Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Fatherhood and Forgiveness With Roy Wood Jr., Plus Ed Zitron Breaks Down the “AI Bubble”

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Van and Rachel talk Kamala Harris’s political future, New York Representative Hakeem Jeffries endorsing Zohran Mamdani, and the Cash Money vs. No Limit ‘Verzuz’ battle before Roy Wood Jr. joins to discuss his new memoir, 'The Man of Many Fathers.' Then technology writer Ed Zitron joins to break down the economic impact of AI. (0:00) Intro (1:00) Kamala Harris running again? (9:53) Hakeem Jeffries endorses Mamdani (18:57) Roy Wood Jr. joins the show (1:12:51) Ed Zitron on AI (1:45:29) ‘Verzuz’: Cash Money vs. No Limit (1:50:30) Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on "inclusion and exclusion" Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Roy Wood Jr. and Ed Zitron Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? How are learning is on, is Ivan Latham Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Interview heavy show today. We got Roy Wood Jr. Beautiful conversation. Beautiful conversation on fatherhood of his brand new book.

We also got Ed Zittron that's going to come on. And he's going to come on and talk about AI, artificial general intelligence, data centers, Rachel's portfolio. You're heavily invested into AI. I didn't say I was heavily invested, but as Ed will say, we all kind of are tied to it in some way or another.

And if those things that Van said, not make sense to you, like they don't for me at times. Ed explains it all. It explains at all. Can AI become something that thinks for itself? We'll see. It's interesting because I feel like I left, I'm definitely informed, but now I'm scared for new reasons. Oh, yeah. The reasons that scared me before, they're not the same. But I'm still scared. That's a great question, by the way. I particularly like the question that you asked about the housing bubble. It's a great thing. It's in my research. Thank you. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all.

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Kamala Harris is back. She was talking to the BBC and she said she might run for President Donnie. Stories of your baby nieces, Amara and Lila. When are they going to see a woman in charge in the White House? In their lifetime for sure. Could it be you? Possibly. Have you made a decision yet?

No, I have not. But you say in your book, I'm not done. That is correct. I am not done. I have lived my entire career a life of service. and it's in my bones. And there are many ways to serve. I've not decided yet what I will do in the future beyond what I am doing right now.

Okay. Kamala Harris hints that she might run for president again. Is that something that excites you, Rachel? I can't really look at it that way. I don't look at it as a way that excites me. I think that Kamala Harris has to answer the question in this way. She has to keep the door open. She has to let it be known that there's some sort of possibility.

I don't think that she will run. I really don't. But I understand why she would want to, and I feel bad for her. And I've explained that before when we were talking about her book 107 days. I feel bad for the position that she's been placed in. Yes, she tried to run before, didn't work. She became the vice president. Then they put her in unimpossible situation pretty much for her run for the presidency.

And as a person who has been successful in every time she's run, she's been successful when you look at her political career. And then to be placed in this position when she's been successful. was running for president. She really didn't have a full fair shot. So I understand why the competitor in her would want to run again. I really do. But the position that she's in right now, I hope she's not done. Let me just say that. I do hope that she's not done as far as wanting to be involved in politics. I have a hard time seeing how it would work for her for running for president because even right now, she's doing the media runs. She's talking about her book. She's

talking about the past, where I feel like the American public is and what they want from their politicians is kind of like, what are you doing moving forward? And when you have somebody who possibly is running, as Gavin Newsom now said, he's not, he would be lying if he said he's not considering it after, did you say after the midterms? Maybe after the midterms, I think he said. He's in a position where he is actively sitting in office opposing Donald Trump, challenging policies that are being placed out there by Congress. He's being combative in a way that Kamala Harris is not in a position as much to be in because she's not a political office.

She's talking about her book, which is about the past 107 days. So I don't see her having the advantage as maybe some of her other Democratic political opponents who might run have over her. So I just don't know. So all that to say, it's hard for me to say, am I excited? I do, I will answer it by saying, I want to see her always involved in politics because I appreciate what Kamala Harris stands for, what she represents, and how she has fought for the people and dedicated her life to public service for majority of her life. So I want that in a politician.

I just don't know where it is for her. And it's hard for me to see that in the presidency. So this is the third time she would have a run for president. Yeah. She did run in 2020. So we should say that there was a truncated campaign. that she had to be a part of. But then there was, in 2020,

a full Kamala Harris president campaign. Shortened. What I mean shortened? In 2020? Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a fool.

So her ability to run and get people galvanize, it's obviously going to be different now than it was then because she's been vice president for a long time. I like Vice President Harris. Yes. I like her. Okay. Here's the deal.

what you're saying is very important and the reality is this. Kamala Harris has got to give the American people a reason to vote for her. She has got to give the American people a reason to vote for her. And she has to figure out a way, in my opinion, I'm not giving political advice, god damn ex-vice president. But there are still things that I see the administration or people from the administration. We're having Corrine Jean-Pierre on the show pretty soon.

I watched Corrine Jean-Pierre get asked directly by Amin about the situation in Gaza, the genocide, that the Biden administration rubber-stamped and couldn't put any distance between themselves in. And Kamala Harris, while she was running, seemed not to be able to reconcile the concerns that people had about our foreign policy in that particular instance. and what a future with her as president would look like.

Corrine was a part of that too, and she talked about that with Amin, and the question seems sincere and the answer seemed like politics. Why am I bringing that up? I'm bringing that up because there are questions that a large portion of the American public is going to ask about the future leader of this country,

that people must be prepared to answer. I'll say something. We had Gavin Newsom, here, the APAC question, they ended up going everywhere. That question helps him. Can he ask that question on higher learning? You have the interesting, interesting answer, right? That is, and no disrespect to our platform,

a relatively low leverage place for him to come here and completely fuck that answer. Because he will be asked that question. Again, on a larger platform by a million trillion dollar platform and he will have to have an answer that speaks to the concerns of a lot of people not just on that, on affordability,

on the environment, on all kinds of things. And people want a vision for the future. All it is to be said, that if Vice President Harris is going to run, to your point, it is time to think about, and address the actual issues and actual problems that Americans care about. This is not me being hypercritical of her.

This is me saying if, in fact, she is going to use her inordinate skill to become the president or to affect, forget about becoming the president, to affect American politics, to affect the political reality in America, then it might be time to kind of move away. Everybody's writing books. Joe Biden has a book coming out. Creen Jean-Pierre has a book coming out. Kamala Harris has a book that's out. Everybody's writing books. I get it.

Everyone is free to write all the books they can. But when you are inside the bookstore on your book tour, outside on the street, people are being kidnapped and put into cars. Now, wouldn't happen if Kamala Harris was the president. That's fair for her to say. I gave you an alternative. You picked the wrong one.

that's true. 100% true, guys. She gave you an alternative. You picked the wrong one, but we're here now. So we want to know how we're going to get out of it and we want to know

what you have to say and what you have to give to the American people as a way out of it. And we want moral clarity on some issues that it did not seem like the administration

or the Democrats themselves have moral clarity on it. Yeah. So, you know, am I excited? I'm excited. I'll answer for myself. If she's back,

in the fight, I'm into it. I'm into it. Sure, I'm curious. If she's back in the fight, I'm into it. But they got to switch up. Can't do it the same way as last time. I personally don't feel like, I still do not believe

that this current crop of Democrats that's running, and that's all of them. Vice President Harris, out of it. That's all of them. I don't think they understand what kind of electorate that they're speaking to. I still don't think they get it. They're not getting it. I still hear the same shit.

Do you think Gavin Newsom? Yeah. Okay. For as much, as much heavy shit as Gavin talked, for as much stuff as I see him, brilliant interview that he just did on all of the smoke. I still don't think they're getting it. Democrats aren't getting it.

They're still, they're dragging their feet. Actually, not dragging their feet. They're dragging their knuckles. Because, because they, I don't think they're getting, they're not understanding. Gavin is fighting. He's doing what he can, like, profit. But you mean as maybe.

as a whole. Just rhetorically, they're not getting it. They're not getting through the insulation. They're really get to the thing. They're not getting it. Something's happening. I think that's a good segue into the next topic. Which is Hakeem Jeffries.

He endorsed Zoramam Dani in a way. Exactly. He basically said, he gave a statement to the New York Times. He says, Zoroam Dani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed. to being mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy. And that's spirit, I support him

and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election. The election is next week. This was, I think, last week that he did this. So just at the end there, he gets in and gives his endorsement. Yeah. Is this a day before early voting began?

Which he promised he'd do. Is this endorsement meaningful to you? It's meaningful. that, fine, he did it. I'll acknowledge that. But is it, I guess, like, truly meaningful? Like, oh, Hakeen Jeffries is, like, really behind Mamdani and what he represents. No. And I mean, I think he even said that. He, you know, he talks about, like, there are things that they agree on. There are things that they don't agree on. But as he said, I endorse the Democratic ticket. He did not say I endorse Momdani specifically. And I think that your answer lies in there.

Hakeem Jeffries is New York. It's a strategic move for him. He totally recognizes what would happen in the long run. Should he not support Mundani? There's a growing movement within the Democratic Party, but particularly in the city of New York. And you can see that with the way that Mondani won the ticket in the primary. And so I think that for him, he has to do that in order to solidify his place.

should he become the Speaker of the House to get support within the Democratic Party as a whole? Should he continue to run? He needs to show unity in a sense. So as he said, it's the ticket, not the person, not particularly his policies. So, you know, a lot of people, they ask me, they go, Van, what happened to you being a Democrat?

Why aren't you a Democrat? And they think that me not being a Democrat is a specific criticism of the Democratic Party, which it is, but at the same time, it's not. The reason why I am not a Democrat is because I don't believe in political parties, period, and stuff like this is one reason why. Political parties are something other to me

than what I am, what I view as useful community. Because what political parties have is they have to me a superseding set of priorities. And those priorities have to do with stuff that they've done for each other. Like they have loyalty to each other based upon the fact that within the party they have a working relationship with this person and I clerked with this person and I came up under this person and this person was good to me and this person is great and this person's been doing this. So when they fight a lot of times, they're fight for the people that they have political allegiances to and personal relationships with,

rather than think about what's good for the people that are in their constituents, those people's constituencies. And sometimes they might feel like that person that they're fighting for or that entity of that thing is actually the thing that's best for those people. But even they're thinking of that, to me, is clouded by the relationships that they have. Right. So if I was to look at Nancy Pelosi or Rep Waters, respectfully when I say these people's names, particularly the black people, respectfully, as I say the name of Maxine Waters or of Jim Clyburn, respectfully with the highest degree of respect to those black elders that have done so much. If I was to say, just make a broad general outlook on either side of the aisle that I don't think.

that certain people have the vigor, have the vitality, or at this point, the credibility to continue to be prominent voices in this party. Meaning, one thing that is holding the Democrats back is their inability to adapt to a changing landscape of their own electorate, of the people in their electorate that are ready to step up and lead, and lead and the issues that those people are connected to. And one of the reasons why they can't sometimes understand it is because they're from a different generation.

It is not in any way meant to be disrespectful or dismissive, but they are legitimately from a different generation. We talked to Roy Wood a second ago, and we're going to show you guys the interview, play the interview for you guys. And we talk about our fathers and we talk about the men that raised us and they talk Those men did their best, but they were from a different generations with a completely different set of inputs into the world and into society than we do. Totally different. So if you're trying to lead a contemporary world, it sometimes puts you at a disadvantage, and this is on both sides of the political aisle, to be led by people who aren't really living in that world.

And the reality is that, like, when you say that, there are all kinds of things. that get in the middle of that criticism other than whether or not it's true. It's loyalty to the people that made you. It's an understanding of the inner party workings and all of that type of stuff. And they're probably right about all of that. They know what it takes to mobilize people.

They know all of that stuff. I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to have to. I'm always going to show deference and respect to owe the black. people. That's how I was raised, always. Yeah. That I respect. And that respect me. Okay.

But I don't want to have to show loyalty or to be in the bag for somebody just because party says so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just because, hey, there's somebody younger, somebody newer, somebody fresher. This person might be stopping new voices from coming. This person might be stopping this from happening. There's all kinds of, it's like, you. You have something to say, children are being bombed in Gaza. I can't say anything about it because that will cross the president. I can't, that's not good enough for me.

And a party that is that inner, that's not good enough. I can't do that. Now, I can caucus with them on issues that I agree with and things that we have in common. But overall, I just don't think that works right now. Sure, sure. And so the flexibility of being able to look at something, issue to issue, and look at situations, issue to issue is very important to me. And when I look at the fact that the Democrats watched a candidate that is a rock star once in a generational type candidate, right?

They watched him in the landscape of New York, a very diverse electorate, legitimately light a fire under the people, a broad, multiracial, diverse coalition of people. that this candidate spoke directly to. But because he's newer, different, doesn't quite align with the status quo of what the Democratic Party is. They actively tried to sabotage him. They, like, actively tried to sabotage, and they actively tried to not support it.

And I'm looking at it, and I'm going, look, Mondani is an unknown quantity. He still has to govern. When he is elected, which he will be elected, he will win. He still has to govern. And there is plenty of runway for disappointment with someone who has those types of ideas and has made these types of promises. Don't get me wrong.

You guys. And these types of enemies. And these types of enemies. Don't get me wrong, guys. It's not a done deal. However, the fact that really, really, the party establishment tried to extinguish this, like, it's, it's odd. It's not odd. I don't know if odds is the word I would use, but.

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You guys, we're delighted back again on higher learning to have, I guess, a frequent guest now, but somebody that we love, comedian, author, television host, Roy Wood Jr., joins us on Higher Learning Day. Everybody give it up for Warwood Jr. A pleasure to see you in person finally. Good to see you again, brother. Absolutely.

Rock with this podcast. This is the perfect spectrum of negative. Oh, say more. Well, because you can get, like, politics and you can get, like, some legitimate discussion and analysis about Black women and Jasmine Crockett, and then also we might fight Memphis Bleak. Oh, shit.

Yes, yes. There is a spectrum of all things that are relevant to the culture. Like, both, all those things are as important as the other. That's true. Even if they don't have the same societal stakes, it's still worth discussing and analyzing. It's part of why I fuck with you. So let me ask you a question then.

Shouldn't we change the name of the podcast from higher learning to niggadum? I was about to say he was going to make it the subtitle, but there you go. I knew you were going to try to do that. No, you got to keep this sponsorship money. It's true. It's true.

Corporate. So we were talking about something off camera. I'm going to ask you now. Okay. We were talking about guys that we know, shout out to Omar Dorsey. Because we were talking about how great Omar Dorsey's career is been. Prolific resume.

And still going this way, having a great career in a great season with, you know, some of the shows he's been on recently and stuff. We were talking about playing historical figures. Yeah. And that Roy Wood Jr. has not played a black historical figure yet. If you were going to play one, who would you play? Somebody told me on Twitter.

Somebody told me on Twitter that I have a civil rights hairline. Now, you can, it's fun. And you know, you don't really know what something means. And then you go back and look at pictures of Dr. King and like everybody from that era, everybody's line was pushed back. A little bit. Everybody's line was pushed back.

Yeah. I don't think I could play Dr. King. Everybody said I look like Dr. King sometimes. I get that comparison. You could definitely play them. No, I saw, there's a picture, there's a video of you signing books in a suit recently that you posted. And that's when I saw it.

I said, oh, my God, he's Dr. King. You know what I? So that's why I stopped. That's why I stopped wearing suits anywhere but the Daily Show because people just are like, oh, you look like a preacher. And like you don't take the joke serious no more. And I'm like, no, I'm not a pastor. Yeah, you're like a pastor.

That was one of the first things. Like in wardrobe, they try and put you in brown suits and like dark grays. I'm like, in the civil rights colors. Yeah, they are. I can't black, brown, and dark gray is freedom. You know. So I do that nice, light blue. You know what I'm saying?

Put me in that old. Obama, some of that Obama tan suit shit, like, give me that. But I never thought about it because I thought like all that shit is like acting, acting. And then when you're doing like a historical figure, then you got to like legitimately take it serious. And I don't know if I, I don't know. Give me Jesse Jackson. Yeah, let me play Jesse Jackson. Jesse is good.

And I could be loud. Yeah. But I think it would be interesting because we talk a lot about what's the book? What's Dr. Penel Joseph? Sword in the Shield. Sword in the Shield. There's so much to the character that doesn't have to just be serious.

I feel like you're so dynamic. You would add so much. Think about it. Be hard to make Dr. King's life for comedy. Not comedy. There's nothing funny? I'm sure that was some funny shit. Yeah.

He could do both. I could be Dr. King, but it would have to be like in the vineyard. Like the picture of him and Corrette on that tandem bike. Oh, yeah. It would have to be like some lighter away from, like, You know, they do biopics that are just a peer,

just a small piece of somebody's life. That's what it would have to be with me, Dr. King. Now, see, this is a good idea. Okay? This is a good idea. Hold on for a second. This is a good idea. Dr. King, Corretta, at the vineyard,

three days where Dr. King is just on vacation from saving the world. He's just with his wife. They have, and then they're like, you do that movie, but then you put in little things to let people know that like, hey, maybe he runs into a family, he gets a call, whatever. At the end, he literally has, he's in like the whole time he's in like a short set, right? Because he's on a venue. I like that. But at the end, he literally puts his suit back on like Superman's suit and he leaves the house to go and do his work.

This movie is cold. I like it. This is a cold movie. And this is a telegram that end, Dr. King, we got to. We need you in Memphis. We need you in Memphis. Did you hear the voice? Did you hear the voice?

He went right into it. We figured this out. By the way, this is the type of movies. This is the type of movies they used to make. They could be a scene where Dr. King and Correda have an argument. Yeah, didn't they just with Barack and Michelle? They kind of did something. They kind of did.

Like the love story. I love to see a different side of it. It's done. You have a new book out. The Man of Many Fathers. Yes, sir. Life Lessons Disguised as a memoir. Hell of a title.

Tell people the thrust behind. writing this book. Pops died when I was 16 and when I had my son nine years ago, you start going through what type of values do you want to pass on to your kid? And then you started thinking, well, where did I get them values from? And then you realize you didn't get a lot of them from your pops because he just wasn't. And even when he was, I'm my mama's only child. I'm the ninth of 11 kids. So you can understand the type of house that I came up in. Pops wasn't every day. So you start looking at these stories and I started just realizing as I made a list of folks, bro, that I learned so much from so many random people

and dope people and folks I'll never see again. Folks is dead and gone. It's like, this makes sense to pass on to my son in case I died. And I don't know, it's probably a little bit of paranoia, too. I did find in your roots, and I found out my pops lost his dad when he was four. He got disappeared in the Georgia in the 30s in the 1930s, in the 1930s. So you already know what that was. So the idea of if I'm gone for whatever reason Before he and I are old enough to have You know talk about some real shit Let me just put some of my values on paper for you man

And just read that And then the more I thought about that I was like, this could be a book This might be something I could venture into Like making a one-man show at some point Or grow it down the road But I just think when we think about masculinity The idea that it all is supposed to come

from one place. It don't. Back home in Birmingham, I worked with some mentorship programs, and the thing that I peeped was that a lot of moments of wisdom that are passed on from elders to the young ins, it's microscopic. It's not some structured program or whatever.

So when I really started thinking about that, I was like, okay, well, that time I worked day labor in South Carolina, that coworker that was on cocaine, that pimping New Jersey, there's all these just weird, interesting-ass people, man. I'm racist U.S. Marshals. Like, you name it, as odd as it is, you can get a lesson sometimes in the worst moments as well. So that's what made me put it together, man.

You know, this is something that's sometimes difficult for people to understand that look into the community and maybe don't have a live experience with it. I remember vividly, vividly walking into a circle K with my friends, and there's a guy outside of the, Circle Kay in Ban Rouge. And he was obviously,

he was an addicted brother. That's what we would call him at that time would be a crackhead, right? And I remember he walked out and he pulled me to the side. He's like, hey, you see him little niggas that you wit? Them ain't your little niggas. He's like, I see you getting on and off the bus.

He's like, them ain't your niggas. I'm like, man, get off me, whatever. I remember, went home and telling my dad. He was like, man, the crackhead tried to tell me. And my dad was like, now why wouldn't you listen to him? He's like, he didn't see everything. that happens around there. He's like, if he tell you

how to do something in terms of like how to stay off drugs, maybe you don't listen to him. But if a man is giving you his wisdom, you give him a second to hear him out because of what he's seen. People do not respect the wisdom of people

who've had tough, hard, maybe even deviant lives if they haven't been around it to see the humanity of those people. I think also I believe that some people have put in front of us on our path as an example of what not to do

and there's lessen in that as well. You know, I was in... So when I did stand-up, my first nine years of stand-up, I was a rogue comic in the South. So you go to these clubs and you'd work three, four days at a time. You'd be in the same city for three, four days. I'd go get a job.

I would just work day labor or whatever during the day. Why you was doing the stand-up? Yeah, because you're in the hotel all day, fucking off. nigga go move a brick or something not Kotein, you know what I mean Okay, no, no, you said it.

Mason, you know, okay, but you You say they labor my ass All right, like, you, you said it Now we see that, I'm glad that your front worked out for you and you're a comic man. Oh, we was at this, we was at this Quick Creek factory, it's a Quick Creek factory in Columbia, South Carolina

and it's the hardest I've ever worked. Like the physical, like 20-pound bags of dry cement, and you picking them up off a conveyor belt, stacking them on a forklift palette, so the forklift take it to the truck. And you just left the right all day, eight hours, 95 degrees. And I'm working there with just an older dude.

And I'm 21, 2021. I'm on probation at the time for credit cards. You can tell about that later. But you think these OGs are giving you wisdom. man, you need to get off papers, little niggum, I'm telling you, man, you get your shit together, man, you got it. And come to find out, like, at the end of the week, he's like, yeah, you're 20, you do this job, you'll be a supervisor in five years. I'm 55. I mean, he's basically saying, I'm too old to do this forever.

I'm an age out. I ain't got a chance to be as great at working outside in the heat as you. And it's like the whole time you think is an inspirational message, but it's like, oh, no, that's not what I want. And I don't know what pushed him to that point where, you know, you know, God bless him, you're a free man, and you can, it's an honest day's work, but this ain't what I want to do. And you are way too happy to be doing this shit. And I'm like, oh, I got to get back in college. And that's how I got the idea to, oh, okay, let me go back to school.

Because I was going to quit school. Not my mama, the educator who'd been in college 30, 40 years. She couldn't tell me in it going back to school, not the old coworker, not the old ball coach. Yeah. Oh, shit, this is what out here? let me go on and get that degree real quick, bro. And I think the thing that I really also noticed in the book, just in putting the book together, was just,

of course, there were women in my life. There were women that impacted me. But because I still had my mom, I didn't naturally gravitate towards women. Like, the women in my life were placed there. But, like, when I look at, like, anytime I was in a room, I'm trying to find somebody 10, 20 years older than me, and just have a chit-chat with them,

just to see what they're about, just to see what they're into. because I just, I never got that type of camaraderie growing up, man. And so I think that's kind of where I really ended up finding myself without really screening people's character in some weird situations. But even in that, you still learn something. Did your definition of fatherhood change while writing the book? I think my definition of forgiveness changed.

What do you mean by that? because I think you grow up everybody had a parent and you wish you got something different from that parent, right? And this idea of I knew what kind of father I wanted to be, I want to be present. So how can I work and construct my life in a way

where I'm not on the road? Because I've opened for the comics who do 45 weekends a year. And I'm talking four or five-day weeks. and I didn't see cats bringing their kids with them to the club because I ain't got custody and it ain't got no babysitter, whatever. So I knew I wanted to be present because my pops wasn't always that. But I think you act as a parent sometimes out of resentment to what you didn't get.

I think it's two types of parents. You either be what you wish you had or you be what you got because it worked out for you, right? So I'm going to be everything. We're going to play catch. We're going to do, and you almost want to erase that part of your childhood. But then you look up and realize, all right, for me to be the best version of myself to him, I have to know who I am. And to know who I am, I have to know who he is.

So I have to do the homework on that. I got to go talk to family members. I got lucky because I got to do finding your roots. And it taught me a lot. You know, you lose your pops. And then they have census data. My dad had no other head of household, no other male head of house. ever after that.

You in Chicago on the rough side of town with a single mom, and then you get hit by a car arguing over a girl who just broke up with you. Now you crippled the rest of your life. Well, how would that inform how you treat women? How would that inform how you even see love, your self-esteem? And no man there to build it up. And you got hit by that car at 13, which is when you need that level of self-esteem and somebody to be your backbone.

So I don't feel like he had all of that. So it reconstituted what I felt like I didn't always get. So I can't be mad no more. I got to sit and look at this man and go, all right, what's the best part to him and what parts are like him or like me that I respect and how can I best infuse those and bring those out in my son? What are the tools I can use to bring that out?

I ain't saying that you got to forgive your parents. but it's still good parts of them. So you gotta go find that. So like that, learning the idea of, all right, I can't hold on to whatever was between you and my moms, right? I got two younger half-brothers, of all my siblings, I'm closest to my two younger halves,

because we're closest in the age. Pops would bring us around each other. So if I got my son, right? And I know, all right, he's got to see love and his relationship, how he treats women, will start with how he sees me treat women. So then I got to show him love. So then that means I need to make sure that whenever the time comes to bring a woman around him that I have to love on this one. Like, it's a demonstration in the way. All right, fuck. When did I say? see love.

Damn, it wasn't him and my mom. It was him and the other woman. So now to be a better father, I have to sit and literally dissect the relationship my father had with the woman across town. Now I got to call my two younger brothers and literally be like, yo, what was pops like when he was at your house? Because even if you look at the way that my two younger brothers, their approaches to women is way different.

Their approach to dating is different from mine because they had two folks that was trying to make it work. I had two folks who didn't even stay in the same room, bro. Like, we lived together. We moved back in with my pops in the fourth grade because I was starting a while out in Memphis. So my mom's was like, look, we ain't have fun with each other. Just make sure the boy don't

join the gang. Yeah. You mind your business. I mind my business. I'm going to save this money. I'm going to go to law school. I'm going to move out. Cool, cool. And that was the kind of the agreement that they had. Family for the sake of safety. Yeah, a thousand percent. And she was right to do so.

We was wild in Memphis, bro. Like, I was a latchkey kid. My mom had come home to 8 o'clock. I can do whatever the fuck I want. Like, we was out riding around the apartment complex, setting shit on fire, key in cars. Good grades, though. Yeah.

Because that keep your mama off your ass. Right. People don't understand that. People don't understand, like, You know, people are saying a lot of people talk about like how this generation is grown up and all the safeguards and stuff like that. Antibacterial soap, Amber Alert, all of that stuff. And I tell them, I'm like, that's a response to our childhood. Because sometimes we would go, it is.

All of the over-safety is a response to us because sometimes we just go, all right, cool, we out. Bye. Gone. All right, okay, come back when, you know, all right, cool, come back. Mama, Daddy wouldn't be home, like all kinds of stuff happening. We in abandoned houses. We, like, we breaking windows and abandoned houses. We got, we got bikes.

Y'all think a bike is a fun thing. A bike is a cross-town transportational tool if you ride that bitch. You ride the bike. You don't know where you are now. It opens the world up. Yeah. Get your hop fences and still fruit. Hot fences, still fruit.

If you had oranges, we could. Not me. Hold on. I was there. You're like, if you had oranges, hey man, hey man. And sometimes people will come by and they'll be like, they say the name of, and she got a comma quat. They got comquots over there.

And we'll be like, they got comquots? Yeah, hey man, we got to go get some of them comacquots. Van, you down? Like, yeah, let's go get some of them. Doing all kinds of dumb shit. Yeah. But just out there wild. But if you had, if your grades was good or if you made it back home before, whatever,

they pretty much let you go figure it out. They didn't care. I remember, man, so my mama from Clarksdale. Yeah. We spent every summer in Mississippi. Am I? I heard about y'all from Clarksdale. So I heard y'all said, so she's a vampire?

We spent every summer in Clarksdale, me and my cousins, and on my grandma's street, total, it was about, like, 15 to 20 kids. Like, peak summer when all the cousins from every house descended on that street. Yeah. We was running in a pack, bro, with no supervision. And you would go to vacation Bible school from like nine to two. And then you reconvene at 2. And just run the street playing the fucking mosquito truck. I know you had that in Baton Rouge.

Come down the street with the mosquito thing. The poison. You guys don't understand. Just spraying poison into the atmosphere. Oh, here come the mosquito truck. Just spraying poison. But you're playing street football. and you're supposed to wait for the cloud to dissipate.

You're supposed to go inside. Just come back there, breathing it into your lungs. Eerobic activity. You play a football in the street on the concrete, by the way. In a poison cloud. This is the story I've never heard you tell. Sidelines. Have you?

What you talking about? Have you told the story before? Well, I wouldn't talk about the muskelet truck. But yeah, the muskelet truck come down to think. Yeah, straight poison. Playing the flood water. Into the atmosphere. Like, you didn't, you just didn't know.

Yeah, you didn't know. that was freedom man that shit was amazing bro like it really was and it's like you look at that type of childhood and then you try to figure out what you want to have

like I live in New York I'm raising a city kid I'm from Alabama I don't know what I'm doing like I don't know it's times where I don't know if I'm stunting my son or not you know

you fourth grade and you'll ride the subway with me but then we'll be on the subway and I'll see like a second grader just it'd be like they travel

like a pack of three or four. Like, you're going to have to kidnap all of them if he was going to steal them. But I'd be like, damn, should he be riding the subway by himself in second grade? I just don't trust this world. Like, it's just a different world. Kidnapping used to be a van. Now, they're talking about trafficking and your kid be overseas on some Liam Neeson-taking shit. And I could have been there with him because I was too lazy to get about to bed that morning

and walk with him to the train. Nah, man, I'm going to be on your hip. No, no, no, no. I'm just thinking about what you're saying. This is what terrifies me of wanting to have children. No, no, no, seriously. But no, go ahead, ask your question. But I'll just listen to what you're saying.

I'm like, I can talk about the childhood thing because for a long time. But because, you know, sometimes I look back and I look at how hard my father and my mother were on me. It was just because they could. The margin for error was so like, yo, every once in a while, you just lost a kid. They just lost one. It was like a part of it. Like every once in a while, something would go wrong. Like death was around everything.

I want to ask you something specifically before your father passed away. You were 16. My father passed away. I was 41. Like four years ago, he passed away. Sometimes for me, it feels like it's a lot easier to be in conversation with his ghost. What I mean by that is like, there were things that I could have asked my father. And exploration about my life, about his life,

that I could have asked him about when he was alive that he would have never granted me access to. He would have never been forthright or come clean about certain things. He would have never had conversations with me about certain things. He would have tried to protect his version or the version of himself that he showed to me.

That generation always. But now that he's gone, I can learn who he really is. is. And that kind of reminds me I can have conversations about people and they can look at me and they can be like, well, man, you know your father was. And they can tell me or I can look, I can go talk to his children that he had, that I did not know he had. Or I can get stories about his life. And my dad used to tell me about how he was a 60-minute man, never came off the football field. And he was. And then you talked to Uncle Ray and he'd be like, well, man, you know your daddy couldn't run, right?

And I'll be like, what? You'd be like, well, son, you know, your father was out there and he had a lot of wiggle, but your daddy was slow. And I'll be like, what? Called your daddy, Natron means. Yeah, exactly. He's like, yo, he could make that baseball dance. He was a college athlete. But, you know, your daddy couldn't run.

And I'm like, and it's humanizing him for me because it's making him into a person. And it seems like for you that you had to. do that at a much earlier like place in your life and it maybe changed your relationship to men, to fatherhood, to male guidance and all of that.

Yeah, I mean, I went through rage for a while. Like, I didn't, like, the one thing I could do, like, I didn't go by Roy Wood Jr. To my senior year of high school, because I knew it fucked with them. Because my pops took pride in the family name

and his kids all over the city. And I have two older brothers who at the time were there were news anchors in the city. So the wood named journalistically, my spouse was a radio journalist and career going all the way back to the 50s, covering every struggle war,

you name it, discovered hired Don Cornelius for his first media job for his old train. Like, he's contributed to the culture and a number of ways. So he was highly respected. But because of the

way you ran the house and I ain't always respect the house. I'm talking like shit like you come home some nights and you and my mama get into it so you just don't pay the gas bill so I ain't no heat for a day or two because you're just trying to prove a point. So no, I don't want nobody to know I'm your child.

Even though everybody knew. It's just for being that was the thing. So when he died my pops didn't it sound crazy at the time but where we are with the administration now nigger might have been right. My pops didn't pay taxes because he didn't believe that the Voting Rights Act

for Black people was written in a way to ensure its lastingness into perpetuity. So he refused to contribute to the government fiscally that did not see the black man, black person as a whole. It's very convenient. Yeah, but then when you die, the IRS comes for your fucking house. Right, that's not funny, but yeah.

I was going to ask. What's after with that? So imagine your pops, dies on a Monday, the IRS and Zaline on a Wednesday. My mom is still legally married to this man. They never divorced. Shit.

So she is the executor of the estate. So now they're coming for the house. But thank God you just got their law degree. So now you know how to drag this shit out. But in the meantime, he was the breadwinner. So now you got to make money, bro. I'm in high school. I'm working 30 hours a week.

I'm in my pop's room. He died that Monday. I went to school because, like, psychologically, I'm very much just push forward. They send me home from school at noon because it's weird because I'm at school. Right. And your daddy died today.

So my fuck would go home. Right. I go to the attic. I find all my pops old cameras. I used to ride around with my dad. He would thrift. He would pawn shop. He would buy stuff out of paper.

It was a camera collection. So I knew all the spots. I knew all the dealers in town. And I rode around town selling my pop's cameras just to make sure we can make gas. We can make rent. We can make lights. We can make water between now and the,

end of the school year. That don't leave you a lot of time to mourn somebody in that in that moment. You know what I'm saying? So then you get older. I hit my 20s. I started doing morning radio at the same station. He had done news at. So now I'm on my I'm going to eradicate your name mission. You know, I'm a B junior. I want them to know that I'm your son. I want to be better than you. I want to be colder than you. And I spent 10 years and all that does is a firm. but I am him. And there's no getting larger than the man who did all of these things for the culture.

I'm doing prank phone calls and parody songs. I'm not changed. Like, all right, our morning show did stuff in the community and we were very charitable and we raised money and we did a lot of dope shit for black people. But if we're talking like the diaspora, my pops covered the fucking Silver Warren Zimbabwe, bro. What are you doing in Birmingham?

Like, you're never going to be bigger than that. So there became a period of accepting that, man. And when it really shifted for me, I did the correspondence dinner. And I'd given a shout out. So my pops was the co-founder of the National Black Network, which was a syndicated Black Radio conglomerate of reporters who supplied news in the 60s and 70s to Black Radio Station. So you can know, it's Black Twitter.

It's like, OG, here's the Black News of the day. We are the reporters deciding what the Black News is. NBN through a series of mergers evolves into something called AURN American Urban Radio Networks. And so AURN has a table at the correspondence dinner every year. And so I gave AURN a shoutout. And it's 34 April Ryan and all on them at the table. And we're some of the after parties for the correspondence dinner. And there's just random black journalists coming up to me telling me stories about my pops,

giving them their first chance or their internship, or he gave them pointers. My dad, when my dad would travel for events, he would watch the local news anchors in that market and if the black ones, and then call them and give them critiques and tips and local reporters. And like, so those are the people coming back to me now, like with your foot 60-minute man story and going,

you know, your dad said this about that, da-da-da, and journalism really should be this. And then they say that shit to me. And it's like my pop's giving me advice from a grave because it'd be, oh, damn, that is a cold. that suggestion. All right. Damn,

okay, I need to do that. So it's the only way I can really talk to him is through other people, I mean, or medium, and I ain't fucking with that.

Did that help you maybe reconcile certain feelings you had? Like I've read before that maybe I was listening to an interview where you talked about resentment that you may have had

towards your father. And I know that the book deals with, obviously, you've talked about it here, mortality, absence, but then hearing how he was present in so many other people's lives and what he meant to them, did that help you maybe reconcile some feelings that you had? Because I was listening to you on Trevor Noah's podcast. It's a great conversation the two of you have,

but you talked about how he didn't really ask you questions about you. It was more so educating you on things that were happening in the community or life. And I'm just wondering when you hear stories like that, when you see his influence, does that help you reconcile certain things? Yeah, quite a bit, actually, because part of it also, and I didn't know this until I talked to my mom after I wrote the book. Because I didn't talk to my mom. And that was the first chapter of the book is about my mom. It's hard to explain how my dad relates to me without putting some of my mom a business on Front Street, right? And I did as respectful as I could.

I think we're good. We still ain't had like a proper debrief. But I think we're good. But in talking with my mom, I found out. So my pop's job is in 95. I find out about the cancer in, let's say, 93, right? But then I come to find out, he knew about the cancer in 85. He told my mom in 85.

She never told me. So if I'm dealing, and then I think about, all right, if I was with my son and you knew, you have a finite amount of time, oh, also my spouse was old. My father's 63 when I was born, 80 when he died. So by the time I'm with a Birmingham, he in the 70s, he got cancer. And he's not taking chemo because he don't want this shit to make him too weak to do his job because he got pride. So if you have 10 years left with your child or less, what would you teach him? What would you really infuse him with?

It ain't going to be how was your day. It ain't going to be, tell me your favorite color. It's let me get you ready for the world. These motherfuckers are out there. Got one world. They're trying to get you. Yep. So let me get you straight on this.

Come with me backstage. I'm interviewing this dude named Jesse Jackson. I want you to see this. Come with me over here. Minister Farrakhan's coming to Birmingham. I just want you to be. And I'm sixth grade. The fuck I'm doing on a school night, like 930.

With Minister Farrakhan. That's so incredible, though. 930, you have Minister Farrakhan sitting back there. But that, but see, he is funny. He did what he could. He did what he could. Yeah.

It's like, let me just give you the most important nuggets. Here's the resilience you will need. So start with that. So you can't, you can't, I can't still hold him to that. For sure. I'll let that go.

And it don't help me raise the boy. Holding on to it does nothing for me. So I just, I've rarely seen where resentment has helped in any capacity make you a better person. That's true. I have to say something

or Jason Wilson will watch this and be mad at me. You said something earlier I want to name it. Detroit, OG. Yeah. It's the man.

If you guys haven't seen it, go watch. Go watch our podcast. Go watch our podcast. And then go watch Mr. Wilson talk to Cam Newton on Funky Fridays. Cam almost broke.

Cam almost. Got him. Jason was talking about the importance of getting married, and Cam went, well, Jesus wasn't married. But I say something. You said earlier that you, you know, that you were doing prank phone calls and all of that stuff. You know you mean more to us than that, right?

Absolutely. I'm just saying at that time. I know. So just, you know, that like everything, like the investment that your father put in to you, like we're cashing it in, and we appreciate your dad, and we appreciate you. I appreciate it, man.

In a lot of ways, I became him. He did news commentary. He did news stories. He took calls from the community. Like, a lot of, like, my last 10 years of stand-up and daily show stories, it's all stuff he would have covered. Right.

Gang violence in Chicago, a million-man march, cop city in Atlanta. Like, most of the black stuff I did on daily show, stuff my pops would have already had a politician on talking about. But at that time in terms of when I was in Birmingham, 0102, first starting at 957, getting out of his shadow, the things I was doing collectively for the culture were far inferior. Right, to him.

To what he's, you know. So we've talked a lot about your father and kind of searching for him or seeing him and other people. Somebody outside of him, as you talk about the man of many people. fathers. Somebody outside of him directly that you talk about in the book, maybe that really meant a lot to you. Maybe give people an insight into that. Like, somebody other than your dad, someone who

had to step in. You know, I think the, I think a lot of people, it's like, because the stories aren't always inspiring, right? But what did I learn? Like, what is the, like, and to me is when I worked at Golden Corral, bro. Like, it really

it really, but you got, let me set the scene, no. Okay. I'm suspended from college. I am, at this time, I'm on probation for what would eventually be three years, but I'm suspended from school for stealing credit card on campus mail theft. I had a work study at the campus post office. I stole a credit card from the post office.

I took it and I bought clothes. I sold the clothes on campus. That's what I'm talking about. I was the club. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Shout out to, shout out to my home. You know who you are. Prior to that, it was food. It was PlayStation game.

But when I graduate it to like doing like clothes and like using like tangible cars, like I, like you got to come on off the streets. Yeah. So when you're on probation and you used to be the plug on campus, you have no friends no more. And then you know when you get arrested, well, I don't know if y'all know. But when you get arrested, But they show you a mug shop book of other people they're building cases on

and they're trying to get you to roll her. I don't. Bruched some McDonald's? Mm-hmm. Bruching some McDonald's? But they tried. It was Miami subs at the time. It's Tallahassee.

But I go, okay, well, I'm not snitching on the, but like I've already confessed to my shit. So there's no reason for me to snitch. But it's basically, they basically show me a book of everybody I was already kicking it with. But now you have no friends. So now you're in school, you have no friends. I'm doing stand-up on the road.

I'm 19. Performing with 40-year-olds. I ain't got nothing in common with them. Or I'm doing open mics. So you ride in a Greyhound, you're alone. Everything is isolation. And then I get back in school that fall. It might have been that fall into that following year,

but there was a, There was a bomber on campus at FAMU. There was a... It's a fan. Yeah, yeah. And so there was a white boy leaving pipe bombs in the bathroom. And so two or three of them went off. Nobody died.

There might have been an injury or two. But at the time, this is like peak burning of black churches. So it's precursor to where we're at now. But like the campus was real tense. And so they started running an investigation into figuring out, who possible suspects are. And the FBI came into classrooms at fam and was pulling people out the classrooms

who were on active probation at the university and questioning you in the fucking hallway, like not even like in some tucked-off room. Just, what are you doing? Have you been around explosives? Do you have any disdain for the university? Like just grilling you about, is this a student doing?

this and not an actual white supremacist, which it turned out to be. Because I got pulled into the hall, people see me, so they know that something's up. Like, my arrest wasn't publicized at the time because they were still building cases against other people. They didn't want to split folks out. But now, oh, what's up with Roy? Folks started doing digging, pulling paperwork. They found my paperwork.

They sent in the paperwork to the professors and to the student paper, trying to get stories written on me to get me expelled. even though the decision had already been made for me to be suspended and be real out of it. So folks were trying to like really fuck me up, bro. And so this idea of forgiveness and friendship, all I had was Golden Corral. It was the one place for a year and a half, almost two years, where I was not judged. I was loved.

I was embraced by every single person in that fucking store. every cook, every dishwasher. And like, when you work at a restaurant, everybody is a different age, a different goal. And restaurant jobs, like, your job is the first time as a child where you're around adults who don't give a fuck about you. They don't care about your matriculation through life. It's just working around regular-ass people.

And so my P.O. had to come in. and verify my employment and I thought I was going to get fired coming to find out Golden Corral half the store was on papers because they get the because they get the tax credit the higher the family

tax credit. So now all the dishwashers in the back it was mostly back at the house on papers it wasn't the service. So now back of the house taking me under their wing. It's not an OGs back there. They're like, little nigger, I'm going to look

out for your little niggins. And so it was a dude back there. I called Big Mix. And so Mixed had been on papers for a while, for all types of just wild and guns and whatever. And he, that was like the one checks and balances outside of my PO. Because your mama can get through. Me, my mom wasn't even talking for real during that time.

Because I was doing stand-up and she didn't approve of it. And I'm like, look, if I make good grades, then just don't, let's just not talk. But Mix was like the one person that I felt, hey, man, you need to do whatever you need to do. Did not go back to jail? Because I don't know about you. I'm not going, almost like a sponsor, like a behavioral sponsor. Right.

And so that became the place where I was, where I even thought that I had a place in society after getting arrested. Because they shame you after you've done something wrong. They try to make it seem like you're disposable. And I'm at school. And I'll be fair to fam. I had teachers and stuff that show love and, you know, whatever. But it's just, there was just, there was some fucking snakes in the grass when I, that first semester when I got back in school, shot out Ratlis.

Rattless. That did not want, who did not think I deserved a second chance because of the mistake that I made. So you have that. You ain't really talking to your mom. You have no friends no more. Your roommates are co-defendants. Golden Corral. Damn.

You still talk to anybody from Golden Corral? Yeah, I still talk to some of the service. Oh, I love that. I still talk to some of the service. We'll check in like every nine and in, but, you know, this cat mix

was just so headstrong about not going back to jail that he just, he was the encouragement to everybody else in the building to make better choices. Always make better choices. You can make better choices.

I'm telling you, man, don't let them crackers get you. The crackers trying to get you. Nick, don't you let them cut you. Got in a shootout with the Tallahassee police. Damn. A couple years later. And so, you know, you think about the idea of when somebody say, I ain't going back to jail

and you just think it's this proclamation of better living. But it also could be on that maniacal side where you're not taking. We're just like, well, what the fuck is prison? if you would rather die in a shootout then go back to prison and so like that was like the turn of all right let me do this comedy right

let me do something that don't get me back in jail and like that that place that store literally changed my faith in people and it changed my trajectory career wise and it's just because

everybody there was just helpful and warm and kind. Like, it was the perfect job, bro. For that time period in my life, there was nowhere else where I got love or was embraced other than Golden Corral. And, oh, and then shout out to the family grad students, like, once you get into it.

Because the grad students didn't know I got arrested. I was like, what is that? I'm here for my... Pequita and Brandy. I love y'all. Last thing I'll ask, are all of our kids, all of our responsibility? You see, going back and forth. Are you on some raise a village to be the village?

Well, to me, I'll tell you why I ask. To me, that's who we are. To me, who we are, that's an African saying. To me, who we are, there's an understanding that we all have a collective responsibility to guide and nurture and invest into even other people's kids into other people's kids

because those other people's kids are the kids that are going to be friends of our children. They're going to be marrying our children in community with our children that there is one big organism called culture and community

and in order to nurture it, sometimes it's not about being a father to your kids. Sometimes it's about being a father figure, mother figure, auntie, uncle, to somebody else's kids and caring about them. Your thoughts? Yeah. Be honest. Let me tell you what I learned about myself.

I'm not good with kids. Oh, I'm fair. Yeah. I work in support of organizations that do. There you go. Right. That's great. That's my thing.

Like, we used to, man, they used to send us, you know when I used to bomb the worst? Reading to kids in elementary school. Yeah. When they do that Dr. Seuss, come to the school. You was a respected brother Wood. What happened? You'd just be expecting them to connect and they don't.

They just be staring at you. Yeah. And I'm like, I can't laugh. Chuck old. I'm, you adding voices to the book and all of that. And they just. That's true. Public school kid.

But no, like, there's, like, there's charities back at the crib. Like, pretty much everything I do, like, to the village thing. I pretty much do everything I can to just pull stuff back in the Birmingham. Like, I know it's a million charities and a million causes. If you're in an Alabama, I don't give a fuck about it. No, except for precious dreams because they help homeless kids in New York. They're dope. But, like, the idea of.

like supporting the organization that reaches children. That's my ministry. In sports, like, I go back to Birmingham. Like, I'll do tricky shit like this

where we hit a lick with META and META had given us this is a daily show thing or whatever. And they had sent like five, six VR headsets to the daily show. And I'm like,

I know y'all not going to use them. Let me just get, and then I call a baseball, the win reality people. Oh, I got that. I love that. It's dope. I like that. Play baseball in the living room. So I played baseball growing up.

And so my high school, the issue of my high school is that we don't have a field because we're in a weird side of town, the geography of it, whatever. So you lose 45 minutes every day and commute to a baseball field. Makes you less competitive. I get with Win Reality. I get with meta. We donate these sedats to the high school. And then I try to be a fiscal booster every year because I really believe.

that athletics helps to keep kids off the street. Like that's what happened in Baltimore. They added more parks and more programs and the crime goes down. So to me it's literacy and that. But in the one-to-one, what you're talking about on the village stuff. You did it again.

The answer is yes, nigger. The answer is yes. All of our kids are all our responsibility and you do it. But I know. You give it, you give it headsets to the kids. No, I know. I get it.

But, like, Roy, the humility. I'm not doing a mentorship program. Can the kid be with you for 12 out? No. But I like the way you answered it. I like the way you answered it too. Yeah, because there are other ways more than the direct direct. But at the end of the day, just to let people know,

Roy got a bunch of headsets and the win reality is fantastic. I got the short bet. And Roy went, let me bless some kids with them. Yeah. Because the kids need the headsets to help them in their development. So you're doing it. But I'm not talking to five, 12-year-olds. the train. I will say something

to them in passing. Also don't believe we should be scared of these kids because they're wild and because nobody's gave them guidance. But I'm also not going to go, oh, how you're great, young man? I'll come up and try to just be like, yo, what y'all are listening to? Just talk to me about something, that old

school waiter shit. Right. Talk to me about something you interested in. Sports, entertainment, whatever. What are y'all into? Man, I like, motherfuck-knuck-n-bun-boom-click. I'm like, cool. I'm going to try and listen. to that. And I know they laugh in it because I'm just an old nigga with salt and pepper. But it feels

like some degree of, hey, don't view everybody as as a mark. Yeah. And they feel seen. Before we let you go, I know you're big baseball fan. Who are you picking to win the World Series? It's got to be Dodgers. Okay. Dodgers, they the arms are too massive. Blake Snell

and I don't want to get into analysis. Dodgers. All right. In how many games? Well, six. All right. So it's a good. I tell you. Right. The bigger question is just Kendrick show up to one-up Drake showing up. He should. He should.

I just let you guys know that I really actually, to the Canadians out there, I didn't have no beef with the Canadians really until this series started. Because then I started to see how the Canadians is moving. You know, to me it was a Kendrick Drake thing. Everybody else made it a Canada or America thing. But just to the Canadians out there, I see how y'all moving. Fuck y'all. It's a competition.

Yeah, I get it. And so I'm telling you how something around I'm going to do. Just because we brought this up, Luis out in front is a gigantic Dodger fan. Luis is a huge Dodger fan, huge. I was talking to Luis, Louise the barista out here. And I was like, yo, man, are you going to the game? He goes, ah, man, the prices of those games are, it's too big. higher learning, we're going to bless Luis.

We're going to send Luis to the World Series. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to send Luis to the World Series. Me and Luis talk about baseball every day. Higher Learning as a pot, we're about to send Luis to the World Series. I asked him up there. I was like, would you go by yourself? He was like, yeah, because if I had to send Luis and somebody else to the World Series,

we ain't doing that. Sure, sure. But, like, we're going to send Luis to the World Series. Higher Learning is going to send him. And Roy Ward, Jr. He's going to contribute? He's going to contribute to that. I will.

I went to the Cubs World Series. I'm a Cubs fan. It's one of the most unforgettable experiences. I'll put 500. Well, wait, hang on. Oh, whoa. What are you trying to sit them? 500 ain't shit.

That ain't the- What? How much does it cost to God? Luis told me it was $8.50 for the cheapest ticket. Really? Yeah. I paid Cubs Game 7 in Cleveland. 15th row in the outfield.

I paid $2,800. It's the only thing I don't, I don't rock a lot of jewelry on kicks. I don't have, I don't own a car. That's your thing. Sports is my, yeah. I get it. a suggestion on what game to buy the ticket for. Okay.

Game five in case the Dodgers run the table at home, because I think this is a two-three-two series. So two-three-two, yeah. So we got, so it's tonight. Yeah, Glenn. Okay. Yeah, you absolutely can make a suggestion. You put $500 on it.

Yeah. I mean, he'll have to. It's hard on the only thing. You don't put forces home. We're not really going to say Louise. We'll feel good. I feel good. If y'all vouch on the script of y'all having me here,

I appreciate it because I fuck with y'all. And y'all have tried to have me, the scheduling's been weird. Yeah. No, we're happy to have you here. Thank you for coming here, especially in person. Yeah, yeah. I like that.

Thank you for coming. Roy, I want to let you know just one more time before you leave, man. You are, I hope you take this with you. You are one of the easiest people in this entire industry to rule for. Like legitimately. Not not, not when I say you challenge, you know, it's not safe. It's not there's, but you are one of the easiest people in this entire industry to rule for. Every time I see you, I'm like, hey, Roy Wood, retweet.

Roy Wood, hope it happens. And you're doing so great. The book, everything that you said today, I resonate with so much of it. We resonate with so much of it. The mosquitoes and all of that is just almost like the same thing. Even the junior thing. I put the junior on at 41. Yeah. I put I put the junior on at 41 because I feel like the world will forget my father. And I'm like, let me make you remember his name every time. you say my name. So it's the same thing, man. I hope people go get the book,

The Man of Many Fathers, Life Lessons, Disguise as a memoir. Also, I have news for, have I got news for you? Season 3 airing now. Saturday nights on CNN? It's so funny.

It's very funny. It's so funny. It's such a nice break from the way news is presented. If they do, if CNN does write by the show and bring us back in 26, yeah, that's my word.

It sure is Louise going to the ball game. Yeah, you get you on that. Have y'all had Scott Jennings on yet? No. Surprisingly not. You know what's weird? Man, CNN is a little... With the talent.

Yeah. With the folks that do Abby and Laura Colts. Yeah, yeah. They don't want you on all day. It is very much like... But there's two different tiers, though. They're the actual CNN contributor family. And it's actually a little family.

And then they're the meat puppets like myself that they bring in to kick us around. But they treat you so good at CNN. I love my people that see. and then help me for my Delta Miles come on, but Monnie Jones has come on. Bo, Bo! Bo! Shout out, Beau! Yeah, so I mean, you can come on, man. Can't wait. You know, it's...

Yeah, we come on. Come talk shit. Definitely. Please, it'd be a pleasure. Roy Wood Jr., thank you for joining us on Higher Learning. Hey, thank you all. Appreciate this. All right, man, for real, though. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer

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Tap this ad to learn more about trim fire, including important safety information. AI. Is it taking over? Is it overhyped? Is it being artificially inflated by seven companies who are running a circular economy that really is masking

massive, massive economic stress in America. Is that a question or a statement? I'm asking. All of these questions, I'm trying to answer them. I was trying to cram-alth I can't do it. But someone that can is Ed Zitron. He is a technology writer, a podcaster.

He's the host of the Better Offline Podcast, CEO of the Media and Public Relations Company, EZPR. He's a critic of the technology industry, but also he analyzes it, particularly of AI companies and the 2020's AI boom. This is an important issue. Ed is joining us right now on higher learning. Hey, let me ask you something.

Sure. Why do you think that rein the alarm bells on AI's position in our society is important? Because right now the alarm bells that are being rung are, oh, AI could do this, AI could do that. AI will make a bunch of people unemployed. When the reality is that AI right now, the only real business model it has is finding ways to burn billions of dollars, finding ways for tech investors to pretend there's growth,

and stabilizing the U.S. economy with data centers being built for demand that doesn't exist. It's a myth. It's built on myth. Okay, but how does this compare to the past, right? Because I think people listening will say, okay, well, we've been in these booms before. We've been in these bubbles before. How does this, what we're going through right now

compare to the 90s tech bubble? So of the tech bubbles, the people talk about, they talk about the tech bubble, and they talk about Uber and Amazon Web Services, so Amazon's cloud platform. In all of these cases, there was never this amount of overbuild connected to a product that is yet to really prove

much of a business model. And indeed, a lot, like, I don't remember the previous bubbles just completely making stuff up. Within the dot-com bubble, for example, it was all about getting people's stuff that they ordered online. A proven business model, the problem is that a lot of these companies didn't really bother to charge for shipping, didn't do real infrastructures so they could ship things in an affordable way. Even with the telecommunications boom with a bunch of fiber laid around, that was still useful for building internet. Now, with GPUs, the underlying hardware behind AI, those really aren't.

useful for a bunch of other things. And on top of that, large language models are inherently limited. They're probabilistic, meaning they're guessing the thing that you want from them, which means they do something called hallucinate, which is they authoritatively state something that's true, that they say is true that isn't actually true. This, when it comes to doing stuff with them, leads to them, I don't know if you've connected them to a code base, rewriting something and breaking it, or referencing a library that doesn't exist. large language models so let's start here

I'm going to ask you about the economy of this in a second but let's give people a primer on what's going on you used a couple of terms there you said GPU you said large language model tell people what a GPU is and then tell people what a large language model

is and how both of those things are tied in to the economy that might make it so that a data center is built across the street from them very soon, like a huge data center sucking up all the resources in their community. Why do GPUs and large language models matter? So those data centers may never get built, but that's a separate thing entirely. So a large language model is a,

it's called a transformer-based model. A very simplified way of looking at it is that it uses probability to compare two things. This is kind of a fudge, but so when chat GPT tells you something you ask it, it is effectively generating what it thinks is the most likely answer. Now, to run a large language model requires GPUs, graphics, processing units, effectively sold by one company called Nvidia, which is also the largest company on the stock market. To run these GPUs, it's not like you plug them in like a regular computer. They run very hot and you need a lot of them.

You need hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands in some cases of them to run these models. The other problem is they're extremely energy intensive on top of the cooling, which is already energy intensive. So to do even the simplest things with these models requires you to run one instance, which could be used by maybe a couple hundred people, across four to 12 of these GPUs, each costing $50,000 to $70,000 just for the GPU. And that's before the servers and all the other stuff on top. Now, the thing is about all this is large language models at first showed some

People extrapolated saying, oh, it can generate text to mean this will be able to do distinct actions. Problem, problem is you're rolling dice effectively every time. And who wants to roll the dice when you're asking someone to do, I don't know, a financial transaction? But nevertheless, all of this comes down to selling masses of GPUs and putting them in big, expensive data centers and hoping it works out. Okay. I'm going to ask because my questions are more of like, how is this going to impact us? which is where I get scared and nervous.

I think AI is already just daunting, period, right? Like, we don't really understand it. I listen to you explain it. I think I get it. And then something else will happen. And I'm like, okay, I have no idea what it is. So then I go to, I guess, like a broader picture of how is this going to impact me as a person? How is this going to affect the society I live in?

And I think that's what a lot of people want to know. So when I, I guess going back to my original question is, is there any way that But this, we are in the earlier moments of some sort of technical revolution, or are we already overextended and headed for some sort of crash? Great question. Absolutely. So, one of the common tropes of Silicon Valley is that companies start, they burn a bunch of money, they grow, and then they become profitable.

That is one of the core tenants. Another thing is that with AI, we have been sold this story of, oh, something that automate our lives, an intelligent assistant, a thing that can know us and do things for us. These are the promises. The problem is that there's never been a more focused amount of capital on one particular tech ever in any period. So the early days have been and gone because the sheer amount of attention and money. And ultimately, large language models like chat GPT, kind of mostly do the same thing as they did three years ago. Wow.

So, yeah, it's really strange. So while they are better at some things, it's based on these benchmarks. Now, you can't give them regular human benchmarks. You can't test them, right, like actually doing something. You can't have them do a job because they're not really good at that. So they have these benchmarks specifically built for AI. Except here's the problem. They're just memorizing a test.

It's things with defined right answers. Because of that probability, they can't come up with novel ideas. they can't come up with original ones. So all of those scary headlines you're seeing about AI is replacing workers. Underneath all of them is a distinct lack of any evidence. There was a one that came out from Stanford fairly recently that said, I think it's 13% of AI-influenced jobs are reducing unemployment. When you looked a little deeper, one of those industries was accountancy,

which has seen a dramatic drop in people becoming accountants. It's not actually because of AI. And indeed, no one seems to be able to prove this. However, there is a massive push from these tech companies to push AI everywhere. And it's because they've run out of big ideas to sell us. They don't have anything else that will make them grow forever. So they've stuck themselves with this big, expensive thing. And when you're a big tech executive, how do you prove you have a job?

How do you prove why you're there? Buy stuff. Invest stuff. The problem is they've now invested hundreds of billions of dollars and nobody's making a profit. Can I ask a follow up really quickly. Is this what happened with the chat GPT update? With GPT5? Yeah.

So that was really interesting. So I actually reported this out. So GPT5 was talked up for years. You can go back to 2023 in there. People saying GPT5 will control the entire computer systems. It was very dramatic. Then it came out. It's kind of a damp one.

Like no one was really excited about it. It didn't do a ton more. It was better at some things. But beneath the surface was this thing. that people thought was amazing called the router. So when you'd ask it a question, it would go, oh, this question here, this is quite good. I'm going to send this to a more thinking model.

So thinking is when it just, you say, I want to do this and it walks through the steps. More expensive too. I actually had reported out that this router situation actually makes it more expensive. So in the end, they released a more expensive version of chat GPT that people hate it because people were very attached to the previous one, GPT4.O.

I think that, I think GPT-5 in history is going to be the moment opening I was cooked. I think that that's when, that's when people started really turning on this company. They should have gone earlier, but I'll take it. I'll ask you about artificial general intelligence in a second because that's kind of the white whale that everybody is chasing to prove that AI can revolutionize society. But let's get into the economy of it real quick. Describe for people, the Mac 7 AI companies and how they control, the AI economy and how this is working, particularly here in the American stock market. So let's start with Invidia. Now, the reason, by the way, that Invidia is the only company

really selling these GPUs that's kind of changing, but not really, is because a thing called CUDA, CUDA. Not going to go into the depths of it, but it's basically how you make a graphics processor run computing operations. Sure, somebody will say it's more difficult, but that's basically it. So, Nvidia has become the largest company on the stock market because really it is four of them, but the rest of the Magnificent 7 to some extent been buying all of those GPUs. The Magnificent 7 made up, I think, 42% of Nvidia's revenue. So you have this giant dependency building. And then you have the dirty little secret that none of them are making money on it. There's no profits here.

And we can get to Open AI in a little bit. but we're just looking at the main ones, Microsoft, Amazon, meta, Google, not a shred of profit. In fact, none of them want to talk about their AI revenue. Microsoft used to back in January, but then they stopped. I don't think they stopped because it's so good, personally. But so you've got this situation where our markets are based on this idea of selling these GPUs to these companies. And there are other companies by them too. Number is going up so much.

But the problem has become, where are the returns? There are the returns on investment. Why is nobody talking about the wonderful things we can do with this? Why is no one talking about how much money they're making? And the answer is they're not. Every dollar they make, they're spending more than that. Where are their revenues coming from? So that's the thing.

They do sell AI services, but they can't sell them at high enough prices to recoup the expensive and expenses. And even the customers they have don't really like it. Microsoft 365, so their big software, package, they sell, I think they're 440 million customers. It's the one that has office and Word and all these things in it. And it's the big cash cow. They had tons of money.

Of those 440-something million customers, they only in August had 8 million users paying for Microsoft co-pilot AI. That's pretty bad. Microsoft are the apex predator of software sales, and they can't even get that going. They stopped talking about AI revenue partially because of the 13 billion, their estimated to make this year, $10 billion of that is OpenAI's compute spend. So the money they spend to run all their operations, that money is, according to the information report this out last year, that compute is sold at cost. So Microsoft's just taking a bath. Just a $10

billion bath. At best, they're just net zero, but they're probably losing more, especially with the tens of billions of dollars, I mean, $80 billion of capital expenditures, which is just money spent on stuff that they've done this year. It's weird because big tech is usually very boasting. They love to talk big, no, all the money we're making, all the money we're spending. But with AI, it's like, oh, we couldn't possibly talk about that. Oh, it's too early. Oh, we're in the early days.

That's an excuse because large language models are not really something that people will pay for at scale. So if investors, if this is their dirty little sales, secret, which not disagreeing with you. Then why are investors still investing in this? Because the markets are run by babies. It really is a very childlike thing when they say, because the companies right now, they're still profitable. Their margins are still good. They are showing growth every quarter. So the market sees this and says, this means AI is doing this. And indeed, you would see last quarter and this week is earnings. Last quarter, last quarter, to Google, who showed, has never discussed their AI revenue.

They had growth in general, not broken out in any way. And the multiple outlets said, oh, Google's AI bet pays off. There's no proof that that's the case. And so these companies, I think, are being invested in based on vibes. I know that sounds a little imprecise, but that really is it. Because otherwise, people, it really is scary because a lot of regular people's 401ks are tied up in this. And I read something where, well, the bag's seven. is 30% or something of the entire stock market.

And when you remove their returns, the stock market was in decline last year. We're in a recession, yeah. Like if you take all of the AI investment out, like we're in a recession. We're essentially operating two different economies, one economy that is based on financial speculation and another economy that's contracting all over the country,

that this AI stuff cannot help. You said that these companies are profitable, but did you said earlier, AI wasn't profitable. It's kind of clear, like, square that circle for people. Tell me what you mean. Pardon me.

I didn't make that point precisely enough. So, Microsoft sells a bunch of stuff. Google sells a bunch of stuff. Google has Google Search and the attached advertising. Prince billions of dollars of revenue. Amazon has Amazon.com, Amazon Web Services, where people can run their cloud applications,

incredibly profitable businesses. So they can kind of bury the losses. Like, say you make $1,000 a week, but you lose $300 a week gambling. You still got $700, right? And if all people are looking for is the top line number without wondering where that $300 went, just fine. These guys are just growing. Nothing's wrong here. The question that a lot of people would be asking, when you're gambling that $300,

you're gambling hoping to win, right? You're losing it, but you're hoping to win. what is Microsoft hoping to get out of AI? What is Google hoping to get out of AI? What is SoftBank hoping to get out of investment into AI? Nvidia pushed them to the side because they're actually selling the GPUs. They're the ones right now that actually hope that the bubble never burst because they're making money based upon selling an actual thing. And TSM and all of these other companies that are the super.

conductor companies, this is good for them. This is replaced the Xbox as stuff that actually uses the stuff that they made. But what is Microsoft, Google, and the rest of these companies that are burning their AI money? What are they hoping to get? Like, what's the white well? So like any end of relationship situation, it looked good at the beginning. When it was two years ago, they could say, wow, we've got to invest in these GPUs because it's getting exponentially better. They're also followers.

They follow each other. really have independent thoughts. Their thought was that large language models would continue improving to the point they could take distinct operations, that you could say, hey, copilot, can you go build me a PowerPoint deck that includes these numbers? The problem is they're terrible at it. When it comes to actually doing things, when it comes to generating and summarizing fine, when comes to doing things, not so much to the point that Microsoft, who has an exclusive right to use and sell Open AI's models, stopped using them with Microsoft 365, in some cases, because they couldn't work.

They didn't work. They didn't generate the right PowerPoint slides. They're trying with Anthropic, but it's not much better. What they thought was that this was the ultimate cure-all. This would be the thing that would allow them to sell new cloud software things. They could add $30 a month onto 400 million people's bills. Wow, look at all the money. They thought that everybody was going to want AI compute, which they would sell through Azure.

And they thought that ultimately their investment in open-AIDS, was going to lead them to being attached to the next Microsoft, to the next Google. But in reality, it's looking far more like they're the next bare sterns. I always get discouraged after these AI conversations. No, but there's no reason to get discouraged. Because I guess what Ed is saying is that our thoughts that our official general intelligence would come along and take over the world. They don't seem to be well-founded. But there's investment in it, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you got money in AI? All your toe. Everyone does. Thank you. Everyone's 401Ks. So let me ask you this.

Do you believe we're in a bubble? Absolutely. Okay. So if the bubble bursts, and you might not say if it's a matter, maybe you think when, will this be more like the tech bubble? Or will this be devastating like

what happened with the housing market? So the great financial crisis was really horrifying, because it had millions of regular people that had actually, like, they'd got houses they couldn't afford. So there were tons of defaults. There was also a bunch of betting on credit default swaps. So basically people saying, oh, I'm going to bet against the market. I'm going to bet for the market. A bunch of money was pulled on top of money.

So when everything fell down, banks literally stopped having money. Like there were banks out of money insurance companies like AIG who ran out of money. Very bad. This isn't as bad then. Yes, we will enter a recession. And I think this will lead to a prolonged depression in the tech industry because tech has run out of these big ideas. They had the smartphone. They had cloud computing.

They had all these things. I'm sure someone believed that AGI would come out of this. But from the very early days, it was kind of obvious it wouldn't. Large language models are not conscious. They are doing an impression through probability of what a person might sound like. And the more you make them compute about something, the less accurate they become, the more garbled they will become. just because of the nature of them. So this subject of AGI, sure, if that was anything to do with this,

that would be a worthwhile thing to look at and say maybe that'll come out of this. But in reality, everyone is kind of spinning their wheels. However, my one worry about the market is the market has an unhealthy relationship with Nvidia's last quarter, they had 55% year-over-year growth. You would think that they had no money. The reaction to it in some cases was to say, what's going on with InVIDIA? I don't like that.

If they were to sustain a 55% year-over-year growth situation, in a couple years they'd be making $100 billion a quarter. It isn't realistic. It isn't realistic, especially because no one plugging these damn things in is making any money. And they cost a bunch of money up front. The sheer amount of capital required just to make a GPU useful is astronomically different to any bubble we've ever seen.

And so it will hit the stock market. It will be bad. Will it lead to the apocalypse? I don't think so. I don't know. I can't speak to unemployment and such, but I think the retail investors are regular people, they are going to be quite exposed to.

And that's really where I'm worried. And that's why I'm so frustrated with the media propping this up. So for people that our official general intelligence, just a simple explanation is a computer's ability to think like a human. So you ask. chat GPT a question and chat GPT gives you back a bunch of answers they're predicting the answers based upon the language that the large language mild gets however if you told chat gpti right now to go in and clear out your email inbox and answer it had to think that's

the difference right the bet is that it'll eventually be able to do that and everyone is saying that it will uh everyone being the tech people um they just give different years like sam Altman, the head of Open AI, says it'll be 10 years. Elon Musk says it'll be five years. Jensen Twong, whoever, I'm not sure if he's actually said they're all betting that artificial general intelligence will eventually be possible, then that creates AI that can cure cancer, that can build a warp drive, that can do all of this stuff. If AGI is not possible, and why are they saying that it is?

Are they lying or are they mistaken? Depends who you're talking about. I think Sam Hortman's lying. I think that, for example, the head of AI at Meta, Yan Le Kun, he said that large language models will not lead to AGI. I think that there are some of them who you could say are just delightfully stupid about it, who are just like, oh, yeah, the tooth fairy will be here tomorrow. I think people like Altman are just liars.

Altman literally said a few months ago the AGI was not a useful term anymore. Altman said in the past it's not a bubble. He's now said it's a bubble. Altman changes whatever he needs to say to whoever he's saying it to. He's said he wants to, by 20303, built 250 gigawatts of data center capacity.

That's about one. It's over $10 trillion, I think, that would cost. It's more power. It's just not really. and he says whatever he wants and people just quote it is the problem. And so just a real quick thing on AGI as well. So that term thinking, they did a particularly deceptive piece of marketing around a thing called reasoning models. They claim they think.

What it actually does is say regular chat GPT, you'd say, hey, I need you to do this. And it would say, okay, and spit out an output. Reasoning, thinking, because it will say thinking on the thing, it will say, okay, he needs. needs me to give him a list of different pastors. What would a list like that look like? I should go and do this, and you'll see the chain of thought. That is not the same as AGI. It's kind of a hat on a hat situation. AGI is an idea this conscious computer isn't coming. And they're saying or even hinting about it because it sends the stock up. It keeps people believing in them. But it is a myth. They haven't proven. We don't even know how human beings think. How the hell

we meant to do that in a computer. It's a crazy when I found out, I was like, what? But yeah, we don't know. We don't know how human thinking works. We don't know how intelligence works in people. How the hell we meant to do it in some conscious computer. And the other thing is with AGI is they keep talking about it in this very casual way. But what they're describing is digital slavery. They're saying that we are going to trap a conscious being in the computer and bend it to our will. And no one seems to want to talk about that pop. It's a really disgraceful. part that's left out. I've read so many AI welfare articles that don't talk about that, but what do you call it when you trap a conscious being in a place and make them do something?

What is that? Hold on for a second. That resonated. Wait a minute. Sam. Sam. Sam, all you guys, you guys want to be the digital slavers. I never thought of it that way before. So essentially, what you're saying is, then these AGIs will kind of know they will be able to think, but they'll have to... If that was possible, yeah.

But if they would have to think, but then they would know that they had to do something. I never thought about it as slavery. But it is? I mean, if it becomes, and that's such a scary thought, though, right? Like, if it becomes what they want it to become, what they're saying it can be.

Isn't that the other fear that came up when I was talking about, about why this is scary? Because you're saying, You said, if it doesn't become realized the way that they wanted to, then that whole fear of AI taking over and all of that, it doesn't exist. But if it does, then, and the way you just described it, and they are able to create the thing that they are telling us that they will, isn't that terrifying? It is if I thought they could. No, that's kind of like, that's kind of what I'm getting at.

Like, yeah. Like, it's, it's, if we're afraid of the ninja, turtles at this point. I actually think there's probably more compelling signs about the ninja turtles. I'm not even kidding. We could probably make a ninja turtle faster than AI. But in all seriousness, there's no proof that what they're doing, because one of the core things is self-learning. Like the whole thing is these models would have to start learning from themselves, which is why a few months ago, Mark Zuckerberg said, yeah, we're seeing signs of the possibility that they might self-learn. Just, you've not got got anything. They've not got desperate. They've bought all of these G.

Upu's kind of knowing at this point, it won't lead to anything like AGI. No one has a beat on how you'd make this. There's a guy called Ilya Sutskava, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, who made a company called Safe Super Intelligence. I wish I could get on this. I think he raised $2 billion and promised nothing. He's just like, yeah, I'm going to build AGI at some point. And everyone's like, yeah, sure is the money, mate.

All right. Is there any other path to artificial general intelligence other than large language models? Is there another technology that uses AGI that could learn and then spit it out? Because we talk about getting to AGI. We've heard about other situations where I guess there was a nonstop AI fucking artificial intelligence cartoon that was going on. And the cartoon started to ask questions about his existence and all of that. Is there a different technology other than large language models that could lead to AGI? So I think the car, are you talking about the, what was that cartoon exam?

It was like a Seinfeld cartoon or so. It was some kind of. Oh, yes. Yeah. The AI Seinfeld thing. The AI Seinfeld thing. And then they got to a point to where they started to ask what they were. And people were like, oh, that's a sign that they're considering their existence, which

is a sign of advanced intelligence. So with that, you get back to the probability thing. This thing has been churning away, developing dialogue. And then someone says to it, well, what do you think you are? It probably thinks the most likely answer it wants, the person asking wants is, oh, I want you to tell me you're alive. That's a reasonable probabilistic determination from that. Because think about it, within the context of the conversation that makes sense as an answer, there is, like, the most obvious thing to say would be them. They are not, they're encouraged

to be sycophants on some level. They're encouraged to give you what they think you want. So in this scenario, it thought, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I want. This person clearly wants me to be alive, so I shall answer as that. Now, the grander AGI purview, truth is, we don't know. There's no real proof that AGI is possible. We don't know how thinking works in people, and we certainly don't know how it works in computers, and we definitely don't have a path to making them learn on their own. They have all sorts of fancy terms about reinforcement learning. The truth is, these things don't even learn like people. When we learn, we apply it to the context of our memory,

of our surroundings, our experiences. We learn we may feel good or bad that day. There are so many things that go into committing things to memory. The way they handle it, it's a very one way. They don't reconsider information. They may be told to poke certain databases on the way, but ultimately, they're not thinking they're following chains of actions, even though they may be very complex and require thousands of GPUs in some cases.

they still are doing math. And unless we have new kinds of math, we're really not going to get to AGI. Last question for me, for our audience that's listening, and for me personally, what is the final takeaway? What should we take away from this conversation

moving forward in our understanding of AI and the economy? That all of those data centers are being built for demand that does not exist, that they have spent hundreds of, of billions, I think the Magnificent Seven will spend over $400 billion of CAPEX this year. There's about 60 billion of revenue. There's no profits. Now one's profitable.

Everyone's losing money. Open AI lost, I think, $4.9 billion in the first half of this year. That's after revenue. That's where we are right now. And the actual efficacy of these models, the things they can do, the practical actual things, kind of the same as they were a year ago and pretty similar to a year before that. what happens to all those data centers if this bubble goes pop? They go into receivership.

They will ultimately be sold on. I think that the big cascade effect is going to be when one of these data center projects goes under. And the moment that happens, there's going to be a bunch of cheap GPUs that lower the value of GPUs everywhere. So those big projects, a data center takes about $32.5 to $40 billion and about two and a half years to build per gigawatt. Every time you read a gigawatt anywhere, that's what you should remember because it's nonsense. It's bollocks. They're never going to build them in some cases.

And even if they do, based on everything I've seen, the demand does not exist. Everyone's pushing this boulder up a hill for no reason. Wow. Ed, well, this is interesting. This is what I've been getting into, guys. this is what I've been diving into. And Ed helped us. If they want to follow everything that you're doing

and the alarms that you're ringing, where did they go? Betteroffline.com. And I'm on blue sky and I'm on X. I'm on everything. Yeah. Are you, are they coming for you? Are you getting calls from?

This is Sam Altman. Open. Oh. No, Mr. Altman has yet to get back to me about an interview for some reason. Oh, oh, you've really? reached out. I know, and they said they consider and they haven't got back to me. Wow. Well, Sam, where's my camera? Sam Altman, if you don't talk to Ed, you pussy. So we're calling you out right now.

I saw you talk to Tucker. You do interviews. We've seen you. Jensen Wong, Sam Altman, whoever else, all the soft bank people, everybody, talk to somebody who has legitimate criticisms about the economy and the technology that surrounds AI. And Ed, you are that guy. Thank you so much for joining us on high learning. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

No problem. That was Ed Zentron. It was good. Great. Cash money versus no limit happen. Did you watch it? It came on early. I missed a little bit of the beginning.

I wasn't expecting a five o'clock start. Guys. No limit one. Lance life. landslide. But why? But you know why for me? It wasn't just, it wasn't the songs.

Because if they went head to head with songs, I still think that it was a competition. It was the way No Limit came to the stage. No Limit looked like a, like no limit soldiers. They looked like a family. No limit looked like a family guys. Coordinated outfits.

Everybody showed up. I was like, is Mia X going to show up? She broke Kelly Price. Yeah. Mia X, chopper style, silk the shocker. Who, um, you ain't got to say too much. I can't think of their names right now. Wow, that's Mercedes.

Mercedes. Mercedes wasn't there. But the, but they sang the song. Man, that's been a little source of. And I know, I know Mercedes is suing them. Yeah, Mercedes says she's going to sue. Yeah, Mercedes. Shout to everybody.

But look, I told you guys, man, no limit. That looked like, shout out to cash money. Louisiana Legends. It looked like family versus business. That's what it looked like. And I'm not, and there's a lot of people talking about the way the business looked, the way the business has been done by those labels in the past and all of that stuff. You know, there's enough people that would have criticisms of some of the no-limit stuff.

I'm not even going to get into like Mercedes case of what. But like it looked like on that stage, family versus business. It looked like a business arrangement on the cash money side. Turk wasn't even there. shout out to Thirt. And it looked like family versus business. Can I, can I, it actually, I will push back. It didn't look like business.

It looked like, it looked like family, but a split family. It looked like some of the families showed up and the other part didn't. And it was just odd. I mean, Juvie and BG did a lot of heavy lifting. Now, Juvie. I could argue right now that Juvie catalog alone could go up against no limit. For sure. But, but I mean, them like like scenes like rap.

They were rapping other people's verses. Like they did a lot of heavy lifting. Wayne wasn't there. Wayne wasn't there. I mean, that's what I'm saying. A lot of people weren't there. It looked like the family was split. I told you guys, before we went into it,

you guys looked at me crazy. Told you no limit had a chance to win. No limit won. All right? No limit won the verses. And it's okay. You know who really won? Louisiana won.

Louisiana won. We changed hip-hop. No, it's not the South. The South. The South. Now, there is some talk right now between New Orleans and... And what? Well, sometimes the New Orleans people say that we're not Louisiana, we're New Orleans.

Fair. It's like saying we're Miami and that's Florida. That's bullshit. It's not fair. Okay, Baton Rouge. It's not fair. Would you say it differently if you were from New Orleans? Probably.

I would say it differently. I'm just going to be completely honest with you. I would say it differently after Hurricane Katrina. and I'm just going to be I love my people from New Orleans that would say that, but after legitimately, legitimately, the people in my city

opened up their homes and all of that to let, for their family to come in and one of the worst times, I think that moment right there showed that even though New Orleans is New Orleans and it has a culture all its own that only exists in that city and that is true, I just come,

I feel away when people from New Orleans go, yo, don't compare us with the rest of the state. You can't really, we didn't. I thought they were talking music. No, I'm not talking about, I thought that this statement, I know that they do that, but I know that they do that,

but I thought that this, in particular with this, they were talking about music. But there's another reason why the No Limit thing matters because No Limit was in Baton Rouge for a little while. They went Baton Rouge, they came back, so it's a Baton Rouge thing, see Silter Shaka out there.

By the way, stop hating on Silk, Silk, Silk and Rap. Stop hate all Silter Shocker! If he's chasing the bee. I'm not. Stop hating on silk to shocker. All right? Stop hating on them. Stammering to get to that.

Stop hating on silk to shocker. Donald, maybe you start busting off some silk to shocker versus. You know how people clap on the, everybody claps on the two and the four and not the one in the three? This is like a whole thing. Silk got a stutter, man. Silk wraps on the one of the three. Abelis.

He does not. He wraps on the one in the three. Abelis Lindsay right here. Shout out to Silk, man. Silk is ill. I like silk. Okay, I always like to say, after thousands, we represent, no limit, put it down with road, less presential.

When I write everything as existential, I'm with rich, riches. Listen to how you sound. Because I always have money, plus I always have bitches. Listen to how you sound. Just chasing it. Before we go, I'll play one thing real quick, Donnie. We got to get out of here. Play one thing real quick.

Before we go. Kentucky, this is Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on real time with Bill Maher. Let's talk about another elephant in the room, which is race. I mean, in the past, Democrats, they had to check boxes. before they could go forward with their ticket. You know, it would, I asked Democratic politicians this, and they didn't argue with it. I said, it's impossible to imagine a Democratic ticket

without a person of color on it. Now, maybe that's the right thing to do, but it is more limiting than what the Republicans are, which is we don't give a fuck. That does make things easier, I guess. Right, but, okay, but I'm just asking, if you were, just hypothetically, at the top of the ticket,

Would you feel that sort of constraint, would you say, no, I am the Democratic candidate and I can't have another white man on the ticket? I'd want, number one, to pick somebody who could help govern. You want somebody who would do the best job. Because if you only run for these offices to win, and trustee, you've got to win to do them, then you're not doing it for the right reason. And so you've got to think about who can help me do a little bit more for the American people. Who can add something that I might not have? who has some experience that I don't have. So I think you're always looking both at winning and at governing.

But I think what you're talking about is sometimes the right meaning policies of inclusion can lead to exclusion. Now, the idea is we should be able to pull more seats up to the table, not ask somebody who's been sitting at it to get up and to move for somebody else. Okay, this is directly to some of my white people out there. You will have to move. You'll have to move away from the table. The table was built for you a long, long time ago by us. We built the table.

We solidified the table. We made the table sturdy so that you and your grandkids, your grandparents, your ancestors, everyone could eat. Everyone ate at the table. They served you when you sat at the table. They pulled your chair out, let you sit, and pushed it back in. you've had enough, you will have to move. I know that that sounds really, really, really, really, really aggressive, but it's a fact. If America is in fact supposed to be a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, melting pot of ideas,

you can't hoard seats at the table for a long time. And I do not trust you to add seats. I don't think in a finite sense of resources that very many seats can be added. In order for you to prove that you believe in America, that you believe in sharing community with people, some of you will have to move. And that's that.

All right. I like it. Oh. We got more stuff coming up. Higher learning. Take the thing caps off, but do not stop learning. We're sending Luis to the World Series. He doesn't even know yet.

He's in the other room. He hasn't even realized yet. We're sending Luis to the World Series. Game five. Game five. He's going. Luis is going. I need to buy those tickets probably right now.

Yeah, he probably should. Let's figure that out. Let's figure that out. But it's happening. Luis is going to the World Series. Take thing caps off. Do not stop learning out Van Latham Jr. I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay.

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