Our AI Cold War

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Today, Explained 27 min 5 speakers 8 chapters transcribed
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Why is the United States in an AI race with China?

Sean Illing 0:00
American taxpayers funded a new
Donald Trump 0:02
ad for Donald Trump, I guess. Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country.
Sean Illing 0:13
Man, it sounds like he really doesn't like communism, but you'd never know from the big dinner he threw the world's most powerful communist last week. The president invited all of his tech broligarchs: Elon, Tim, Sunder, Mark, Jensen, Sam, Sergei. And you just know everyone was talking about AI because we're in a bit of an AI Cold War with China. But the president's no tech was. Everything's computer. That's why he has a human printer. Natalie! So, on today Explained from Box, we're gonna talk about Trump's AI whistle. China's AI ambitions and whether there's any room for safety between the two.
Unknown 0:59
We all know the Beach Boys, but to really understand them, you have to get to know the genius behind their songs, Brian Wilson. I'm Will Anderson, and this week on the Monday Music Club podcast, we dive into the history behind two of his masterpieces, the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds and their song Good Vibrations. I was joined by Brian's biographer David Leaf, and we went through what drove Brian, what it was like in the studio during those sessions, and why the pressure of following them up made Brian have to take a Step back from music. You can listen to the episode everywhere you get your podcast by searching for Monday Music Club. Everything
Sean Illing 1:33
Eeeh.

How is David Sacks shaping Donald Trump’s AI policy?

Sean Illing 1:37
Today explained Sean Romsterm here with senior correspondent at Vox, Andrew Prokop. Andrew, what is Donald Trump's plan when it comes to AI?
Andrew Prokop 1:46
Uh first of all, it's not AI, it's SI. Trump has decided to rename artificial intelligence superintelligence because he thinks artificial intelligence makes people think it's fake or phony or something.
Donald Trump 1:59
And it is not fake. It's actually Amazing.
Andrew Prokop 2:03
So th there's a rebranding underway.
Donald Trump 2:05
From this point forward, all of United States documents and hopefully the worlds will be changed to use the much more accurate term. Super as opposed to artificial. So it's super intelligence.
Andrew Prokop 2:20
He loves it. He thinks it's wonderful. He wants to let it rip.
Donald Trump 2:25
In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence dash SI. S I's
Andrew Prokop 2:31
all full steam ahead.
Sean Illing 2:36
And you recently wrote for our yellow website that a lot of this is on account of because of a podcast host named David Sachs. Who is David Sachs?
Andrew Prokop 2:48
David Sacks, he's probably the most important. person advising Trump on AI right now.
Donald Trump 2:56
He's worth a fortune. He's he's made a lot of money. He's a very rich he's a very rich billionaire.
Andrew Prokop 3:02
Sachs, you know, he's a longtime Silicon Valley figure, a venture capitalist. You know, basically in the 2020s he became much more politically outspoken. He started co-hosting this podcast, the all-in podcast with three other venture capitalists. All right everybody welcome back Back to the number one podcast in the world,
Sean Illing 3:19
the all-in podcast in the news.
Chamath Palihapitiya 3:21
He
Andrew Prokop 3:21
took a hard
Chamath Palihapitiya 3:22
turn against woke. The woke mind virus almost requires this whitewashing of the past, but it's against Democrats. All I can say to these establishment Democrats is play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Andrew Prokop 3:35
Gradually sort of made the transition to outright support of Donald Trump during the 2024 election. He hosted a fundraiser for Trump at his house. And uh then when Trump won, he named David Sachs the White House uh czar of artificial intelligence and crypto.
Chamath Palihapitiya 4:00
Everything changed after President Trump came on my podcast. And uh I, you know, I accepted this job as cryptozar because I thought it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for
Andrew Prokop 4:09
So Sachs served in that position for a little over a year. Now he's back outside government, but he still has major influence through his connections in the valley and his ability to call Trump up on the phone.
Sean Illing 4:22
Call me on my cell phone number. Yeah, I believe we talked about Sachs back when he was still in the White House.
Rihanna Cruz 4:30
Okay, so David Sachs goes from outside of the Washington, DC establishment into a role in the White House, in the Trump White House.
Sean Illing 4:40
What are Sachs' feelings about how the government should regulate AI?

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