johnson. for hope.e the case why is hope important question mark is there a difference between faith and hope? >> we have got to fight for it. so i think that everybody who came out on the streets and saw those early days, this cannot be the best system that we have got come but we can make something. i am always mindful. the tax bill, if they can write the tax bill on the back of scrap paper, do not tell me we have to wait. that was a clear and present reminder. people made this up. we can do something different. we can actually do it very quickly. watch this weekend on c-span2. announcer: next, look at technology with the open ai chairman at an event in san francisco.

this is one hour, 20 minutes. so we are going to kind of move chronologically here, and i want you rise, for those in the audience have not been in conversations with you already and have not met you, talk about , when they- utopia thought about how technology and the world wide web would interact with politics. what did you think was going to happen with the intersection of tech and politics? >> i think the thought was that they knew what they were doing. a lot of things get written after the become billionaires or after the become successful, but having in their, and i worked for "the washington post" when the internet was born, not as it was born, but it was there as a government entity, but when it was commercialized for the first time when they released it, and there was legislation that i covered, and al gore -- that is how i met him, because was a

principal senator behind it, and he invented the internet and was integral to that, and so you imagine that people have great thoughtfulness towards what was going to happen or the implication, and they absolutely did not, and i think that is the lie that is now being borne out today, that you think that mark zuckerberg, for example, to name someone who is plunging towards disaster right now, had an idea of what was going to happen. i do that think they had any idea whatsoever, and as they designed these systems, in a way, if you had an idea of what was going to happen or any kind of anticipation, you might have made different choices in the way they were built. >> i just think people knew what was going to happen because it is unimaginable what has happened. 14 years ago, facebook was a website in mark zuckerberg's dorm room. this bead and the size and the impact that has happened, i

think we have lived through one of the three great technological revolutions in history, and the rate of change of technology is so much faster than the rate of change of people, certainly of evolution, but even now we can update our own thought processes. i agree that people did not think about what was going to happen, but he was not out of any malice. it was just that it was hard to -- i remember what it was like in the beginning. it is hard to imagine that it got this big, that it went this well. when you're saying "they did not have malice," that is a pretty low art. thoughtlessness can have the same amount of damage, and my issue with a lot of it is as it began to develop, they pretended that they did not have that power, the power and money that they were collecting, so this

continued and continues today with the people who run -- what has gone wrong is when it became clear that it was going to be as big as it has become, people did not stop and say, ok, what do we do now? but in the beginning, when people were looking at the internet and going to do, i do not think anyone would have predicted this. it would have been hard. >> i remember when i first moved here, i went to noise bridge, hackers who were talking going i do not about how we're not going to have government. breakl free everyone and our chains, and wasn't there this kind of undercurrent who thought of technology as a way to break down the systems of power? >> well, unusual, because it was all white men, so really, the most under siege people on the planet. [laughter] no. so i am going to say no to that one. >> that is a hard know -- no to

that one. >> i had written a book by aol. -- about aol. and i came here because i was hired by "the wall street journal" to cover it, and it was not even called the internet. it was online services, and when i got the job, a lot of the media reporters said, "you're radio," and icb said, "no, i am here to cover what will decimate all of your industries." and what was interesting is you got a front row seat. i remember going -- by the way, google did not even exist for a long time when i was here, but marcs mark and recent --

andreessen. bezos. it was really early on. >> part of why i wanted to do this conversation with you guys as relates to civic engagement, we are living in a time when people have a lot of anger, tension, anxiety around how technology has affected our politics. specifically, the 2016 election, so one of the first questions i want to ask is do you think people would be feeling this way if hillary clinton had won? >> yes, but they would be different people. 50% of the country. a different 50%. tried to -- because part of it was that the russians co-opted our technology in order to make it so donald trump could win, so this tool that was supposed to help us is messing everything up, and if donald trump had won, even given that

-- i am sorry, if hillary clinton had won, do you think there would be this much angst and anxiety? >> i do. thoughte people who there were other powerful things trying to get her to win. i think there were people on both sides trying to use the platforms to influence. remember, it was only two election cycles ago when candidates were saying, well, we do not have to think about digital at all. i will just buy television ads. this bead at which it has changed politics and the degree to which i think most -- the speed at which it has changed politics and the degree to which i think is a lot. that change had not happened so quickly in politics. -- i always believed people when they say they are angry. i think that is always true, but it is difficult to know why

you're angry. i think you see that when people talk about technology in the 2016 election. something's have changed in what i would say is a bad way or a different way, but it is hard to precisely articulate what that is and what we are going to do about it. >> look. donald trump is very good at the internet, and brad parcell, even though he is a loathsome creature, he is his campaign manager for trump and was digital director, and he is the one who really did understand how to use and target people and really in some nefarious ways and some very effective ways appealed to fear and anger, targeted people online, and use these services the way you would sell cookies or a movie, something like that, really did understand. i think the clinton campaign was operating in an old style, a digital style, and so was the democratic party, and one thing that was striking, a couple of

cycles, it was howard dean and joe what's his name, trippi. .e had him one year he had done some of the early digital stuff for howard dean, which was effective initially, but the problem was not everybody had a cell phone, not everybody was online, and things like that, and the people we interviewed back then, one of the things that is interesting when you think about it, for much of the 20th century, most of the media outlets were liberal, liberal or left center, buter left, centrist, certainly not conservative, and so even though they say, you know, we are fair, they were liberal, essentially, and the right wing did not have a place until online, and so they got very good at it very early, because they were the out of power people, and so they moved to cable, fox news. it is hard to think of it now, but cable was an outlying medium

back then, and the same thing with the internet. they use the internet very well, and they learned to communicate very well, and then they learned how to use it in a more nefarious way. tooo you think we move fast? how much has changed in 15 years, do you think things needed to catch up and we should have gone slower? is that even possible? sam: i would love it if that were possible, but the world that we have, the fastest moving company tends to win. the company that gets the most ,kill and prints the fastest and there are some negative consequences, and i think we are all now wrestling with what to do with that, but i think it is like it is very hard to stop progress. that probably will not work, and i think what we can do and what i think we need to figure out how to do now is how do we as a

society adapt more quickly when the world can change so fast? i think it is better to try to get asked her at society correcting than trying to slow down technological progress, and we so far have been very bad at that. kara: you are talking like we do not have control about this. we have not done this. certain people have done this. they run these companies. what is interesting about silicon valley that i have covered is that when there are successes, we sort of celebrate these people like they are geniuses. i always say they tell me -- they spent all day telling me how smart they are, continually. not you, sam, you are lovely. [laughter] kara: again, low bar. sam: i will take it. >> you take it. kara: write it down and keep going.

tell you how smart they are, and then when things go wrong, they moved into the "we." you notice that with zuckerberg. noticed that? "we want to work together with the community to fix this," and i am, "but you own the community, and you own 60%, and you're the ceo, chairman, and the founder, and you have unprecedented power over this organization which you have no ability to run, and yet, the people should work together." it is hysterical to watch. >> i have a question for you. you think mark zuckerberg should be the one to determine who gets to say stuff? should.s, i think he he built this. this is his product. this is not the government get this is a for-profit company, of which mark zuckerberg is now a $64 billionaire.

un-tillable. unfirable.le, i said something last week about you makes "wolverine" together with another. not agree with that, clearly. kara: gulbis for a second. i am a little warm it. i have to change brands. shot on tv. did you get it? >> i got it. some people call it changing t-shirts. you call a changing brands. kara: changing brands. it scares me to think that a

small number of people not get to exist two exist online, so i would welcome for decisions on who gets a megaphone about who can say what, but it is surprising to hear people who are usually very far left to say they want the companies to make these rules, not that we want a government. do youoing it forever, have a problem when the new york times did it? it was like 12 white guys on the upper east or west side in new york who would decide what was on the front page of "the new york times." this is not different. what is different is the unprecedented size and influence and impact and amplification of the situation, but it is not dissimilar from the people who ran cbs and abc and nbc when there were only three networks. >> we had the three heads of those networks deciding what people got to hear. kara: that has always been the

world. sam: that does not mean we should not shoot for something better. what? power in the hands of a small group of people who are typically the same group, and then the discussion turns to say, right now, for example, the discussion is around tribalism, like there is so much tribes. the issue is not tribalism. the issue is the system sucks for most people. these platforms, the people building them have never felt unsafe in their life for one second, so what happens -- i was with someone from twitter, and they suddenly had gotten attacked online or something. he had suddenly gotten strafed, and they said, this is really hard, and i said, "welcome to the rest of the world for women, sos, and the rest of us," what happens is the diversity at the top is lacking.

if there was a more diverse top, you would get a very different outcome. differentall for the -- i am all for way more investment to fix harassment and discrimination online for you i think that is a huge problem. for all that tec has done wrong, for those people who have been denied a voice -- for all that has done wrong, for all of those people who have been denied a voice, for all of those things that have gone wrong, and for all of the ways we have not yet figured out how to adapt to these, which is huge, the fact that everyone in the world has access to a platform and a voice, we have seen a change. >> think about the decoder pipeline, police brutality. pipeline, police brutality. kara: it is owned by the same people. the mendid a piece on

and women of facebook, and i put up their pictures, and it was guy, guy, white guy, white asian guy, and someone said that was really we did another woman they did the work on facebook. -- when we did a rework on facebook. jime were more people named then there are women, something like that. as for people of color, that was the only difference. it was ridiculous. jimit was insanity that if youk at this, these management they don't run facebook. these different groups can do things, but they don't own google. >> hypothetical, tonight, something changed. randy's companies

represented the public, what do you think would change in politics? >> it would be a change in internet, it would be much better. the need forainst greater diversity and leadership? chamber that echo civic discourse online is 30, difficult, is ad hominem, is not particularly productive, my question is how does a more diverse top make -- >> politics is about power. that's what i think it is about, who has it and who doesn't, and who is allowed to wield it and do things. these jobs have real-world implications. matter, and the people that aren't in power matter. that includes ownership of the companies and who is running them. you are making enormous efforts to try to diversify the pool.

>> diversifying our partnership is reflected in a more diverse step away, i believe this works. i do think it's someone separate -- it's not the only way to make the platforms work better. government regulation about how and onlineiscourse harassment, and what you are allowed to say or not that's, another way to do it. i will always be more comfortable at that than no matter what people look like in absolute power for ever and unfindable -- gunfire able -- unfireable. >> both of you independently>> came to me and say you thought about running for political office. you were considering maybe running. we talked about it. ofning for governor california, and we talked about

running for mayor of san francisco. i would like awesome, how can i help? tell me about why you were thinking about running for office, and why you chose not to. >> i was thinking about it, inause i think the state is a bad place, particularly when it comes to cost of living and housing. if that doesn't get fixed, the state is going to evolve into a very unpleasant place. come to believe is you cannot have social justice without economic justice. and justice in california feels unattainable. it will take someone with no loyalties to very powerful interest groups -- i would not groups, maybe the i can try a couple of variable things. >> you are like bloomberg, that and the obsession with coca-cola. >> the reasons i didn't --

>> brought to you by coca-cola. [laughter] >> i don't think i have enough experience to do it. maybe i can do a few things. i would not know how to deal with the other things that need to happen. more importantly, i wanted to spend my time trying to make sure we get artificial intelligence built in a good way, which is the most important problem in the world to me. i was willing to set aside that. i want unmitigated power to screw people -- [laughter] >> i love the honesty. >> limousines idling in front of my house, things like that. to get thrown out of office in a dramatic fashion.

why didn't you do it? >> i don't know. i was complaining too much, and i thought this is ridiculous. after the trump election, i thought if this idiot can get elected, i can. it was things -- the brakes were off, something had changed with him. if i can pla pay him a small company, it would be he is unhinged, everything -- it's not necessarily a bad thing. the people that would have never run before hand, there are millions that are changing the way they think about their interaction politics because of it. >> i think it was similar. now that the fantastic squad of

ladies run by alexandria conseil cortez, and they have a squad, i want to join that squad. if i have to run for congress, i figure they will let the old white lady in, let's have her for humor. for a longd here time, i figured it was important that instead of complaining about things, do something about it. we have a new mayor, no one thought the former mayor would die like that. they thought we should give this made her a chance. it's important not just to be difficult to run. >> we will ask one or two more questions, then open it up to q&a. here's what will happen. i will ask you each individual questions, then a final question. your first op-ed in the new york times was entitled "mark zuckerberg and the expensive education."

>> i meant for the rest of us, not for him. he's a nice man. he's personally nice, but he is causing enormous damage. if you listen to it, everyone is focused on the holocaust deniers they don't mean to lie, and i said they do me to lie, they mean to lie a lot. that was something insane to say, but it got a lot of the attention. mark zuckerberg never getting on a stage with me, last time he almost sweated to death, this time he just defended holocaust deniers. wonder how they get him to say things like that. thing i was most disturbed by, i kept pressing him on the

impact of his inventions, that they had made these pretty sloppy rules in these countries, and these products were not sought out properly, introduced properly, didn't have the proper people in place to manage it, and people died, and how he felt about that. made this badly and there were real-life consequences. what he said was -- he goes " what i'm really interested in is solutions, solutions are what i like to do. we should fix the situation. we should fix it." i said i got back, but you caused the problem. six times i asked him the same question. i want to know how he thought about it. " if i was in his issues and had billions of people, i have all these things weighing on my shoulders how could he let -- >> he wouldn't be able to make

it through the day. >> he took the money and the job. he is an adult. stop treating him like he's a juvenile. this poor boy, it's so hard for him. my kids can take more pressure than he can. i asked him six times, it went on for a while. he kept saying we have to fix the solution, but he caused the problem, i asked how he felt about it. he finally got exasperated. asked what i wanted him to say, i said how about "i'm sorry that i cause people to die because of what i did." secondly, "i wonder if i was capable of handling this thing, if i'm the right person to do this, because it has real-world implication." i asked who should be fired for this.

he said i guess me, because i'm the ceo and founder because i control it, i'm the chairman. he goes "do you want me to fire myself?" i said that would be fine. i just want them to understand the implications. >> we can actually solve the problem? to wholeuckerberg went ie and said he was done, we still have billions. it doesn't matter what he posts has tens of thousands of people attacking each other about brett kavanaugh, palestine, sexual assault, it's this whirlpool of hate -- he's the one that starts it, but if he was replaced by someone else, would people still be -- >> i don't know. i think he needs help with a lot of people who have more global viewpoints that may be are not living in the bubble of palo alto that have a bigger idea of

things, that understand ethical issues. these are ethical, societal, philosophical issues. if you know them, they are lovely people, but ill-equipped to deal with. >> i want to make two points for clarity. it's a shame that he didn't start that with i'm sorry, which is the obvious human reaction. it.t the feeling he felt i think there's sometimes such an adversary relationship between people and the people asking them questions, i wish he had done that. i want to believe that's what he felt. i want to be clear that i do think we need to adapt these platforms and rules and how we use them much faster. when it you give everyone a voice, you get great and terrible behavior. it's easy in stories to categorize people, we as humans

like the stories where people are clearly the hero or the case.n, that's never the there is good and evil in everybody and everything. i think we need to get -- people are dying, and we need to address that much faster with more seriousness than we have been. i believe we can, but i think it will take work we are not currently doing. i think it's easy to talk about how people aren't dying. it's important to talk about how people are living. i grew up gay in the midwest in the 90's and early 2000's. i was not very good. without the internet, i'm not sure i would have made it through that. that transformed me. personally, it transformed gay people on the world. you can see that for many other groups that had been oppressed with no voice for a long time. i have no doubt many people have lived because of facebook, as well.

>> i get that, but it's how they are building the structure. nicole wong, a fantastic and smart person, she was a lawyer for them. we did an interview where she talked about the pillars they built these things on. the pillar for google was context, authenticity, and something else -- you pick the choices you make to build the structure. what facebook has been built on -- i'm using it because it's the biggest, twitter is its own cesspool of mass, but it's actually fun in a lot of ways. today was really fun. you build it on certain things. what facebook is built on is in virality, speed, and engagement. when you build it on those emesis, guess what you get? precisely what you get. fake news, hatred, if you built it around community, context,

authentic connections, that's different. it's not as lucrative a business. >> is deeply troubles me, it should trouble everyone that these companies have teams of people that figure out how to exploit our systems, and you get what you expect to get out of that. there's more good than bad that comes from this. if i can push a button and make facebook products disappear, i wouldn't -- twitter, maybe. i'm joking about that. -- andue we have gotten we need to a depth, it's happened much faster than human society has been able to adapt to so far. -- it'sincredible good easy to get lost in the discussion. >> based on your comments, you are both leaders, thinking of the future, talking to people at the core of this. based on those conversations, where do you see this going? are we on the edge of a

precipice that will get worse? are people really waking up to the issues that these tools and taking serious concrete steps to solving them? >> i wish i could say that, but a lot of stuff out of facebook is "we are the victims here." i have never seen this insane of a reaction. tookntrast of google, they -- the employees said this is not how we want to run a company. facebook employees are more doubtful. they must -- i should run facebook because i have read "1984."

[laughter] in any case, -- what was your point? if there's anything to happen -- i think congress is going to insert himself. the fact that lindsey graham will have any say is to serving. these people in congress -- i have spent a lot of time in washington visiting them. there are a few senators, senator warner, senator byrd, senator bennett, a couple are pretty intelligent. >> i think we are going to get this result, but i think we have lost sight of what is really important.

i think we are living on an exponential curve of technology, and the rate of change has increased. every decade, it will keep changing. what we are in right now, which feels like the most important and technical issues we will face, will turn out to be nothing but a warm-up for what we will deal with in the next couple of years. this, which seems like this absolute meltdown, there can be nothing more important, nothing harder, we are going to look back at it with fondness in the way that we look back at previous presidents now, and say remember when life was so simple? the next round of issues will be what does it mean when anyone genome? anyone else's what does it mean when we have artificial intelligence smarter than humans in every way? these will make the issues of today look like try. we wish we had to deal with today. >> the changes in transportation, robotics,

genes and dna. frightening, in terms of who determines these things and the impact it has on society. >> the thing that's always hard with exponential curve, is it looks forward -- when you look back, then it looks vertical. it always feels like the most important thing ever. in that sense, it's always true. if you don't look forward, if we get caught up in the stuff happening now and miss these questions, really get to fundamental questions of what humanity will look like, what it means to be human, what the world will look like in 30 years, which is an recognizably different. i'm confident we will adjust the current issues, i'm not confident will be able to address the future once. too.rveillance>>, what does a chinese driven internet look like?

it's an interesting question. it's hard to think about. the surveillance stuff coming, the sensors, the stuff you put in your body, things like that. it will be altering your own body. a packede speaking to house in san francisco, and the american public on c-span. you have open ai and are involved in these questions. is there anything we can do right now, other than sit and wait for this technology to be developed and hope it doesn't destroy us? what can we actually do? >> not watch "black mirror." [laughter] >> i think sci-fi is really important to watch. [laughter] >> not the pig one. don't see that one. do,n terms of what we can't people can participate, get involved.

there are talks about how tech company leadership is overwhelmingly male, and that is true. the most skewed field i know of right now is machine learning phd's, which are by graduation -- graduation return 90%-99 present. that is the group of people that will have the most effect on the future of the world we live in. what we can do is get involved. we can encourage a much broader, more diverse group of people to go into the field and other fields. we can start societal conversations now, before we are reacting from the other side like we are with how social used.gets we can start conversations about what decisions to make, what we want society to look like, before we make these changes. which ones should we try to stop? which ones should we do more of? are they good, are they bad? i don't know how to do that. society is good at reacting to

yesterday's problems, and bad at investing huge amounts of time, energy, and thought into the problems that will occur in 10 years. >> are you the chair of open ai? are you supposed to be thinking -- >> i'm trying to. i'm trying to make it my major focus. that's why i'm not ready for governor. [laughter] >> i am going to mars with elon musk. >> that does not sound very fun. >> he's so much fun. >> he is very fun. [laughter] >> we have no feared off-topic. -- veered off topic. i think it's time. we will open it up to audience questions. here's how it is going to work. we have a wireless mic. i will point to you, then hand it to you. a specificsk question to one or the other, that way we get more questions. let them know who it is, then pass the mic back up.

>> please say your name and stand up. first question will be over there. doing work helping communities and organizations figure out how to effectively deal with sexual predators when , withre identified possibility of applying restorative justice when it's appropriate, particularly for lower-level offenses or miscommunications. i'm curious to hear from both of you how you would like to see us shift how we respond to accusations in the #metoo era. we haven't quite started out as far as i can tell. >> you take that one.

are reaching a really interesting point in the #metoo stuff. i don't know if you read the ones in the new york times today. it is kind of low-level -- just corruption on his part, the way he is trying to cover up in order to get the money he wants. it's a big question. these stories go around the world so quickly, everything gets amplified so quickly, then people get exhausted by the amount of discussion. what's really important is the should haven, voices and be heard. the story should be heard. we did when wegs covered the ellen pao trial, which we were good on, one of the things i did as an editor is like the cover it

super bowl. we had five stories a day on it. we decided to put a lot of attention, then we had two reporters on it. we covered it in a lot of different aspects. we did blogged, everything. we thought it was an important , power,tion of sexism money, and influence, stuff like that. when you have things like twitter, things just -- it exhausts people. it becomes noisy, then the real point -- you can't have a substantive discussion about problems. everybody feels in a crouch position and doesn't know what to do. legitimate stories, everyone can't say anything, women now want to talk a lot and

about it. there are so many different stories. you have the cable stations doing different things, then it becomes a circus. it's really hard not to betweeny -- not to be twitchy in terms of how you behave. system, the the system is broken in a way that doesn't allow -- it's broken people.certain certain people stay in power, those people stay in power, they will not give it up willingly. how do you change the systems at their very core? it's really a super difficult problem, from my perspective. the most expertise is not sort about lower status, fema fenders in the port -- female founders in the portfolio, there is a huge way to go. belief about how that

problem is actually starting to get solved is the lps that give their money to invest. now that they have decided to demand reporting and transparency on this, it's the first time i am actually seeing the industry take this sufficiently seriously. i have an unusual perspective on this whole thing. i was both harassed 15 years ago, it's stuck in memory. i'm friends with a lot of powerful man in washington, d.c. on the other side of this. i feel i see both sides of this. at this point, a common complaint about the female c's will notmale v engage with them in any way other than a conference room during the day with the door open with people in there. that is a huge disservice to women in technology. how that gets fixed, i hear about it, i understand why people have the risk profile they do.

when i say don't be a -- then you will be fine 99% of the time. it was a what about the 1%, i will not take that risk. the current state, it's clearly better than women being harassed, but it's deeply unfair to women. i don't know how you turn that around. people say that to me. what if someone says anything? don't grab there --, how about that? don't kiss them, don't ask them out on a date. i'm on your side, i just don't know how to make it happen. >> it's such a vast overreaction by men. women don't go around doing this all day, we manage to control ourselves even though we want to grab you guys. [laughter] well i don't. you know what i mean. when i hear that, i want to take the glass and throw it. >> i am agreeing.

it has become a huge problem. >> that's the first reaction, how does it affect me, versus this is a systematic problem through society, and maybe i'm the cause. , who is 13, he's like a champion debater. he always says "mom, what about men who get harassed?" i say 1%. why should we talk about that. why don't we worry about the 99%? we end up having these amazing debates. it's interesting how he goes there, versus the 99%. i don't send him to his room or anything like that. [laughter] it's interesting. just stop it. i don't know what else to say. >> we can continue or move to the next question. is for thestion would be mayor. [laughter] i am wondering about the real

think we don't interrogate enough is the real world impact of a lot of these tech platforms, not just in the sense of the mass genocides caused by unmanned technology, for example, the demographics of this room would not look the way it does without the employment practices of the companies that we live around. i live in san francisco, am i the only black person here? ok, all right. [laughter] note are a few of us, but as many as there were probably 15 years ago. in light of things like amazon going to long island city, the google experiment that aims to create a whole city, i'm an urban planner, so i'm curious about this and your take on how these platforms and companies

using their employment power and economic power affecting cities and how things can be a little bit different. it's very weird that the employment patterns are reflected so heavily in cities -- you know what i mean. i am wondering what you think. kara: that is a big question. i think you are asking about how we get more diversity involved, or to create cities that are less pushed apart by money, by race, by all kinds of things. is that correct? >> i am wondering, how do we connect those? in san francisco, people say, my company is totally right, the city is totally right. but it is really -- kara: 100%.

how did this happen? they act like it is just -- it just happened years ago. i tell this story a lot. planner.a city what is happening around cities is a lot to do with city planning. how segregation happens. it is very clear. in this city it is about money, who can afford to live here. and then who they hire. they do not see the connections between things. the connections are hard for these people to make. they really can't make connections of why this has happened here, the way hollywood people could not connect why the way they depict women affected misogyny. there was a really interesting thing on twitter about -- someone was talking about what's her name's bikini. natalie portman. sam: someone is on twitter here. kara: it was an interesting

debate. jessica simpson. she was just making a comment, it was really interesting. i'm getting off topic. the way they hire -- years ago i wrote a story called -- i like to drop these things every now and then. it was 10 white men of the same age on the board of twitter. exactly the same. i did not know them all apart from each other. i called a guy and said, how do you get 10 of the same exact white men on the board? he said i don't know, it just happened. i said it could not happen, that's mathematically impossible. i wrote a story. i should have quit after i wrote this lede. i said the board of twitter which has three peters and a --

i should have gone like, done. i had a really interesting discussion. he thought it just happened that way. what was fascinating to me -- he really did, honestly. he did it and other people day when i went to question him. you know, kara, we have standards. i said it's really interesting you always use the word standards when it comes to adding women or people of color to a board, but you never do it when his 10 white men who are driving your company into a wall, just so you know. twitter is not doing very well. is only applied to people who are trying to get in. i cannot tell you about cities, but i do think these decisions are made purposefully and they pretend -- unconscious biases very cautious -- conscious as far as i can tell. we need thoughtful politicians who just say, look, just call it

out. we are going to put people of different economic -- racial -- different places all throughout the city and everyone is going to do it. we have to have leaders who do it. that's the problem. at these companies you have got to have leaders that say, i have 70% white guys running this place. i need to change this. i cannot look at it like i am dropping standards. do you know what i mean? that is the way they see it in favorbrains, that it is a rather than an asset. have you sell city problems and racism? [laughter] sam: i also feel unqualified. the data is really clear that making housing affordable is a hugely beneficial thing to people that are younger or disenfranchised in anyway. san francisco had a catastrophic

failure to do that. >> we have a question to the right. would you mind coming here? [laughter] i want to change the topic to the politicization of data and who owns your data. we all subscribe to these social platforms, and how -- who owns -- and how that may change antitrust laws. >> thank you. sam: i think you own your data and people agree on that. the internet is you cannotjust --

pick an alternative. if all your friends are in instagram, you're going to be on instagram. true ownership of data would mean if you stop liking instagram's rule, you can go somewhere else and have a good experience. you don't have an option to do that. that is what current consumer data protection laws and antitrust laws and more general consumer protection laws fail to --e into account, is that like people say, if you don't like facebook, don't use facebook's products. easier said than done. sure, you can do it. some people do. room not usen this any facebook product at least .nce a week? not >> i feel like i have tried multiple times. i have turned my phone to black and white. i feel like i actually chemically cannot do it. kara: facebook is a bloated app that is exhausting. sam: but you don't use

instagram? kara: instagram is a museum for people's performative bullshit. i kind of like the art. sam: but you use it, don't you? kara: no, i'm not on instagram. >> because it's successful. i think the data question is easier and less important. >> the it is so hard to actually talk about it -- because it is so hard to actually talk about it. >> there are some really interesting theories going around about all of it. i think the amount of data that these companies have on you and

how they collect it -- >> so what does that mean? kara: the have done it before, it has happened before. i think that is where it's going to go, if i had to guess. who can affect microsoft? bingo, they affected microsoft. i think there's going to be some sort of lead. of leap.-- sort think if the democrats get in power -- they used to be friends of tech. they are not so friendly to tech anymore. i think you have a lot of people in the democratic party who are pretty kissed about what happened and have some thoughts on that. >> we have a question all the way in the back. all the way in the back. do you want to get up and

project? let's do that. >> [inaudible] for ai, any civilization in general, how do you think about that in terms of domestic versus what seems to be an arms race between us and china? sam: to say this extremely clearly, i cannot promise one, but we will -- humanity will at some point build digital intelligence that surpasses human intelligence. people don't think about that much because it is so uncomfortable and hard to say. that is an event horizon. it is hard to see what the world looks like on the other side. i think it really matters that thes built in a way where benefit is distributed widely throughout humanity and decisions about how we build it are distributed widely through

humanity, not to make this a commercial for open ai. i think that is important. i think we will be able to learn the collective human value system. there will be arguments about what human values we should keep and what we should let go and who gets to decide that. will be in some sense the hardest problem humanity has ever faced. i now believe in a sense i never used to that the technical logical -- technological aiblems of how we build aligned with the goals of humanity as possible. that is the good news. , think the collective action collective governance problem is going to be hard. as we were saying earlier, -- evolution is slower than technology. we are likely to have to react to this at a speed we are not at, which is why i think

it's important that the technology industry now tries to get people thinking about this and figure out the world we want to collectively build. kara: who has hired most of the ai and machine learning? what are the two companies that control most of it right now? open ai is half the most important result in the last year. one of the things that is cool about this -- kara: the two companies hiring heavily are google and facebook. sam: the most number of people. one of the things that is magic about software is if you have people that are little bit smarter, little bit better, just a companyou can be that has thousands of people. that is always true about software. it is true about artificial intelligence. looking at the number of people these companies have is the wrong way to think about it. looking at the number of

transistors under the control of a company will turn out to be the right way. >> a quick follow-up. what do you think is the role of the 500, 600 or so elected federal officials to steer the conversation? if you were just elected to congress and this is something you cared about, what is the role of those people? sam: there are two different ways this is important. one count of the change going to one, thehe economy. -- change this is going to have to the economy. and then there are the questions about how this is going to fundamentally reshape the world. and how you as a politician balance those things. they are both about ai, but otherwise are totally different. i think our system, especially with congress on a two-year

cycle, even the presidency on a four-year cycle, is going to do a better job of the first. i think we are going to do that right. but how we pick this long-term future, i think that's going to take courage and foresight in a politician. kara: there is nobody working on it. right now we don't have a chief science officer running the office of science. situation,an ebola we are truly -- we don't have a chief technology. the whole area has been gutted. one guy there situation, we are truly was one of the deputy cto's, he was in real estate before. what is his name? kara: -- sam: i don't know. kara: they were like, meet him. i'm like, no, i'm not meeting a real estate guide to talk about tech. we need more smart people.

>> you have had your hand raised for a while. >> you were going to have to stand up. peoplementioned before [inaudible] .he exponential growth they made mention of the apparatus relating to the news and the economics. what do you believe are going to apparati forng dealing with the increase of attentional loads? i think he is saying, how do we deal with all these screens. is that right? the incoming. yes.

>> how do we take in all the news? kara: i don't want to take a shower anymore because i'm like, what happened? did we declare war on france? just on twitter for five seconds and then it's over. sam: i think that is a stressful and unhealthy way to live, personally. [laughter] kara: i shower. i think you need to give yourself permission to not follow every post, not read every news article. the things that cause outrage and feel like -- there was probably something that happened in february of this year that this entire room was talking about all day long and you were putting aside work, time you could spend with your family, your friends, your hobbies, because this thing was so important and you could not you are awaye if from your computer for five minutes you are going to miss the conversation.

none of your remember what that is. it is ok to miss it very -- miss it. countries.as shithole >> but there is no way to stay informed and stay sane right now. there is just no way to do it. the things that is happening is that everyone seems so fatigued and stressed and unhappy. i wish i could just -- we could all take a day off and go for a walk in the woods. the world is going to keep spinning. there will be plenty of problems when we get back. to stay-- your job is on top of this so maybe you have to. but it is not most people's jobs. [laughter] kara: i do think there is a push toward less twitching us -- twitchiness. i notice how fast our podcasts are growing. when i said -- started, people

said you can do in our. r. you cannot do an hou i said, i'm just going to keep talking and do an interview for anhour. it changes the whole nature of it. it has only grown. there is something with twitc hiness. you can see it in entertainment. there are shows that take commitment and are interesting. i don't necessarily know if we are all -- that we don't push that away a little. it seems people are pushing that away in terms of indicators we are getting from the stuff people read on our site. >> can i share a story? >> yes please. a friend ofaking to mine and he said i'm trying to figure out what i want to do. i have spent the last 10 years on the internet.

i have a very bad case of internet addiction. eustachian intervention, none of my friends have been able to make it work. i realized i have been wasting my time on twitter reading the news and my partner left me, none of my jobs have worked out, i'm about to turn 40 and i don't know what to do with my life. momentthis gutwrenching when i could not tell him, it's ok. i think we are going to see this more. there is so much in the world and so much of it is so bad. it's easy to get a mobilized by it. lized by it. if it is not your job, do less of it. there is plenty to be outraged about. one rule i have for myself is if

i am looking at a website and i open a new tap and type in the same website again, which i do more than i like to admit, i closed the computer and i have to go for a walk or read a physical book. i'm not perfect about that. i'm trying to be better. we are talking about these dopamine systems. it is deep in our biology to react to this. we have not had time to build up societal anti-bodies yet. kara: my sons are very good at putting it down. it is really interesting. i watch them, but they use it in a different way. gilligan's island until my head fell off when i was a kid. you used to do things and you switch them to other things. for being upset on the train in new york, everyone looking at grumblinges -- i was

away and i thought, before, everyone had a newspaper. no one was staring out into space on the subway. sam: i remember being bored. this abstract thought from a long time ago. i miss that. >> i do, too. i feel it we have seen in our lifetime -- [laughter] i actually don't know. going home and being like, great, i get to go on the internet now, telling my mom to get off the phone selected log on. -- the phone is so i could log on. it was a thing you could do for 30 minutes and the rest of the time you had to figure out what to do. in our lifetime i have seen, now we are on all the time. i am always nervous. kara: i was around when there were rotary phones. so i don't worry about the age thing. it depends on -- these things

are built to the addictive. -- the addictive -- be addictive. we are sitting around saying, they are trying hard, but they hired 20 phd is to make you hit that red button. i don't know why people are addicted when you are handing them liquor -- sam: it's hard to pick one thing tech companies have done the worst, but that one thing, the fact they have figured out how to have human biology to make us unhappy i think is going to be history books the are written, did actually happen? desha it did that actually happen? they are purposely doing this with every choice they make. when it goes awry they are like, who knew? sam: i think you and i agree

there is plenty to be critical about. i'm saying there are also things to be thankful for. kara: that is not critical, it is truthful. when you say bad things, don't be so critical, i am just pointing out you have made billions of dollars off other people's privacy, other people's attention, and taking advantage of other people's stuff. sam: i'm agreeing, i'm just pointing out -- i'm also glad these companies exist. i may be in the minority in the room for that. i think they have done great good for society, too. . >> shelley moveon? we have a question -- shall we move on? we have a question. i am a founder and ceo of an early-stage political activism company and a former policy advisor. i think about this quite a bit given the things you were saying ,bout social media platforms

things built for addictive behavior. and consequences that are detrimental to our society as a whole, even life or death situations. do you think silicon valley investors, not just business leaders, but investors, have a responsibility to demand less revenue? when you think about, especially when i think about my business model and how much money we can make in five years, a lot of it is dependent on that kind of behavior. do you think we need to change our business model? >> i think business models are their business model. i do not know, how you would change. wall street is wall street. i will switch it to another thing. the murder of this journalist, jamal khashoggi. do you know how many companies are funded by the saudi's? backou handling the money

to the murderous thug, according to lindsey graham? if lindsey graham is saying it, it's absolutely true. [laughter] kara: they are not going to do it. there is an expression someone told me, you are so poor all you have is money. they don't want to change these business plans. they don't want to change the addictive ones, they don't want to choose the data sucking ones. they do want to change any of them. they don't want to do it. they like the money, they like the power, they like everything. at least they wall street moguls, i prefer because they are like, we are rapacious assho les. [laughter] kara: i don't think they will do it. do you? sam: this is easier for me to

say because i don't need more money, but i certainly won't invest in companies that i think will be successful but would be bad for the world. sometimes i invest thinking they will be good for the world and i am wrong. i think in the long run that makes you more successful. that come tonies us in many specific instances that you could go build the product. you would make more revenue, but you would become from rising something. at open ai talked about the scenarios where we would and would not make money and the things we would not be willing to do no matter how much money they made. we may does public so the public would hold us accountable and i think that's important. there are investors that think differently. one thing i have sympathy for came from who nothing, got a job at a company where they are getting a does incredible salary, but the

company is doing things unethical. they are not in the situation i am in. they struggle with wondering what i should do their. stuff, theree juul are a lot of silicon valley people -- thing you must keep away from 16-year-old boys. go ahead. sam: i have not looked into that. it seems really problematic, what someone told me is that. teen is actually not that bad for you. i assume that's right. not actuallyine is that bad for you. i assume that is right. but i will not invest. >> i know there's a lot of questions. last audience question.

>> my name is hillary and i -- i have heard people talk about "don't networks that present maybeially systems where platforms like facebook can be built in ways that shift the power and maybe the revenue model, giving more power to users. i was wondering what you think about that and the prospects there for solving problems we have talked about. >> i want to see a single crypto project actually get used. [applause] sam: then i will stop dismissing them out of hand. until that happens, i don't think i can point -- i have not been working super long. but a decently long time. i cannot point to any piece of technology that has had as much -- it has so captured the discussion of the industry with so little actual use.

the amount of money that has gone into crypto projects somewhere between incompetent and fraud, i have never seen it in any other industry. internet.early sam: that i did not see. i got it. [laughter] kara: i think i got that language right. sam: maybe the worst since then? kara: there was a lot of scamming in the early internet. it was crazy at the time. >> [inaudible] kara: what about you getting paid for your privacy? years ago when i was writing the book about aol, they said we are making $76 from each user, here is some number they assigned to it. i put my hand up and said, can i have my $35 please? why shouldn't you pay me have halfmoney -- health --

that money? they have never come up with that idea. it is not like being paid for your liver. sam: maybe there is a way to get around this issue of open protocols, that you are on one network -- maybe if instagram was on some sort of block chain you could use another version of it. but i think we are learning something fundamental about human coordination and governance where these decentralized projects so far are just not working. is it's incredibly seductive. i hope it happens. the current ecosystem of the crypto block chain world seems buty -- this may change -- the system seems unlikely to produce that. i really hope it gets there someday. the promise is tantalizing. ,> the final question i have

something i have been asking a lot of these panelists, is what is one thing that the people in this physical room right here can actually take away and do to address some of the issues that have been brought up in this conversation? >> you quit facebook. i am impressed. kara: i did not quit. i never used it. i just use it for work. . the thing. -- here is the thing. you are their base. listen to the google block out organizers podcast we did. it was the six women and one man. it was astonishing. they were astonishing, articulate, strong, still loving their jobs but really said enough. they also did not just want to talk about sexual harassment, around which the first thing

happened because they were paying someone $90 million who had real issues to go, which is astonishing that they did that. this --employees of these companies, ask questions. it is not disloyal to say, is this the way we are doing it? the premise of silicon valley was that it was changing the world, that it was better. they went on and on about how better they were. now, demand they be better. demand as employees. you have the power. that does not mean dropping a dime to me. it has helped me a lot in that way. but you are part of the power with these people. you have power you don't understand that you can use. it is important for you as employees to say no, this is not going to stand. , youone who does that

don't need me to affect them. you don't need powerful people. you have that. i'm not saying everyone is powerful, but you can in this industry. these leaders are listening. they do get affected by these things. that's what i would say to do. sam: i think that's the most important point. that's what i think is the right answer. it is employees that have more power than any other constituencies. companies --hese that's the group these companies have to keep happy. it's talent is at such a premium in this industry. i think this industry is better than others at listening to employees and trying to adapt. employees at large tech companies have much more power than they realize. the other thing i was going to say is just, i think it's fine to spend most of your time

thinking about the challenges of today. i think that's really good. but if you believe you are living for the future and the people after you, you have to allocate some of the problems of the future. you have to spend time and resources and effort trying to think about not the problems of 2039.but the problems of it is hard to do that without concerted effort fixing the problems of today. kara: to me it is about being choices. be an adult -- about making choices. b an adult. i talk about the juvenile's ization of menil in silicon valley. here it's like, you have to have a young mentality. there is something good about a higher wisdom. i'm only saying that because i am 412.

but it's not just the power to say no to these people. it is the power to say yes, this is the way we should go. you should say no appropriately and yes appropriately. that is what adult people do and take responsibility. take responsibility and stop acting like the things you are doing don't have an impact. get out across this country. i don't mean doing like mark zuckerberg visiting every cow. don't do that. that's bad. but get out and talk so you understand how people live their lives. in the place where there's not hot and cold running kombucha. it does not mean you are as justifiable as they are, because that is irritating to say the real americans live here. real americans live everywhere. but understand how people live paycheck to paycheck, they have a hard time with health care and nutrition, stuff like that. to me, that is acting like an

adult. sam: one closing comment building off that. i think one thing that has gone wrong with the move into the internet is that we have evolved some biological protections for how we act with some one person. most of the time we have some compassion that sort of just happens when you are with another person physically. some level of politeness that often happens. not always. but on the internet, that biological protections seems to have gone away. it is so easy to cast people as the other. to cast people as stupid or luddites were racists -- or racists, just out of touch, or whatever. that my own preconceptions of people, when i meet them on the internet or i

get in a fight with someone on twitter, i am always going to think the worst. if i meet them in person, i find myself thinking the best. i think this is something that has gone wrong with the internet. if you get out and meet very different people with even a little bit of an open mind, biology will take over the rest. >> first of all -- [applause] i have to say, i don't know if we could have planned this before. that is the perfect segue into why we built this space. the premise was these conversations are much more productive to be had in person. i am honored deeply that both of you would take time out of your busy schedule to join us tonight and be in conversation, especially flying here for this conversation. for karand of applause and sam. [applause]

announcer: c-span's "washington journal." live every day with policy issues that impact you. wednesday morning, the center for american progress and the american enterprise institute discuss the next steps for the affordable care act after a federal judge in texas ruled it unconstitutional. then u.s. news & world report's lauren talked about the federal commission on school safety's report and what it means for school discipline. during the holiday week, watch washington journal for authors week starting sunday, december 23, featuring live segments each .orning with authors including allender show its and owitz mcgreal -- alan dersh

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>> coming up this weekend on book tv, saturday at new eastern, coverage of the second annual well read a black girl festival with a keynote address by patricia smith. >> i did not know much about the problematic down south my parents had come from. i knew the south was steaming because they never stop complaining about chicago's cold. i knew it was problematic because television told me so. ,n our flickering floor model people who looked like me were cornered by snarling police dogs or doused with sugar and catch up well they sat stoically at lunch counters. i heard about people who look like me gone missing, swaying from poplars, swirling in rivers. i heard other names for people who look like me, names with ugly, bladed edges. , lessto make is quieter boisterous, less ourselves.

>> sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern. activist deray mckesson. he is interviewed by the naacp did it and ceo -- president and ceo. >> is there a difference between faith and hope? >> we believe tomorrow's can be better than our today's. we have to fight for it. i think everybody who came out on the streets in the early days was deeply rooted in the belief that this cannot be the best version of the system we have got. i'm always mindful, you think about the tax bill. to waitll me we have 2000 years to and mass incarceration. that was a clear and pleasant reminder that people made this up. because people made it up we can do something different. announcer: watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> c-span. where history unfolds daily.

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