healthcare can get a whole lot easier when your medical records, care and coverage are in one place. at kaiser permanente, all of us work together for all that is you. getting answers. holy bats. just in time for halloween in parts of the bay area are seeing a huge increase in the population of bats. what's driving that? and should we have any concerns? and as we remember, actor matthew perry, we also remember his mission when it comes to recovering from addiction. we'll take a deep dive into that topic. but first, the white house makes its first move to rein in artificial intelligence. you're watching getting answers. i'm kristen sze. president biden

signed an executive order today creating new standards for safety and protections over ai. he gave a speech about it and talked about the good and the bad when it comes to artificial intelligence, ai is helping millions of computers find the shortest route home as well. >> but, you know, in some cases, ai is making life work worse. for example, using teenagers personal data to figure out what will keep them glued to their device. that's why, with the help of civil rights leaders here today, this order directs several actions to protect american civil rights and their safety. >> he joining us live now is michael santoro, a professor at leavey school of business at santa clara university. professor santoro, thanks for your time. thank you, kristen, for having me. so that big announcement at the white house says this will safeguard american information, promote innovation and competition, and advance us leadership in the industry. what are the key safety and security measures being proposed in this executive order? >> yeah, well, there's a couple.

i mean, first there's the institutionalization, if you will, of the you know, what are in the silicon valley called the red team, the you know, if you remember just a few years ago, there were question was about what the role of what were then referred to as hackers were in identifying weaknesses in in systems that were being designed by tech companies. now with this executive order, we find that this has been formally ized as an industry with rule governed with rules to come about how so-called red team units should conduct their activities and also rules regarding how companies should be reporting the results of red team activity . so that's one big and notable area. the other is, you know, which was a surprise to me having followed the potential of ai regulation for some time, is the emphasis put on bio

biological, radiological and nuclear applications of ai. this is the first time i think we're seeing that the concerns about ai extend beyond just issues like privacy and issues that affect consumers and ed and extends now to issues such as safety, literally from biological weaponry and nuclear weaponry. i think that that's new and think it serves to underscore how thoughtful and forward looking the administration's new order is. >> right. i mean, this is confusing to a lot of people because it is relatively new, even though it feels like we've had ai now chatgpt forever. and that's how deep its impact is. but i think a lot of us are familiar with, oh, i could create deep fakes, right? it could insert me in video. that's not me. or show me videos of people saying things. it's not biden, it's not, you know, this

political group or that, but talk about some of these other uses that we had not even thought of. the ones that really require that the public sector and government get its hands, hands and handle, if you will, on kind of a framework and regulations. >> i mean, i think that there's you know, i'm looking at the standard itself and there is a whole section on on on specific applications to biological weapons, for example, that i think that caught all of us off guard. i mean, it does show that the administration has done a lot of work with companies trying to understand what some of the underlying issues are. but how i mean, like you said, we've been focused on issues like copyright privacy, tsay, uh- and this this emphasis on the potential weaponization of ai is brand new as far as i can

tell. >> can you just make that a little bit more concrete even for our viewers at home on how how that kind of weaponization could happen using ai that could threaten us existentially? >> yeah. i mean, so the top leaders like elon musk and mark zuckerberg have been saying now for over a year that the way in which i could could function as an existential threat to us is that somehow the robots will stop listening to us and take over and start like literally physically attacking us. i think . but what we are now beginning to see is that a second existential threat is that ai can which by the way, has to be said, has so many positive applications and issues that we care about, such as climate change, you know, also has the potential will to advance weaponry tsay and that, you

know, that that is something a new kind of existential threat. as you've noted, it's not one that we have been thinking about previously. >> right. so is this the government kind of making rules for the private sector or is this giving suggestions to the private sector or is it setting up a government entity to deal with the private sector? explain how this works. >> that's a great question. and it's all of the above. it's so what's really impressive about this government or this presidential order is that is that it's a smart mix of all of those things. like so there are, for example, rules about about, you know, red team and how the red team activity is to be reported. and but then there are other areas sort of alluded to which are in in the order there such as the voluntary principles that were signed some some time

ago by 15 green tech companies here in the area. it's a and it also involves some suggestions and it involves some suggestions to congress about laws to pass, particularly in the area of privacy. and as president biden noted, especially as they relate to children. so i would call this a smart mix. i also want to add, by the way, that as i see it, the most important aspect of this order is that it puts the united states in the game of regulating ai. the most important thing about this order is that the battle has now been joined. i think, between the united states and europe as to who is going to regulate ai and how it's going to be regulated. and so i have to believe that from the standpoint of technology companies here in silicon valley, that they're very happy that the president has weighed in in a significant way because europe has been, you

know, much farther ahead of us in trying to regulate ai. and so i think what we're going to see in the next year or two is a, the us and europe sort of sitting down at the table and hashing out who is going to regulate ai and how it's going to be regulated. but to me that's the single most important aspect of this order is that it's such a broad and important initiative that it has to send a message to europe that, you know, we're not just going to stand by and let you regulate our companies. >> and so often to, you know, you see companies kind of telling government, hey, stay out of our way. but here you have the guys behind openai ai chatgpt, like a lot of the industry leaders going to the government, the white house saying, please do something. we need this leadership and framework. so that is interesting. so let's focus on some of the positive developments that you see coming out of this. you know, for folks who are still wondering how does this eventually help solve some of our biggest problems, where

do you see that going and what does it take for that to happen? >> well, i think if i may, i think that, you know, what i would put at the end of the executive order is to be continued. so much of this is obviously going to be played out. but the one area that i think maybe didn't get as much attention as it might have in the order is something that people in silicon valley have been worried about for some time. so it's no accident that the movement for basic wages for all individuals, regardless of where they're there, whether they're working or not, that that movement kind of started in silicon valley some years ago, three, four, five years ago. people in silicon valley were aware that this technology was going to put a lot of people out of work and so i do think that we really that the one area that i would encourage the administration to give further heft to is what to do about

displaced workers. we face this 20 years ago when we promised workers in the midwest whose jobs were being displaced that we were going to retrain them. well you know, it was a lot of talk, but we never did that. and so we now have these hollowed out communities as throughout america, where fentanyl is a problem. and i think that the you know, there's something similar that's going to happen with ai. and i think this is an area where we need the government to be proactive and not just talk about it, but really to do something meaningful for the people who are inevitably going to be affected by by this in terms of their jobs and employment. >> you're right. we cannot leave wide swaths of people behind. professor santoro, thank you so much for fascinating discussion. thank you so much for having me. and the professor brought up fentanyl. i do want to get into it next with the death of actor matthew perry bringing up conversation questions about his public battle with addiction. different kind, of course, but

his advocacy really to help those recover. we'll get into that

addiction and into recovery. and he wanted to be remembered for his efforts to help those recovering from addiction. here's his interview with diane sawyer one year ago. >> for some reason, it's obviously because i was on friends. more people will listen to me. so i've got to take advantage of that. i've got to help as many people as i can. >> joining us live now to talk more about this, an issue that affects so many as dr. keith humphreys, professor of psychiatry at stanford and senior drug policy adviser in the obama white house. thank you

so much, professor humphreys, for joining us. >> very glad to be here. >> i just want to say we don't know perry's cause of death yet. the medical examiner says additional investigation is required. but we do know perry was found dead in his hot tub. and there's a lot of conjecture for. but we know he had long struggle with addiction. what are the lasting effects from addiction? even if you have been successful in recovery for years? and, you know, last we heard him talk a year ago, it sounded like he was doing well. >> yeah, that was my impression as well. and he did have a very difficult road as he, you know, wrote himself in his recent book, you know, nine times through rehab, but then into stable recovery. so it seems. but you know, the substances in addition to, you know, carrying risk for addiction, also can do other damage to the body. so if you, you know, think people all know this from smoking, you can do damage to your lungs, to your heart. you can certainly do brain damage with drugs like opioids that are associated with overdose, which means basically

the brain is being deprived of oxygen. so even when you're in recovery, there are often medical issues to attend to. and you know, whether it was in this case, don't want to speculate it, but it certainly has a general matter that does sometimes happen. right >> right. and there are people talking about how he his heart had stopped before he revealed that he had the cpr for five minutes. and i wonder about lasting damage. and is heart event having a heart event common for people who have gone through addiction? >> yeah, it really is. and in fact, among my colleagues who run cardiology units, you know, a lot of them are now seeing a number of young people who are very heavy users of methamphetamine who have the hearts that look like a, you know, a 70 year old who's been smoking for 40 years. so that that certainly one one route to damage and other stimulants as well. cocaine is another drug that can do damage to the heart. alcohol can also do significant damage to the heart. so, you know, that's why, you know, addiction is although we don't tend to put much resources into

treating it directly, we certainly end up as a health care system, taking care of many of its, you know, common side effects right now. >> this is not in any way to suggest perry perhaps didn't do everything right. and what is right anyway. right. everyone's journey is different. but when you look at what he went through, if you were to give advice to someone else who is trying to overcome addiction and he himself was trying to help other people, what would you say is the lesson drawn and what would you advise them? >> well, one of the things i took from his experience was the importance of persisting. you know, he you know, had the very common experience which many people who are addicted have, of , you know, having periods of stability and then relapsing. and, you know, that is that is part of the disorder. it's something we can't treat. but people can learn to manage. if you relapse, it does not mean that you're doomed forever. it does not mean you're a bad person. it means you have an illness and you know you can get back up on your horse and keep

going again. and i think he he was a great example of that. the other thing to take from it is that, you know, it can affect anybody. you know, he was a rich, successful, handsome, beloved figure. and yet he suffered from this disorder. so if you if you do, no need to feel ashamed or there's something wrong with you, it happens. you know, as they say to the best of us, look, there was a time when you were in the obama white house as the drug policy adviser, where you could give suggestions that perhaps would lead to policy that could lead to difference in this war. >> right. and i want you to take a look at what's happening in across the country, but certainly here in our own backyard, in san francisco. right. and what's happening here with the addiction, what is your view on what needs to be done? >> well, the fundamental thing we were trying to do in the obama administration was to mainstream the care of substance use disorder into the rest of the health care system. i mean, it's sort of a country cousin. it's outside the system. it tends to be less funded, have

fewer staff and be poorly integrated. and so we thought the way to do that was to integrate the financial mechanism, the insurance programs and things like that. and the affordable care act, among many other things, went a long way towards doing that, as does what are called parity laws, which mean that insurers have to cover substance use disorder like they would other diseases. those are those are really important things. but the work is not done. you know, many, many people who experience addiction have a great deal of time finding treatment. also, sometimes when they interact with health care system, they're treated very badly and discouraged. so there's a ways to go. >> addiction, of course, is not just an individual struggle collectively. it is also society's struggle. right. and you have written a little bit about some of the causes for what we're seeing in san francisco. what is your view on what needs to change, if you will, to really create a difference in what we're seeing on the streets? >> yeah, so there's more than

one piece to this, but part of it is the actual drug market in san francisco that is something that we need to suppress. and there are models for doing that where community and police and health work together as they have in other cities. not not that you eliminate drug use or drug dealing at all, but at least you can have neighborhoods like the tenderloin, which i know very well, because i volunteer in that neighborhood, become a safe place to raise a family. that's a reasonable expectation. i get that in my life. and my neighborhood. the people who live in those neighborhoods deserve the same expectation of safety and that's a place where i think the city could do better. and i think just about every person responsible position in the city agrees with that. >> dr. humphreys, i think we have how much time here? i'm checking. we have we have time for one more question. i want to ask you what is your view on harm reduction? it is a controversial topic. what do you think would be the best approach? >> well, you know, in all diseases, you know, the health care system tries to cure when

it can, but it can't always do that. and in those cases, it works as best it can to make the person's life better, reduce their symptoms, improve their health. so you know, if you have someone in front of you that you can help and maybe they're not going to become, you know, abstain forever, but you can change their behavior in ways that makes it less likely they'll hurt themselves or hurt other people. you should do that. and that's the logic behind harm reduction. >> dr. keith humphreys, professor of psychiatry at stanford and senior drug policy advisor in the obama administration. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> up next, halloween is tomorrow. so we wanted a topic that was timely for the holiday bats. apparently there's a surge of them here in the bay area. we'll talk about that next

that answer may surprise you. it's yes, at least right now. joining us live to talk more

about that is matt sharp cheney, a wildlife biologist from midpeninsula regional open space district. matt, thanks for your time. >> absolutely. thanks for having me. >> this definitely captured our attention the day before christmas. we're seeing a surge in bats in the bay area. what is up with that? tell us about it. >> yeah, so people might be noticing more bats out and about on the landscape than they have previously. and what's kind of happening right now in the bats life cycle is the bat maternity roosting season, which takes place in the summertime where bats are often gathering in big colonies and having young pups there now distributing across the landscape and moving from those summer maternity roosts into to their winter, what we call hibernacula, which are basically a place where they can go wait out the winter in the cold months and become much less active. so people might be seeing bats popping up where they haven't seen them before. and if they are seeing that, that's a good thing because the bats that we have in our area,

all 16 species that occur in the bay area, which are native to our region, are insectivores. so they're eating things like mosquitoes and agricultural pests. no vampire bats here. >> that's good to hear. phew. i did read that perhaps there might be more insects out there this year because of last winter's rain contributing to the kind of increased bump in the bat population. is that is there a validity to that? >> yeah, that's a definite possibility. so yeah, of course, all that extra rain that we got last year, big winter would definitely provide a big bumper crop of vegetation which would mean that there are likely more insects out and about on the landscape than there had been previous years. so in general, probably pretty good for our bat population, but also worth knowing that a lot of bats worldwide and even here in california face a lot of threats like impacts from wind turbines, a disease called white nose syndrome, that is, can wipe out

90 to 100% of colonies, as well as habitat loss. so it's good to see that, you know, people are noticing bats out on the landscape more right now. yeah. >> where are they right now? are people seeing them on hiking trails? are there places where they tend to congregate or ours where they tend to be spotted? >> yeah. so bats are nocturnal, almost exclusively in our region. every once in a while you'll get an odd bat that's flying during the day. but typically the best time to see bats would be around dawn and dusk when they're heading out and flying from their roosts. they can roost in the sides of buildings. they can roost in exfoliating bark and trees and a really good spot to find them would be anywhere where there's water. so if you can find a pond or a stream, um, near forest habitat, you might find bats flying along the surface and catching insects and which could be really exciting thing to see. >> oh, my gosh. okay real quickly, we have time for i'm going to ask two and one here.

should we worry about rabies with the bats that we see here? and then before we go, i want you to tell me about the excitement over the naming of a california state bat. >> yeah. so rabies is no joke. it's not something to take lightly. but i do want to say that often bats are kind of portrayed as, uh, you know, more of a cause of rabies than they really are in the us. for example, only on average, two people a year contract rabies from bats. so it's, it's not that common. so if you're worried about bats and rabies, all you need to do is just avoid coming into contact with bats. and that's pretty straightforward. >> and real quickly. >> and the state bat. yes. yes so the pallid bat has just been selected as the california state bat. they are an amazing species. they have kind of blondish hair. they eat things like scorpions and we actually have one of the only known maternity roosts for that species on the san francisco

peninsula on mid-pen preserve. so it's a really cool bat. >> another reason to check it out if you can go hiking. matt sharp cheney, thank you so much. really appreciate all that exciting information on the bat. take care. happy halloween. thank you. a reminder, folks, you can get our live newscasts, breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app. it's available on apple tv. google tv, fire tv and roku search abc7 bay area and download it now. we'll be

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after the game and a special edition of abc7 news at nine. all right, that's going to do it for now. thanks for joining us for getting answers today. we'll be here every weekday at three answering questions with experts from around the bay area. world news tonight with david muir is next. and i'll see you back here at 4:00 tonight, a hostage rescued more than three weeks after being kidnapped by hamas. you'll see the emotional reunion. the alarming scene, an angry mob surrounding a plane on a tarmac, looking for jewish passengers. and the fbi investigating the new threats in the u.s., including concerns at cornell. that israeli soldier rescued from hamas. isra tonight, that reunion with her family, as hamas release as video appearing to show three women hostages pleading for their release. inside gaza, thousands of palestinian civilians b