Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 6/11/25: Jon Stewart Shreds Stephen A, Greta Thunberg Reveals Israel Kidnapping Details, AI LA Video Goes Viral

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Krystal and Emily discuss Jon Stewart shreds Stephen A, Greta Thunberg reveals Israel kidnapping details, AI LA video goes viral in dystopian preview.   Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman: https://x.com/TarenSK    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com Let's go ahead and talk about John Stewart and Stephen a here Because this is a little more fun than nuclear war and death and nuclear war and Par I'd say it's like roughly roughly equivalent So in any case, Stephen A goes on with John Stewart. I watched the whole interview. They were broing out. They were bonding over their next tragic result, which I have some of that going on in my household as well. In any case,

the part of the conversation people are really interested in though is Stephen A is this like very centristy figure. He also just like, he's not a, I know he's like floated this idea of running for president, but his political takes a pretty surface level. He's not like deep in the weeds with this kind of stuff, you know, and Jon Stewart obviously is like deeply in the weeds with this kind of stuff. So they get into a bit of a battle over what is the reason why the Democratic Party with Kamala Harris lost to Trump in this last election cycle. Let's go ahead and listen to how that went down.

The left definitely blew it. I thought that the progressive left, the extreme left really, really ruined the election for the Democrats. And that's our view. This is the truth. And I think that because that happened, it positioned him to get away with a lot of things. Then you're putting forth some of these policies, whether it's transgender issues or other stuff that they would bring up.

You had a lot of people that say, that's not where our focus should lie. We're not trying to say- But don't you think that's their focus? Whose focus? The right. I feel like the right is far more focused on where you go to the bathroom.

They allowed what people would consider to be a centrist old guard Democrat to run again for president. And then you say the progressive left wing is the one that didn't they didn't choose Joe Biden. They don't have the power in that party. Chuck Schumer is out there, writing eight strongly worded questions to Donald Trump about getting the progressives are the one going.

People in this country want Medicare for all, do something. They're the ones that have a principled agenda that they are going to put forth that all the Democrats have run from in under the guise of we have to be moderate and we have to be centrist. But that doesn't appeal to

changing the culture and dynamic of how this government should work by the people for the people of the people. That's a great argument and I don't disagree. What I'm saying to you is that- We're done here! So John Stewart then goes on, Emily, to make a case that I think you'll be maybe more sympathetic to than that one. I mean that one I totally agree with, right, is like utterly obsessed with gender identity and genitals at this point.

But we can pause that debate for the moment. We did a whole Crystal Kyle and friends on that. People could look it up. I fought with Piers Morgan on this. Oh, much better than me. But in any case, he goes on to make this case of like, don't you think the real problem is that Democrats didn't actually, like, deliver or promise to deliver anything real.

And so when you've got Bernie Sanders and AOC out there doing this stop oligarchy during their saying, we're going to help you with your wages. We're going to get you help. Isn't that really the problem is that Democrats had no credibility on actually addressing people's, he didn't put it this way, but addressing people's material concerns. And Stephen A couldn't really respond to that. He was just, well, that's a good point. And then went on to say some other stuff.

But I thought John did an effective job of positioning this because to just frame it in terms of left, right, I think is deeply confusing. And this gets to this other piece of news that just came out, like Josh Hawley is now introducing $15 minimum wage bill in the Senate. I don't know if it'll make it to the floor. I'm sure there's like literally no other Senate Republicans who would vote for it.

But really getting to the left of some of the Democrats on an issue that should be a core Democratic issue. And no one would look at that and be like, oh, this is going to cause like Josh Hawley to lose or this is going to be bad for Republicans. No, there is a broad recognition that any of this sort of more populous pieces that whether it's Josh Hawley or Trump has pushed with the no tax on tips or whatever, that these are good ideas that are also really popular. And so John Stewart's point is basically like, Democrats should do more of that. And that would be an effective way of winning people over if they actually feel like you

have credibility delivering on something real to them. Yeah. And I mean, I think this is one of the biggest problems, but also opportunities for the left. Opportunities in the sense that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Fighting Oligarchy Tour have leaned into, I think, the opportunities presented by that challenge. So it's actually a challenge that I think forces Democrats to confront those questions. On the other hand, I think part of the problem here is that politically the left wing of the Democratic Party has the most attractive appealing palatable

economic agenda You know a lot of my conservative friends like blanch at that be like what the hell you're talking about But it's actually much easier to sell voters on Medicare for all than it is to sell on Medicare for all than it is to sell voters on the status quo or some tweak to the status quo. Yeah, I'm like, we're going to negotiate drug prices or Medicare on like five drugs. Isn't that amazing? Don't you feel like your life is transformed by that?

I mean, it's like, okay, well, that's better, I guess. Right. But the problem is when the left-wing's economic solutions are the most palatable and appealing, then you also have the people who have signed the ACLU pledges like Kamala Harris did that allowed the Republicans to run that ad on supporting taxpayer-funded, I think it was transition surgeries for incarcerated migrants, the most specific thing possible. But I think that's where you see Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,

and Hawley is trying to do this from the right, by the way, because it's also a challenge slash opportunity for the right, where you have the most MAGA people having economics that are easier to sell, more palatable to sell to general election populations, statewide populations and all of that. But they're also the ones that are now to sell, more palatable to sell to general election populations, statewide populations and all of that. But they're also the ones that are now super, super tied down to the MAGA brand.

If you look at Holly, for example, a lot of people remember Holly because of the image of him with the raised fist outside of the Capitol in the morning of January 6th. So it's not as though any side has like the upper hand politically on the question. It's actually something that they're both confronting in their own ways, which is quite interesting. I think there's a lot to that because what always irritates me is first of all, number one, it is 100% Republicans who bring up transgender issues more regularly than Democrats

because they feel like it's a good issue for them. Throw my laptop at you. Go ahead and try me, Emily. I can't get enough of that. There's an obsession. There is an obsession there. I mean, there's no doubt about it. But what drives me crazy is I'm like, okay, so let's accept that like Democratic positioning on the specific issue, not even transgender issues in general, the specific issue of transgender girls in sports. Let's accept that democratic positioning on that is not in sync with public

opinion. Look at how many wildly unpopular things that Trump says, does, and embraces. Pardoning the violent January Sixers, some of whom beat up cops, polls at about like 10%, okay? Wildly unpopular. A bunch of the things that were done at Doge, wildly unpopular. Insane across the board haphazard tariffs, wildly unpopular. So then you ask the question, okay, so if both sides have, and I would say that Trump has specifically more issues that poll way worse than the overall broad

like democratic program or what Kamala Harris specifically ran on where, you know, she intentionally in her campaign didn't talk about a lot of the things that were less popular for her. If Trump has, let's just call it even, and they both have unpopular issues that, you know, that they support and that they have said things about in the past, why does it matter for one and not the other? And to me, the reason is, number one, Trump is just a talented figure.

Number two, he has a story that I think is wrong and bad and evil and all of those things, but makes some sense. The reason your life is bad is because of immigrants, trans people, cultural elites. So if people sort of broadly get on board with that narrative, they're willing to forgive and forget some of the bullshit that is like wildly indefensible. Democrats, first of all, don't seem like they stand for literally anything at all, which is why this whole like poll testing, let me put my finger in the wind,

let me try to reposition on trans issues, let me like focus test some response on girls in sports that's gonna not piss off this person, but is gonna appeal to a moderate, et cetera, et cetera. Like people can smell that a mile away. So if you don't have a coherent story to tell, and there aren't things that you are demonstrably willing to fight for,

then yeah, they're going to have a lot more room to tar you with your least popular positions and frame them in the way that they want to frame them. So to me, that's the, you know, the big difference between why the rights, why Trump specifically unpopular issues don't seem to matter as much as Democrats is because Democrats frequently don't have a spine, don't stand out for themselves, don't have principles they're willing to stand on, aren't willing to fight for anything and don't have a coherent story about what has gone wrong or honesty really about the struggles that people are facing. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the country right now.

Most popular politician in the country. Does he have a different position on trans issues? No, no he doesn't. The reason is because he has credibility on fighting for things that people care about. And he has a story that makes sense to people about who is screwing them over, why things have gone sideways in this country

and how critically critically, it could be put back on track. Right. People believe him. Speaking of the opportunities created by all of this, let's put D3 on the screen and talk about Zoementum. So, Zoram Mdani, actually, he's now trailing, according to this new poll, Andrew Cuomo in a one-to-one race, so keep that in mind. He's now trailing Cuomo by only two points.

My suspicion is that that's at least pretty close to the margin of error. I'll have to go look at the poll here, but that was also conducted before the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsement of Zoran Mamdani. And we can put D4 on the screen as well. And before the debate, which went well for Zoran. Yes, yes, and it went very poorly for Cuomo.

So big thing for Zoran here, across the board, the places where he has lower net favorabilities are just the places where fewer voters know about him. To have an opinion, no demo has particularly high unfavorables for him overall. And then another post, a tale of two candidates. Zoran plus 43 net favorability. 28% haven't heard enough. Cuomo minus one net favorability. 3% haven't heard enough. So, Crystal... Room to grow for Zoran.

Also, you heard it here first. Truly, you heard it here first. Zoementum is absolutely real. Zoementum is absolutely real. Zoementum is absolutely real. Yeah. No, there's no doubt about it. I mean, listen, I want to be fair and say there are other polls out. Salem's rejoined the chat. There are other polls out that show a larger gap in favor of Cuomo.

This particular polling outfit though was extremely accurate in the Eric Adams mayor race. It's not a crazy poll, right? No, they do have a track record. I don't think anyone denies that Zoran has significant momentum right now. And this poll coming before the debate, before AOC endorses is significant. Because interestingly, in terms of the gender divide,

Zoran is actually doing better with men. So Democrats, if you're looking for a candidate who can appeal to men, and specifically actually white men, there's something to learn from Zoran's candidacy because he's doing really well with young white men are probably his, I'm quite confident are his best demographic. So he's got some answers for you in this whole man conversation. But you know, the point about the groups where he's fairing the poorest are also the ones that know the least about him, I think is a really important one and may help to explain some of why women are voting more for Cuomo than Zoran at this point, which otherwise is like disturbing and really a little bit head scratching. But women also knew less about Zoran at this point.

So there may be room to grow there. You know, he still has some of the demographic challenges that have plagued the left. I think, you know, older black voters are the weakest demographic for him. Makes sense because you have a larger number of conservatives who, you know, older black voters are the weakest demographic for him. Makes sense because you have a larger number of conservatives who, you know, older black voters tend to as a group be more conservative than some of the other parts of the Democratic base. He's doing pretty well with Latinos, though, so he's he's gained a lot of ground there. And, you know, we'll see.

They're hitting him quite hard. They're really trying to to go after him in all sorts of ways. And it's gonna be, continue to be a difficult hill to climb. But I think if you're looking at who has room to grow, obviously he is way more favor, way higher favorability than Cuomo. I think he's, you know, he's really got a shot in this thing,

which is pretty wild and pretty extraordinary commentary on the way that the Democratic base has moved in Trump 2.0 as well. Yeah, that favorability gap is insane. And it'll be really sad if New Yorkers are stuck with Andrew Cuomo, because I don't think anybody wants that. Even people who are saying they're maybe favorable to Andrew Cuomo are probably favorable to him

in the respect that they don't like the other candidates and they're like Okay, he's fine. I know him But really nobody wants a true Cuomo to be the mayor of New York City I mean maybe like five people want Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor of New York City. They're all named Cuomo So if voters are stuck, maybe they're uncomfortable with Zoran's full Democratic socialist platform, and honestly, that's fully understandable, especially after the city was mismanaged under Bill de Blasio.

I get it, I get it. So if you're forced to choose between Andrew Cuomo and somebody who's by his own admission on the left flank, that just sucks for voters. So if it ends up Cuomo, I mean, good luck, everyone. Like that's just I'm sorry that those are your those are your choices. Let me say something about the way Zoran's run his campaign though too. Because to the the you know, circles back to the like John Stewart, Stephen A. Smith question and positioning. So Zoran has you know, all the lefty positions, no doubt about it.

His tagline is Zoran for a New York you can afford. And every time we played his clips, we, you guys talk to him, like every time you talk to him, you know what his policy platform is, freeze the rent, government owned grocery stores to compete so that you can, in food deserts,

so that you have some fresh fruit food options. He is laser focused on housing in particular, free busing, so that people can ride public transit and additional investments in public transit. People know what his platform is, they know what he stands for, it's really clear. He has a very clear message, very clear story about what has gone wrong in New York,

the way it's become an intentionally a luxury good under mayors like Bloomberg and Giuliani and Eric Adams. And he wants to make it so that you can live in New York and it doesn't have to be such a struggle. Now, will one person be able to accomplish that in one term? No, but he's put forward some achievable, I think concrete goals that people can really wrap their heads around. And that's why his campaign has taken off and it's not just against Cuomo.

Like there are a bunch of long time established New York city Paul's in this race who are getting no traction. He has sucked up all of the oxygen, all of the like not Cuomo oxygen. And it's a real testament to the strength of his very straightforward proposition and his direct pitch to people's materials concerns and his story about, you know, how we got here and what went wrong as well. And, you know, the white bros, the young men, Emily, they're eating it up. So again, lessons to be learned here.

Yeah, it's how AOC won. It's not like esoteric DSA naval gazing. It's a huge lesson, I think, for national Democrats. So Crystal, should we move on to updates in the case of Greta Thunberg? Yeah, let's do that. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts.

Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I have never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jeff Perlman The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life.

I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. Reggie Payne We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name, Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.

In February, 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've been covering the Gaza aid Freedom Flotilla, which was intercepted in international waters illegally by Israel. The members of that vessel were, including Greta Thunberg, were arrested, in President Trump's words, and mine as well, kidnapped by Israel, taken to an Israeli prison. And then they, in order to effectuate their release, were made to sign these forms that would consent to their deportation, but also would confess to basically illegally entering Israel, which is not what

happened whatsoever. So some of the activists have refused to sign those forms. Greta did sign the form and has been released. She was flown back to Sweden. Reporters spoke to her there about the ordeal and why she did what she did. Let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of what she had to say. Berge is speaking to reporters. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. On international waters, we were illegally attacked and kidnapped by Israel and taken against our will to Israel where we were detained and then some of us deported, some are still there. There are very big uncertainties because it was quite chaotic and uncertain.

So I don't really know what's going on. I haven't had a phone for many days. What were the conditions for you over the last few hours? They were absolutely nothing compared to what people are going through in Palestine, especially Gaza right now. This is yet another international violation of international rights, adding to the list of countless of such, especially towards Palestinians, that Israel are committing by blocking and preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza that is illegal. How did the Israelis treat you?

We saw them giving out sandwiches on their social media. Yeah they probably have posted lots of PR stunt videos. As I said I have not seen anything but they did an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will bringing us to Israel keeping us in the bottom of the boat not letting us getting out and so on but that is not the real story here the real story is that there is a genocide going on in Gaza and a systematic starvation following the siege and blockade now which is leading to food medicine water that are desperately needed to get into Gaza, is prevented from doing so.

But of course there are many attempts like this mission, both by sea and bring aid to Gaza, which is desperately needed. But also to send solidarity and say that we see you, we see what is happening, and we cannot accept just witnessing all this and doing nothing. That can never be an option. She also spoke more about how these horrors in Gaza have been allowed to persist. Let's go ahead and take a listen to her reaction there. Why do you think so many countries, governments around the world are just ignoring what is happening in Gaza?

Because of racism, that's the simple answer, I would say. Racism and basically desperately trying to defend a destructive, deadly system that systematically puts short-term economic profit and to maximize geopolitical power over the well-being of humans and the planet. And right now it's very, very difficult to morally defend that. It is impossible, but still they are desperately trying, which is absurd is not the word, but there are no words to describe it.

And Emily, I'm curious for your reaction to this. You know, there's a lot I think that she said there that is interesting, but in particular, I want to highlight that she mentions this isn't part of just one effort. And in fact, the organization that she mentions this isn't part of just one effort. And in fact, the organization that she's involved with, we spoke with the spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla group. They plan to attempt this many more times. And there are two separate additional efforts

that they're in coordination with to also try to break the siege. So it's been a lot of discussion about Greta in particular. What do you make of what's gone down here? Yeah, I mean, I don't have a like super, I think it kind of went exactly as I expected that it would. And you know, it's better actually than it could have gone. It's a little interesting.

Bar was low, they didn't murder her. Yeah, bar was really interesting. The bar was low. They didn't murder her. The bar was really low. And you know, it's interesting that people are still over there. I also think, hey, this is an example of people putting their money where their mouth is and actually doing the thing, walking the walk. So, you know, even if I disagree with her, I'm not like mad about it, to be honest. It was genuinely courageous. I mean, that's to me. And the other thing is, look, she is a high profile person.

People paid much more attention to this effort because she was on board. I think Israel's reaction, which I don't want to underplay, I mean, it was illegal. Like they acted as pirates kidnapping, even like I said before, Trump said they kidnapped her, right? But they didn't kill her, which they've done before with, you know, humanitarian activists previously back in 2010. And in fact, the spokesperson we talked to was on board that ship that they attacked and killed 10 people who were on board. So they didn't do that. And you know, I think that level of quote unquote restraint

also is partly attributable to the fact they realized like, shit, we can't kill Greta Thunberg. Like this is gonna, there's going to be a lot of international attention to that. So I think she very effectively used the large platform that she has undertook an action that was genuinely courageous, that entailed genuine personal discomfort and extreme risk in order to try to do something. And so, you know, if you have, I saw Omar Badr, a friend of the show tweeting, like, if you had a thousand people who did the same thing and also sent ships trying to break the siege, it would become, you know,

intercepting all of those people and trying to hold on to this blockade, preventing starving people from getting food. Like that would become unsustainable with even, you know, a comparatively small level of organization that Greta has, you know, made much more likely and much more possible here. So I think what she did was extraordinary. I think, I don't know, I don't really understand why the right really fixates

on her and really hates her in the way that they do. But I think she's also proved a lot of the haters wrong who felt like she had this sort of like corporate-friendly level of approved activism. This was certainly not in that vein, both because of the danger of the action and also because there is nothing corporate approved about standing up for Palestinian rights.

Yeah, I mean, I think she had like a youthful naivete that was easy to make fun of on the climate issue. I genuinely feel badly for anybody who gets famous as a child, whether it was their choice, their parents choice or nobody's choice. So I feel like she's growing up in front of cameras and Panopticon, and that just sucks.

But much more, this is a version of Greta Thunberg that is definitely grown up compared to them. There's no question about it. Big W for Greta on this one, not for Bibi. Yeah, I would say so. Let's go and put this image up on the screen. This is the latest video of the quote unquote aid and the way that this operation looks.

I know DropSight is reporting that you had another massacre in the context of hungry Palestinians attempting to obtain aid from this Gaza humanitarian foundation. You know, hundreds of people now who have been killed because of this setup of this aid effectively trap at this point. And at the same time, we also have the ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who is, cat, oh my God. The ambassador to breaking points, Salem. Salem, yes. Mike Huckabee significantly changing U.S. policy

and just, I mean, making it plain. No, we don't support the previous contours of any idea of a two-state solution. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. I think the question is, what does that Palestinian state look like? Where is it? Where is it going to be? Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria? Does it need to be somewhere different? Does it need to be an opportunity for people to have a true place that is completely their

own? Or is it going to be in the existing areas that are currently under the dominion of the PA? So there's a lot of questions. That's why I'm saying I don't believe anybody can say it's impossible. It'll never happen. But if someone wants to declare that this is the exact strip of geography that is going to be the future Palestinian state, that's where the complication comes from. Well maybe the word is exact. That's the problem.

Are you suggesting that somewhere other than mandatory Palestine area that it could be in Saudi Arabia or something? Are you suggesting? I'm just saying that I think every option should be and could be on the table. Wow. Yeah, what did you make of that, Emily? So he's doing it.

Palestine, but not in Palestine. Well, yeah, but he's also being clever and winking and nodding and saying basically Palestine is impossible because none of that land belongs to Palestine from his perspective. And it- Judea and Samaria, yeah. It reminds me of when the Biden administration, Joe Biden as Mr. Two-State Solution is funding a war for Netanyahu, who is explicitly against the idea of a two-state solution. Here you have Mike Huckabee actually saying something very different than the president

himself. And Trump is hard to pin down on this issue, obviously. Is his Mara Gaza idea technically under the umbrella of a Palestinian state, as pro-Palestine activists would define it? No, absolutely not. But he also would not be comfortable with just saying, hey, screw it, give it all to Israel, because he has all of these relationships with other Arab states that he thinks are important and contingent upon finding a fair solution, or a solution that they see as fair for the people of Palestine. So Mike Huckabee in that clip, it's not at all surprising.

He's saying exactly what people from the dispensationalist evangelical movement believe about that land, and it happens to be what a lot of Israelis believe about that land. But it's not what the quote unquote America first movement believes about that, that believes about the solution. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is quite consistent with Trump's like, we're going to ethnically cleanse Gaza and push them somewhere else. Like it certainly fits with that.

And we know there have been discussions that have been ongoing with a variety of different countries to try to push them to accept these Palestinian refugees that Trump wants to create. And so I think it's part and parcel with that. The easy thing to say here is like, okay, well, if you've made it impossible to have a two-state solution with the ongoing settlement, illegal settlement project, which all Israeli prime ministers have engaged in, by the way, but have really ramped up in recent years under Netanyahu and specifically post-October 7. If you've made that impossible, okay, then how about everybody gets equal rights? How about that? How about you just live up to your rhetoric about how you don't discriminate

in your democracy and making an actual democracy where everybody's actually treated equally? Because if a two-state solution is not going to be possible and you're putting that off the table and you're doing everything you can, which is a stated goal of Netanyahu, to make it so that's impossible, well, that's the other solution that's available to you. But in a sense, I don't think he's being honest about it. In a sense, it's the sadly realistic situation on the ground is that that area in, I mean, he's in Jerusalem right there, but the Temple Mount, I mean, the Al-Aqsa, like nobody wants that to be given to the other side, at least of all people who are of the, like,

dispensationalist ideology, as people like Mike Huckabee are. You know, so yeah, I mean, is it impossible? Sure, should it be impossible? No. And I think that's where the just depressing reality sets in. Yeah, indeed. We've got a great guest standing by to talk about

some extraordinary developments with regard to AI. So let's go ahead and get to that. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, five and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned

one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. I've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there.

Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jeff Perlman The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. Rick Jervis We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakleth, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie.

We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There have been a bunch of very significant developments with regard to AI development that we did not want to lose sight of this week. So we're really excited to be joined this morning by Taryn Steinbrückner-Kaufman. She's the CEO of the Golden Gate Institute for AI

and she's gonna take us through some of these developments. Taryn, it's great to have you, great to meet you. Thanks so much. It's lovely to be here. So first of all, in the wake of the protests, which at times turned violent in LA, there has been an effort to spread all kinds of propaganda as is quite typical in these news cycles these days.

But added to the mix now, we have these just outright AI generated scenes, which this one in particular I'm about to show. It's kind of crazy to me that some people even thought this was real because it takes a very surreal turn quite quickly. But some people did just watch a piece of it and actually think that it was real. So, and you know, that's putting aside more sort of sophisticated efforts to create these images and shape people's understanding of events that are happening in this country.

So let's go ahead and take a look at this one video in particular AI generated that went viral. Why are you rioting? I don't know, I was paid to be here and I just want to destroy stuff. Is what you are doing illegal? Well these are peaceful protests. Even that guy over there says so. And so Taryn, this really speaks to one of the concerns people have with regard to AI

development, which is just how difficult it makes it to sort through what even is reality. Yeah, this is a really important issue. These are going to get, one thing to know is that these are going to get much more realistic. Like these are, you know, if you're a discerning eye and you sort of know what you're looking for, it's pretty obvious that this is AI generated still. It kind of has like a sheen. It doesn't quite look exactly photorealistic. And they've gotten much more realistic in the last year.

And they're going to keep getting much more realistic. I would assume that a year from now, I won't be able to tell easily whether something like that is real or not based on the actual images and audio. The second thing to know is this is a really hard problem to solve. I've heard lots of solutions floating around, like we should require AI-generated video to have a watermark, or we should.

It's just really hard. It's not really clear how any policy solution at scale could work to stop bad actors from making videos and circulating them that are not real. And the third thing which you pointed to, I think, is this sort of what I call the truth fog, which is it goes beyond the effect of the actual negative videos, the false videos, which is to say that like now I can't, you know, in a year, I don't

think I'm going to be able to tell whether a video is real, which is going to make me discredit true evidence as well. Right. And that's a problem too, because anything, you know, I'll be able to share, if I share a video of, a candidate for president saying something and I'm like, you should vote for them because they said this, people are gonna be like, how do I know they actually said that? Right? Right.

And we are, I think, Emily already seeing some of that. I know there was an incident with regard to a doctor in Gaza whose kids were killed by the Israelis. And there was video of the aftermath, the horrific aftermath of that. And there are all these claims that the videos weren't real, that these were just AI generated. So I think we're already seeing some of that fallout that Taryn's talking about. Yeah, that's a good point.

I mean, it just becomes harder to trust anything at all. Wanted to ask about this news, both from the New York Times and Bloomberg that Mark Zuckerberg is announcing a nine figure buy to bring top talent on for quote unquote super intelligence. You know, that year time scale, I'm glad you mentioned it because that was one of the things I asked about. You know, at what point are we going to have a situation where even experts have to exert a huge amount of effort to tell what's real and what's fake on social media and even then maybe have a hard time doing it?

What does superintelligence mean as defined by Mark Zuckerberg and the industry? And is this hurtling us even more quickly along in that timeline? Everybody has their own term. There's super intelligence, there's advanced artificial general intelligence, AGI, there's ASI, there's all these terms floating around and a lot of people don't define what they mean by them. So I don't know exactly what Mark Zuckerberg means. Like when I think about this,

what I'm thinking about is an artificial intelligence that can do almost all of the things that humans can do on a computer. And that includes, therefore, many, many jobs. There are many, many jobs that people can do from their computer. And when we have an artificial intelligence that

can do all of those tasks remotely, that's obviously gonna have very huge economic impacts. It's gonna have a lot of other impacts on society as well. So that's my own definition. And I think it's probably sort of roughly aligned with many people in the industry's definition. But as I said, different people mean different things. I mean, I think the number one thing to take away for,

there's still a large segment of people, I think, number one thing to take away for there's still a large segment of people I think who dismiss AI as hype. And, you know, sort of like, oh, this is kind of like crypto, like this thing these tech bros in Silicon Valley are doing. Mark Zuckerberg has never paid anyone nine figures for crypto, right? AI is in a different category, and everybody needs to be taking it very seriously. It's going to have extremely large impacts on the economy, on the way our democracy works, and on the rest of our society in many, many ways. And then I think that that's my number one takeaway from this is like, look,

the world's largest corporations are taking this extremely seriously. And you need to as well. What does it look like to you to take this extremely seriously? Because I feel like that's where I get a little lost. I am deeply concerned. I think the job loss is going to be extraordinary. I don't put off the table some of the, you know, most maximalist dystopian possibilities here as well. But I'm not really sure what to do about it at this point, because you have this administration that is totally like no brakes on the car, wild, wild west, we're in this race versus China and we've got to be the first to get to it.

And they have this very aggressive, no regulations approach to it. You have people like Sam Altman and others who are overtly out there like, yeah, we wanna replace as much of human labor and possibly all of human labor as possible. And we're probably gonna have to completely upend the social contract in order for this to all work out.

And yet, I don't see any real large scale conversations where you come in about what that new social contract is going to look like and how we're going to make sure that people outside of trillionaires are okay in that new world. So when you say something like we need to be taken seriously, like, what specific things do you have in mind in particular? Yeah, it's hard because the field is moving so fast that we haven't had time for a real civil society ecosystem

to evolve around AI. So if you're somebody who might have the interest in wherewithal and starting a new organization around AI, there are gaps everywhere. Here's an example is I don't know of any concerted programs to educate state legislators about AI. That's just one example. Another example is I've heard many of any concerted programs to educate state legislators about AI. That's just one example. Another example is I've heard many experts

in the field, like Ezra Klein and Kevin Roos, and think tank people in DC say, we don't have nearly enough economic frameworks for thinking about the labor dislocations that we expect are going to happen from AI. There's just gaps everywhere, if you're familiar with this field. If you think that somebody's doing something about AI and you've got an idea that somebody should be doing something, probably nobody is yet,

or certainly not enough people. So you should go investigate and maybe think about starting an effort in that field. And I don't think that there are a lot of pathways yet for people to engage. But I think you should call your legislators. I think you should talk to your legislators about how big of an issue this is, how much you're worried about it.

Right now, AI is still not showing up as a big issue in public opinion polling. And legislators and politicians aren't hearing that much about it. I mean, when I say it's not showing up as as big issue, I mean, it's not showing up. Like if you ask people what their top issues are, what they're most worried about, AI is not showing up on those lists. And we need to shift politicians' perceptions of that. So if you're not gonna go start a new organization,

you can at least like talk to your legislators and your representatives about why, what they, you know, that they need to be paying attention to this. And I wanna to ask oh god No, go ahead wasn't I want to ask about this next element we put on the screen the Apple paper that went viral and got a lot of reactions to it this post from Ruben Hassid says

Apple just proved AI quote-unquote reasoning models like Claude deep seek are one and oh three many don't actually reason at all They just memorize patterns really well. Here's what Apple discovered, parentheses, hint. We're not as close to AGI as the hype suggests. I read that post and I think, okay, yeah, I mean, no, they don't reason. They just memorize patterns really well. They're freaking computers, yes.

That's exactly right. But then on the other hand, to use that as a way to dismiss our current proximity to AGI and to say that this is all overhyped and it's really moving very slowly seems ill-advised. And I just kind of wanted to get your reaction to the reaction from that paper.

Yeah, look, there's a set of people out there who do make their money off of, and their fame off of dismissing AI. And they'll sort of seize onto papers like this to do that. I don't think that this paper is actually that big of a deal in some sense. It's not saying anything that's particularly surprising, as you pointed out.

of a deal in some sense. It's not saying anything that's particularly surprising, as you pointed out. It's asking the models to do a set of very hard problems. And they at some point are like, basically the models are like, this problem is too hard, I'm going to stop now. And then the authors, well, I don't even think the authors are necessarily interpreting that as, as these models aren't good at what they do. It's so like, then there's a sort of a whole, you know, Twitter ecosystem that's like, well, now we've proved that these models aren't good at what they do. Guess what? If you give me one of these hard problems that they gave these models, I'm also going

to be like, yeah, sorry, I don't have time for this. This is like, you've had said I have to solve this. They give the models constraints, like you have to solve this in a certain context window, which is maybe roughly equivalent to telling me I have an hour to solve it. And I'm like, I can't solve that problem in an hour, so I'm going to stop now. And then interpreting, I hope you all

think that I'm artificial intelligence. Sorry, I'm general intelligence, right? Not artificial intelligence. And so they're sort of actually, in some ways, behaving a lot like humans in these situations. And so they're sort of actually in some ways behaving a lot like humans in these situations. And we're interpreting, some people are interpreting that as saying that they aren't smart, which I think is just not true. Another thing that I've wondered is we, there's this sort of like line that's drawn, we were talking about the meta project to develop AGI,

artificial general intelligence, and you were saying there's all kinds of different terminologies for, you know, meeting whatever this milestone is. Like how much of a just sort of like line that you cross is AGI and how much of it is more of a sense and it's a little bit hard to tell whether you're there or you're not like, help me understand when people talk about AGI, how much it will be clear when we've achieved this, whatever this benchmark is. Because I also see things like, and I see that study from, you know, I see that particular study that was going around.

I also see these other studies where AI is scheming to make sure it's not getting shut off and trying to like blackmail an engineer with an affair that they think the engineer is engaged in to avoid having their programming change. You know, I see things that are deeply disturbing in terms of AI engaging. I mean, those are very like human type behaviors and trying to defy the wishes of their programmers. So where are we in that development?

And will we really, is it like this hard, fast line of we are not at AGI and now we are at AGI and it's very clear cut? Yeah, this is a great question. I think different, well, I think most people in the industry would say it's not a hard line. And there's a term that's called the jagged frontier. It's like the models

can be very good at some things and very bad at other things that humans can do. By the same token, you could say that humans have a jagged frontier, like humans are very good at some things compared to AI and very bad at other things compared to current AI. So I don't think we're going to immediately cross the Rubicon of like suddenly the models are very, are better than humans at everything, including for instance, operating a physical body in physical space, right? That's not going to happen literally overnight. Probably. But you always have to qualify everything you say about AI as

like, I think so, probably anybody who's not qualifying their statements, I think you have to be worried about how much you can trust what they're saying. But I think that, are we at AGI now? I mean, it's an interesting question, because for a long time, the test that everybody thought we were going to use for this was called the Turing test. And for people who haven't heard of it,

the Turing test is you put a human behind a computer and an AI behind a computer or in the computer, and then you have another human interview both of them. And if the human who's interviewing can't tell whether they're talking to the other human or to the AI, then the AI has passed the Turing test of intelligence. And these models

pass that test now, the cutting edge models, right? And so by that definition, the definition that we had all used for literally decades, invented by Alan Turing, we've already gotten there. And yet these models are very bad at a lot of things that humans are good at. And I don't, I think anybody is, anybody of serious repute is saying we've actually hit a GI so the The the goal posts are moving over time. I think the goal posts will keep moving Yeah Yeah, the rate of acceleration is just unbelievable. Um, I was listening to a old through line episode on ralph nadir uh and thinking about this actually because

Dets from car accidents used to be like five times as high as they are now. It took us actually a really long time and a lot of tragedy to adapt our policies to make our roads relatively safe. I mean, relatively is an important word there. And I guess I'm just wondering how optimistic you are about the policy evolution meeting the moment, because right now it looks

very bleak for some understandable reasons. I mean, it's hard to define. It's hard to see what the future looks like exactly. Things are moving very quickly. But it just seems like the reaction is completely non-existent here in DC. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to be pessimistic. I think the reason to be optimistic is sort of like,

if you take a step back, humanity's faced a lot of threats in the past, and so far we've survived them all, right? And so, you know, humans are resilient, and we do live in an era when lots of people have agency, and I hope, I mean, these are choices we are making, right? These are not inevitable conclusions. These are choices that we as individuals and as society

are making about how to respond to AI. And I hope we can rise to this challenge. I don't think it's impossible, but it is a huge challenge. There's no doubt about that. Taryn, thank you so much for joining us this morning. It's been great to chat with you. Let people know where they can find you and follow the work that you guys are doing. Thanks so much. GoldenGateInstitute.org.

And we've got a newsletter that you can subscribe to where we try to make sense of what's happening in AI for folks who are outside of the Silicon Valley bubble. All right. Well, I'm definitely going to subscribe to that. Thank you so much again. And we'll talk to you again soon. Thank you. All right. Really interesting talking to Taryn there, huh, Emily? Crystal, I feel like we are at a breaking point. I'm just going to leave. And with regard to the end of the show. Okay. See, you got me. I walked into it and I didn't expect it but both of us should go to prison for what? We just did Indeed. All right. I'm sure Trump stormtroopers will be here to arrest us shortly Emily always great to see you guys. Thank you so much for watching the show. Let's see today is Wednesday tomorrow

I will be in with Sagar so we'll have all of the latest for you guys then. Thank you for subscribing over at Breaking Points. Make sure you use that free promo code BPFREE and there it is up on the screen, BPFREE, breakingpoints.com and we will see you guys tomorrow. See you then. See you then. See you then.

See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. See you then. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the years of making my true crime podcast,

Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145.

Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, there's a case we should hear about. Call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murderline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jeff Perlman. And I'm Rick Jervis. We're journalists and hosts of the podcast, Finding Sexy Sweat.

At an internship in 1993, we roomed with Reggie Payne, aspiring reporter and rapper who went by Sexy Sweat. A couple of years ago, we set out to find him. But in 2020, Reggie fell into a coma after police pinned him down and he never woke up.

But then I see, my son's not moving. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.