The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Conversation with Verity Harding — Are We in an AI Arms Race?

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

Verity Harding, a globally recognized expert in AI, technology, and public policy, joins Scott to discuss her debut book, “AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own.” We learn what history can teach us about the current hype cycle, and how you can best engage with this transformative technology.  Follow Verity on X, @verityharding. Scott opens with his thoughts on how we need to focus more on human interactions.  Algebra of Happiness: are you confident? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 292. Route 292 is a highway in the Hudsonudson valley of new york in 1992 the first sms text message was sent if i see one more dude texting while he's driving i'm gonna roll down my window and throw my beer on that bitch go go go Welcome to the 292nd episode of the Prop G Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Verity Harding, a globally recognized expert in AI, technology, and public policy. Also, a Brit in the great state, great state.

My God, I have Texas on my mind, the great state of Texas. No, the wonderful city of London. By far, the second best city in the world. Literally, I have Texas on my mind, the great state of Texas. No, the wonderful city of London, by far the second best city in the world. Literally, New York is number one. I think if you like cities, the density, the crush of humanity, opportunity, money, cool bars, hot people, there's nothing like it. London, I would describe as Godzilla came along and squished it with his foot. Is that a hate crime? Is Godzilla non-binary? Don't know. I think Godzilla was a radioactive, inspired or mutated reptilian that was born as a male. At least that's what I think. But anyways, it's as if somebody crushed it and it just spread out

and there's more green. The other observation I would make, I was talking about the severity, is that there's something about London where it's an economy serving wealth created somewhere else. This guy I interviewed last year, whose name escapes me, this journalist, really thoughtful guy, described it as the Butler economy. And I think that was the name of his book. But I don't meet that many people who've actually started anything that's not serving other people's wealth. Anyways, it's strange. There's something, it's missing that grit, that creativity that results in, I don't know, a collision between shareholder value and technology or, you know, I don't know, services. Anyway, it's sort of weird, but unbelievable, unbelievable football. Anyways,

what's happening? Okay. I have been, I went London to Austin, great state of Texas. One of my favorite things about Texas. I had some, or have some friends in Florida whose daughter struggled with a muscular affliction and pretty severe. And they moved to Dallas because Dallas has an enormous network of support services and specialized facilities for children who are suffering or struggling with different childhood diseases or disabilities. And Dallas has become known as a place that is especially on the forefront or advanced around care for kids with physical disabilities. And I thought, Jesus Christ, does that make you love Texas? Or it makes you love Dallas? I didn't know that. And they said, yeah, Dallas, it's sort of almost a strategy. They attract a lot of families because it's known for that. And I thought, God, I can't imagine

just a better ad for Texas than that. Even South by Southwest, great. Tex-Mex, fine. Whatever, the Cowboys. University of Texas, that's also. I love the idea of brand. What pulses your brand? The first thing, obviously, I think is airports. I've always been impressed by the Gulf. I always had a very positive impression of the Gulf because they invested early and often in airports. I remember landing at the new Hong Kong airport 20 years ago and thinking, Jesus Christ, these people take themselves pretty seriously. That's not what I'm here to talk about. So let's move on to something we've been thinking a lot about, and that is between the talks of AI, TikTok, and further separation between the left and right,

we've lost what I would argue if we've lost the script on human interactions. We're mammals, and while some other species or classifications of the animal kingdom do herd and run packs and pods or whatever, schools of fish, mammals specifically enjoy or need each other. They need to be part of a pack, And the worst thing you can do to an animal or, remember, a human is to cast them out of the herd or cast them into the darkness. The worst thing you can do to a human in prison is put them in solitary confinement. And unfortunately, I think that the companies that have added the most shareholder value over the last 10 years are bringing together this really sinister chocolate and peanut butter the following. One, they tap into our flaw in the species. They tap into young women's need for validation, need for some sort of socialization or social approval on her handheld phone, and she becomes

addicted to that affirmation. It starts destroying her self-esteem, which makes her even more and more addicted. It taps into young men's risk aggressiveness around gaming, around a lack of mating opportunities, around porn, around thinking that they are missing out in a competitive economy. So if they just buy crypto on Coinbase or if they just trade on Robinhood. I feel as if that they have figured out the flaw in the species is around addiction, need for validation, being especially risk aggressive, not letting... And by the way, it's not just tech. You don't think general foods and craft and Coca-Cola and PepsiCo haven't tapped into our flaw in the species where institutional production has vastly outpaced our instincts ability to catch up to institutional production where they're for the majority of our time on this planet we've had a dearth of salty salty sugary and fattery foods

such that when we can get a ridiculous amount of calories for a fairly low purchase price we don't know when to stop and of of course, the food industrial complex moves in on that malady or on that weakness in the species and then hands you over to the diabetes industrial complex where healthcare systems, pharmaceutical companies, medical parts suppliers that have monetized or financialized obesity step in and the wheel spins. Anyways, we have this system where we are essentially finding companies have a vested interest in separating us from each other, making us less mammalia. And that is going out and making friends, finding jobs, finding romantic partners. That shit is hard, right? It involves rejection. It involves trying to develop a series of skills, whether it's

being nice, making eye contact, being funny, being attractive, working out, expressing a coolness through a sense of understanding or a sense of fashion. I mean, this shit is just hard and involves rejection and cost. And especially young men who don't have as strong a social networks and don't look after each other as much, I believe are sequestering. And you have this giant wedge called big tech that's trying to convince them they can have a reasonable facsimile of their life by just watching Netflix, going on Reddit and Discord, and just experiencing something resembling friendship, having porn, which is something resembling sex, swiping left, swiping right, getting no validation because everybody wants the same dude on these dating apps. And then they lack the kind of social connection

that young women are much better at maintaining. And they slowly but surely start to become a different speed. They become non-mammals. They separate from the pride, the herd, the pod, whatever you want to call it. And simply put, they become shitty citizens, absolutely more prone to conspiracy theory, misogyny, nationalism. And I'm not saying this is true of all men who kind of withdraw, but a lot of them really need the guardrails of either going into work in person, of having the prospect of a friendship, a group of people. Jonathan Haidt's done some great work on this, where basically we used to have these informal socialist communities when you were kids that were hard to get into, but also hard to leave. You had your pack of three or four friends. We used to go to the Westwood Mortuary. We used to go to the cemetery and play baseball at the cemetery. And then we'd go into Westwood and my friends would shoplift. I wouldn't

because I was more ethical and moral, but I just didn't think my mom could handle picking me up from the police station. But these things were bonding, or we played Little League together, or we played Ding Dong Ditch together, or we threw water balloons at cars. If I sound like a delinquent in training, trust your instincts. Anyways, but these things were bonding and teach you a lot of skills. And now I believe that the most profitable companies in the world that have the greatest concentration of talent are there to just psychologically treat you to not have contact with humans in person. And we have essentially the most deep-pocketed, well-resourced companies in the world trying to turn us away from being mammals. How do we return to mammalia? How do we become mammals again? What can we do to get young people spending more time together,

building something great in the agency of others? One, I've heard this wonderful solution that when you're feeling down, the best way for a young person to stop feeling down is to help others. That is to work with others and immediately go into the service, volunteer, help other people who are struggling. That gets them out of their own head, shows that they have value, shows that they matter, this whole concept of mattering. I really like that. Some other ideas for how we become mammals again. I absolutely believe we should engage or institute national service in America. It doesn't have to be military. It can be, but it can be other things, whether it's helping seniors, being home health aides, building, working on infrastructure projects. There are just so many

people with so much need who would love to hang out with young people, help them develop empathy for some of the people who are struggling in our society, help them meet each other, meet friends, future co-founders of business, future mentors, future mates. I've been a investor in two Israeli companies and all of the senior management they met while they were in the Israeli army. Oh, spoiler alert also, Israel has lower levels of teen depression and young adult depression. Why? Because they have served in the agency of something bigger than themselves that connects them to one another. Two, it sounds boring. We need to get more money in the pockets of these people. Specifically, we need to give them more opportunities. We need to make them less stressed such that they're not totally fucking freaked out about starting their

lives with $80,000 in student debt that is not dischargeable. We need to put more money in their pockets. How do we do that? First, first, we eliminate, we eliminate capital gains. Everybody should pay 37 at the top, top rate. We eliminate mortgage tax interest. Who makes, who owns homes? Old people. Who rents? Young people. Let's fix the tax code so it's not regressive and people like me don't pay a lower tax rate than the people working with me here who are working their asses off and making good money, but not great money, but good enough money to be in the highest tax rate, but not enough money to engage in massive tax avoidance, which is what the rich have done through a complex tax code that goes from 400 pages to 4,000 that has such goodies as, oh, carried interest for hedge funds, tax at a lower rate. Oh, Scott, you're an innovator. You're an entrepreneur. There's 1202, first $10 million on sale of a company, tax-free. That makes no fucking sense. We need a tax code that is actually progressive, and then we need to massively lower taxes for young people, and not even lower. We need a negative income tax. You make less than $50,000 a year. We should give

you three, five, six, $10,000 tax credits. So we know, A, your kids don't starve or are not food insecure. B, you have a little bit of money to engage in social activities. We need to massively level up young people, more vocational programming, more freshman seats at colleges. You don't grow your freshman seats faster than population growth. You're no longer a nonprofit. You're no longer a public servant. You're a fucking hedge fund, especially those universities sitting on $53 billion that don't want to let in more people than a good Starbucks serves in a day. We don't see above Harvard and pretty much every Ivy League organization. We need a lot more opportunity for young people, a lot more opportunities for them to meet. And we need to level up young people

such that they have more money, specifically young men. There are not enough economically and emotionally viable young men. We need to age-gate social media. There's no fucking reason anyone under the age of 16 should be on social media. What's the upside? And then we need to teach the value of belonging, the value of being part of something greater than yourself. Let's start teaching civics again. Let's give these kids a sense of how blessed they are to be in America. Do we have problems? Yeah, absolutely. But guess what? We're less fucked up than anyone else. And we're raising a generation of kids specifically in the hands of TikTok, which I believe is influenced by the CCP. We're raising a generation of civic nonprofit, military, and business leaders that don't like America.

How is that going to solve our problems? We should absolutely be honest about our issues and our past and continue to address the inequities in our society, of which there are still a great number. But for God's sakes, where would you rather be? How can we not truthfully and honestly figure out a way to convince our kids that this may be bad, but it's the least bad place and you are fortunate to be here. America is a wonderful place. You have a vested interest in connecting with others. One observation I would make and try and communicate to my boys and to young people, I can guarantee you that the best things in your life, do you want the best things in your life? Do you want something really awesome to happen to you?

Do you want an amazing fucking job? Do you want to find someone who you just anticipate, you just can't describe the emotion and the excitement you feel before you see that person? Do you want to be in a situation where you're taking care of your kids and you have this sense of being of masculinity or femininity or that you have purpose? Do you want to have joy? Do you want to have crazy, you know, gut-busting laughter? Do you want to feel real emotion and real grief, which is the receipts for love? Those things all

have one thing in common. The thing that strings through all of these things is they happen in person. So the less time you spend not in the company of others, the less likely you are to have something wonderful, joyous, and rewarding. We are mammals. We are mammalia. Get out of the house.

Think about your dogs. Where are your dogs happiest? Lying on top of you. Being out of the house. Think about your dogs. Where are your dogs happiest? Lying on top of you. Being around other dogs. Get out there. Lie on top of others. Be around other dogs. We'll be right back for our conversation with verity harding a globally recognized expert in ai technology and public policy verity where does this podcast find you i'm in new york at the moment you're in New York. I'm usually based in London, but I'm here for a talk.

In your debut book, AI Needs You, How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own, you write that when history enters the AI conversation, it most often distorts rather than informs. What do we get wrong about AI in terms of a perception of it well i think the issues that i've had really with ai and history or history in the ai conversation has been that it's focused primarily on the atomic bomb as an example as an analogy i don't think it's a helpful analogy um for lots of different reasons i mean obviously the circumstances in which it's created are very unique. It's a weapon. But it's not really that I want to pick apart the specific different ways that it's not like the atomic bomb. It's more that if we're trying to sort of create a future path for AI that's beneficial and in defense of the public good, something that is democratically controlled,

then I think looking to a sort of wartime created weapon really removes the agency that we have. And that's a problem I find in the AI conversation quite a lot generally is this sense that AI is a thing that's happening to us and we are sort of passive passengers in the back of the car, whereas actually what history shows and what show in the book is that we are very important players in guiding how technology develops. My sense is, and I'm curious if you agree with this, my sense is that there's a certain level of techno-narcissism where every inventor of a technology wants to convince you it's

the single point of a savior for humanity or the singular point of extermination of humanity that my shit is just so important what i've invented here is so incredible that it's either going to save or destroy the world and the reality is it's probably somewhere in between right i just don't doesn't it feel a little bit like this all this catastrophism is a bit narcissistic yes definitely i think everyone wants to be oppenheimer right and the movie probably didn't help it's like such an obvious observation i never thought of that anyway go ahead yeah it makes you sort of one of the central characters in the history of our entire species if you you know do something on that level that sort of changes for good what society is and how we operate.

And you see that the examples that I choose in the book to look at the history of science, I look at everything after the atomic bomb because it was this singular moment that sort of changes science and changes how people see science. And unfortunately, some people, I think, have taken slightly the wrong message from that story and they want to actually create something. So I completely agree with you. It strikes, typically new technologies either create a new batch of powerful companies

or it goes to the incumbents. This feels like so far it's going to the incumbents. Even OpenAI feels sort of a proxy for Microsoft. Do you see, there's been just an explosion in market capitalization of value here that's inspired by AI. And so far, I guess you could argue NVIDIA is sort of a new player, but so far it feels like it's going to the incumbents. Do you think it's going to play out where there'll be more kind of long tail value creation or do you see that this reflects a trend towards kind of the time as the politics and culture of time is shaped by the science and tech that actually technology is incredibly political and um sort of reflects in a

way the sort of existing zeitgeist and you see this throughout history and i think it's no coincidence then that if you think about what type of society are we living in now, you know, vastly unequal, extremely polarized, a huge lack of trust in our institutions and our leaders. And I think that's therefore playing out. And you're seeing, you look at just San Francisco itself and the kind of contrast between the riches and the poverty there. And I think that sort of plays out in the industry you know there's groups of us that have been doing work on AI and ethics and responsible AI and how are we going to manage AI as society for years and then

as soon as it kind of reaches the mainstream it just splits immediately along US partisan lines and either you think AI is woke you know or you think it is racist and there's sort of no where in between so I don't think that it's a surprise that we're seeing those sort of existing entrenched divides replicated in AI and I don't think we have a lot of hope for them just naturally resolving themselves I think if we want them to resolve ourselves if we decide that they want that we need them to that they can and we do that, but it sort of needs to be a choice that we take rather than something that will happen naturally, I think. But in your seat, you must see a decent amount of deal flow or what people are most excited about where capital and human capital and IQ is going. In terms of the gold rush of financial and human capital into AI,

which rivers or branches does it go into? Does it go into media? Does it go into healthcare? Is it being used to try and figure out, I don't know, weapons deployment? Or where do you see, I mean, a lot of these things are self-fulfilling prophecies, right? If everybody focuses on AI to, you know, make commercial real estate more productive and office layouts more easy to build, then AI will be great at it. Where are people pointing the AI canon right now. Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because I don't, I mean, I'm curious what you think, Scott, but the actual deployment in real terms, in a way that is,

you know, affecting the profits, affecting the bottom line of non-tech companies, so, you know, companies benefiting from AI products already, doesn't seem to be happening. And I'm starting, I kind of felt this when, when chat GPT blew everything up, you know, just over a year ago, we went into this new, like massive hype cycle and you couldn't move for people saying that AI was going to change absolutely everything.

And my instinct, seeing how hard it really is to actually integrate AI into stuff. I mean, not least because some of these big businesses and certainly governments, you know, not even really well equipped for digital, just basic digitization and digital transformation, let alone layering AI into that. And I think that has borne out, you know, 18 months or however long later that you're not really seeing it going into integrating quickly into existing business models so what i've seen is huge use of chatbots for customer service but not in a way that is like really evident that it's working we had you probably saw the issues with dpd the parcel delivery, a few weeks ago where they've replaced some, you know, they used some new LLM and it immediately started saying horrific things about the company and

swearing and all sorts of stuff. So, you know, we're sort of seeing people pull back from that. But there is promise, I think, if they can operationalize things like, you know, the use of AI in medical imagery, for example. But where I see it going at the moment is a lot of people slightly flailing, feeling like we should be able to use this for productivity. We should be able to use it for efficiencies. We should be able to use it somewhere in our business and we must immediately integrate it everywhere, but they're not quite sure where to go or what to do next um i think you know we're seeing a lot of pushback in the media um in the media industry i should say rather than the media writing about it we've seen this hollywood strikes of course

and i think that shows where some of the kind of easy gains might be made, but not necessarily the best for the long term. And you write that the national security establishment and tech leaders think we're in an AI arms race and that that is a problematic narrative. Say more. Yeah, I think it all feeds into the same thing we're talking about. If you sort of agree and accept that AI is the revolution of our time and it's happening rapidly, then it's quite easy to be convinced that AI is a battle to be won. That's not how I think we should see AI. AI is an exciting new science and technology that we should see as a potential to sort of uplift humanity, not something that becomes this sort of very nationalistic, militaristic focus. And instead, that's exactly what's happened. I mean, if AI is in the conversation of geopolitics at all, it's as an arms race, usually between the US and China, and one of them has to win. And I think that's, you know, I think it's bad for business, because we're seeing

these sort of semiconductor export bans that people are having to navigate around that I'm not sure how effective they're going to be anyway. I think it's bad for dialogue and diplomacy and cooperation, collaboration, conversation, which we know is critically important to sort of safe management of the globe. And I think it's bad for sort of us as consumers, because if we continue to sort of whip into a frenzy about an AI arms race, then you're going to see AI directed into more militaristic routes, or you're going to see sort of the lack of free flow of ideas just make less progress and you know leave us with less good sort of products and services so yeah I've set up this thing called the AI and geopolitics project at Cambridge which is about trying to find alternative narratives when we talk about AI and geopolitics that are rooted more in collaboration rather than sort of competition. Just to say that's not to be

naive. National security is really important. They used to work in national security, you know, economic competitiveness as a nation, you know, our growth as a country or, you know, as different countries thinking about their economic growth is critically important. But what I show in the book by using this example and this analogy with the space race is that there's sort of no need to do that in a way or there's a way to do that while also encouraging sort of inspiring, exciting science and cooperation and collaboration between nations, which I think is really just the only way forward. It's really interesting. I love your view on this and the space race. First off, I mean, it's weird. We don't have a food race. We don't have a media race. Well, I'll put forward a thesis. You tell me. It feels very bro-y and testosterone filled to me the tech is largely the domain of of the people influencing it running it making decisions are mostly men and they

immediately position it as this is a race and they become very nationalist like we can't sell chips to china this is this technology is so powerful we have a national interest in beating everybody as opposed to saying, okay, this is a marvelous innovation and it's going to help the world. It immediately turns very like there's just win-lose. And to your point, we go militaristic. if it's a function of tech is still mostly invested by run by and controlled by uh men who tend to be young and tend to be just quite frankly more into the macho yeah i mean it's you know it's a thread on everything we've spoken about isn't there there's like crazy hype cycle around revolutionary ai you know ai scientists as new modern day Oppenheimers and arms race. It does all seem to be linked by these defining characteristics. And look, you know, boldness and bluster and

sort of competition can all be really good things, but, you know, they can also be not so much bad, but counterproductive. And I think much bad, but counterproductive. And I think that they are currently counterproductive. I think we're going to see less progress if we keep going down this route, frankly. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot in what you said. And the example that I talk about in the book, The Space Race, is a really interesting example of that, right? Because you get Kennedy, President Kennedy, being very macho and bold and blustery, kind of in the best way when he sort of sets this moon mission. It's deeply political, deeply political decision. There's no need to go to the moon. It's actually deeply unpopular at the time. People don't want to do it. It's actually deeply unpopular at the time. People don't want

to do it. It's extremely expensive. And he chooses it because it's this competition with the Soviet Union. We're in the midst of the Cold War. And it becomes this very antagonistic thing. So, of course, you see the great speeches where he says, yeah, we do this not because it's easy, because it's hard and it's so inspirational. but it's not true. You know, he's doing it because they're at war and he's trying to win that war. But then he becomes sort of older, wiser, you know, go through quite a lot as an American president in the Cold War in just the sort of those three short years, chastened by the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the world is on the brink of war. And he completely changes and he goes to the UN and he essentially offers a joint moon mission to the Soviets you know he says space has to be this place of cooperation and there's no sovereignty there so there should be no issues you know there's no issue of national

sovereignty up in space so there should be a way for us to cooperate and it's that leadership directly include and lots of diplomacy and hard work behind the scenes at the UN that leads to this UN Outer Space Treaty, which two years before anyone steps foot on the moon, determines that space is the province of all mankind, that space is a place for innovation and sort of benefiting all humanity equally. And it may have started in very sort of cynical, nationalistic arms race terms, the space race, but, you know, we don't have nuclear weapons orbiting above us or nuclear weapons on the moon.

No one owns the moon. We have things like the International Space Station and great, great cooperation in space science sort of because of those political decisions. So, yeah, I think, you know, there's definite parallels with AI today and the sort of people in charge and the people leading it and what they value.

We'll be right back. I'm curious. So there's, if you think about the interaction between government and private industry and then kind of value creation or wealth creation. I've always said that you can't have a company worth more than $100 billion unless it's a bike ride from a world-class engineering university or a font of deep intellectual property, that it all starts with universities. And you can't go very far in AI without hearing about somebody who's

involved with or teaching at Cambridge. Cambridge does feel like it's one of the epicenters of AI. And that's the good news. The bad news is after living in London for two years, I'm fairly confident they're not going to make any money. There's something about UK culture where it produces the IP and the IQ, but it doesn't find the Benjamins or the pounds or whatever the slang is for currency. The IP might come out of Cambridge, but someone in the US is going to monetize it. And I can't figure out why. Well, one, do you agree with this? But the UK seems to be especially poor in monetizing the intellectual property and incredibly deep education and IQ

that they possess. Yeah, no, I mean, I do agree. I think, you know, people in the UK know it and there are different diagnoses of why it happens and different like suggested remedies. I was really struck by it when I was researching the early internet for the sort of final case study with the book, which is looking at the early internet and how that developed. And packet switching technology was sort of invented concurrently by Donald Davies in the UK as it was in the US. And there was sort of all the potential there given the kind of incredibly rich computing history Turing being the the main example and the work that he was doing in the in the 50s there was sort of all the potential intellectually there that the sort of the UK would invent the internet but of course it's ARPA and it's and it's the US. And as a result, again, as a result, some very conscious political

decisions, this TCP IP protocol and the way that we have the open inset today is sort of built on the US model. But we do struggle with that. And some of the issues, just the sort of money and the investment is just not on the same scale and these things take an extraordinary amount um to do that but you know realistically are we going to be able to compete with the us china india and given the vast resources it takes probably not so then i think we have to look at what our unique role can be as the uk and you advise people the highest level around policy. What do you think the government's approach should be to AI?

Do you think we need to get out ahead of it? How do you feel about the Biden administration's AI, whatever they call it, AI task force, AI mandate? You know, supposedly there's some rules out there. I'm not entirely sure what they are. But what are your thoughts around, what are you advising different governments around policy and AI? So what I'm saying to people is that,

look, AI is new, but invention is not new. You know, progress is not new. Let's look at how we've done this well before and try and learn from that. That is essentially what the book is about. So I think there's a few different ways to do that. One is try and depoliticize it as much as possible if it gets brought into the, and by that I mean sort of

party politics, obviously it's deeply political as a subject, but if it gets drawn more and more into party politics, then we're not going to get to a good outcome. I think diverse participation, diverse viewpoints is absolutely critical to public trust and also to getting to a good outcome. So the second example I use in the book is the regulation of IVF. IVF and human embryology research, early biotech, has a lot of similarities with AI today in terms of people freaking out about what it means to be human and these deep philosophical questions but the uk very successfully regulates it and has the sort of gold standard for regulation in this area globally

because they set up a very diverse commission of yes bi, but also legal scholars, religious scholars, social workers, philosophers, to sort of look at these deep issues. And then I also think, in addition to sort of participation and trust and people seeing that the government is acting, I think we have to think about, you know, where limits do need to be set. You know know i think if we want to encourage trust in ai and if we want ai to really succeed in in bringing us sort of riches and plenty and prosperity in the future then i think people do need to see that governments are willing and able to act against the kind of worst excesses and the worst harms um rather than because of often this arms race narrative feeling like they can't touch it,

they can't regulate anything, lest they sort of fall behind in the global race. So let's talk about something really important, and that is London versus New York as a larger metaphor for comparing the UK versus the United States. Do you have any observations? I still, I've been living in London now for almost two years, and I spent a lot of time in the U.S., grew up here, and I'm still having trouble wrapping. I have some observations, you know, some of the easy ones around the weather and all that kind of fun stuff, and Premier League football is hands down the best sporting event in the world. So I have the easy stuff. do you have any observations around the business environments or the cultures contrasts how what strikes you is the different zeitgeist between

the two cultures oh yeah i mean you're gonna have to shut me up on this because like this is one of my favorite subjects having spent my career working between the two the ways in which they're so different are so interesting to me why did did you move out of interest to the UK? The obvious questions are the ones you can't answer. It made no sense. Around my partner, mother of my children, I get to pick movies and investments. She gets to decide everything else. So let's be clear. I'm an influencer, not a decision maker. And we have this practice. This is probably more than you want. We have this practice for every couple of years. We sit down and say, everything's on the table. What could we do? Or what could I do for you? That would be a step change increase in your joy and your happiness. Ignore all boundaries. What could we do?

And seven years ago, she said, in five years, I want to move to Europe. And she said it very, I'm convinced this was strategic because she knows if she puts a five-year handle on it, I'll agree to anything because I have no sense of space and time. And if someone says, we'll do this in five years, it's like saying we're not going to do it. So I agreed. And then two and a half years ago, she went to London and bought a house and enrolled our kids in school. And now I'm on planes all the time coming to the US and going to Premier League games. But the less snarky answer is we move there because we can. And people always say, oh, you move there because you don't like America or you move there because of America. I'm like, yeah, I did move there because of America, but I moved there because I recognize

such incredible opportunity and prosperity in America that I get to take my family abroad for a couple of years. So why did we move there? We moved there because we can, and we wanted to take advantage of a world-class city and the proximity of the continent. But there was no, like, what I'd call overriding strategic imperative here. I still don't have a good answer for why we moved to London other than we could and we thought it would be good for the kids. Anyways, that's my TED Talk. It's interesting because quite a lot of Americans have moved recently. I think it's been more, you know, it's the highest on record number of Americans moving to the UK, sort of specifically. And I studied in the US.

I love the US. I think it stands for so many incredible things I love visiting um sort of grew up wanting to probably move there at some point but actually the older I've got I'm such a huge fan of London and of the UK um and of Europe. And I find the US culture is not something I could live in full time. Why is that? Pause there. Why? What is it about US culture that doesn't appeal to you? There's a few things. So one, I think the centrality of business and money is too much. I think it's important in London, but it's not the most important thing to everyone all the time. If you go to Silicon Valley, it's all that's talked about all the time. It often is quite direct, as you'll know, but sometimes it's even just like these indirect proxies for just, oh, we're still just talking about money here, really. I find that very distasteful, honestly.

It just doesn't interest me um that much so um in california specifically i think the kind of vast inequality is just too difficult to to sort of um cope with and it's been getting worse so this is sort of you know the introduction of my book i started it that way really as an excuse to start with a picture of George Harrison because I'm a big Beatles fan but um I was also making a serious point his dissolution from the San Francisco my dissolution from San Francisco um is just getting worse and worse over years so yeah I find that obsession with money and business like very very difficult and I think you know American politics and um the the divisiveness is difficult. I think we're really lucky in the UK. We have the BBC and a very well-regulated media environment. I'm sure I could get a lot of

pushback on the idea that it's very well-regulated, but compared to the US, it is very well-regulated, I think. And I think we have to guard that with everything that we have in the UK. But it means in the UK, there's still a sort of shared sense of truth or or sort of community um in that way so i i could go on but i don't want to keep being mean to a country that i do love and can think is really important but i could never ever live here it's really interesting yeah it's um so obviously you've never been to in and out burger or you would consider moving to california scott we have shake shack in london now so the only reason left to move to the U.S. is gone. Trust me. And In-N-Out is not as good as Shake Shack.

Me and my boys know about Shake Shack in the U.K., a U.S. company, by the way, and does not hold a candle to In-N-Out Burger. I will accept that we are culturally somewhat inferior and obsessed with money, but no, In-N- is is is the key not inferior scott it's just not my taste you tricked me there to get onto my favorite subject which is trying to feel you know a sense of superiority about the uk yeah very patriotic yeah it's it's

um it's really i'm glad we hooked you in with the football though that's oh it's incredible it's absolutely incredible It's absolutely incredible. I think that's what I'll remember most about the UK is just experiences at primarily games with my boys. around how, given the emergence of these new technologies in AI, such that they're AI literate, such that they're AI competent, such that they can use this as a weapon as they go into the work world. Where do you tell them to start? Is it taking classes? Is it just using these platforms? Coach your 22-year-old self on how to ensure that they don't get left behind and they're not obsolete at 30 or 35. Well, I try not to freak people out by putting that on the table as an option. And I find that kind of easy because I don't believe that if you're not an AI expert that you're going to be obsolete. I think that's for a few reasons, but the primary one

is because I think that other disciplines are just as critical to the sort of development and integration of AI as the AI subjects themselves. I mean, I absolutely love science and tech and it's why I spent most of my life working in it. But I think a cultural problem that we have given ourselves by putting tech on a pedestal is we've undervalued humanities degrees. We've undervalued other skills that people have. If you don't, you know, if you're not an engineer or a physicist, mathematician, software engineer, you know, then you're sort a engineer or a physicist mathematician software engineer you know then then you're sort of not worthy in this new economy and I just I just don't think that's true but my main advice is like pick the thing you're passionate about I think trying to force

yourself if you're not a technology expert to become one it's not really gonna be the thing that benefits you and gives you sort of a flourishing fulfilling career that i mean that's not what i did right i chose the things i was passionate about history and then politics and through politics i actually discovered by working on tech issues national security issues inside government i found my way to into technology so that is truthfully advice however i do think do think it's a great advantage if you can understand how the tech works. That doesn't mean you have to take a full course or you have to make it part of your degree. I think reading about it is important.

It's partly why I wrote the book. And I think having more people with different kind of perspectives and inputs and viewpoints is going to be actually the thing that gets us there in the long term. Verity Harding is a globally recognized expert in AI technology and public policy. She currently serves as the director of the AI and Geopolitics Project at Cambridge University's Bennett Institute for Public Policy and is the founder of Formation Advisory, a technology consultancy firm. Verity's debut book, AI Needs You, How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own, is out now. She joins us from the cultural wasteland known as New York City. So,

Verity, the way I would describe the difference, my distillation of the U.S. and the U.K. is that the U.S. is the best place to make money and Europe is the best place to spend it. What do you think? That's pretty fair. Pretty fair? Yeah, it's a fair summary. Yeah, I probably should have done that. Probably should have done that.

It's not too late. Something tells me you're in a pretty hot area. You are literally the most employable person I've ever met. Anyways, thanks for your time, Verity. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.

Algebra of happiness. Do you think of yourself as a confident man? I think of myself as a confident man. I'm unafraid. I've taken huge risks. I feel good about myself. You know, all that stuff. I have a lot of insecurities, but I think of myself as being confident. There's one area, though, that I'm not confident in, and that is, and it was ingrained in me, I'm not confident in expressing interest and emotion and admiration for other men. I was on the show Welcome to Wrexham, and I got to meet this guy, super impressive guy, this guy Rob McElhaney. He's also a TV star. He kind of has it all,

right? Super successful, super handsome, super talented. And by the way, it's the real deal. He wants, he's genuine about, he wants to leave the town of Wrexham a better place. He had this idea for starting a league in the US or a team, but he wanted it to be about economic rejuvenation. And this guy is just like kind of got it all. He's this, you know, man's man, cool guy, super into his family. And he texted me, and I don't think he'll be embarrassed about this because i'm obviously sheds him in a good light he texted me something along the lines we got to get together i just get the sense uh we'd be we'd be good friends and i try and collect those people and i thought jesus christ i'm fucking 59 i i have nowhere, nowhere near the confidence to say that to a strange man. I feel that. I meet men all the time and I think, God, I'd love to be friends with this guy. This guy,

I could learn so much from this guy. This guy is so impressive. This guy's funny. I'd just love to hang out with him. And I still, I just don't have that confidence to sort of, in an unsolicited way, reach out to someone and say, I'd like to be friends with you. And why is that? What gets in the way of us doing that? Because it gets in the way of relationships. The moment he said that, I immediately texted back and like, yeah, these are the dates I'm open. I'd love to hang out too. And I mean, it's like I'm back in high school and for some reason being, saying anything nice about anybody else somehow diminishes my worth, my social status, my masculinity. So I want you to join me. And I'm sure this is true for women as well, but not as much. Women seem to have an easier time. They're just so much more confident around building each other up. So this is the deal. I'm going to try and be more emotive. I'm going to try and be more expressive and more honest with people, men, that I find impressive

such that I can continue to add friendships to my life. So do what Rob does at an earlier stage. Have that confidence because I'm telling you, and there's a study here. I love this study. They found who are the most popular kids in high school. It's not the handsome ones. That helps, but that's not the primary driver. It's not the really smart ones. That helps.

Not the driver. The really cool ones? Nope. The most popular kids in school across all these different high schools were the kids that demonstrated the most affection and affinity for other kids. In some, they were the kids that liked the most other kids and expressed that, weren't afraid to go up to kids and say something nice or ask them to hang out. Because think about this, scan your emotions. What's the easiest way, the easiest way for you to like someone when it's obvious they like you, right? The easiest way to get someone to like

you is for you to like them. And I still don't have that confidence with other men. I have that with younger people. I have it with women. For some reason, I don't have it with men. So whatever your hangups are, realize our time is finite here and get more people to like you. That's a nice thing. And the easiest way we're going to do that is we're going to demonstrate more confidence and we're going to express interest and affection towards other people. We're going to like them. This episode was produced by Caroline Chagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for

No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show. Daddy doesn't sue supplements. This is all natural. Look at this. This is all natural. Hello.