- what they're doing is they're saying,

1:13:44if you take this away from us, it implodes.

1:13:48And suddenly, your economy is hollow.

1:13:50They've extorted us.

1:13:52And as far as the difference in privacy, look,

1:13:54Daniel Ellsberg reveals that the Vietnam War is a lie.

1:13:58And he's attacked by Nixon, but he's hailed as a hero.

1:14:04And the tide turns against the Vietnam War.

1:14:07Edward Snowden does the same thing

1:14:09about the NSA having a mass surveillance program,

1:14:12and what do we do?

1:14:13We go, oh, I'm sorry, you got to get the fuck out of here.

1:14:15Like, we've changed in our relationship

1:14:19to that in a huge way-- and not to the better, for sure.

1:14:24CORY DOCTOROW: But no one wants to be--

1:14:26even so, even if there's some apathy,

1:14:27no one wants to be spied on.

1:14:28You remember Apple turned on a little tick box

1:14:31in iOS, the operating system for phones and tablets.

1:14:33JON STEWART: That's right.

1:14:34CORY DOCTOROW: You ticked it and Facebook can spy on you.

1:14:3696% of iOS users tick that box.

1:14:38And you'd assume, like, the other 4%

1:14:40were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk employees--

1:14:42JON STEWART: Just didn't see it.

1:14:43CORY DOCTOROW: --which makes sense.

1:14:44If I worked at Facebook, I would be drunk all the time.

1:14:46But, like, no one wants this.

1:14:49And here's the kicker-- the same time Apple did this,

1:14:53they turned on surveillance in iOS

1:14:54to power their own ad brokerage with no tick box

1:14:58to opt out of it.

1:14:59And when they got caught doing it, they lied about it, right?

1:15:02JON STEWART: Wow.

1:15:03CORY DOCTOROW: Like, people don't want surveillance.

1:15:06No one goes into the cell phone store

1:15:08and says, now, which of these phones

1:15:09is going to spy on me the most?

1:15:11They might be indifferent to it,

1:15:13but no one is out there going, oh, I love being spied on.

1:15:17And when they get ripped off at the grocery store,

1:15:19or they get racially discriminated

1:15:23against in hiring, or in lending,

1:15:27or someone makes deepfake porn of them,

1:15:29these are all downstream of, like, no new privacy

1:15:31laws since 1988.

1:15:33These are all the same thing.

1:15:35They're just, like, different epiphenomena

1:15:37of the same root cause, which is we let them spy on us.

1:15:41And we don't punish them.

1:15:43And so it's profitable to do it.

1:15:44It doesn't have to be profitable to do it.

1:15:46Like, the fines from spying on you

1:15:48could be more than the benefit.

1:15:51JON STEWART: And that brings us around to the conversation.

1:15:55And I thank you so much your time.

1:15:56And it's been so interesting.

1:15:57CORY DOCTOROW: Pshaw.

1:15:59JON STEWART: Inevitability-- one

1:16:01of the things you talk about a lot this is not inevitable.

1:16:06And we are centaurs.

1:16:08And we have agency.

1:16:10We are master, not blaster.

1:16:12But that has to be exercised.

1:16:14And it's exercised not just through Democratic power,

1:16:17but through legislative power and through people power.

1:16:21These are the types of things that there is not-- there's

1:16:25a learned helplessness that goes along

1:16:27with systems that seem too complex and too

1:16:30large to have any impact.

1:16:32It's not a true story.

1:16:34And the story that you've written in this new book,

1:16:37Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, is a story of agency.

1:16:42And I really appreciate it.

1:16:44CORY DOCTOROW: Well, thank you.

1:16:45JON STEWART: And appreciate you, Cory Doctorow.

1:16:47CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, well, Jon, this

1:16:49has been an absolute delight.

1:16:52I feel like I've known you for a million years

1:16:54because I have this parasocial relationship with you.

1:16:56[JON LAUGHING]

1:16:57JON STEWART: I'm not that interesting, unfortunately.

1:16:59Sit around feeding chipmunks.

1:17:00CORY DOCTOROW: You have really given me some of the real hope

1:17:04in the dark on many's the day.

1:17:07And I really appreciate what you do.

1:17:10And it has been just an honor and a pleasure to be on.

1:17:13And I will say, to people who are feeling discouraged, look,

1:17:17they keep telling you to vote with your wallet.

1:17:19And the reason they want you to vote

1:17:20with your wallet is their wallets are thicker than yours.

1:17:23Shopping isn't politics, right?

1:17:25Like, a boycott-- like, Montgomery bus boycott was not

1:17:29people waking up for 380 consecutive days and going,

1:17:31I guess I'm walking to work today.

1:17:33It was a movement.

1:17:34It's not agonizing in the grocery aisle

1:17:36about whether to buy this product or that product,

1:17:38or whether you use Twitter or Bluesky.

1:17:40It's a movement.

1:17:42And if all you do is try and change politics with shopping

1:17:46and nothing happens, you're going

1:17:47to look over at your friends who shop differently from you.

1:17:49You're going to go, like, oh, it's your fault.

1:17:51And the people you need to be in community

1:17:53with and in solidarity with, you're going

1:17:54to end up being angry at them.

1:17:56Join a local group.

1:17:58Local politics-- like, we never thought

1:18:00local politics were important.

1:18:01There's one thing Moms for Liberty taught us,

1:18:03it's that the stupidest people you know

1:18:05can join the most unimportant, unregarded local offices

1:18:08and make huge material differences to people's lives.

1:18:10JON STEWART: That's right.

1:18:11CORY DOCTOROW: Local politics are like,

1:18:13do you get a data center?

1:18:14Is there a flock camera?

1:18:15Do chuds round up your neighbors

1:18:16and shoot them in the face, right?

1:18:20And get involved in national politics

1:18:24and get involved with civil society groups.

1:18:26So EFF.org, the group I've worked for for 25 years,

1:18:29the best and most important digital

1:18:31rights group in the country, but also the whole--

1:18:35I won't say panoply again-- the whole basket

1:18:38of other civil society groups.

1:18:39JON STEWART: Non-chuds.

1:18:40Get involved with the non-chuds aspects.

1:18:43The panoply of non-chuds.

1:18:46CORY DOCTOROW: And join your union or organize a union.

1:18:48JON STEWART: Yeah.

1:18:49CORY DOCTOROW: And that's how we get shut of it.

1:18:51And if you wanted to get there, I wouldn't start from here.

1:18:53But, you know, our ancestors in the not so distant past face

1:18:56challenges worse than the ones we're going through now.

1:18:59They did it.

1:19:00They weren't smarter or better than us.

1:19:01We can do it too.

1:19:02JON STEWART: Cory Doctorow, words of wisdom,

1:19:04words of encouragement.

1:19:05And thank you so much.

1:19:07And thanks for being here.

1:19:08Cory Doctorow, Enshittification, The Reverse

1:19:10Centaur's Guide to Life After AI,

1:19:12and a million other books that are all wonderful.

1:19:15Thank you for being with us. CORY DOCTOROW: Thank you, Jon.

1:19:17I really appreciate it.

1:19:18[MUSIC PLAYING]

1:19:21JON STEWART: I love a dude whose mind works faster than I

1:19:25can even-- like, it's one of those guys--

1:19:27his mind is working, and I feel a little bit like,

1:19:30am I in low oxygen?

1:19:31Why isn't my-- why can't my brain do that?

1:19:35GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah, that-- he was running ahead of everybody

1:19:38on that one, for sure. JON STEWART: Right?

1:19:39GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes.

1:19:40JON STEWART: He was leading the Peloton.

1:19:42And we were all like, let's catch

1:19:44that guy in the yellow jacket.

1:19:45Let's get up there-- the yellow jersey.

1:19:48And go through.

1:19:49But I also love that--

1:19:52and this is not, obviously, for his fiction,

1:19:54but in his nonfiction--

1:19:56he really does write like he thinks.

1:20:00GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. Yeah.

1:20:01He writes like he talks too.

1:20:02I mean, he's a great writer. JON STEWART: Yes.

1:20:03GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

1:20:04BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:20:06JON STEWART: And not everybody is

1:20:08able to connect to that force as easily and as naturally.

1:20:14And he seems to be able to do that in a really prolific way.

1:20:18GILLIAN SPEAR: I know.

1:20:19That's what makes him so enjoyable to read.

1:20:21It's like, I don't-- like, maybe that comes

1:20:22from his blogging experience.

1:20:24And that's maybe why he's so prolific too.

1:20:26JON STEWART: Right.

1:20:27GILLIAN SPEAR: It's conversational but in a way

1:20:31where it's, like, you know the smartest conversation somebody

1:20:33could just be having.

1:20:35JON STEWART: Conversational and constructed,

1:20:36but also quotable in a way--

1:20:39I mean, honestly, vast panoply of chuds?

1:20:42Come on. [LAUGHTER]

1:20:43GILLIAN SPEAR: That was off the top of the dome?

1:20:44What? JON STEWART: Come on.

1:20:46You can't just throw that in there

1:20:47and walk away like it's nothing.

1:20:50No.

1:20:51Fucking, that was great.

1:20:54And interesting in it, I think, changed my view of what

1:21:02the realities and what the dangers are of it

1:21:05and, in some ways, made me more hopeful.

1:21:09Like, I left the conversation feeling like, oh, no,

1:21:13systemic agency could have real efficacy on--

1:21:20this is not inevitable.

1:21:22GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes.

1:21:23And it feels like the solutions to our problems

1:21:26are solutions we're aware of.

1:21:29There are things that we are familiar with,

1:21:31but we've been avoiding regardless.

1:21:34It's like the way we've been talking about protecting labor

1:21:36against AI is, like, UBI and, like,

1:21:39creating dividends from these companies.

1:21:41But it's really just stronger labor protections.

1:21:43And it's something that we know is possible.

1:21:48But we just haven't been doing it.

1:21:50JON STEWART: Yeah. It's possible.

1:21:51And it was done with Pinkerton boys,

1:21:54with bully sticks beating the shit

1:21:55out of people in the streets.

1:21:57And it can be done again.

1:21:58But I also thought, cognizant of

1:22:03how that ball has been dropped by opposition parties and how

1:22:06and it's been difficult to articulate it.

1:22:08And then you can see like, oh, that's why the DSA stuff is

1:22:11gaining such urgency, because it's a language

1:22:13people are thirsty to hear.

1:22:14GILLIAN SPEAR: I know.

1:22:15I was thinking that during the conversation.

1:22:17I was like, there was a lot of class

1:22:19consciousness in the book.

1:22:20And it's like, if they were mad at us

1:22:22about communism last week, like--

1:22:24BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, boy.

1:22:26JON STEWART: Yes, they were.

1:22:27All the right wing blogs went crazy.

1:22:29Look at Stewart nodding his head.

1:22:33BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: How dare he?

1:22:34JON STEWART: Like Lenin did with Marx.

1:22:37[LAUGHTER]

1:22:38Such fucking ridiculousness.

1:22:40Brittany, what do the kids want to know?

1:22:43BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, there's

1:22:44107 days until the midterms.

1:22:46JON STEWART: Oh, god. Math.

1:22:47All right.

1:22:48BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Dems still don't have any plan.

1:22:50JON STEWART: 107.

1:22:52I think there's less when that question came in.

1:22:54BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Why does that number sound so familiar?

1:22:57JON STEWART: Oh.

1:22:59107?

1:23:00BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: 107 days.

1:23:01JON STEWART: Wait, am I missing something here?

1:23:03GILLIAN SPEAR: There was a book.

1:23:04BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Title of a book, I think.

1:23:06JON STEWART: Oh, shit.

1:23:07Was her book 107?

1:23:10107 Days.

1:23:11Oh, for fuck's sake.

1:23:12First of all, the listeners of this program

1:23:16are far more in tuned and brilliant than I could ever be.

1:23:21And they bring a question like that, so perfectly framed,

1:23:25and I completely whiff on the significance of it.

1:23:27So apologies to the people who framed that so beautifully.

1:23:34I think they don't have leadership.

1:23:36And, from what I understand from the New York Times,

1:23:38they also have no money--

1:23:40the DNC being slightly different.

1:23:43But when you're in a position for a wave election,

1:23:47and the article that comes out is the guy in charge

1:23:50of the logistics of it is throwing phones at people

1:23:53and is broke, that feels like the story

1:23:56of how I ended up on skid row.

1:24:02This feels like such a strange--

1:24:05GILLIAN SPEAR: Doesn't feel great.

1:24:06Doesn't feel great.

1:24:08BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Hope, baby.

1:24:09JON STEWART: The Democrats feel like, we

1:24:11have a great opportunity here.

1:24:13And then they just go around the meeting asking for ideas

1:24:16of how to fuck it up.

1:24:18BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: And then throw phones.

1:24:20GILLIAN SPEAR: There are no bad ideas.

1:24:21There are no bad ideas.

1:24:22JON STEWART: There are only bad ideas.

1:24:23No good ideas.

1:24:24I don't want to hear how we could save this thing.

1:24:27I want to understand how we could

1:24:29snatch defeat from, clearly, the jaws of victory.

1:24:36And the problem with is it seems so easily rectifiable.

1:24:40But it is when you don't know the difference between Chuck

1:24:45Schumer and Mamdani, and you don't

1:24:47know how to square that circle, and you don't have anybody

1:24:51who can unify that message?

1:24:54How the fuck they haven't come up

1:24:55with their own Contract for America--

1:24:57or even if it's a gimmick--

1:25:00to centralize the general complaints of a public thirsty

1:25:06for some actionable ideas and leadership

1:25:09is malpractice bordering on criminal.

1:25:13BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: But the infighting

1:25:15has been astonishing.

1:25:17My Twitter feed of just people still

1:25:20so completely mad at Mamdani--

1:25:22even Dems responding to last week's episode.

1:25:26JON STEWART: What are they mad at?

1:25:27What are the Democrats mad at?

1:25:29And also, why is he engendering anger?

1:25:33Other than, yeah, he's on the third rail

1:25:35of Israel-Palestine-- but, talking to him,

1:25:39how did that not diffuse when he's like, so what you do

1:25:43is you take the budget and you defer it to '32 instead of '26.

1:25:48And then what we do is we fix the potholes.

1:25:50There was nothing in there that was in any way

1:25:57a call of revolution.

1:25:59It was let's run this city with top of mind

1:26:04the people who help us run this city,

1:26:07meaning the essential workers and the middle class.

1:26:09BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:26:10I think it's this weird thing that people

1:26:11just want to be right.

1:26:13And they want to be the person or group to, like,

1:26:16crack the code for the plan forward without putting

1:26:18any actual plan forward.

1:26:20So, like, there's people just trying to have a following,

1:26:24essentially, that I'm seeing versus

1:26:27actually putting sustainable, followable things forward.

1:26:30JON STEWART: So it's almost like the caricature

1:26:33that they're reacting to is incentivized

1:26:36by the social media that they're reacting to it on.

1:26:39And it just creates this wild cycle

1:26:42of a battle royale over a straw man

1:26:49and a caricature that didn't really

1:26:51exist in the first place.

1:26:52Gillian is positing this.

1:26:54I want to get her thought.

1:26:55There's something spinning in the mind.

1:26:57GILLIAN SPEAR: I was thinking about what Britney said, just

1:26:59about, like, it's almost like there hasn't been

1:27:01a need for a ton of introspection

1:27:03because Donald Trump has been so terrible and, like, so

1:27:07unpopular that we haven't had to, like,

1:27:10really have a reckoning with why our policies

1:27:12are also very unpopular.

1:27:14And there's a lot of people that are

1:27:20entrenched in these positions.

1:27:22And, central to their livelihood, central

1:27:25to their relevance, central to their health care,

1:27:28their having a staff that weights on them

1:27:31at the ripe age of, like, 85 or whatever

1:27:34is maintaining the status quo.

1:27:36So these things really are a threat

1:27:38to them and their position.

1:27:41JON STEWART: And they haven't had to face that reckoning.

1:27:43They haven't had to look in the mirror

1:27:45because the car crash in front of them

1:27:48is so distracting that there hasn't had to be--

1:27:51I think that's definitely right.

1:27:53And, by the way, the infighting is necessary and should happen.

1:27:58It should be out fighting. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

1:28:00JON STEWART: We should be watching it

1:28:01so that there is a robust discussion about what

1:28:04the direction of this is.

1:28:05And, within that discussion, leadership of that party

1:28:08should emerge. That's all.

1:28:09GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

1:28:10I mean, this was happening with Biden where everyone was,

1:28:13like, so mad that people were drawing attention to what we

1:28:15could all see with our eyes.

1:28:17It's like we all have to get on the same page.

1:28:19JON STEWART: That's right. Fuck that.

1:28:21GILLIAN SPEAR: There's a time and a place for the same page.

1:28:23JON STEWART: You know what you want to do?

1:28:24You want to have a battle of ideas and let steel temper--

1:28:29or iron sharpen iron.

1:28:31BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:28:33JON STEWART: And you make your ideas better.

1:28:35And that's the free market of ideas.

1:28:37GILLIAN SPEAR: Especially in fucking primaries.

1:28:38It's like people are so mad in certain primaries

1:28:42that you have people coming from different points of view--

1:28:43JON STEWART: Wild.

1:28:44GILLIAN SPEAR: Like, we're supposed

1:28:46to have an ideological, like, pure primary?

1:28:51JON STEWART: We have to have same running against same.

1:28:54Otherwise, you're just like--

1:28:55GILLIAN SPEAR: Well, no, you have same with blonde hair.

1:28:57You have same with brown hair.

1:28:59You have same old and same young, you know?

1:29:01JON STEWART: Right.

1:29:02Yeah.

1:29:03It's nonsense, dude.

1:29:05But hopefully it's moving us in a better direction.

1:29:09I'm not even going to dive that deep into this

1:29:11because I'm on a optimism high.

1:29:14I'm on optimism high.

1:29:15BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: All right. JON STEWART: And I'm not--

1:29:16Brittany, what else we got?

1:29:18BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Love that for you.

1:29:19JON STEWART: What else we got?

1:29:21I'm thinking about the panoply of non-chuds.

1:29:23Go ahead.

1:29:25BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, why do you think Gutfeld

1:29:27didn't get a cabinet position?

1:29:30JON STEWART: Because he has one.

1:29:32Fox News is part of the administration.

1:29:34GILLIAN SPEAR: Deep.

1:29:35JON STEWART: Yeah.

1:29:37It's the Department of Marketing.

1:29:39It's the Department of Communications and Marketing.

1:29:42It's an adjunct to the administration.

1:29:46So when you work there, you are in the administration.

1:29:51You are in a cabinet position-- or you're in a cabinet position

1:29:53when they're out of power, working in the opposition.

1:29:57But they are part of the framework

1:30:01that works hand in hand--

1:30:02and the way you know it is they all talk to--

1:30:05I mean, they all have his phone number.

1:30:08They all have all that-- like, the interesting thing about it

1:30:12is everybody always accused us of, like,

1:30:14working with the Democratic Party or working with--

1:30:18like, we never talk to those people.

1:30:21And if we do, those conversations

1:30:23were generally pretty aggressive and not so pleasant.

1:30:27What you're being accused of is always the thing

1:30:31that they're themselves doing.

1:30:33And so they're already part of the party apparatus--

1:30:37and a valuable one, by the way.

1:30:38And they do it well.

1:30:41BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Execution. Yeah.

1:30:42JON STEWART: Yeah.

1:30:43I mean, when you can do it from a couch.

1:30:45GILLIAN SPEAR: I know. In New York City, too.

1:30:47Like, you don't have to go down to DC.

1:30:49JON STEWART: Right.

1:30:50And you don't have to sit in those meetings

1:30:52where you have to laugh at his shitty jokes.

1:30:54GILLIAN SPEAR: Oh, my god.

1:30:55JON STEWART: We showed that last night.

1:30:57We showed-- like, the reason why he bombed so bad

1:31:00is he's used to working bringer rooms.

1:31:03When you're a young comic, you have to do these bringer shows

1:31:05where, like, you have to bring your friends,

1:31:06and, like, you get to do stand-up, and they're all like,

1:31:08"oh, my god!"

1:31:09[FAKE LAUGHING]

1:31:10And then when you go out into the real world of stand up

1:31:13and the first performance and you're like, oh, hey,

1:31:16what's going on here?

1:31:18That's what happens.

1:31:20But he's working rooms where the bar for comedy

1:31:24is, was that a joke, boss?

1:31:27GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

1:31:28BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I'm dying to know,

1:31:29A, who wrote the speech.

1:31:30Like, did they bring in roast writers?

1:31:32GILLIAN SPEAR: He's dying to know who wrote it, too.

1:31:34Who wrote that?

1:31:35JON STEWART: Can I say something,

1:31:36though, in defense of the writers of Donald Trump's--

1:31:40so they had very serviceable premises.

1:31:44Oh, we're going to do another UFC Fight Night.

1:31:46Here are the battles.

1:31:48Chris Christie against cake, AOC against foreign policy,

1:31:53you know?

1:31:54BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:31:55JON STEWART: Those jokes, I will guarantee you,

1:31:58were written professionally and concisely.

1:32:02And he went in and Trumped them up.

1:32:05GILLIAN SPEAR: He weaved.

1:32:07JON STEWART: He weaved.

1:32:08He went in, and he went, Chris Christie--

1:32:10the worst. He's the worst.

1:32:12Sloppy Chris Christie.

1:32:14And immediately, you're like, wait,

1:32:15what are we talking about?

1:32:16He is the one-- and then he would go, who wrote this?

1:32:20They did well.

1:32:21Who fucked it up?

1:32:24BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The performer.

1:32:25JON STEWART: That's right.

1:32:26Old Bumbles McGee on stage, weaving around

1:32:30and talking about all kinds of other shit until nobody even

1:32:33had any idea.

1:32:35He introduced the premise and went 4.5 minutes

1:32:39before getting back to the payoff on the premise,

1:32:43and then complained that the joke wasn't written right.

1:32:48BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:32:49JON STEWART: Wow.

1:32:50Wow.

1:32:52BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: It's never him.

1:32:53GILLIAN SPEAR: It was a tough watch.

1:32:54JON STEWART: Oh.

1:32:57It was a beautiful watch.

1:32:58BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Satisfying, I actually think.

1:33:00JON STEWART: For a comic, no one

1:33:01is ever happier than a comic watching another comic eat shit

1:33:06on stage.

1:33:07GILLIAN SPEAR: I couldn't handle it.

1:33:09If I was in that room, I would have been laughing because

1:33:11of how uncomfortable I was.

1:33:12I would have been like, I'll give him the laugh.

1:33:14JON STEWART: That's how we all--

1:33:15like, I love watching people bomb,

1:33:18especially when they love to bomb.

1:33:20Like, when you're a comic, you have to love the bomb.

1:33:23The bomb is, like--

1:33:24it's like a snow day.

1:33:25It doesn't happen all that often, but it's so fun.

1:33:28And you get to do shit you wouldn't normally get to do.

1:33:30And you can always tell when somebody is really bombing

1:33:32and other comics are there, because no one's

1:33:34laughing except for three weirdos in the back who

1:33:38are doing this.

1:33:39[LOUD OBNOXIOUS LAUGHTER]

1:33:44That's how you knew the writers for Trump's roast

1:33:47were not actually in the room, because it was quiet.

1:33:51If they were in the room, they'd

1:33:52have been back there going

1:33:54[LOUD OBNOXIOUS LAUGHTER]

1:33:56Oh, I love watching you eat it!

1:33:58BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, my god.

1:34:00JON STEWART: It was great.

1:34:02BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Last one.

1:34:04Jon, in your opinion--

1:34:06who is more pathetic, Punch or Jimothy?

1:34:09JON STEWART: Oh, Punch.

1:34:12I don't even think that's controversial.

1:34:13Is that a--

1:34:14Jimothy is-- look, Punch is not pathetic.

1:34:20Punch is a beautiful soul searching for love--

1:34:24and, by the way, has been more accepted now.

1:34:27Has learned to temper whatever Punch was pulling.

1:34:32Look, the wisdom of the tribe-- we cannot replace our wisdom

1:34:35for the wisdom of the tribe.

1:34:37And the wisdom of the tribe shaped Punch's behavior

1:34:40to such an extent that the tribe-- all right,

1:34:43the hazing period is over.

1:34:45You are no longer a pledge.

1:34:47Welcome, brother.

1:34:48Now, you can lose the stuffed animal for comfort,

1:34:54and you can wife it now.

1:34:55You can join in with us and just use it for whatever--

1:34:59GILLIAN SPEAR: Purposes you find.

1:35:01BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah.

1:35:02JON STEWART: Jimothy-- sorry, I'm gonna [INAUDIBLE]

1:35:07[LAUGHTER]

1:35:08Jimothy is an angel on Earth who

1:35:13is Tiny Tim, who was respected and embraced by his family,

1:35:19by the community at large.

1:35:20They recognized the brilliance of a raccoon that could also--

1:35:28GILLIAN SPEAR: Has a spinal issue.

1:35:30JON STEWART: --be an Ottoman.

1:35:31Like, you're not quite sure what Jimothy is.

1:35:33Is that a piece of furniture with a raccoon head?

1:35:36Or is that-- what are we dealing with, this hybrid?

1:35:41But there was something special about Jimothy.

1:35:45Was Jimothy born in a manger?

1:35:47I'm not going to go that far.

1:35:48[LAUGHTER]

1:35:49GILLIAN SPEAR: A Jimothy, born in Bethlehem.

1:35:51JON STEWART: Was he visited by three wise chipmunks

1:35:55who brought him--

1:35:57I'm just saying there was a recognition from the get-go

1:36:03that Jimothy had to be nurtured,

1:36:06and adored, and respected.

1:36:10And this is not to diminish Punch, who has, to his credit,

1:36:14found his way back--

1:36:16BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Sure.

1:36:17JON STEWART: --from whatever the shit he was pulling before.

1:36:20GILLIAN SPEAR: Abandonment.

1:36:22JON STEWART: Settle down.

1:36:23[LAUGHTER]

1:36:25Settle down.

1:36:26BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The things that we

1:36:27talk about on this podcast.

1:36:32JON STEWART: All I'm saying is there

1:36:36needn't be a cure for Jimothy, because Jimothy is the cure.

1:36:40GILLIAN SPEAR: Beautiful.

1:36:42BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: That's perfect.

1:36:43JON STEWART: Thank you.

1:36:47I've actually written a song about it,

1:36:48and it goes a little something like this.

1:36:51Oh, Jim--

1:36:54GILLIAN SPEAR: I was going to--

1:36:55I was wondering how long you could go.

1:36:56JON STEWART: Brought from the Angels.

1:37:01Yeah.

1:37:02The only problem we have with Jimothy

1:37:03is, obviously, rhyming his name in the rap

1:37:08songs and odes that should praise him to the hosannas.

1:37:12That's really the only problem that we have.

1:37:14BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Sure.

1:37:15JON STEWART: It's been harder for him to embed

1:37:17himself in popular culture.

1:37:18GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

1:37:20I bet he's doing it in spite of that, you know?

1:37:22That's why he's such an inspiration.

1:37:24JON STEWART: Gillian, thank you.

1:37:27You're exactly right.

1:37:29He's everything.

1:37:32[LAUGHTER]

1:37:34GILLIAN SPEAR: This is how religions start.

1:37:35Yep.

1:37:36JON STEWART: As they should.

1:37:37This is how they should start.

1:37:40Well, that's all we have.

1:37:42That's all the time.

1:37:43Brittany, how can they keep--

1:37:46you know, people are just going to stop asking questions.

1:37:49They're just going to go, I didn't-- what am I doing?

1:37:51I'm in my car. I'm going to work.

1:37:53I don't need to listen to this nonsense.

1:37:57BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: They can ask us at Twitter.

1:37:59We are WeeklyShowPod.

1:38:00Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, we

1:38:02are WeeklyShowPodcast.

1:38:04You can like, subscribe, and comment

1:38:06on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.

1:38:09JON STEWART: Ah, the perfect episode for a lovely late

1:38:11July morning.

1:38:12Producer Brittany Mehmedovic, Producer Gillian Spear,

1:38:14Video Editor and Engineer Rob Vitola, Audio Editor

1:38:17and Engineer Nicole Boysen, and our executive producers

1:38:19Chris McShane and Caity Gray.

1:38:21Once again, thank you guys very much.

1:38:23Very enjoyable.

1:38:24We'll talk to you next week.

1:38:27The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

1:38:28is a Comedy Central podcast.

1:38:30It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy productions.

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