Big Technology Podcast - TikTok's Uncertain Future, Twitter's 2024 Election Play, AI Regulation's Feasibility — With Ryan Mac and Bobby Allyn

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Ryan Mac is a tech reporter at The New York Times, Bobby Allyn is a technology correspondent at NPR. The two join Big Technology Podcast for a wide-ranging discussion touching on: 1) TikTik's ban in Montana and its potential spillover effects. 2) The rise of Instagram Reels. 3) Twitter's Role in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. 4) Elon Musk as Republican kingmaker. 5) Elizabeth Holmes reports to prison. 6) AI regulation's long road ahead. -- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: [e-mail]

LinkedIn Presents Welcome to big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuance conversation of the tech world and beyond. And today we have a grab bag of stories with two great tech reporters who are hanging out with me here in NPR West and Culver City in Los Angeles. We're doing this, well, live together, but recorded for you. Ryan Mack is here. He's a technology reporter at the New York Times. Welcome, Ryan. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. And Bobby Allen is here, a technology correspondent at NPR. Bobby, thank you for being here. Thank you for hosting us. This is pretty exciting. Yeah, it is exciting. Happy to have you, Alex. Great to be here. So, well, this is cool. It just said, great to be here on my own show. It's always been a dream of mine. All right, we're going to cover four big stories, grab bag of topics. We're going to cover the state of TikTok. We're going to cover TikTok's, sorry, Twitter's place in the 2024 election, Elizabeth. homes heading to prison and if we can get to it and I think we will AI regulation and what's

going to happen there. There's been so much smoke on that last topic in particular, but very little fire. Start with the state of TikTok. So Bobby, you had a story that TikTok is in, well, TikTok is in the middle of trying to fight a ban in Montana. You know, it's filing this lawsuit to try to protect itself against this ban using the First Amendment in the U.S. and talking about how U.S. has a principle for free expression, and by banning TikTok in Montana, it's violating that constitutional right. Now, that's a definite rule, right? But is there any irony here in the fact that a company that's owned by a Chinese firm in a country where there is no free expression is now using the United States' own constitutional rights to try to preserve

itself from like a national security threat type of move and using the rules here to potentially try to extend its lifespan. I don't know if I'm here to measure irony. I mean, but I could do it, though. Welcome to the grab bag. First question. I mean, look, I think this is political theater. I think the lawmakers in Montana know that this is going to face really long odds in federal courts. I mean, I've talked to a bunch of constitutional lawyers. And, and And none of them said this has a snowball's chance in hell of being upheld. But it comes as a lot of states and the Biden administration are trying to figure out what to do about TikTok. I mean, you know, it's funny because remember back in the Trump administration, everyone thought that Trump's crackdown on the app was kind of a Trump sort of thing, like another sort of wild, crazy interest that he had and that it was sort of, there wasn't, you know, bipartisan support to put the app out of business, come to the Biden White House.

It's like, wait, if there's one thing that Biden and Trump actually agree on, it's that the national security concerns about bite dance and an ascendant China are actually the same as in the Trump White House. So, I mean, I'm curious to hear what Ryan has to say here, but I think how this case plays out in Montana could potentially affect state legislatures around the country and affect ultimately what the White House decides to do on TikToks. Right now, it's in limbo. Yeah, so it's not political theater then, right? I mean, if this is them trying to push this forward and it can impact and get the ball rolling elsewhere, it's something more than political theater. wouldn't you agree? I mean, I think Montana is doing this to get Montana in a headline to make it look like they're being tough on China. So from that sort of perspective, I do think there's a little bit of theater here. But yeah, it plays into the larger narrative of TikTok being this

national security concern, even though there's not really any concrete evidence of that being that case. It's as one federal judge put it during the Trump years, you know, the threat about TikTok is sort of phrased in the theoretical that we can really get into it. But if you if you really scrutinize the evidence against TikTok in terms of the national security concerns. There's no solid evidence that the Chinese Communist Party has ever or will ever use TikTok as an espionage tool. Certainly, it's within their abilities in the authoritarian regime, but it's not like they've done it thus far. Look, China has so much data on Americans already. Like, I really don't think TikTok that they would be able to glean anything they don't already know about Americans

from 150 million users in the U.S. It's a lot of people, but TikTok, but TikTok, already has tons of information on us. I don't know. What do you think about it? It sounds like something that TikTok PR might say. It's a, what is that privacy center they have down the road that they built? Do you guys end up going to that? Bobby, I was there. I was there. I was there. It's like they put, they picked the Facebook election war room invite and they're like, why don't we just do that and see if it works to the same effect. So I think there was some skepticism around that. You know something funny about that one? Yeah, yeah, let's hear. So I got, I asked to go and they would let me go. So another, our TikTok report was invited and she couldn't make it and she tried to pass the invite on to me and they said no

you can't attend our supposedly transparent privacy center unveiling which I don't think showed very much right Bobby well they're wise to your tricks right but it actually so so Bobby's saying here like there hasn't been a foul and you're trying to say there hasn't been a foul that we know of and you're trying to say no I would agree with that no yeah I would say you just said it sounds like something TikTok PR would say you know I think and I'm a little offended you're saying I'm carrying water for bite dance, Ryan. We're going to have to take this outside. It's going to be the first fist fight on big technology podcast.

Honestly, this would be a really good one. I would videotape it. Yeah. It's too early in the morning. No, I would, you know, I would say, that is exactly right. I mean, it's more that, you know, these hypotheticals keep popping up, you know, and these opportunities to show that bite dance, you know, is separate from China, you know, like, they keep failing at, or sorry, or from TikTok. They keep failing at that, like, very basic step. And, you know, we have a story this

week that shows the connections between the two companies and, you know, their inability to keep U.S. data out of, you know, Chinese servers. And that stuff keeps hopping up. It's just like their lack of transparency here is, and this lack of credibility when it comes to these statements are what's hurting them. You know, and I think both things can exist. Talk about your Lark story. Sure. So this week we wrote a story, my colleague Sapna and I published a story on this internal tool called LARC. And LARC is, if you think about it, kind of like Slack, like we use Slack every day. And it's used by every one of BightDance's employees, BightDance, the parent company of TikTok.

So if you're a TikTok employee, you're also using LARC. And it's like, you know, a workplace collaboration tool they use in their day-to-day. So, you know, there's these large groups on LARC that people are in. Some of them deal with, you know, sensitive stuff, banning and unbanging accounts, child exploitative material. And user information is then shared in these channels. Let's say, for example, you Alex get banned from TikTok and you want to, you know, get your account back.

You would maybe share your driver's license. Now that driver's license is then shared in LARC. And it's now there and stored. And so that stuff has been stored in Lark, which is saved, you know, that data is saved on Chinese servers. And it's been there for years. And it's accessible to thousands of people in these groups. You know, and so that stuff is out in the open. And it's coming at this time where TikTok is saying, you know, we're protecting U.S. user data.

It's separate from our Chinese operations. But we have examples that that's actually not the case. All right. I'll just ask this one, right? But you've been reporting on social media for a long time. Sure. a lot about the lax data protections that Facebook has. This sounds to me more like kind of typical social media being company being casual with data

versus like something from Xi Jinping to get my license, my driver's license. So how do you think or do you think we should really think about this differently? Yeah, I mean, I talked to, you know, many privacy and security experts. And, you know, they say like, you know, probably these employees are trying to do the right thing. They're trying to, you know, unbanned this account quicker. They're trying to get this child exploitative material off, you know, TikTok. And they're working to do that in the fastest way possible. And so they're using what's ever available to them to get that in front of other colleagues to flag it, you know.

But it really, you know, and this does, this happens at other companies. And these other companies, you know, they have to think about how this data is stored after the fact, after these tasks get executed. But these other companies don't have a Chinese parent company. And that is the kind of issue at hand here. And this company, TikTok, is now making these promises that it can separate, you know, U.S. user data from, you know, the rest of it and sort on U.S. servers. And, you know, as reporters, we hold up these company statements to them and say, like, you know, you say you're doing this, but actually this is happening.

And I think that is the fundamental point of what we're trying to make. I do think there's two strains of concern that end up getting conflated. I mean, Ryan's really good story. and other reporting has shown that there's U.S. data that is accessible from Chinese-based employees at Bight Dance. That's one concern. But a separate thing, what I was talking about earlier, is whether the CCP can then get the information, right? And obviously there are national intelligence laws in China that basically say, if the government comes to you as a private business, you have no choice but to surrender all of the information you have on companies. You

can't really fight it. There's not like an independent judiciary like there is in the U.S. So for sure, TikTok says, you know, there's sequestration that our data is being sort of in the U.S. isolated from bite dance employees. And that has been proven again and again, including through Ryan's recent story, to be BS, right? That's one issue. But the separate issue and the thing that is really animating Washington right now is whether the CCP can get U.S. user data. And on that question, there just has, at least there's nothing publicly available to show that that's the case. And I would agree with that 100 percent. So no more fight anymore. That's good. We're making world peace two tech reporters at a time. You know, I think, you know, there has been other reporters that have shown, you know, the lax data practices of TikTok, you know, Emily Baker-White. Yeah. But, you know, I'm hearing so much about data. And I also wonder just about the cultural control that this platform has. Like, watching Elon take over Twitter and then seeing the 4U tab become entirely like AI threads leads me to believe that whatever company does control like

the animating algorithm behind this can really put their their foot on the levers or their finger on the hand on the levers. Some body part on the levers that control what we see. And to me, that seems like the real issue is can they have cultural control and push trends? No. I don't think there's any evidence that China has been doing that, but it does seem to me like that to me is like the key liability. And there's one thing that I think is sort of a misperception among lawmakers who are railing against TikTok. And they think if, one day, you know, poof, sort of TikTok disappears that some other social media company can just gobble up the users and recreate that culture and bring on the network effects that

TikTok really has. And that's just not the case, right? I don't think anyone's social media app will ever be able to match what TikTok has built because the community is so unique and there's so much about how the platform operates that is kind of suey generous. I mean, yes, there's, you know, YouTube shorts, there's, you know, Instagram, what are they called now? Reals, of course. I, I can't remember the day. Bobby, you so underestimate reels. You don't even know what the name is. I forgot what real. I mean, reels are just like, I call it like, it's like a salvation army of TikToks. It's like all of these like second and third hand TikTok. It's very accurate. But look, I just don't, I don't think that there's any app that can just, if TikTok disappears, I think a lot of

creators are going to be at a loss. I don't think there's any natural sort of raft for them to jump to if this ship is sinking. I strongly disagree with you on that. I do think that reels definitely can replace what we have with TikTok if we don't have TikTok. I've seen your TikToks go out. I mean, my TikToks aren't going to push the needle either way. In fact, my TikToks. Well, I had a TikTok agency that I used for the podcast to try to, you know, ride that distribution chain.

Let's just say the ROI wasn't there and we mutually parted ways. I've seen some bad, like, podcast or TikToks. Well, there's one guy. Mine are definitely even below. Talk too much smack on. Go ahead. That's what this is for. Talk smack.

Oh, man. What's the Twitter account? TikTok investors invests investor on TikTok, they flag like the worst and most cringe-worthy investor TikToks. Yeah, they're bad.

Anyway, Ryan, you're going to push back on something. Well, I do, yeah, I mean, maybe just to set Ryan up here, like the last Facebook earnings calls had reels growing substantially not only in terms of usage, but in terms of their ability to make money off of these things.

Yeah, I was going to push back on something of TikTok, But we could talk about reviews. Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say that there is evidence of them, you know, manipulating the content on their platform with, you know, I think the Guardian Forbes has talked about, you know, these ban lists of account or like not accounts,

but, you know, words that can't be surfaced or searched for. You know, there's examples of, you know, Taiwan protests or Xinjiang, you know, or Hong Kong protests. The question is where are those orders coming from? Someone in ByteDance or the CCP. And Doyen, it's the TikTok equivalent in China. I mean, that has been used, and it's been proven to be used as a propaganda tool.

So, yeah. What do you guys think is going to be the outcome here? Oh, man. Because I think, let me throw something out there and let you guys sort of give your opinion on it. It seems like these rules, like we had Montana, for instance, that stuff is not going to actually work. It's going to be ruled, you know, shot down in court. But it does seem like the committee on foreign investment in the United States, also known as Sipheus, which is a great villainous name. For an important agency, it seems like they are going to be the ones that end up doing something.

And all this stuff that we're seeing, the stuff that we're seeing in Montana, the dialogue all goes to influence what their move is because ultimately they have the power. I don't know. Bight Dances want to give up TikTok. It's its first global hit. It's a huge success. It's a, it's one of the most valuable startups. I mean, Bight Dance is one of the most valuable startups in the world. And this is their global sensation. So I remember during the Trump era, there was a huge pushback in China to the idea of a group of American investors or a U.S. tech company acquiring TikTok. And, of course, there's the antitrust concerns right now. I don't think Lena Khan would be overly excited about a big tech company acquiring TikTok. I can't see that happening. Remember when Walmart was going to buy TikTok?

Yeah. That was kind of hilarious. Well, it does, it does drive a lot of retail trends. Yeah. But yeah. Oh, so Ryan, actually, I do want to go back to the, okay, so we'll, we'll just leave it as still kind of... I think lemonade's going to take off

their new app. Huge opportunity. So, but Ryan, the Reels thing, like, do you think Reels is like a real factor here? I mean, I've started to use Instagram more than Twitter as, you know, my Twitter habit's been weaned off and I've been suspended, but... Ryan's cat video game is strong on Instagram, I can attest. Don't send people there, please you not.

And I also hate extrapolating on my own experience. But, like, you know, Reels is dominating the app. You know, they're clearly pushing people that way. and it's no longer the redone like the second and third hand TikToks like Bobby was saying earlier I've noticed more and more

original content on there there's striking creator deals like they are putting a lot into it but it seems just like three paces behind TikTok there is a lot of stuff that's you know

you see it on every platform it's like those like puppy video like the same puppy videos the same viral content you know it's re-regurgitated through each platform but you know I'm seeing

less of the like it has like the TikTok like watermark or whatever Watermark and the username in the corner. You know, it's interesting, though, like my friends who are just on Instagram, they'll often send me a really funny TikTok video on Instagram as an Instagram real, like three days after I saw on TikTok. Oh, yeah, for sure.

That happens all the time. I mean, I've sent you TikToks after you've seen TikTok. So I would say it's kind of tough to scoop you on TikTok stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's just, I'm curious, every time there's a big debate like this, there are always some forces shaping it, right? Like the fact that we're having so much discussion about the dangers of TikTok where we haven't, We've seen a little bit of sort of nefarious behavior from them, but not like, you know, a tidal wave of it.

We haven't seen China invade Taiwan yet for sure. I'm curious if there are there forces that we don't understand or aren't fully, you know, clear in the public discourse about why this is being talked about so much now. I mean, Ryan, like we used to talk about how big tech's favorite talking point was that you better like us because you're really not going to like China. So, like, conversations like the one we're having right now happen all the time in the tech press and the political media. I'm just kind of curious if you guys have a sense as to, like, who wants these conversations to happen? You mean the conversation about... About the sort of the risks of TikTok. Or maybe I'm being too conspiratorial-minded, but I'm curious, like...

I mean, Mark Zuckerberg wants this conversation to be happening, of course. I mean, it seems so obvious that I feel like I don't even have to say it. But, like, all the attacks against TikTok takes the heat off of the incumbent U.S.-based social media companies, right? So do you think we're falling into that trap at all? No. I mean, after, you know, reporting on TikTok for years, I do think there are serious questions that ought to be raised and ought to be explored when it comes to data protection and, you know, national security issues revolving around TikTok. And I think I think those concerns are real. I don't think they're being fabricated.

I do think sometimes it's, there's a bit of exaggeration and a bit of hyperbole and a bit of, you know, focusing on the sort of theoretical outcomes here. But I think it's a good conversation to have. I don't know. What do you think right? I think you just got to, I mean, for us, I just, we got to follow the reporting. Like, you know, you see this stuff with Lark, for example. Like, you know, we worked in that for a while. And, you know, it's a clear example of the company not being transparent with what's happening inside their own service, you know. I think there's a lot more reporting to be done on TikTok and, you know, bite dance. And I think there is kind of an inability to do that because of the lack of, you know, reporting ability from inside China, from inside Beijing, you know, with their crackdown on foreign reporting inside the country. But, you know, we can only, you know, I feel like my opinions can only be shaped by what I see from what we're hearing. Right. And, you know, and, you know, that's what we put out there is what. What's happening. What's happening. No doubt about it. I mean, I remember covering, do you remember that, what was at a Trump campaign event where a bunch of K-poppers and others artificially boosted

the attendance numbers and on TikTok. Was that the Oklahoma one or the Oklahoma? They did not show up. And right after that, Trump brought down the hammer on TikTok. And I and others, I feel like thought this would go away after that. That it looked like straight Trump retaliation and that he was targeting this app because it was embarrassing for him. But look at now, 2023, we're still talking about it.

So I don't think anyone could have predicted that. One more media question, and then we can move on to Twitter stuff. Obviously, the tensions are rising between the U.S. and China. I don't think there's any doubt about that, and this story is part of that. What responsibility do you think the press has in terms of contextualizing what's happening? Because I think an inflamed press can lead to inflamed action from politician, which can lead us closer to war, or maybe I'm giving too much credit to the media. Wow, that question really does feel a little above my pay grade.

How is U.S. coverage going to impact geopolitics? Or what responsibility does the press have to, like, you know, put this stuff in the proper context versus blow it up and potentially inflamed things? Are you insinuating that all the coverage about TikTok is sort of, is heating up tensions between the U.S. and China artificially or what's the... No, just that it has the possibility to do so. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ramifications that are, um, unintended and you can't predict from news coverage.

It's not really something that I think about, but, yeah. I mean, I think the responsibility of what we're doing, as you know, Alex, is just getting the facts right and reporting the story and standing it up in a way that's responsible. But I don't know whether the story winds up in the White House and people use it to talk about larger geopolitical issues. I mean, do we have a responsibility to think about that? I think so. I don't think so.

But no one reads my stories anyway. Ryan, but we all know that's not true. Okay, I think that that was fair responses all around. Why don't we move on to another social media and social media times politics story, which is the role that Twitter is going to play in the 2024 election. So last week, DeSantis announced his candidacy for president of the United States in a Twitter space with Elon Musk and David Sacks. It didn't go quite so well, but it is. interesting to see Twitter's evolving place in at least U.S. politics. And of course,

it factors globally as well. So it sort of went from like this was the platform where all the political class and journalists chatter to to like in 20, that was 2008. You could say maybe this happens in eight year increments. You know, in 2016, it was like here as a candidate Donald Trump who's using this to circumvent the press and really, you know, sort of launch an insurgent candidacy. And now it's a lot different, right? It's a lot less, I would say, relevant for news. than it was even a year ago but you can still see at least as something that is

as culturally relevant to the point where DeSantis would want to announce his candidacy there even though it didn't go well but like this is going to be we're about to enter effectively year and a half of campaigning where Twitter will play a role and it's sort of like

interesting that Elon Musk is the wildcard now I'm kind of curious how you guys see this platform factoring and how you think it plays out Well, I think, you know, this week's event, you know, it shows that Twitter is now shaped by kind of the whatever Elon wants in a way, you know. He hasn't made a secret of, you know, supporting DeSantis. As of like a year ago, he's tweeting, you know, I'm going to support DeSantis. I'm leaning towards DeSantis. Vote Republican in the midterms. And, you know, this space is, you know, the ultimate manifestation of like, you know, him inputting his will. And, you know, and changing the platform to how he wants it to be, you know. What's good for Elon is good for Twitter. And, you know, that is going to reflect itself in, you know, the news that's

surface in the 4U page, how that's tweaked, you know, what spaces are going to be highlighted and who's going to show up in those spaces. And I think that is the kind of overarching theme here. Yeah, and just a clarification for listeners. We're recording this Friday before this airs, so we might use this week and next week. And last week, interchangeably, but just so you know that that's where we're coming from. Yeah. I mean, I think despite all of the movement to other alternative Twitter platforms like Macedon and Blue Sky and others, political reporters and all types of reporters are still glued to Twitter.

I think that's going to be the case coming into an election cycle. I mean, I won't name names, but there are reporters who say they've totally given up Twitter and those reporters are still liking my tweets. Name names. Let's hear. So people are people are still there. I mean, look, blue sky is what it is, but I think, what do they have, like, 90,000 users or something? It's like a tiny, tiny platform. I think, no, no, I think, like, you know, like the idea that Twitter would just disappear one day was kind of ridiculous and, like, it would shut down and no one would use it. You know, I think it's going to be a slow burn of this thing, you know, as things start to degrade and things start to fail.

But, you know, you have, there was like a perfect example of how, you know, both political parties will use Twitter and the election. You know, Desantis went on this space. It failed for more than 20 minutes as they tried to, like, get it working. And President Biden then tweets out, you know, a link to, I think, a fundraising form that said, like, this link works, you know. Right. And just a great word. Trump also jumped right on it. Trump jumped in, but he was on true social, as I believe.

But his stuff was still getting, you know, push over to Twitter. Even Fox said, you know. Even Fox was like, you know. This isn't going to fail. If you want to see and here, like here and see the candidate come to our, but, you know, like, it shows that people are still using Twitter. Right. It means it's relevant.

Relevant to a certain amount of people. And there's, you know, there's still some critical mass there. Is it the same as, you know, the last election? Probably not. But, you know, it's going to take time for these things just completely go away. And these things are still going to have a role. Well, what's the wheels fall off the bus moment for Twitter? I mean, there's been, there's more outages than ever.

DeSantis presidential announcement was a total disaster. I mean, I just feel like, is there going to be a moment that finally people say, I mean, when you and other journalists were suspended from Twitter, a lot of journalists were like, screw this, I'm off. I mean, what's it going to be? I think it's different for everyone. You know, it's everyone's going to have their point where it's no longer tenable for them. You know, was it Elon going after, you know, his former head of trust and safety

and saying, you know, pretty homophobic stuff about him. That was for some people the last straw, you know. Was it the banning of journalists? You know, it's going to be something different for everyone. Maybe it's just the service shutting off for a period of time where people getting logged out so they can't remember the credentials. Right. I do think it's kind of amazing that they spun this space as like a,

we broke the internet moment. Like we melted the servers. I was like, that's been like the refrain over and over again. And, you know, it doesn't break the internet. You broke a feature on an app, you know, that's been breaking for the last however many months. Yeah, it does speak to the interest in this announcement on Twitter and this idea that there's ever going to be a wheels off the bus moment for Twitter. I mean, the platform, I can tell you, from the moment I started covering this platform, there have been op-eds talking about how Twitter is dead. And they always end up being tweeted by the people that wrote the op-ed.

And I'm sure the people who talked about how much of a disaster, the DeSantis thing was. you know, went on and tweeted about it and hoped to get traction in. So I do think it's interesting that Elon Musk has gone on to be one of, I guess, a number of Republican kingmakers in this election, or at least that's what he's positioning himself to be. What do you guys think about the role that he in particular is going to play in this election? And do you think his support is going to help or hurt candidates? Because I have to imagine that if you're DeSantis, you probably went through this type of thought process. A, okay, wow, one of the most successful business people in the country who I was like

real, you know, very serious fans, very real grassroots movement supporting him, wants to feature me on his platform. It helps in the culture war narrative. And this is very exciting. And then, oh, wow, like, well, you know, it didn't work out as planned. Kind of like our announcement was a bit of a flop. and that association with Elon Musk, it's like very difficult, I think, for me to contextualize how that's going to help or hurt a candidate who wants to get close to him.

I'm kind of curious what you guys think. I don't know. If you hit your political future to Elon Musk, I can't imagine that you're going to be very successful. But people said the same about Trump before. Yeah, these can't imagine statements are kind of. Right, right. But I just, I mean, I think obviously people like saying that Trump is, or sorry, that Elon is very Trumpian. but I don't think his base has a coherent set of worldviews.

I mean, he's such a mercurial, chaotic person who's running so many different companies and has so many different interests that, I mean, besides being sort of a chaos agent and besides being someone who really relishes owning the libs, what else does he stand for politically? He's kind of a self-preservation. You just basically described the type of person that Trump was. Yeah, but he, I mean, like Trump, he's a self-preservationist. He hoards and wants to preserve his wealth. I mean, what else does he really represent, Ryan?

What do you think politically? I was just thinking of the irony. He did the CNBC interview the other day where he's like, give me money. I don't care. Give me power. I don't care. And like influencing an election is the definition of like gaining power. Yeah.

And caring. And caring, you know. You know, it is strange though because it's like, you know, I don't know how much he wants to hitch his star to DeSantis, you know, in some. ways you've already like i've been on twitter and seen the reaction to it but he's alienating this like maga base that he's also people love you know he's had this subset of trump fans that like him you know for owning the libs essentially and he's alienated those folks um you know he retweeted tim scott the other day the tim scott announcement the video on twitter so like you know is he

for tims but and he's putting tucker on who might run for president himself and ben shapiro right And he's doing Daily wires, you know. I think he knows that the election is inherently going to drive traffic to Twitter. And ultimately that, I think, is his North Star. You know, if he can save Twitter as a business while doing all this other promotion of these candidates. You know, I think he sees that as a flywheel of pushing, you know, more activity to Twitter and more relevance to Twitter. Here's a question I have for both you guys.

Do you, if there's a DeSantis administration, do you think Elon gets a cabinet position? Oh, I don't think he would take one. I mean, could you imagine going from the CEO of, unless he, what was he like, unless he became. Don't you have to divest? Yeah. There's that. And the, and the, maybe he could become vice president. But like, come on.

He's not going to give up. No, he can't because he can't. I don't think there's a conflict of interest in the executive. No, it's the whole South Africa. He's not born. Can you be vice president if you're born outside the U.S. It's for a U.S. citizen. I don't see why not, but don't quote me on that.

You might end up getting. You might end up getting a trusty U.S. Constitution. I mean, I just think, I just think personality wise, he can't have a boss. So I think that would be a short-lived tenure. I don't think that that would be something that he'd be interested. And he's building companies not doing politics. And you wouldn't want him as like one of the high prestige ones like the Secretary of State. But I'm going to push back gently on this idea.

Elon Musk's Secretary of State. I mean, trust me, this country has been through weird of things. So I want to push back gently on this idea that he doesn't have a political philosophy because I think you could basically describe Elon's political philosophy and his pushback and his purchase of Twitter as something of like a pushback on what a lot of Republicans are like describing as this sort of totalitarian version of progressivism and you know that doesn't want people to be able to have free speech or you know take certain positions and like that is actually a very big part of Republican politics today and you could say DeSantis is actually like a

you know key part of that with like his pushback against Disney in Florida and his other bills that the state has pushed forward yeah i'm saying that like this is actually kind of a more coherent and more of a pillar of republican politics than i think you've given them credit for i'm just i'm just happy that we have a steward of a major social media platform who's combating the woke mind virus because it's just been but you can you can dismiss it but that's actually you know i guess like the thing is like that is it's a core animating principle of one of the two major American parties right now. I would, no, I was, I'll leave you with this.

I think, you know, Elon's core, like, political principle, I mean, beyond the last two years is protecting his pocketbook. Yeah. Protecting his companies. You know, it's the, the amount of contradictions in this man is, there's, like, amazing, you know, he criticized, you know, the lockdown, the COVID lockdowns and the woke mine virus for, you know, shutting down his Tesla factories in the, in the opening stages of COVID, March.

2020. He filed that lawsuit in Alameda County. And look, he was supporting the guy who was like the most strongly anti-lockdown. Well, I was going to say, you know, the same thing happened in China, you know. There was no criticism of China. The Chinese government, you know, Tesla's very, like, he sees China is very important to Tesla's future. No criticism there. No, why not? Like, what the same thing happened, you know, if not more in China. And you don't have him, you know, going on these Twitter tirades against, you know, Sheishenping

Yeah, exactly So Okay So you guys have both had like Pretty tense interactions with Elon Musk Where he hasn't shown the best side of himself Let's put it that way He's shown a side of himself

Yeah, right So I think that A reserve judgment I will judge I mean he like Like I don't think emailing Bobby You suck is like the best Bobby that's what he said

I do that every day I mean Ryan does Yeah exactly I've definitely frequently will send Bobby those now especially and Ryan what did he email you did he called you like an asshole or something like that you fucking asshole are we let a curse and sorry

well we'll bleep it but yeah we're not live on NPR thank goodness FCC's not listening to your podcast no well you they they uh not them but the platforms definitely crawl for swear words and mark you down if you if you use them but we'll bleep it

but yeah I'm kind of curious like so you guys have seen him be this the petulant side of the person that he is. Do you ever like kind of like sit that side beside and kind of say how did this guy who has like the doesn't have the minimal impulse control not to write these email emails still how is this person the same person that can build companies like SpaceX and Tesla? How does that, you know, for the for the scorn by Elon Club, I want to turn it over to you and kind of see how that sits in your. Why are we not rich by why haven't we built these companies? That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just kind of trying to say, you must spend some time thinking about this psychology of the person and also is the fact that, like, how do you contextualize a person that will act like this, but also is able to build the way he has? You can either think of it as a duality or, you know, like, or this is the quality. It also helps him build these companies, right?

You know, he's so bombastic and, you know, in some ways, pushes, maybe it's of like a forcing function to push people towards these goals, you know, yelling at them or telling them they're horrible, they're wrong. At the end of the day, he's like a great salesman of his vision. And however he gets people there, you know, works for him. And it clearly it's worked for him at multiple companies, whether that's SpaceX or Tesla. And so I don't know, maybe that, maybe it's a quality that is needed from the CEO. I don't know. I've never run a company. It's hard to imagine how having no impulse control and punching down for a living can help you be a successful entrepreneur. I think it's a weird quirk about Elon that he has a lot of business success and he's also just kind of a maniac.

I mean, he sends me emails at 2 a.m. trolling NPR. And it's gotten to the point where my bosses at NPR kind of rolled their eyes when I get an Elon Musk email. We're kind of sick of it. But, you know, my colleague, David Fulkinflik, who covers the media, you know, he wrote a book about Fox. And someone said to me, I imagine if David kept getting emails from Rupert Murdoch. We would say, we got to run this to the presses. We got to do a story. Sometimes we kind of forget Elon has amassed the power that he has, and that he is, is he the most or the second most wealthy person in the world?

I can never keep track. But, but yeah, I think his antics are so frequent that even in, you know, journalism, sometimes we sort of disqualify. miss him or roll our eyes at him. But I do think when he's when he's bullying journalists or when he's sort of blackmailing NPR into tweeting again, I think we ought to take that seriously and report on it. Well, I think that's the most Trump. Like he's shifted the Overtin window of how we think about him. And that's a Trumpian, like, you know, it's like, that's very Trumpian, right? Like, oh, well, he's done this, you know, like, it can't be as bad as the last thing you did, you know. And so there is that quality to him where you can't.

necessarily cover everything. And if you did, it would drive you nuts. And, like, I don't know if we'd be better off for it. Bobby, don't you think it's time for NPR to start tweeting again? I mean, he did take your label off. Yeah, that's a decision for the executives at NPR. I'm a rank and file reporter. I don't have any say. And honestly, I don't have a position. All I know is, like so many news organizations, we derive very little traffic from tweeting out stories. There's an argument to be made that whatever you can help build audience on Twitter. I'm not sure if that's the place to be building the kind of audience that we want right now, to be honest. I think there's more to be gained by doing TikTok videos than tweeting out generic headlines about the news of the day. So

I haven't seen a real change in A, traffic, and B, sort of the kind of people who are reaching out to me about my story since we stopped tweeting. So I don't really care. Are we going to see you on TikTok? Are you just starting making TikTok goods that we're saying? I am on TikTok. I'm going to have to make my account private after this podcast because everyone's going to rush to see what my video is. Absolutely. Flood. It's going to melt the servers.

Exactly. Folks, you have not seen, you haven't lived until you've seen Bobby dance to renegate. They've melted my, it's melted my eyeballs. We're here on Big Technology Podcasts joined by Ryan Mack and Bobby Allen. Ryan is a technology reporter at the New York Times, Bobby Allen, the technology correspondent at NPR, which may tweet once again or may not. We're not going to find out after the break, but afterwards we will talk a little bit about Elizabeth Holmes going to prison and regulating AI. Hey, everyone. Let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending.

More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines. in 15 minutes or less, and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustled Daily Show and your favorite podcast app, like the one you're using right now. And we're back here on Big Technology Podcasts with Bobby Allen. He's a technology correspondent at NPR and Ryan Mack. He's a technology reporter at the New York Times, both members of the scorned by Elon

Club. I am, I am, alas, not one of the... When is that meeting, by the way, is it like next week, every Wednesday, every other Wednesday? Every Wednesday. Yeah, yeah. Hi, I'm Bobby and Elon emails me, mean things. That would be fun. That would be a lot of fun.

Elizabeth Holmes is scheduled to report to prison a day before we record, a day before we publish Tuesday of this week. She may be in a cell right now. And so it's, I guess it's somewhat surprising that she's actually going to go. I don't know why I'm having that reaction. Like obviously a criminal actually going to go and is supposed to go for 11 years. What do you think about the fact that she's actually like this is really happening? It doesn't shock me. I mean, before I covered tech, I covered courts and a jury convicted her, a federal judge sentenced her.

This is what happens. A lot of people are sort of astonished at the length of the sentence. I mean, 11 years is a long time. And 13 for Sonny Balwani, which even longer. I mean, by the sentencing guidelines. this is a pretty fair sentence. But one thing to really underscore here is who were the victims again in this fraud? Rupert Murdoch, Walgreens, Safeway, right?

I mean, the most sympathetic victims in the Theranos trial were the patients who got blood tests that told them things like, you know, their pregnancy had been terminated when it had not, things like the cancer had come back when it had not. The jury found that there wasn't enough evidence to actually convict her on those patient counts. So she's being put away for 11 years in federal prison, basically for stealing from Rupert Murdoch and VC funds. So, yeah, I just think that's something that kind of gets lost in this. Yeah, right, exactly. I think she actually is going to serve for 11 years. I can't, I can't say. I mean, I don't, I mean, it's possible.

It's possible. I don't want to speculate. I mean, that's her sentence. I'll do it. I think she's got maybe five most, just given the way that I see. the American legal system. All right, I'll make a note. Five years from today, we'll come back on big technology podcast. She has a lot of political heft behind it. I mean, Corey Booker was already like writing, you know, letters on her behalf. You know, I feel like there is maybe a politician

somewhere that's going to hit their start of this idea that, you know, we were wrong about Elizabeth Holmes. I mean, her people already are doing that, right? Her newborn child was named Invicta, I think, is Latin for, what is it, always invincible? So maybe that was a sort of way of acknowledging that she thinks she's going to come back? Who knows? There's the New York Times story that people talked about a little bit last month

called, or actually earlier this month, Liz Holmes wants you to forget about Elizabeth. And it was kind of like a Rochark test between people saying, wow, you're rehabilitating Holmes's image. And, well, some other people call it a masterful story that proved that she's able to manipulate

depending on the situation. It kind of fell more in the former camp. Ryan, I'm going to excuse you from commenting on this because it is the work of one of your colleagues. Bobby, I'm curious what your reaction was to that story. I think it was a freelance journalist. Amy Chosek, right? Didn't she write the piece? I mean, Ryan wants to comment. I'm going to let him do it. I just think it's pretty notable that the person who got the access and seemed to be, hmm, I don't want to speculate again. It seemed notable that the person who got the access and did the story did not cover the trial.

It seemed the tone and the tenor of the piece, I think was to people like me who covered the trial pretty closely seemed to be a little tone deaf. It seemed like the part of the intent of the piece was to sort of humanize this former star of Silicon Valley before she goes to federal prison. And it definitely gave us some texture and some color of what she's like and what she's thinking and what motivates her. But there are also some quotes in the piece that made it seem like she has no regrets, that she really thinks that, you know, had she had more time, that these promises of revolutionizing laboratory science would have come to fruition. I don't doubt that either.

I mean, this is a media-driven demonization of a great Silicon Valley. Are you Tim Draper? Are you Alex Cantorowitz? I'm kidding. He's got Bitcoin to sell you. It was a fraud. I was going to say, you know, to your point, though, you know, it's her saying that on record. You know, the journalist is, you know, posing that to the world and allowing you to say that.

It's like, you know, people can make a value judgment after reading that. but, you know, I think it adds to the Liz Elizabeth Holmes record a little bit. Yeah, that is one of the things. I don't think any journalist would get the call, hey, do you want unfettered access to Elizabeth Holmes on the record? I don't think any journalist would say no, right? I mean, maybe some would. I would say yes. I think most would say yes.

It's how you frame it, though. Yeah, exactly. The debate is about how should this be framed? That being said, you know, I think that, I don't think anybody read that story and was like actually like, oh, I changed my mind. mind about Elizabeth Holmes. And I do think that, like, people give access. I guess maybe people did. But I think that access journalism, like gets a hard time. And I think there's a place for it. Like Ryan said, you do want the principles and story going on the record. Just so you have that there. She looks like a victim in the story, though. And just imagine if this is the only story someone reads about

Elizabeth Holmes, how your takeaway about her and the company would be different than if you actually knew what happened. Yeah. I would counter that and say it. If you're reading that story, I don't think that's the only story you're reading about a little homes like you're probably going to go who's Elizabeth you mean Liz Holmes Liz Liz she wants you to forget about it's an SEO thing it's actually so 10 minutes left let's talk a little bit about the potential that we're going to regulate AI but before we do I just want to let listeners know that we're here in NPR studios in Culver City and there's a talk the talk and a cough button and Ryan just I'm about to hit the button that sends the first tweet since they've suspended There's like a big old...

Don't hit that button, Ryan! Don't hit it, don't hit it. It's like that meme of like... Yeah. Yeah, that tweet. Bobby Allen's latest story. But Ryan did just use the cough button exquisitely and I want to just shout him out for that.

Well done, Ryan. I've never seen a button like this. There is some artificial intelligence regulation floating around Europe right now, which is actually quite interesting. It has more than a thousand amendments to it. And it's expanded kind of from like very like common sense legislation about like what should be used for data training to just this sprawling European style piece of tech regulation. And Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenA.I is now saying that we're going to take a look at what this bill says and we're going to try to comply. But if we can't comply, we're going to seize operating in Europe.

I just want to call out a less graceful use of the cough button by Bobby. But, Bobby, I'm just curious. I'd love to hear your perspective on this piece of regulation and whether you think it's actually going to, whether you think it's going to be passed, whether you think it will change the way that Open AI operates in Europe. Do they even have to operate in Europe? Your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard to talk about this without talking about social media. I remember Facebook was running ads for a while that we're basically saying, please regulate us, right? And I think, you know, the industry will come in and beg Congress to pass laws and then nothing will happen. I'm sort of cynical in that, at least in the U.S., I don't think that there's going to be any AI regulation happening anytime soon. Of course, it's very different because the First Amendment, I think, was getting in the way of social media regs

in a way that it may not with regulating generative AI. But Europe, as, you know, with data security, with so much in tech regulation space. They've been sort of ahead of the curve. And if any part of the country passes, you know, AI regulations first, it's going to be the EU. But I think we should explain what EU is saying, right? They're saying that any copyrighted material that's used in a generative AI context should be, you know, that should not be allowed and should have the ability to pull that out. Yeah, here's the language from the Financial Times. Under the European Parliament's proposals,

developers of generative AI models like chat GPT would have to disclose content that was generated by AI and published summaries of copyrighted data used for training purposes so that creators can be remunerated for the use of their work.

Right. And Open AI is saying, please don't regulate us like that. That's not what we want. It just goes to show you how much text has actually been used for this. And, you know, it's created the fastest growing consumer product in history,

but the, I mean, obviously the algorithms or the innovation, but the data used to train it is sort of, this is all being built on the back of that stuff. And Sam, Sam's on, Sam Altman's on an international charm offensive right now. I think, you know, he like Zuckerberg before him, is they're trying to embrace regulations. But really, when there's serious regulations propose, they're saying embrace and air quotes, right? Exactly. Not really embrace. Sort of pay lip service to the idea of the government coming in and sort of mounting some kind of guardrails. But when the rubber hits the row, they're kind of like, ah, do we really want this?

Right. Yeah. So it's, it's interesting. I find it kind of fascinating that folks are again saying, well, there's bipartisan agreement and the companies are agreeing that AI needs to be regulated and it's going to happen inevitably. And I'm just like, wait a second, like we just saw years of this type of stuff being talked about when it comes to big tech and nothing happened, basically nothing. And I just, I'm wary about going down the same rabbit hole, saying like expecting that something's going to happen except maybe if it does come. from Europe. That's like the one big if Europe is just like they're very gung-ho and bringing the hammer down on tech companies. At this point has been made by others. I can't remember who. It's

not my original idea. But, you know, Sam Altman and Open AI had a whole hype cycle around introduction of Dolly and then chat GPT saying, look at these incredibly powerful generative AI tools. Amazing for him in the company. And now he has a second sort of news cycle that he is going around to legislatures and to Washington and all around the world saying, we want rules, we want to rein this in, which is another super positive sort of news cycle for him. So he's really being cast as this like crusade, this like little, this little tech genius who's just like brilliant and big tech genius. And creates, there you go, who creates powerful tools and also wants rules to regulate it.

And the truth is definitely not that, but that's the impression that some are left with, I think. Where are you going to say, Ryan? No, I was just going to say, you know, he's learning from the mistakes of Mark Zuckerberg, you know, where, you know, Zuckerberg created the, you know, massive platform, then had this whole period where he, you know, got dumped on for not being able to rein it in. And now, and then went out and said, you know, said, like, please regulate us. We're not going to tell you how to regulate us, but, you know, it'll look good for us if we say,

please regulate us. And we're going to put ads in every major newspaper and that kind of thing. You know, Altman has kind of learned from this. And he's kind of accelerated that process and kind of skipped. in some ways, skipped over that, like, hate period, you know, in a way. Maybe it'll come later for him, or, but he certainly accelerated to the point of, like, the please regulate us part. I'm not going to obviously tell you how to regulate us, but, you know, it's going to make me

look good if I say it. But I protest when I don't like the regulation. But he's the one who unleashed this beast, right? I mean, Open AI could have made a decision not to publicly unveil Dolly and chat GPT. I mean, that, and then Microsoft saying, you know, that Bing was going to use, uh, chat GPT4 and some of its search results really, I think, made the whole market sort of respond. Everyone's now trying to develop their own generative AI tools. But it's interesting to me that he both like unleashed the beast into the world and he's now saying it ought to be restrained. Like how do you do both of, how do you hold both of those things in your past at once? I don't know. I don't, I guess the, my perspective is that's just not going to happen. What's not going to happen? That it's just they are going to just keep doing, keep building. And we're not going to see regulation on this stuff.

Do you think it's hyperbole when Sam Altman says we'll have to pull out of Europe if this bill passes? No. I mean, I think that like you can, you spoke to Gary Marcus about this, about the feasibility of it. Exactly. Yeah. I think that it would be quite difficult to keep up with those regulations because they can basically, and I think I'm going to characterize this correctly, they can share like the wide body of stuff that was trained on, but you can't be like this particular answer incorporated, you know, news stories from the New York Times and from NPR and stuff like that. actually pointing the specific pieces of data is impossible given the way that these systems are built. So if they're forced to do that and they can't do that, yeah, I could see them saying, all right, listen, our goal is AGI. You know, these are products that we've shipped to sort of help us get us there. We don't need to do it in Europe. It's not part of what we're aiming for.

The legal reporter in me is really excited for two things. One, for open AI to be sued in a suit that actually makes it to the discovery phase, not that I want any kind of judgment against open AI, but just for transparency's sake to really open up some of these black boxes around the AI and the training data. You know, it would be really interesting to have lawyers sort of probing into that and to make some of that information public. And two, when there's a test case about whether Section 230 ought to apply to some of the outputs from chat GPT, I think that's completely uncharted territory and from a legal perspective, super fascinating. Yeah. Ryan, any final thoughts? I'm just stewing on the fact that he said the legal reporter in me, which is a very... Bobby's

Good, of course. Yeah. You really, yeah. I haven't seen that side of him recently. What, do you want my pacer login? Get out here in New York Times? Yeah. This guy, he's always scooping this stuff. All right, folks.

Thank you so much, Bobby Allen. Thank you, Ryan Mack, for joining. So great to spend the hour with you guys, and great to see you again in person. This was a blast. I've seen you, man. Super fun. You want to shout out where people can find your work?

Yeah, truth socials slash Bobby Allen. You really have a true social account. Should I hit this button to tweet from the NPR account yet? Are we waiting for after? No, not yet. Not yet, not yet. NPR.org? And your TikTok?

No, no. Okay, Ryan. Twitter still, hopefully. What's your handle? Armac 18. There's 17 other RMAX out there. Blue Sky, if you have an invite, very exclusive club. Yeah, get me on Blue Sky.

I haven't skated yet. You haven't? Are you waiting for an invite? I said Ryan's skating, but I haven't skated personally. Yeah, you're on there. I'm on there. You're on there. I just haven't posted anything. You're on the blue ski.

You're standing in solidarity with NPR on Twitter by not skiing on Blue Sky. I don't want to see you skiing anywhere. Thank you guys so much for joining. Thank you NPR Culver City for, NPR West and Culver City for having us here. This was super awesome. Thank you, Maggie Luthor for hanging out with us in the booth and helping produce this. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Nate Gwattany, for handling the audio here at Big Ten.

technology podcast. Thank you, LinkedIn, for having me as part of your podcast network. And thanks to all of you, the listeners. Preview, we did this show. We were here. It was contemporary. Next week, my interview with Astro Teller from Google X is going to air. I just listened to it. I think it's one of the best interviews in this show's history. So I hope you tune in for that. And I'll be back on Friday with another live podcast with Ranjad Roy. You can catch us on LinkedIn at 11 a.m. Pacific 2 p.m. Eastern or here in the feed right afterwards. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.