The Ben Mulroney Show - Dear Washington...and AI being used for evil? (Don't tell the AI I wrote that)

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

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We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. What song is that? That's Smooth by... Santana featuring Rod Thomas. So when I was in another life doing entertainment TV, I flew to San Francisco and I took the bridge across to the Oakland side and there's a small town called Tiburon. We've talked about that before because that's Spanish for shark. And in Tiburon is where Santana has his studio and I spent the day there with Santana doing interviews and it was

awesome. It was awesome. It was well lit like so much sun coming in and just a really amazing day. And you know, Santana gets a lot of crap by a certain type of cynical person who says every one of his songs sounds the same. He's got a sound, that's for sure. But I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s, anytime Santana did anything, it was a joyous occasion. And I would be lying if I said I was the biggest Santana fan, but that was an influential time in music. And I was glad to be part of it, to spend some time and say,

oh, this is where that stuff gets done. It was awesome. It was awesome. Anyway, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Really glad that you're here. Look, there's an old saying, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. And there is the general consensus right now

is that there was, if not a conspiracy, then certainly a concerted effort to deflect and diminish the cognitive decline of the President of the United States, Joe Biden. There have been, there is way too much documentation of people on the record saying he was fine when we all knew he wasn't. And that's, in and of itself, that's a problem. But when you think about it for a second and you realize that how destructive it was when people would question what they saw with their eyes and what they heard with their ears

and they were told that you are part of the problem and shame on you and you are peddling misinformation and you are part of Donald Trump's alternative facts, that's a problem. But then when you ask yourself, if he wasn't in complete control of his faculties, the man who controlled the most, who had the most important job on the planet,

they can affect more people's lives with one bad decision than anybody else, who was in charge when he wasn't fully at 100%? more people's lives with one bad decision than anybody else. Who was in charge when he wasn't fully at 100%? And I'm sure he had good days, but that also means he had bad days. Who was in charge when he had bad days? These are questions that the American people deserve answers to.

This is not me. This is not me as a mega conservative. This is me saying democracy matters, accountability matters. And if he's not the one making the decisions, but decisions are being made, who's making the decisions? And so in an effort, yes, to score political points because that's what they do in the United States with everything they do on Capitol Hill,

there is an investigation. They wanna know who knew what and when, and that is fair. It's 100% fair. Who knew what and when? And look, every now and then, as happens all the time in the United States, a doctor gets trotted out on stage at the White House briefing room and says, tells you how the state of the president's health happens all the time. And sometimes they say ridiculous things like, like under Trump, the first time where he was in, he was like a Superman, according to the, the, the doctor in charge, he's a Superman, even though by any stretch of the imagination, his BMI would indicate that he falls in the category

of what would be called morbidly obese. But that's one thing. We're not talking about his mental acuity. We're talking about his cholesterol and how much McDonald's he eats. The doctor that was in charge of Joe Biden's mental health has been asked to testify before Congress and he's refusing to do so.

He's pleading the fifth. This is a terrible look. Now look, I don't know what the rules are around this man's obligation to maintain confidentiality with his patient. I mean, that is supposed to be sacrosanct, but is it sacrosanct for the president? I don't know that that is supposed to be sacrosanct, but is it sacrosanct for the president? I don't know that it is. As a matter of fact, I think you could

argue that it is an issue of national security for him to actually be honest because we know he was not at a hundred percent and we know we were told he was at a hundred percent and the only way to were told he was at a hundred percent. And the only way to know that the only way for somebody to say with a straight face, he's at a hundred percent is if they have the backing and the bolstering of a doctor to say so. All right. We're out. We always, we always hear, Oh, we can't diagnose. I have to sit here and say, I can't diagnose somebody with a mental health issue and I can't diagnose because I'm not a doctor, right? So for somebody on the Biden team to come out and say, he's at a hundred percent and you are a liar

and a peddler of disinformation for suggesting otherwise. You don't say that unless you have a doctor giving you a doctor's note saying Joe Biden's at a hundred percent. So if this is the guy who was doing that for that side, I think it's incumbent upon him to come clean. But again, I await somebody to tell me why, for the sake of patient doctor confidentiality, that is not a possibility.

So we're gonna wait and see on this, but this won't go away. This is a big deal, and this is not a right or left issue. If somebody has been elected and trusted by the people to be able to do so many things, including having the requisite mental acuity to determine whether they are going to launch a nuclear attack. And then we find out that that person was lacking,

I think answers have to be provided. Call me crazy, but if you're telling me somebody else was making those decisions, that is a miscarriage of democracy. And accountability must be met. I think a lot of us were really disheartened when we saw that a couple of a couple of congressmen I believe wrote a letter six six congresspeople wrote to the governor of Michigan from no from Minnesota and Wisconsin yeah and they and they then they wrote a letter saying that,

it's the beginning of the summer and our constituents are looking to enjoy the summer, but the smoke from Canadian wildfires is affecting their enjoyment of the summer. And is there something that you can do to help us? I think a lot of us, that was a gut punch, guys. That was a gut punch that we've done this, that we've done this to the Americans.

So, so very sorry. Like, I mean, I remember when the Palisades fire was, was destroying one of the most beautiful parts of Los Angeles. And we as Canadians sat here and said, well, Jesus, like, get your act together, guys. Like, we didn't, we didn't say to ourselves, how can we help? We didn't say, Hey, should we send down our water bombers? We said, like, get your act together, guys. Like, we didn't say to ourselves, how can we help? We didn't say, hey, should we send down our water bombers? We said, like, seriously, guys, the fires, like, are you not thinking about the environment and that the smoke inhalation of other people?

That's where our attention was. And so we here at the show are so upset that our wildfires are affecting your ability to barbecue And so we here at the show are so upset that our wildfires are affecting your ability to barbecue down south that we're taking our time and we are crafting a response that we hope makes these Americans feel better. And it's gonna be an apology note, I think,

so that we can let you know that we see you, we hear you, we respect you, and we are sorry that our wildfires are making it so that you can't barbecue the way that you hoped to. I feel terrible about this. I feel as a Canadian that we have had these wildfires impact the hot dog eating contest. Yeah, no, it's, it's tough.

Like when somebody holds up a mirror and says, look at what you're doing to us, it really makes it, it makes you think twice. It does. It's really tough. I'm, um, you know, you hope that you hope that people don't say it because you know it in your heart. You know that the wildfires that are choking the lifeblood out of communities here, that are strangling, that are putting first responders at risk,

you know that you're affecting people in their barbecues and their pools. You know what's happening. You just hope nobody says it because if they say it, it makes it real. It's somewhat grotesque. It is. So join us tomorrow on the show. It's a big mea culpa here on behalf of all Canadians to our good friends south of the border. Full traffic. Is the Ben Mulrooney show. This is the Ben Mulrooney show. And on the Ben Mulrooney show, we talk about stuff that Ben Mulroney finds interesting.

And if you guys don't respond, we find other interesting things to talk about. Let's talk about AI and education. And at UCLA, the University of Southern, University of California at Los Angeles, at their graduation ceremony, this one doofus, this one guy graduating was on the big screen

because they do it in a basketball arena. They put him on the big jumbotron. And as he was sitting there celebrating his graduation, he wanted to share the honor with ChatGPT by showing everybody during the graduation ceremony that his final paper was done using ChatGPT. Essentially telling UCLA, I cheated. I went against, I assume they have an honor code,

but boy was he proud to show everybody that ChatGPT led to the final paper that ultimately got him his diploma. And I have, look, they gave him his diploma. If UCLA decides this goes against the honor code and they go back and retroactively take his diploma away, that's up to them. I don't care.

But here's what I remember when I was in law school. There was a period in law school where I was not doing very well. I was having some challenges. I think in retrospect, they were significant mental health challenges. And I had to pull myself out of a really bad funk. And that bad funk had led me to having some pretty,

not so good grades, and not so good grades at all. And I literally had to take myself down to the studs and rebuild myself as a student. And I had to invent a new way I'd never done of taking notes. And I started taking notes far more effectively in class. That allowed me to be more engaged with the content and the lessons.

It allowed me to better understand the materials. And when I ultimately graduated from law school after three years, I graduated with, yeah, I wasn't a straight A student, but from the hole I was in to what my average was when I graduated, I'm exceptionally proud of the hard work that I did. And then I saw at the very beginning of AI

what kids were able to do with AI in the classroom, especially in university. They were able to use a front-facing camera on their laptops to take screen grabs of everything that was in front of them on the whiteboard. They were able to use AI scribe to essentially record everything the professor said. And that would be translated into written notes,

which would then be turned into quizzes that they could quiz themselves on every single day. None of this was available for me at the time. The flashcards and note cards and cross-referencing with other people's notes and oh, I missed a day or I went to the bathroom and I've got to get that information from somebody else. None of that was available.

And so I looked at that stuff and said, oh my God, how much fun would it be to be a student today where I could actually enjoy the class because I'm going to go home with all of this information ingested and it is going to be put in a manageable, testable content that I can then improve on and I can learn better. And then when I see that this kid took those tools

and what has now come since to just sidestep the entire process and he did so so gleefully, like this is why the Chinese are gonna win. It's because this kid was a lazy so-and-so and he was being cheered on by so many people. I don't get it. Never before has it been more of a,

has being a student, the life of a student, been optimized the way it is today. You don't have to sit there getting cramps in your hand, writing everything down as if you're a court stenographer. You can actually listen and participate and enjoy being in this place where for the next four years of your life,

you get to work and play and make friends and figure out who you are. And then when it comes time to test, you have all of the materials required to be properly tested. And if you have a paper to write, instead of asking Chad GPT, hey, write me a paper to write, instead of asking Chet GPT, hey, write me a paper.

You could say, hey, Chet GPT, I have a 5,000 word paper on the industrial revolution. Write an outline for me using these sources and help me prepare so that I can write it myself. Like, why wouldn't you do that? How hard is that? You're literally taking asking ChAT GPT to do everything but write the paper for you.

And so I don't have time for someone like that. If I found out that my son did that, if I was watching a graduation and my son did that, I don't know what I would do. There is a part of me that would actually consider, like what would be the ramifications if I went to the administration and said, I don't think he should be graduating right now.

But then I'd be on a hook for another semester of tuition payments. But I would be looking at my son saying, you just wasted my money. And you just embarrassed our family. You just told everybody you're a liar and a cheater and lazy. And you have the same last name as me and how dare you?

Like that's what I would have done had it been my son. It's not my son. So I feel embarrassed for the family by proxy. But yeah, so that's no good. Meanwhile, apparently there's this job search, AI job search platform that uses AI to pair people looking for a job with open postings. And as part of their marketing campaign,

they created a series of TikToks using an AI, everything's AI generated. It's about this kid going to find jobs and it looks really real, but if you know what you're listening to, it's so patently AI. And it was, some of the stuff is about like the interactions that this guy would have trying to get a job at Tim Horton's

and walking down the street and being frustrated. They couldn't get the job. And some of it's like, I couldn't get the job because I'm white and the avatar is white. And then, and there's this argument from the company that it was all supposed to be a viral marketing campaign. It was supposed to get people talking. It's supposed to be comedy and satire. It is neither satirical nor funny. But there are a lot of people out there claiming that it is

racist because he's encountering, this know, this avatar is making these comments about being a white guy trying to get a job and he can't get a job because he's not, you know, a student from India, for example. But if I tell you that, and then there's racial discussions going on. So, but is it racist? Well, if I told you that this entire project

was the brainchild of the co-founder of the company and that co-founder is Indian, does that change your perspective as to whether or not it's racist? I think it kind of has to, right? There's this old expression, only Nixon could go to China. I mean, at the time where China was like this,

Nixon could go to China. I mean, at the time where China was like this, was cordoned off and had no real relations with the United States, it took a Republican to open up relations with communist China. Had the Democratic Party tried to do that, they would have been tarred and feathered as communists themselves. And so the messenger is as important

as the message in a lot of cases. In this case, the messenger is as important as the message in a lot of cases. In this case, the messenger is Indian. And if you believe that, you know, we hear it all the time, only white people can be racist. So what does it say that this entire thing came from somebody who isn't white? I think the campaign's terrible from what I've seen. I think the campaign is not funny.

I think the campaign is too heavy-handed and ham-fisted. Is it an accurate representation of what people go through on the job search? Maybe these guys are in that business. They probably know better than I whether it's an accurate representation. Is it racist? I think that's in the eye of the beholder.

And I think it depends on how you see the world. But it's definitely getting a lot of traction out there, so much so that TikTok took everything down. You can't even find these. The only links that we have, the only images that we have are through a CBC expose into the company. And so, like, and I guess it proves that

if you really do wanna take something off of the internet, you can, but yeah, I do think it matters if accusations of racism are being thrown around. I've always been told who says it matters, right? And when a certain person says they don't like white people, that's not the same as a white person saying, I don't like that certain type of person. I've been told that that's the world we live in, fine.

That's the world we live in. So if that's the world we live in, this is a guy making a racial commentary. Therefore, ergo, it's not supposed to be racist because you told me that that's how the world works. Anyway, racist or not, it's not a very good campaign and we'll leave it there. The all new 2025 Kicks isn't just a bold new vehicle on the road. It's Nissan's number one selling subcompact SUV. With expressive style and advanced tech, Kicks is number one.

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