Pivot · May 24, 2024

Scarlett vs. OpenAI, Nvidia's Numbers, and Guest Julia Angwin

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 55:57. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Scott Galloway · 55:57 AI doesn't get out in front of us, and we reinvest in some of the harm. So I'm I'm focused on the externalities and how we early on decide to put a tax on compute. Kara Swisher · 56:05 Let's talk about the TikTok ban, which you think is a mistake. You and Scott are actually participating to Byte last month before the law passed. Latest TikTok's parent company ByteDance asked an appeals court to speed up its lawsuit challenging the new law in a filing Friday. Eight TikTok creators have also sued the government last week, claiming law violates their First Amendment rights. TikTok is also reportedly planning global layoffs of its operating and marketing workforce. There's some downturn in the usage, by the way, that that... Or flattening at least. So give your best... Your last best shot here, Julia, of why this should not have passed because it has. Guest · 56:39 Well, first of all, I do wanna say Scott and I did this one hour debate on TikTok ban. And the... Then the audience voted, and it was eighty twenty for Scott. So Kara Swisher · 56:52 I Scott. Guest · 56:53 Okay. So I was fully trounced. Scott Galloway · 56:55 Yeah. That's okay. Off, that's not true. It's it's it's changed dramatically. That was, like, when... I think that's when five people voted in the first four whatever, like, Guest · 57:04 me. Changed? Yeah. Oh, okay. I see. Scott Galloway · 57:05 Come it's come way down. It's coming down. Kara Swisher · 57:07 Alright. Okay. Guest · 57:08 And, but, basically, my feeling is that, like, we should regulate algorithms and privacy. Those are our concerns about TikTok, and we're failing to do those. And I am concerned. Right? Like, we are in a situation where there's probably two outcomes. One here is... There's maybe three if the constitutional lawsuits win, which I feel like it's probably shaky. So I feel like there's two outcomes, which is one, it shuts down because China's basically threatening to walk away and... Or it gets bought, the list of buyers is just a bunch of billionaires with political agendas. So I don't feel like we win. Right? We have Steven Mnuchin or Bobby Bobby Kotick or, you know, there's people who want to buy it and they are going to use it to push what they want. So I don't think we really get any... We might get to a slightly better place or maybe it's not China's agenda, but like, it's still gonna be someone's political agenda. And that is the problem with all of these platforms is they have such a power to control speech. And that's the issue that think we should be focusing on. Kara Swisher · 58:03 Well said. The vote was 59% Scott, 41% Julia, just so you know. This is among debates. Scott Galloway · 58:08 What do you think? If you were advising the White House and it did get to the point where, and it wasn't overturned by the courts, and you wanted to ensure that we don't continue to march down this road of a few billionaires or a few very wealthy people imposing their own political views on the populace, how would you advise them to Kara Swisher · 58:26 because that's never happened in media. But go ahead. Go ahead. Scott Galloway · 58:28 Well... But that's Julia's point. Right? That it keeps happening, but this time it could happen at a dangerous scale. Right? This is this is more than Bloomberg News, which nobody... Quite frankly, very few people watch. And so what what would you... What what guardrails, if any, do you think we could put in in terms of they're gonna have input into who... If in fact this holds up in court, and and a lot of people say that it won't. But assuming it does hold up in court and they are forced forced to divest it, what guardrails would you want... Would you advise Biden to put in place in terms of the ultimate new owner? Guest · 59:03 I mean, I think that this one... Look. I'm not a policy expert, so there's probably people who have better ideas than me. But my idea is that we, the users, should have control of our algorithms. We should have a dial where we can turn it to, like, you want all pro, you know, Israel, you want all pro Palestinian, like, just turn the knob. Right? Because that takes it out of the company, and it takes it out of government because we don't feel comfortable with government controlling those knobs because we believe in free speech. But I don't really love companies doing that either. And the reality is it's actually the companies can provide us those dials and they refuse to. And I... Europe has actually passed a law giving slight control, basically saying there has to be at least one alternative algorithm, but essentially, all they give you is the chronological feed. And I think that, like, if we took the control back of those algorithms, a lot of our problems with social media would be solved. Not all of them, but it would be a very good start. Scott Galloway · 59:57 But have you thought about... I I understand the rationale there, but that kind of scares me because I think the point of good media is that it moves my dial. That it says, Scott, you're... You have a bias here, and your bias is leading you to false or or hollow conclusions. It's bad for you and bad for the world. Do you think there's an opportunity for organizations like yours to come up with some sort of index that these companies use or don't use that say... Like, there's mandatory labeling or disclosure now on, you know, on on food. Do you think we could ever get to a point where maybe a company like yours issues sort of a... I don't wanna call it a truth index, but a fact checking index? Guest · 1:00:33 Yeah. I do think labeling is really important intervention. The... Some of the Facebook files that were released by Francis Hougan, the whistleblower, actually were about labeling, and they were pretty interesting internal studies showing how effective they are. And so I think it is an underused, intervention. I guess I get... I always get worried about the government doing the labeling. And so I think you're right. It would have to be independent, and then we'd have to figure out how to do that. But that is also a great additional piece. I think you do need... But I actually think... I will say this. I think that having to set your dial, like, my parents had to set the dial to be like, okay, I want pro MAGA, it would actually be at least something in their heads to... They'd have to acknowledge it. You know? Externalizing it does give you that Scott Galloway · 1:01:19 I'm in a bubble, but it's my bubble. Kara Swisher · 1:01:20 My bubble. Yeah. Right. Guest · 1:01:21 So I wonder Kara Swisher · 1:01:22 what Scott's dial would look like. I don't even think about it. Scott Galloway · 1:01:25 Emily Rodikowski. Kara Swisher · 1:01:26 That's my bubble. That's all I want. Scott Galloway · 1:01:28 That's my bubble. Kara Swisher · 1:01:29 Julie, this is really interesting. We have to go, though, but I just wanna read one more mistake from... I think this is Google. Yes. The yakuza have a presence in The United States with around 80,000 members, mainly on the West Coast in Hawaii. They're known for smuggling methamphetamine and weapons, white collar crimes, and connections with the Colorado higher education system. And then someone writes, sorry, run that last part by me Yes. Well Go Google. Guest · 1:01:57 Go Google. Great product search that you... Everyone has loved, and just put some garbage right at top. Yeah. Well, Kara Swisher · 1:02:05 garbage in, garbage out. Anyway, I really appreciate it, Julia, you're a wonderful reporter. Guest · 1:02:10 Thank you Kara Swisher · 1:02:10 so much for work. Check out her work at proof news dot org and in the opinion section in the New York Times where she's angering Internet people everywhere. Scott Galloway · 1:02:19 Good to see you, Julia. Congrats on your Guest · 1:02:21 time. Footsteps, Karen. Kara Swisher · 1:02:22 Well, you're doing a better job. Guest · 1:02:24 Great. Thank you so much. Take care. Kara Swisher · 1:02:27 Alright. That was great. Julia is so smart. Speaker · 1:02:28 Oh, she's always... She was always the smartest person. Scott Galloway · 1:02:30 It's nice. It's inspiring that Kara Swisher · 1:02:31 It is. Scott Galloway · 1:02:32 It's inspiring that people like that give up... You know, quite frankly, up economic opportunity and influence and status and vanity to do to do that kind of work. Kara Swisher · 1:02:41 She's just very tough, but not tisk tisk. You know what I mean? She just lays it out, and I... And she's sunny about it. You know? Hopeful. Scott Galloway · 1:02:47 She she kind of reeks of integrity. It's just sort of like you get this... Sure sure. She might be wrong every once in a while, but she's... Her heart's in the right place, and she's trying to find... She's she's trying to pursue the truth, right, which is what, you know, I think I think good journalists, try to do. Anyways, I'm a I'm a... I like that she's doing that. I would love to see... I mean, think about think about the the labeling disclosure requirements, and some people think it's overregulated around food. You know, just the calorie intake that... You know, just say... Read the back of any any food product and just how much information they have to disclose. And I think you could now argue that the data you're getting on your diet of sixteen hours a day of digital, the fact that it has absolutely no labeling, it doesn't tell you that it was altered by AI. It doesn't tell you that this is just not accurate, that there is no proof that mRNA vaccines alter your DNA. That is not... That is very suspect. So it would be really interesting if you could find maybe a basket of companies that issue... And you can choose which ones you you want labeled, or you could hide the label. But I love the idea of some sort of FDA, like, labeling on the information that that people are consuming all day long. Kara Swisher · 1:04:01 Yeah. Alright, Scott. One more... I agree with you. One more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Speaker · 1:04:10 Chronic migraine, fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. [Ad break] Speaker · 1:05:04 Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit botoxchronicmigraine.com, or call 4 to learn more. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 1:06:14 Okay, Scott. Let's hear a prediction. Scott Galloway · 1:06:16 Well, I I mean, I do think this OpenAI, this second deal with News Corp, it's setting a precedence. I do think you're going to see media companies that have a lot of rich data to be crawled are gonna kind of feel feel their mojo and and get serious and maybe be able to say... Have confidence to say, no. I'll see what Meta says or I'll see what what Anthropic says. And the result will be... I think there's an an investing opportunity. This is not financial advice. I'm just thinking out loud. But companies such as Gannett, they produce a massive amount of content every day in local markets, and it's a shitty business. And disclosure, I was an investor in the debt. I'm no longer an investor there. But I think companies like Gannett... I also think a company that I am an investor in, Yahoo. I think companies that generate a tremendous amount of relatively good content are gonna find they have access to new cash flow streams. I do... Because a bidding war might break out for the few remnant companies, and there'll be different models. You can either lease it. For an exclusive, you're gonna have to pay up. But I think you're gonna see a mini boom in some smaller media companies such as Gannett or Yahoo or or scale companies when the marketplace recognizes they're in now in a position to command a new source of revenue that's very, very high margin. I think there's an investment opportunity here. Kara Swisher · 1:07:44 I agree with you. I think it's really interesting, and we'll see who who else settles. It'd be interesting to see what Barry Dillard does at Scripps, and some other ones, you know, who have been more hostile. I don't think host... Hostility is just just a negotiating ploy. Scott Galloway · 1:07:57 But but what about Simon and Kara Swisher · 1:07:58 I think that Scott Galloway · 1:07:59 this is, yeah, this is where it gets weird. And then how much of that do we get? Right? Or Penguin probably has 20% of the written word out there right now in terms of sales, maybe 30%. What happens when Penguin Peptoria Random House does a deal for $200,000,000 or 500,000,000 with with with, Anthropic, how much do their authors get? I... It's it's gonna be very Kara Swisher · 1:08:23 kind of... You know, they can do deals with everybody. It doesn't necessarily have to be exclusive because it could be more like the way songwriters get paid. You know what I mean? Like, that's really... That's the... And that's the clearing... There'll be a clearinghouse. And, you know, I... I'm guessing we've given away our rights, probably. I mean, you know, you think about that. It's probably somewhere [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:08:40 do get rights on the back end. Kara Swisher · 1:08:41 Yeah. That's true. Scott Galloway · 1:08:42 When it goes above a certain sales, does this qualify as back end Kara Swisher · 1:08:45 sales? Exactly. It should be... For creators, they should... We should be consulting our lawyers right now. Scott Galloway · 1:08:50 Let's let's call Scarjo's lawyer. Kara Swisher · 1:08:52 Let's call Scarjo's lawyer. Anyway, great prediction. That's a really good one. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 Okay, Scott. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday with more pivot and stories of the view if you come back alive. — Predictions segment ends — Scott Galloway · 1:09:12 Today's show is produced by Lara Niemann, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Inderthot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Saberio. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. 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