watch and say we didn't do a hatchet job, either. >> mark farkas, executive producer on c-span's original production "the senate: conflict and copper mice" sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q and a. next, a look at the impact of technology on politics and society. heard from open ai chairman sam altman and kara swisher 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 guys, for those in the audience have not been in conversations with you already and have not met you, talk about the utopia, when they thought about how technology and the world wide web would interact with politics. what did people think was going to happen with the intersection of tech and politics?

kara: i would start with they didn't know at all. i think the thought was that they knew what they were doing. a lot of things get written after they become billionaires or after they become successful, but having been there, and i worked for "the washington post" when the internet was born, not when it was born because it was there as a government entity, but when it was commercialized for the first time when they released it, and there was legislation, which 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 -- i don't 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. sam: i don't 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. 14 years ago, the first prototype of the iphone, i don't think had been made. the speed and the size and the impact that has happened, i think we have lived through one of the three great technological revolutions in human history, and the rate of change of technology is so much faster than the rate of change of people, certainly of evolution, but even how quickly we can update our own thought processes. i agree that people did not think about what was going to happen, but it 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. kara: when you're saying "they did not have malice," that is a pretty low bar. it is like, they weren't [bleep] , 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 thoughtlessness continued and continues today with the people who run -- >> i certainly think 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 at the beginning, when people were looking at the internet and what mobile was going to do, i do not think anyone could have predicted this. it would have been hard. sam: i remember when i first moved here, i went to noise bridge, and there were all of these hackers who were talking

afterwards, we are not going to have governments. tech will free everyone and break our chains, and wasn't there this kind of undercurrent of folks who thought of technology as a way to break down the systems of power? kara: well, unusual, because it was all white men, so really, the most under siege people on the planet. [laughter] kara: no. so i am going to say no to that one. >> that is a hard no to that one. in -- i had here written a book 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 i was the first reporter to cover the internet for them. and when i got the job, a lot of the media reporters said, "you're here to cover cb radio," and i was like, "no, i am here

to cover the medium that 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 it was marc andreessen. i think he might have been a teenager when i met him. early yahoo! when there were five or six people. bezos, i met when there were five people. it was really early on. >> let's look to today. part of why i wanted to do this conversation with you guys as it relates to civic engagement, we are living in a time when people have a lot of anger, tension, anxiety around how -- the intersection of how technology has affected our politics. specifically after this 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? sam: yes, but they would be different people. 50% of the country would be feeling this way, but a different 50%. >> if russia 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 there was this feeling of 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 really think there would be this much angst and anxiety? sam: i personally do. there were other people on the other side who thought 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. you know, i 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 tv ads. the speed at which it has changed politics and the degree to which i think is a lot. i think a lot of fish that people wish that change had not happened so quickly in politics. but i think -- i always believed people when they say they are angry. i think that is always true, but it is very hard to articulate the precise reason you're angry. i think you see that when people talk about technology in the 2016 election. something has clearly 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 wanting to do about it. kara: 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, target 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 has always been striking -- the original people, a couple of cycles ago, it was howard dean and joe what's his name, trippi. we 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,

center left, centrist, but certainly not conservative, and so -- and even though they say, you know, we are fair, they were liberal, essentially, and the right wing did not have a place to talk 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 used the internet very well, and they learned to communicate it very well, and then they learned how to use it in a more nefarious way. >> do you think we move too fast? i mean, sam, how much has -- you said no one could imagine how much it 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 was going to say, 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 skill the fastest and prints the fastest wins. that is mostly good, but it has 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 won't 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 faster at society correcting than trying to slow down technological progress, and we so far have been very bad at that. kara: it is interesting because the way 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 when there are successes, we sort of celebrate these people like they are geniuses. i always say, they tell me -- they spend 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. kara: write it down and keep going. you get the palo alto. [laughter] so they tell you how smart they are, and then when things go wrong, they moved into the "we." you notice that with zuckerberg. have you noticed that? he says, well, the community was to get together to work on a problem. 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 giant organization of 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? who gets to say stuff command who doesn't? kara: yes, i think he should. he built this. this is his product. this is the lie about silicon , this is a told you for-profit company. of which mark zuckerberg is now a $64 billionaire. he is unkillable, unfirable. i think i called him a mix in a "times" column last week, i called him him mix between "wolverine" together with another. well.k it was a zombie as >> [laughter] >> i do not agree with that, clearly. [laughter] kara: hold this for a second.

i am a little warm. i have to change brands. >> wait a minute! [laughter] >> you don't get a boob shot on tv. did you get it? >> i got it. kara: are right! [laughter] >> some people call it changing t-shirts. you call it changing brands. kara: changing brands. >> it scares me to think that a small number of people not accountable to us and not elected by us get to exist two doesn't.n who 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 traditionally very far left in the technology industry say they want the companies to make these rules, not that we wanted government to make the rules. kara: doing it forever, do you have a problem when the new york times did it? it was like 12 white guys on the

west side in new york who would decide what was on the front page of "the new york times." every day for decades. i think the broadcast networks are the same. this is not different. what is different is the unprecedented size and influence and impact and amplification of the situation, but it is not nsimilar to 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. kara: what? this is what always coalesces, power in the hands of a certain small group of people, which were typically the same people, and then the discussion would less right now for example, the discussion is about tribalism. the issue is not tribalism, the issue is that the system sucks for most people.

what happens is, for example, on 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, gays, and the rest of us," so what happens is the diversity at the top is lacking. if there was a more diverse top, you would get a very different outcome. sam: i am all for the different outcome, and i am all for the way more investment to fix the problem of harassment and discrimination online. i think that is a huge problem. for all that tech has done think one thing that is great is that for 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 , the fact that everyone in the world now has access to a platform and a voice, we have seen incredibly positive change in a short hayward of time best short period of time. >> think about the period of time. >> think about the dakota pipeline, police brutality. kara: it is owned by the same people. we just did a piece on the men and women of facebook, and i put up their pictures, and it was white guy, white guy, white guy, asian guy, and someone said that was really unfair, and i said, "you hired them. i just put up their pictures for people to see." i am just putting up their pictures for people to see. [laughter] recently we did another one, where they did a rework on facebook. and not just facebook, many tech companies are like this.

and i said, there were more people named jim then there are women, something like that. [laughter] as for people of color, that was the only difference. it was ridiculous. it was insanity that if you look at this, these management structures, they don't run facebook. these different groups can do things, but they don't own google. >> hypothetical, then. if tonight, something changed and the people running these companies represent the public and were given a voice, or do you think would change in politics? kara: it would be a change in internet, it would be much better. >> are you against the need for greater diversity and leadership? it seems to me that the echo chamber, that civic discourse online is dirty, it is difficult, it is ad hominem and it 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, politics is about power and who has it and who doesn't, and who is allowed to wield it and do things. these jobs have real-world implications. so the people in power -- who was yelling? [laughter] in power matter, and the people that are not 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. correct? i mean. >> i believe this works, i really do. diversifying our partnership is reflected in a more diverse step away. it's not the only way to make the platforms work better. i mean, government regulation -- how we handle discourse and online harassment, and what you are allowed to say or not , i think there is another way to do it. and i personally will always be more comfortable with that run a

small group of people, no matter what they look like, it absolute power for ever and unfireable. emanuel: with of the independently came to me and said that you thought about running for political office. you were considering maybe running. we talked about it. about running for governor of california, and we talked about running for mayor of san francisco. how cans like, awesome i help, what would you like to talk about? sotomayor little bit about where you are thinking of running for office and why you chose not to. sam: i was thinking about it, because i think the state is in a bad place, particularly when it comes to cost of living and specifically the cost of housing. if that doesn't get fixed, the state is going to evolve into a very unpleasant place.

one thing that i have really come to believe is that you cannot have social justice without economic justice. and, economic justice in california feels unattainable. i think it would take someone with no loyalties to very powerful interest groups -- i would not be indebted to the groups, maybe i can try a couple of variable things. kara: so you are like bloomberg, that and the obsession with coca-cola. [laughter] sam: i didn't know he had a reason with coca-cola. kara: hello, big gulps? [laughter] emanuel: brought to you by coca-cola. [laughter] sam: 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 thousand 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 to me personally i think is the most important problem in the world to me. set asidewilling to that to run for office. kara: i want unmitigated power to screw people -- um--[laughter] emanuel: i love the honesty. kara: true. limousines idling in front of my house, things like that. and then i would want to get thrown out of office in a dramatic fashion. [laughter] emanuel: so why didn't you do it? kara: 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. like, it was things -- the brakes were off, something had changed with him. if i can pay him a small

complement, the smallest there will give him is that the brakes were off for people. he is unhinged. it's not necessarily a bad thing. he just happens to be a bad thing. emanuel: 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. kara: i think it was similar. now that the fantastic squad of ladies run by alexandria conseil cortez, she is the head of it, it looks like, they have a whole squad, i went 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. i have lived here for a long time, i figured it was important that instead of complaining about things, do something about it. now we have a new mayor, so no

one thought that the former mayor would die like that. give this mayor a chance, i think it is really important. it's important not just to be difficult to run. emanuel: 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." "the expensive education of mark zuckerberg in silicon valley." 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 part, where 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. that was mark zuckerberg never getting on a stage with me, last time he almost sweated to death, this time he just defended holocaust deniers. [laughter] 2-2 right there. kara: i know, i do know how i get him to say things. [laughter] the thing i was most disturbed by, was that when i kept pressing him on the impact of his inventions, that they had made these pretty sloppy rules myanmar countries like and india, 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. he made this badly and there were real-life consequences. and 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." and i said yes, 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 -- emanuel: he wouldn't be able to make it through the day. kara: but he took the money and the job. he is an adult. stop treating him like he's a juvenile. oh my goodness, this poor ho boy, it is so hard for him. my kids can take more pressure than he can. he -- i asked him six times, it went on for a while.

and 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. manyse i had done it so times, on purpose, and he goes, what do you want me to say? and i said, how about starting off with "i'm sorry that i cause , people to die because of what i did." that would be in the human reaction. secondly, "i wonder if i was capable of handling this thing, and if i am the right person to do this, because it has real-world implications." and then i asked, who should be fired for this? said, iot hot, and he guess, me, because i am 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. emanuel: we can actually solve the problem? if mark zuckerberg went to whole hawaii, and said, he was done, we still have billions. it doesn't matter what he posts about, he 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 not still be -- kara: 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 think. sam: i want to make two points for clarity. one, i think it is a real shame that he did not heart with "i am sorry," which is the obvious humane reaction. i got the feeling he felt it. i think there's sometimes such an adversary relationship between people and the people

asking them questions, i wish he had done that. i wish he had done that. to believe that that is what he felt. secondly, i want to be clear that i believe we need to adapt these platforms and rules and how we use them much faster. it turns out that when you give everyone a voice, you get great and terrible behavior from that. it's easy in stories to categorize people, we as humans like the stories where people are clearly the hero or the veblen, and unfortunately, there -- that is not always the case. 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. i think, without the internet, i am not sure i would've made it through that. it's transformed me personally. and i think 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 that many people have lived because of facebook, as well. kara: i get that argument, but it is 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 you build these things on. and 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 , for example, i am just using this, because twitter is its own

cesspool of a mess, but it is actually fun in a lot of ways, today, it was really fun, for some reason there were all kinds there --on but 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 a very different business. but guess what, it is 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 bed. that there isugh, more good than bad that comes out of this. if i can push a button and make facebook products disappear, i wouldn't -- twitter, maybe. i'm joking about that.

i do think that the value we have gotten, and again, we need beenapt, human society has able to adapt so far. but it is easy to get lost in the discussion. emanuel: 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? based on those conversations, are we at the edge of a precipice that is just going to get worse, or are people really waking up to some of the issues and are taking real, serious, concrete steps to solving this? kara: i wish i could say that come about a lot of stuff out of facebook right now is, "we are the victims here." i have never seen this insane of a reaction. in contrast of google, they took -- the employees said this is not how we want to run a company. which was interesting.

facebook employees are more -- i docile." em " do they must -- i should run facebook because i have read "1984." [laughter] in any case, -- what was your point? the implications are dictatorship. world,"ry, "brave new "1984," george orwell. it was nice a grade, we read them all. [laughter] sorry. if there is anything that is going to happen? i think congress is going to insert itself. the fact that lindsey graham

is going to have any say over this is disturbing. it is bad. [laughter] i spent a few years in washington visiting them. there are a few senators, senator warner, senator byrd, senator bennett, a couple are pretty intelligent. senator wyden, i am trying to think, who else, you know them better than i do -- congressman, anybody? sam: look, i think we going to get this result, but i think we have actually lost sight of what is really important. i think we are living on an exponential curve of technology, and the rate of change has been increasing every year, every decade. it will keep increasing. what we are in right now, which feels like the most important important technical issue will ever face, will turn out to be nothing but a warm-up for what we will be dealing 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?

[laughter] but the next round of issues are going to be, like, what does it mean when anyone can edit anyone else's genome? what does it mean when we have artificial intelligence smarter than humans in every way? these, i promise, these will make the issues of today look trifles, which we wish we had to deal with today. >> the changes in transportation, robotics, genes and dna. what is about to come, it is really frightening, in terms of who determines these things and the impact it has on society. for sure. sam: the thing about exponential curves, when you look backwards, it looks curved, and when you look forward, it looks vertical. it is the pace of progress and it always feels like the most important thing ever. and that is true, but if you

don't look forward, we get caught up in the stuff happening now and we miss these questions. 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 un which is on --recognizably different. i'm confident we will adjust the current issues, i'm not confident will be able to address the future once. kara: surveillance, too. what does a chinese driven internet look like? it's an interesting question. it's hard to think about. he is right, the surveillance stuff coming, the sensors, the stuff you put in our bodies, things like that, the altering of your own body, it is really big stuff. emanuel: you are speaking to a packed house in san francisco, and also the american public on c-span. you are both very 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 does not destroy us? what can we actually do? >> not watch "black mirror." [laughter] sam: actually, i think sci-fi is really important to watch. [laughter] kara: not the pig one. not the pig one. i will never unsee that one. sam: i like that one. [laughter] in terms of what we can't do, people can participate, get involved. kara, 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 , which i think by 90%-90on rate, are 9% male. 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, as well. we can start those conversations now before we are sort of reacting on the other side of it like we are, about how social media gets used. we can start conversations about what decisions to make, what we want society to look like, before we make these changes. are we sure they are good, are we sure they are bad? which ones should we try to stop? which ones should we do more of? i don't know how to do that. i think 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. but some would argue, as the chair of open ai, are you supposed to be thinking -- sam: i'm trying to. i'm trying to make it my major focus. that's why i'm not ready for governor. [laughter] kara: i am going to mars with elon musk. emanuel: that does not sound

very fun. kara: are you kidding? what are you talking about, elon musk looks like so much fun. sam: 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 hands already, that is great. we have a wireless mic. i will point to you, then hand it to you. better to ask a specific question to one or the other, because that way we get more questions. if you have a specific question for someone, please 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. yes, you, right over here. >> hi,, i am doing work helping communities and organizations

figure out how to effectively deal with sexual predators when they are identified, with 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. kara: you take that one. we are reaching a really interesting point in the #metoo stuff. i don't know if you read the les moonves ones in the new york ,imes, today, it was disturbing although it was just kind of low-level corruption on his part , they would he was trying to cover up in order to get the money once.

you know, it is a big question. because the country got around the world so quickly, right? everything gets amplified so quickly and then people get exhausted by the amount of discussion. what's really important is the people, especially women, should have voices and be heard. the story should be heard. one of the things we did when we covered the ellen pao trial, which we were good on, one of the things i did as an editor is decide to cover it like the super bowl. i hate to use this come paris sent. we had five stories a day on it. we decided to put a lot of attention, then we had two reporters on it. two great reporters. we covered the hell out of it in , we of different aspects live blogged it, because we thought it was an important of sexism, power,

money, and influence, stuff like that. when you have things like twitter, or whatever, it is exhausting to people, that it becomes noisy. and the point is that you can never have a substantive discussion about problems. everybody feels in a crouch position and doesn't know what to do. so, legitimate stories, everyone just gets -- you know, men get like, i cannot say anything, women now want to talk a lot and about it. there are so many different stories. then you have the cable stations doing different things, then it becomes a circus. it is hard in this your not to be -- in this era not to be twitchy in terms of how you behave. the issue is the system, the system is broken in a way that doesn't allow -- it's broken against certain people. certain people stay in power,

and those people like to stay in power and they will not give it up willingly. so how do you change the systems at their very core? it's really a super difficult problem, from my perspective. it's really a super difficult problem, from my perspective. >> the most expertise is not sort about lower status, fema -- female founders in the portfolio, there is a huge way to go. my new 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 founders is male vc's will not 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. >> it so funny. i have 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 will make a list for you, don't do these things. >> 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 do, i don't. opposites. 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. my son, 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. to the left, you have the might. >> this question is for the would be mayor. [laughter] i am wondering about the real world -- what i 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, ok, all right. [laughter] there are a few of us, but not 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'm wondering what you think about it. i think what you're asking

about is how we get more diversity involved to create cities that are less pushed race, by ally, by kinds of things. how do we connect those? oh, my company is right. the city is totally right. a gustavus thoughtlessness. how did this happen. they act like it just happened. i tell this story a lot. tapping around cities is a lot to do with city planning. segregation happened and it's very clear. it's about money and who can afford to live here. they don't see the connections

between things. connections are very hard for some of these people or companies to make. can make connections of why this happens here, the way hollywood people can connect and why they depict women with misogyny. it was an interesting thing today on twitter. about nellytalking portman. twitter was good today. it was an interesting debate. she was talking about jessica simpson. i'm getting off the topic. i think the way they hire. and iago i wrote a story like to drop these things down every known again. twitter was 10 white man of the same age. didn't know the mall

parking each other. i called him and he was a great guy and i said how did you get 10 of the same white man? i don't know, just happened. it couldn't have happened, that's mathematically impossible. and i think this is after i wrote this lead. i said the board of twitter which has three peters and they -- and a dick. it was so good. discussionteresting that he thought it just happened that way. what was fascinating to me, he really did. he did it and other people did it. when i went to question him he said we have standards. it's interesting that you always use the word standards when it comes to adding women are people of color but you never do it

when it's 10 white men who are by the way driving your company into a wall. twitter is not doing very well. standards are only applied to people trying to get in and it's a kind of stuff. i do think these decisions are made purposefully. it's very conscious as far as i can tell. we need thoughtful politicians to say, look, just call it out. we are going to put people of different economic and racial in different places throughout the city. everyone is going to do it. we need to have leaders. at these companies, you need to have leaders. 70% white guys running this place, i need to change this.

i can't look at it like i'm dropping standards. like thate looked at because that's how they see it in their brain. how do you solve city problems of racism? i feeling qualified but the data is really clear that making hugely affordable is a beneficial thing to people that are younger and disenfranchised. i think san francisco has a catastrophic failure to do that. we have a question here. would you mind coming over a way? we have this noise thing. guests. i am peggy. i want to change the topic to the politicized -- politicized nation of data and who owns your data.

attention.r how might that change antitrust laws. >> i think you own your data and people agree on that. giants artan -- their network effects, you can't pick an alternative. your friends are going to be on instagram. true ownership of data would mean if you stop liking instagram's rules you could go somewhere else and have a good experience. but you don't really have an option to do that. that's what the current consumer data protection laws and antitrust laws and just more general consumer protection laws don't take into account. people say if you don't like

facebook, just a use their products. much easier said than done. you can do it and some people do. >> i feel like i've tried multiple times and deleted the app. i've turned my phone to black and white. feel like actually chemically cannot do it. >> facebook is a bloated app. >> you don't use instagram? >> instagram is a museum for performative --. but use it, don't you? >> i'm not on instagram. twitter i like because it successful. >> i think --

[indiscernible] [indiscernible] datathink the amount of that these companies have on you and how they collected is -- >> does that mean? done before. i think that's probably where it's going to go. very similar to what everyone says. who can affect microsoft? somenk there's going to be regulatory because these companies can't resist their

desire to suck up every piece of information. i think if the democrats get in power, they used to be friends of tech but they are not so friendly to tech anymore. i can tell you from visiting them. have a lot of people in the democratic party now who are paced about what happened and have some thoughts. we have a question in the back. do you want to get up and project? just do that. [indiscernible] and isay this, we will

can't promise when or make a company prediction but we, humanity, will at some point build digital intelligence that surpasses human intelligence. people don't think about that much because it's so uncomfortable and so hard to say. that's an event horizon. it's hard to see what the world looks like of the other side. i think it really matters that it is built in a way with the benefit of it is distributed throughout humanity. we buildons about how and use it are distributive throughout humanity. i think generally that's super important. i think we will be able to learn the collective human value system. i think there will be big arguments about what human values we should keep. and it is to decide that now we vote on it. theill be in some sense hardest problem humanity has ever faced. i now believe in a way i didn't used to that the technological

thatems of how we build ai shares human values and is aligned with the goals of community, i think best technically possible. that's the good news. bad news is that the government's problems going to be hard. and evolution is slower than technology. i think we are likely to have to react to this at a speed we are not good at. which is why think it's important of a technology industry now tries to get people thinking about this and tries to figure out the world we want to collectively build. who has hired most of the aim machine learning? who are the two companies that control most of it? one of the things that is cool about this -- >> the two companies are google

and facebook. >> the most number of people but one of the cool things about this and was magic about software is if you have people that are little bit smarter and little bit better, you can beat a company that has tens or hundreds of thousands of people. i think that's always true about software and exponentially true about artificial intelligence looking at the number of people these companies have is the wrong way to think about it. i think the number of transistors under control of the way to think about it. >> what you think specifically is the role of the federal officials that have been brought to government to steer the conversation? if you're just elected and this is something that you cared about, what is the role those people? >> there's two very different

ways this is important. one is the changes to the economy and jobs in the next two years. that's a huge issue. that's where people are going to feel pain today come in year, and the year after. then there's the question about how it will fundamentally reshape the world. how to u.s. politicians prioritize and balance those things? they are totally different. system, especially with congress on a two-year cycle, and the present on a four-year cycle, i think we're going to get that right. we went to figure out how to deal with that. how we picked his long-term future, i think it's going to take courage and foresight. >> there's nobody working on it. we don't have a chief science officer running achieve office of science.

we don't have a chief science person, we don't have chief technology, the whole area has been gutted out. there is one guy in there was one of the deputy cto's. he was in real estate before. once his name? like no, i refuse. i'm not meeting a real estate guy to talk about tech. we need more smart people. >> [indiscernible] the walk -- thinking apparatus.

what do you believe are going to be apparatus i doing with the increasing that we are going to see? can summer people question? >> i think he's saying how do we deal with the screens? the incoming. >> how to we take in all the news. >> i don't want to take a shower anymore. what has happened, we declared war on france? i don't know. i think it's a stressful and unhealthy way to live. >> i think you need to give yourself permission to not

follow every post and read every news article. the things that cause outrage and feel -- there was something that probably happen in february of this year and this entire room was talking about all day asidend you are putting work, time is from their family, your friends, your hobbies because this thing was so important. you couldn't shower because if you are away from your pewter for five minutes, you would miss the conversation and none of you remember what that is. it's ok to miss it. s-hole countries. >> it was ok to miss it. >> but there's no way to stay informed and stay sane. i think one of the things that is happening is everyone seems so fatigued and stress that unhappy. have us all take

a day off and go for a walk in the woods in the world would keep spinning. there will be plenty of problems and we get back. your job is to stay on top of this so maybe you have to. but it's not most people's job. a push toink there is that twitching us. i noticed how fast our podcasts are growing. when i started the podcast, they said you can't do it now. you have to do it at 26 seconds. i think i can do an hour. interview. it was in our discussion. it changes the whole nature of it. it has only grown. i think there is something where the twitching us people are pushing away from it.

there are soment wonderful entertainment shows that take commitment and are interesting. i don't necessarily know that we don't push that way. thatems people are pushing way in terms of indicators that people are getting. >> can i share a quick story? >> yes, please. >> i was speaking to a friend of mine. he was trying to figure out what you want to do. i would have spent the last 10 years on the internet and i have a very bad case of internet addition. people have staged an intervention before we have not been to make it work. i realize for 10 years of than wasting my time on twitter reading the news, one-on-one forms. my partner left me know my jobs have worked out. about to turn for you don't know what to do with my life.

it filters and it was this gutwrenching moment. i think we are going to see this a lot more. there's so much of the world and so much of it is still bad. it's easy to get immobilized by it. if it's not your job stay on top of everything happening, do less of it. you will still know a lot there will be plenty to be outraged about. myself is have for that i will get a website and i , i closed new tabbed the computer and have to go for a walk and read a physical book. perfect about that, sometimes i keep going but i'm trying to be better. we were talking about these dopamine systems. it's in our biology. been able to build up societal antibodies yet.

>> my sons are good at putting it down. it's a really interesting thing. they use it in a different way. i watched gilligan's island until my head falls off on a kid. he used to do things and switch them into other things. i was in new york and everybody was looking at their phones. said being grumpy but i before everyone had a newspaper. you know what i mean? no one was staring out in space on the subway. >> i remember being bored. it's an abstract thought from a long time ago. but i feel like we --e seen in our lifetime --emember -- i remember

going home and being like, great, i get to go on the internet now. it was this thing you could do for a special 30 minutes and the rest of the time you had to figure out what to do. now ended our lifetime we are always on the internet all the time and i'm always nervous. i was around when there were rotary phone so i don't worry about the age thing. on -- theseepends things are built to be addictive. they hire tons of people to addict you and everybody knows that. sitting around saying they try really hard, they hire 20 phd's to make you push the red button. --pretend otherwise -- to go i don't know why these people are addicted, when they are handing you liquor. to pick one thing

that tech companies and in the worst because the sony things to , figuringat one thing out how to hack human biology to make this unhappy is when history books are written is howg to be the thing where that happened? >> they are purposefully doing this with every choice they make. theyit goes arrived istend like, who knew? >> also things i'm thankful for. >> but that's not critical, it's truthful. when you say bad things, don't be so critical, i'm just pointing out that you've made billions of dollars off of other people's privacy, off of other people's attention, and take advantage of other people's stuff. >> i agree but i'm pointing out that i'm also glad these companies exist.

i know i may be in the minority in the room for that. but i think it done good for society to. >> we have a question to the right over there. having too much fun up in. ceo of anounder and early stage political activism country -- company and a former policy advisor starting to this question a bit. given some of things you are saying about social media platforms being built for andctive behavior, consequences that are detrimental to our society as a think thatyou silicon valley investors, not just business leaders but investors, have a responsibility to demand less revenue? when i think about my business model and how much money we can

make in five years, a lot of it is dependent on the kind of behavior. the you think we need to change our business model? >> yes. i don't know how you would change it. wall street is wall street. i'll switch it to another thing. the murder of journalist to show the. do now many companies are funded by the saudi's? do you think they will hand the money back? he's a murderous thug. if lindsey graham is saying it, it's absolutely true. >> 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

oney, they like the power, they like everything. at least they wall street moguls, i prefer because they are like, e are rapacious assho les. >> i don't think they will do t. do you? >> 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. we tell companies that come to 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 his people who came from nothing, got a job at a company where they are getting a does incredible salary, but the company is doing things unethical. they re not in the situation i am in. they struggle with wondering what i should do their. >> with the juul stuff, there are a lot of silicon valley people -- it is a vaping thing you must keep away from 16-year-old boys. go ahead. >> 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. -- pure nicotine is not actually that bad for you. i assume that is right. but i will not invest. >> i know there's a lot of questions. last audience uestion. >> my name is hillary and i -- i have heard people talk about "don't networks that present potentially systems where maybe 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. >> 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. >> the early internet. >> that i did not see. i got it. >> i think i got that language right. >> maybe the worst since then? >> there was a lot of scamming in the early internet. it was crazy at the time.

>> 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 that money -- health -- half that money? they have never come up with that idea. it is not like being paid for your liver. >> 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. the problem is it's incredibly

seductive. i hope it happens. the current ecosystem of the crypto block chain world seems today -- this may change -- but 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. >> 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. if your employees of this -- hese companies, ask questions. it is not disloyal to say, is this the way we are doing it? he 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. everyone who does that, you don't need me to affect them. you don't need powerful people. you have that. i'm not saying everyone is powerful, ut you can in this industry. these leaders are listening. they do get affected by these things. that's what i would say to do. >> 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. that's what

these companies -- 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 2019, but the problems of 2039. it is hard to do that without concerted effort fixing the problems of today. >> to me it is about being choices. be an adult -- about aking choices. b an adult. i

talk about the juvenile's asian -- juvenilization of men 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. >> 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. i have found 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 -- 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. a big round of applause for kara and sam.

>> we go on our apps, our devices, e we want things quickly. yet jefferson wrote this 14 years after t the declaration. the ground of liberty is to be ained by inches. it takes time to per with swayed men even to do for their own good. my point is that we culturally need to step back and say these things take time. >> to think that we've spent

trillions now on these wars and that the war in afghanistan is going on 18 years, i think it's just ridiculous. i think also these wars and our foreign policy has caused us to have more enemies. they've done more harm than good. >> in the congress of the united states, i believe in the house of representatives there's simply still even with the reforms that nancy pelosi has pledged to accept based on my counterparts and the problem solvers caucus, i believe there's too much power this too few hands with too little getting done for the american people. i fear that is not going to hange.

>> new jersey sends four new members to the house of representatives for the 116th congress all of them seats reviously held by republicans. >> i began my service to this country when i was 18 years old. i served almost 10 years as a pilot and finally russian policy officer. i served again here in new jersey. after a lifetime of service i decided the best way i could continue my service to my country and new jersey was to run for congress because i'm not just concerned about what's happening now. i'm concerned about the future of new jersey because i have four kids and so i think we need to work in a bipartisan manner to get good legislation passed, a tax plan that doesn't attack new jersey, quality and

affordable health care for everyone in this country, working hard to bring costs down. infrastructure spending to grow our economy now and into t the future. i have always put this country first. i have worked with people from across the country and across the world to get the mission accomplished.

>> the c-span bus traveled to tennessee asking folks what does it mean to be american? >> studying the history or the past and sometimes they'll say why? so looking at it specifically and questioning things that go on now, to push the idea of democratic citizenship, voting and seeing what you can do. >> to me, to be an american means to be free, to think, to speak, to express my thoughts. i'm free to relate to other people no matter who they are. i'm free to have the oxygen around me and express everything that i want to be,

and i'm free to be everything i want to be. it's so important to appreciate being an american. part of ica, you are the greatest experiment in self-government that the history has ever known. part of with being an american is understanding that we believe at our core that each individual is created equally and they have the same god-given rights as every other individual. >> to be an american, you are involved in the city, state, local government, so that you can learn about problem solving and look at some of the areas this your local governments and see how you can use your voice, your background, your area of expertise to make it better. that you are aware of things that are going on and you are

actively looking tor ways to improve and make it better tor the next generation. >> it's great to be here and talk about what it is to be an american. what can you do to better your community locally, and then statewide, and then of course all that trickles up to national opportunities. but really everything is local. so what are you doing to make your communities better? helping our younger generations, help the older eneration. t's really as we said from beginning to end and how can you make your community a better place to be.