AI and the Enshittification Era w/ Cory Doctorow | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

CORY DOCTOROW: The people who oppose Donald Trump's agenda. in both parties have completely failed to speak to the things. that people need and that people want, and to show them that there is the possibility. of an alternative. So one of the things I've been trying. to work into this conversation here. is how we ended up in this situation, just in respect. to privacy. JON STEWART: OK. CORY DOCTOROW: When I testified that the Consumer Finance. Protection Bureau in the last couple of days of the Biden. admin when they were banning data brokers, which Trump unbanned, and the speaker before me was speaker.

from the American Association of Retired People who wanted. the committee to know that the ad broker. industry would sell you ad targeting. to people with dementia. And then the person after me was from the Pentagon, who. wanted them to know that you can buy as an ad targeting. group military personnel on base. who have gambling problems. JON STEWART: Oh, Jesus Christ. CORY DOCTOROW: So, like, this-- so. how do we end up in this horrible place with privacy? Well, here it is. The last time Congress passed a federal consumer. privacy law was in 1988.

And that was a law that makes it. illegal for video store clerks to disclose. your VHS rental history. [JON LAUGHING] Right? And every other form of privacy invasion is legal in America. They spy on you because they can. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Weekly Show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart. My name is Jon Stewart, and I will be. your host for today's program. It's Tuesday, July 28.

We're all recovering from the bombing raid. that the President of the United States. pulled on the White House Correspondents Dinner. Not so fucking easy, is it, buddy boy? As a comedian, when you watch somebody bombing like that, the traditional thing to say is, "hey, don't quit your day job.". But, I think in the President's case, I think we would all make an exception. And if he would like to quit his day job. and pursue full time--. I think he can improve.

I think he's got some timing. The weave didn't quite work with some. of the more concise roasts. And, once again, in the battle between Kaitlan Collins and. Donald Trump-- point Collins. I believe the score now somewhere around 328 to 0. Her sophistication, focus in class. is just wiping the floor with that dude. But, moving on from those events,

I have been in a bit of a doomer spiral. concerning AI and its effects on how it will be changing, the way we work, the way we interact with each other, and all those things. And I recently read a book that changed. my perspective slightly. I don't want to tell you it gave me a tinge of optimism. But, in fact-- and it was a feeling. I'm not so comfortable with. But I thought, well, geez, let me talk to this just incredibly. wonderful and prolific author who wrote this book.

that I'm talking about. The book is actually called The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life. After AI--. How to Think About Artificial Intelligence Before It's. Too Late. So let's get to him. Let's bring on in our guest for today, Cory Doctorow. [MUSIC PLAYING]. Ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted and honored to have. with us today maybe one of the most prolific writers. that I know. And his work is just phenomenal. You know him from Enshittification.

The new book is The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life. After AI. Science fiction writer, activist, journalist, author-- for God's sakes, Cory Doctorow. Thanks for joining us. CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, what a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on, Jon. This is a real bucket list. JON STEWART: I'm delighted and just an enormous fan. of your work and your writing-- disturbed at how much of it. you're able to do in how many different genres, but we're putting that aside for the moment. I am an AI--. I'm a doomer.

I believe I am a doomer. And, reading your book, you are far less pessimistic, not just. about its ability to destroy our civilization as we know it, the existential threat, but even the promise of it as a job. destroying cyclops that comes in and gathers. up all of our productivity and puts. us all on Elon Musk's dole.

So let's go through--. talk me out of a tree, Cory. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. So I'm really indebted to this STS, society and technology. studies, scholar at Virginia Tech, a guy called. Lee Vinsel, coined this very useful term, which is criti-hype. This is when you repeat the hype of the tech industry. And then at the end of it, you put in brackets, "and that's bad.". And the thing is, you're repeating the hype. You're just helping them sell it.

So Mark Zuckerberg shows up one day and says, hey, everyone, I don't know if you know, but I'm, like, Cyber Rasputin. I'm a dopamine hacking wizard. Where Mesmer failed, and MKUltra, and pickup artists, and neurolinguistic programming weirdos failed, I have succeeded. I built the mind control ray out of big data. And then his critics go around and go like, Cyber Rasputin--. The reason Grampy is a QAnon is Cyber. Rasputin made him a QAnon. It's not because, like, Grampy was always racist, and Mark Zuckerberg introduced him to a lot of other racists. so they could just do racist shit all day.

It's because he was brainwashed by Mark Zuckerberg. And then Mark Zuckerberg's sales guys go out, and they're like, you asking me why you should spend 40%. more to advertise on Facebook? Well, I don't know, but my critics will tell you. my boss is an evil, dopamine hacking wizard, and he can sell anything to anyone. So you just don't want to do the work for them, right? JON STEWART: Right. But is that any of that hype-- so when you talk about that, is the algorithm not designed-- isn't it designed purely to do.

exactly what you're saying? He might not be the wizard, but in the same way that--. I've talked about this a little bit--. in the same way that Doritos are not food. They're designed in a lab to get past your body's. ability to say, two bags? That's not enough at all. I need three. Aren't they doing that to us? CORY DOCTOROW: So, yeah. I mean, this idea of palatability, which is, like,

a problem with highly processed food, I see where you're coming from when we talk. about social media algorithms. But I think that, like, this idea of Occam's razor--. finding the more parsimonious explanation-- yeah, sure. Like, things that are entertaining are entertaining. and you'll watch them, right? But also, it's really hard to get the people you love to act. in a coordinated fashion. Economists have a term for this. They call it the collective action problem. You love your besties, but, like, the six people.

in your group chat, can't agree on where. to go for beers on Friday. So, there's 200 of you on Facebook. And some of you are there because, like, you. share a rare disease with a community there. And some of you are there because you, like, moved from another country. and that's where everyone is. Some of you are there because that's. how you're organizing the carpool. for your kid's Little League. And some of you are there because like your customers, your audience are there. And Mark Zuckerberg, he kind of understands. that if you love your friends more than you hate him, you'll probably stick around. And so he can turn the screws. And so you have this thing that's. like, why am I on Facebook all the time when I hate it?

Well, because your friends are there. And you can say, well, my friends are there because they. are also brainwashed. Or you can say, my friends are there. because it's just really hard to coordinate our departure. Now, I have a personal example of this, which is that my grandmother was a Soviet refugee. And she had been a child soldier. in the siege of Leningrad. So from, like, 12 to 15 was, like, hauling bodies. And then she gets evacuated across the winter ice, ends up in Siberia, gets knocked up by my grandfather. They desert, they go to Azerbaijan. My dad is born.

And then, they go all the way to Canada, you know? And, like all the best Americans, I'm Canadian, right? JON STEWART: Fair enough. CORY DOCTOROW: So they go all the way to Canada. No one else leaves Leningrad. They're all there. Because what had happened with my grandmother is she'd had, like, some important bonds shattered-- like, this bond where she was in this relationship, where she was. taking care of the older people, they were taking care of her, and so on. The people who stayed behind, that's not what happened. They all stayed. And there has not been a moment since. that their lives weren't worse than my branch. of the family's life.

And now, we get on these Zoom calls with my Russian family. and, like, all the men are worried about getting. drafted and sent to Ukraine. And it's just awful, right? So, like, why didn't they leave? It's not because they were brainwashed by Stalin. They didn't leave because, like, they. wanted to be with each other. And, as much as they loved each other--. Sartre was an optimist, hell is other people-- you can't get. anyone to do anything ever. And so you're all just stuck there. JON STEWART: It's nothing more than a body at rest, tends to stay at rest, and a body in motion.

tends to stay in motion. Because it does-- and I certainly. can't quote studies on this--. but it feels like if it doesn't rewire the mind, it has added in an accelerant into maybe some. of our lesser impulses as--. CORY DOCTOROW: Sure. Yeah-- six of one, half dozen of the other. I mean, we have this problem all the time. because, like, people exist in a society, right? So, like-- JON STEWART: Right.

CORY DOCTOROW: --yeah, we go for a junk food. social interactions instead of the meaningful ones. But also, like, my mom's dad, who's the oldest of 10. and dropped out of school at 13 to take. care of his brothers and sisters when his dad died--. by the time my mom came around and her two siblings, he was, like, a 35-year-old door-to-door insurance salesman. who owned his own home, played bowling on the weekend, also golfed, also was, like, in a fraternal organization. They went to picnics. And they took six weeks off on one income, right?

Like, I don't know anyone who's not working, like, five jobs. So, yeah, why do we squeeze in all of our social interactions. around the edges? Well, maybe because, like, getting a whole evening. free to go bowling and then, like, also. being a member of, like, your local Kiwanis. and whatever requires that you not be, like, stuck in the gig economy working every hour. that God sends to pay for a house. that doesn't cost 20% of your income, but 60% of your income. And, sure, like, all this stuff might be bad for you. It might be hyper-palatable.

You might be getting sucked into it. But, like, let's not give Mark Zuckerberg credit. that we don't know he deserves, especially. when it helps him sell ads. JON STEWART: In other words, intentionality is not. necessarily what he's doing. It may just be a byproduct. And that if you hype them, that helps them. And that gets us to AI. CORY DOCTOROW: Yes. JON STEWART: Which you have-- the idea is AI. is going into that same model. The feeling that you have is we are hyping it as a planet.

killer, as a Death Star, and that is helping. them in terms of valuation? Is that the mistake we're making by over-blessing them? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. I mean, there's lots of different stories. that AI tells that are quite outlandish. So there are ways in which AI is a planet killer, right? The carbon emissions are definitely not. doing the planet any favors. JON STEWART: An actual planet killer. Yes. CORY DOCTOROW: Right. But this idea that, like, oh, my god, what. if we teach the word guessing program too many words,

and it wakes up, and turns into God. and makes us into paperclips, right? Like, that is--. [JON LAUGHING]. It's like, what if we breed these horses. to run so fast that one of the mares. gives birth to a locomotive? Like, it's just not--. JON STEWART: By the way, favorite sentence in the book, The Reverse Centaurs Guide to Life. After AI, you're talking about how they talk about AI is--. the long mission truckers.

CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, long haul truckers. JON STEWART: Long haul truckers--. that the AI is going to turn them into autonomous long. haul truckers. And that's going to disrupt the largest industry. in America, which is trucking. And you break it down very nicely that there's only. like 25,000 of them. But you say, first of all, congratulations. You've just invented a shitty version of a train. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah. A bunch of large vehicles following.

each other at a constant distance in a dedicated lane. I mean--. [JON LAUGHING]. You know, great. Great. That's awesome. JON STEWART: But that's one of the greatest. sort of puncturing of the bubble of its importance. And is that something we need to continue to do? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. So this is another one of the stories that they tell. So there's one story that they tell--. and they're all interrelated. But there's one story they tell-- the AI is just going. to keep getting better, and eventually.

it's going to be caught. And it'll either solve all of our problems. or use us as fuel, right? And then there's the other story, which is that the AI can do so many jobs. that have such high wages--. that the fact that right now, like, the sector is making $50 billion a year. They claim it's $60 billion a year. $10 billion of that. is, like, money that Microsoft gave to OpenAI, and OpenAI gave back to Microsoft--. JON STEWART: They're just passing back and forth. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Look, I write thrillers about forensic accounting.

And in my considered professional opinion, to call that an accounting trick. is to do violence to the noble accounting trick. [JON LAUGHING]. Like--. JON STEWART: The CPAs of America salute you, sir. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. So, like, $50 billion a year-- when. I wrote the book, the total capital expenditure to date. was $700 billion. They've added at least another $1 trillion since. And if you believe--. JON STEWART: Added $1 trillion? CORY DOCTOROW: In the last year. And if you believe Gartner, who, admittedly, did.

say that by now we'd all be spending six hours a day. in the metaverse-- but if you believe Gartner, it's going to be $2.5 trillion in total. by the end of the year, right? So on $50 billion revenue. And they have to keep spending it, because the data centers, the GPUs, they're, like, replacing. them every two to five years. So, like, this expenditure just recurs. It's not like you train the model. and then you're like, well, we got the model now. I guess it's all set, right? JON STEWART: We can sit back. CORY DOCTOROW: It's new model, new model, new model. And so you have these ongoing operational expenditures.

You have these ongoing capital expenditures. And their answer to, how do you turn $50 billion of revenue. into profit when you're spending $1 trillion a year. to make it-- like, look, if you want $50 billion revenue. and you've got $1 trillion, I can do it for you. I'll give you $100 billion back. JON STEWART: It's called just put it all in an index fund, and you should be OK. CORY DOCTOROW: I'll put it under the mattress, and give you $100 billion back, and we'll call it a day. JON STEWART: It'll be fine. CORY DOCTOROW: Like, Sam Altman's out there running. the money-losingest venture in the history of the human race,

and his story about how it stops losing money. is eventually you displace enough wages. that bosses split the savings with Sam Altman, and he comes out ahead. [JON LAUGHING]. Right? [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: Are you at work right now? Are you the boss? Are you the boss. And you're listening to the podcast. to taunt the other workers that you. domineer over because you're a terrible boss? My point is simply this--.

this is an intervention. Stop being a control freak and doing. everything yourself at work. You're busy. You're multitasking. You're value-- hire experts. Upwork makes it easy to hire freelance expert specialists. to get the jobs done that maybe you don't want to do. or don't have the expertise to do, but don't want to admit you don't have the expertise to do. it, or don't have the time to do, or you want to focus on other parts of the business.

Upwork is a one-stop platform. You find, hire, and pay expert freelancers. across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, more. Do you want to do the marketing? Do you have time to do the marketing? Do you even know how to do the marketing? What, are you going to stand on a corner and pass out flyers? No, you're a busy person. That's why you're using Upwork. And then you browse profiles, review past work, hire, get started quickly. I'm telling you, man, Upwork takes.

care of all the stuff you don't feel like doing. and you need experts to do. And they'll handle contracts, payments. It's free to sign up, so visit Upwork.com/TWS right now. Post your job for free. It's Upwork.com/TWS to connect with top talent, ready. to help your business grow. That's U-P-W-O-R-K, Upwork.com/TWS. Do it now, unless you're uh-scared.

Cory, let me ask you--. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: --what is that, when you say it generates. $50 billion in revenue, and then you. say they've added another $10 billion, but that's really just an accounting. gimmick, what is the way that AI returns that investment? What is that $50 billion? Is it user fees? CORY DOCTOROW: People buying subscriptions. JON STEWART: That's all it is? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. It's subscriptions. Yeah. It's enterprise licenses and subscriptions. JON STEWART: Government contracts and things like that. CORY DOCTOROW: Government contracts. Yeah. All that stuff. It sums up to $50 billion.

Now, there'll be new numbers and then whatever. And you may have noticed that Anthropic just said that they. were profitable, but not using generally. accepted accounting practices, which is just awesome. It's like we are profitable, but the math is so cool that we. can't even describe it to you. If you use regular math, it's not going. to look like we're profitable. We've got this new math. And the same week they had this other announcement, which is we have this tool, Mythos, that's. such a cool security tool that we can't show you how it works. But it's really good. JON STEWART: It's too dangerous.

It's too dangerous. CORY DOCTOROW: It's too dangerous. The fact that our IPO, that we're trying to get, like, this IPO in shape-- like, nothing to do with it. Don't look under the blanket. What's under the blanket's amazing. It's definitely worth buying into the IPO at, like, $150 odd. But don't look under the blanket. You look under the blanket, you're. going to turn into a pillar of salt. And then, you know, it'll be on your head. And also, don't ask us to explain the math. by which we're profitable. And also, we've been selling $100 bills for $1 each.

And, like, when we started down this IPO road, we were like, why don't we start charging. $5 for these $100 bills? JON STEWART: Oh, god. CORY DOCTOROW: And every CEO who's been buying $100 bills. was like, I'm sorry. At $5, these $100 bills are not worth it. JON STEWART: So does this, then, reframe, is the threat of AI not that it will turn us into paperclips. or that it will replace all of our high paying jobs, but that, because it is a three card Monte, it will utterly shatter our economy? I mean, the Mag Seven-- most of the growth.

in the American economy is driven by this AI. promise, right? I mean, we went through this in the internet boom. And the internet, I think, has become standardized. and is a valuable part of the economy. So is this truly a Potemkin village? What are we dealing with? CORY DOCTOROW: So let me give you some--. because that often comes up, right? This is like the web. The web lost money. AI lost money. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: That's like this food is delicious, that food is delicious. Therefore, they're the same food.

Like, the fact that they share this one trait. doesn't make them the same thing. JON STEWART: They both go in your mouth. CORY DOCTOROW: They both go in your mouth. JON STEWART: Yes. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. There's some Monty Python bits about this. JON STEWART: I'm sure there is. CORY DOCTOROW: If it floats, it's a duck. It's a witch. Yeah, yeah. So here's the thing--. the web had very good unit economics. Like, no one should do--. JON STEWART: What is unit economics? What is that? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. So I was just going to say no one should. do an economics degree because you'll end. up with a neurological injury. But learning something about economics is useful. And so learning, like, what unit. economics are-- super useful.

Unit economics are what happens to your business. when you get a new customer or make a new sale, right? JON STEWART: OK. CORY DOCTOROW: Like, how much money do you make. Like, per unit, how does your business do? So in the web, like, yeah, they were losing money. But every new customer made them more profitable. Every use by a new customer made the web. as a sector more profitable. And also, every generation of the web. is more profitable than the previous one. Compare that to AI. Every new AI customer costs the company. that just acquired them money. The more that AI customer uses their products, the more money they lose.

And every generation of AI has lost more. money than the previous one. JON STEWART: Ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta. CORY DOCTOROW: Ta, ta, ta, ta. JON STEWART: Tease that out. Because we talked a little bit about Zuckerberg. and the evil genius. Clearly, the incentives on social media. were an attention incentive. The more they can keep you on social media, the more money. they can make, because I guess the more ads they can sell. and that type of thing. Is AI, the incentives are inverse to that?

So the more you use their AI, how does that cost them more? CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, well, because every time you use AI, it costs them money to run the inference. Can I sidebar here just a little on inference? JON STEWART: Man, anytime you want, Cory Doctorow. CORY DOCTOROW: OK. JON STEWART: Sidebar away. CORY DOCTOROW: Because I want to mention one of the very best. researchers on AI economics, which is this guy. called Ed Zitron, who you should have on. JON STEWART: Eddie Zitron. Big Z. CORY DOCTOROW: Amazing guy. Zed. He's British.

JON STEWART: Zed. All right. CORY DOCTOROW: So, Ed, someone leaked. OpenAI's finances to him, right, their balance sheet. Because it's all private. So he gets a look at it, and it really looks. like their inference costs. So inference is like you type in, "draw me Sonic. the Hedgehog with big boobs.". And then it makes Sonic--. that step is the inference. JON STEWART: Have you been reading my diary, Doctorow? Where did you--. CORY DOCTOROW: They leak your queries. JON STEWART: Oh, son of a bitch. CORY DOCTOROW: So, yeah, you asked that,

and that's the inference step. That's using it part. In economics speak, that would be the operating expense of AI. So, like, it looks like their opex is going down, which is like, OK, that's all right. Because if they can just do the capex once, make the model, and then they just start making money from the opex, then you can make money from it-- just like you build. a railroad, and then you sweat the asset by running. rail cars up and down it. But here's the thing--. their marketing budget is as big as Coca-Cola's. JON STEWART: What? CORY DOCTOROW: Now, Coca-Cola has, like, three full time ad agencies,

right, and ads everywhere. So where's the OpenAI, like, army of marketers? So here's Ed's theory, and I think he's right-- what they're. doing is they're saying when we sell you that $100 bill for $1. and let you do $100 worth of inference. for $1, that's not inference. That's marketing. So we're just putting it somewhere else. on the balance sheet. JON STEWART: But even--. Cory, let's say it's a loss leader. Let's say-- they used to do that in the mall.

Somebody would stand out there with a little plate. with little cheese cubes, and you'd walk by. and go, oh, this is delicious. We'll come into Hickory Farms, and they figure you'll buy--. the loss leader is take this cheese, and you'll buy $100 worth of Vienna sausages. or whatever else is in there. But if the money that they are spending. to bring in new people, but each new person who's using it. costs them more money than they're making, well, that's the shittiest business model--.

I've never even heard of anything like that. CORY DOCTOROW: So there's two poles of finance wisdom. that I turn to in these moments, right? One is this thing called Stein's. Law, which is anything that can't go on forever. eventually stops. The other, Jon Kenneth Galbraith--. the market can remain irrational longer. than you can remain solvent. JON STEWART: Bars. CORY DOCTOROW: So you're spending more than you're. making, you're eventually going to have a reckoning. of some kind, right?

But when does that reckoning come? Well, like, if you're Elon Musk, you take your money furnace, which is called Grok, and you stuff it inside your, like, Beltway bandit rocketry. company that builds uncle sucker billions of dollars. for rockets that is profitable, and then you IPO it, and you get a special deal from NASDAQ. so that it IPOs in the NASDAQ 100. instead of having to wait a couple of quarters the way. it normally would, which means that every fund manager who's. managing a NASDAQ index fund has to go out and buy.

SpaceX at whatever price. They're, like, legally obliged. That's what it means to run an index fund. And you list very few shares when you go public. Instead, what you do is you get another exemption--. again, from the feds--. that let insiders unload without the normal. lockout period. And so now, you have these fund managers who need to buy SpaceX. at any price, which is just a way to offload. GrokX in the money furnace. They need to buy it at any price. And there's no shares available from SpaceX, which.

means that the Emiratis and the billionaire Silicon Valley. guys who backed him when he bought Twitter for $40 billion, who backed him when he built the money furnace for GrokX, now, they get to be made whole by your pension fund, which you stuck in an index. JON STEWART: Oh, my god. CORY DOCTOROW: Which, like, was just. supposed to be, like, the thing-- remember Warren. Buffett, like, three pieces of investing advice,

fits on the back of a postcard, this. is what I told my wife to do with my money when I die? Just put it in an index fund and forget it. JON STEWART: That's right. CORY DOCTOROW: If you did that, Elon Musk just unloaded on you. You're his liquidity. Now, they were supposed to also do it with the S&P 500. And, to their credit, not a thing I would often say about. Standard and Poor's-- but, to their credit, S&P said no at the last minute after a lot of public pressure. And S&P is like--. it's got a lot more old money. I think there was some millionaire on billionaire. violence there.

I think there were, like, a lot of rich people. who were like, don't do this to the S&P. Do it to NASDAQ. NASDAQ's the Bernie Madoff exchange. JON STEWART: That's a UFC fight that you've. got nobody to cheer for. That's just--. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. JON STEWART: There's nowhere to go there. Let them fight. But, Cory, what you're describing. is a time bomb that's going to make mortgage backed securities. look like a lemonade stand. Because, I mean, is that why all these guys. are trying to get to Mars? Like, they figure when this thing--.

CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, sidebar. Adam Becker, astrophysicist, you should have him on someday, wrote an amazing book about this. He points out that if you detonated every nuke on Earth. at the same moment as the meteor that killed. the dinosaurs struck us again, Earth would still. be more habitable than Mars could ever be because it would. still have water, oxygen, gravity, a magnetosphere, and a troposphere. Like, we're not going to Mars. We should send robots to Mars. Maybe we'll send a person someday. We're not going to go live on Mars.

That's just nuts. JON STEWART: It's not happening. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: The whole idea of this bubble. is they've sold us a future that is not actionable. because the technology that they've created. isn't the job killing wonder, isn't. the intelligence, the sentient creature. that they're telling us. And they're using it as a way to amass assets as a growth.

story for their valuations. Would this be a way of--. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah. JON STEWART: --reframing this? CORY DOCTOROW: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, like, here's the paradox of a growing company. The market loves a growing company. JON STEWART: Of course. CORY DOCTOROW: It's called the price to earnings ratio, right? Like, just how much money your company is worth based. on how much money it earns--. goes up if you're growing for, like, the obvious reason. that a share is a claim on the future revenue of the company.

Like, a company that's made a million this year, but we think. is going to make $2 million next year, it's worth more than a company that made $1 million this year. and is going to make $1 million next year. JON STEWART: It's a growth story. CORY DOCTOROW: What happens when you have. grown to the maximum size? What happens when you're Google, and you have a 90% market share? Well, suddenly, you're overvalued. Like, where are you going to grow. if you've got 90% of the market searching with Google? You can raise a billion humans to maturity in the hopes. that they become your customers. That product is called Google Classroom, right? But Google Classroom is going to take a decade to pay off.

Wall Street wants growth now. And so you've got to have some other story. And, first, we had these stories that. were sort of plausible, right? Google's like, oh, we're going to be Facebook. because we got Google Plus. And Facebook was like, oh, we're. going to be YouTube because we're pivoting to video. The problem with that is, like, well, Facebook has got ideas about why Google can't be Facebook. And Google's got ideas about why Facebook can be YouTube. You get these arguments, right? So then it's like, oh, no, we're. actually going to grow into a sector that doesn't exist. And while, like, it doesn't exist, which means it's hard to know how much it's worth, who's to say it's not worth infinity. since I just made it up?

I'm the expert-- Blockchain, Web3, Metaverse, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? And, like, they're just guys running. across the river in the back of an alligator. without losing their legs, right? They just got to keep going. Like, as soon as your belief collapses in DAOs and NFTs, they've got to have Web3 in the chute for you. And now, we get to AI. And AI is different. It's different because, like, from a computer science. perspective, AI is real. JON STEWART: There is a value to it. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. JON STEWART: And there is an actionable-- look, there's not a person that I know that has not availed.

themselves of the cogent organizational abilities. of ChatGPT, or Claude, or whatever they're getting--. or even the agentic abilities. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. I have a local model on my laptop. that I downloaded with Ollama, which is, like, some software. that Meta released, and it's just an open source. model that runs locally. It doesn't talk to the internet. And I use it to find typos. And it finds a bunch of typos that, like, my spell checker misses. JON STEWART: So this is going to destroy our world, and you're just grammar policing.

You're just going through--. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. I'm sure you've encountered this--. my readers are very invested in my knowing. when I've made a typo. And so if I publish a typo, I'm going to hear about it. And I actually have this weird thing. where I don't want to get locked into the platforms. because I've seen how they go. So I publish everywhere at once all at once. It's called POSSE-- post, own, site, share, everywhere--. which means that I'm just, like, manually turning everything into, like, threads on Bluesky and Mastodon and putting it on Tumblr--. I still use Tumblr, Medium, email, RSS, like, all of it. And then I make a typo, and, like,

I have to change it in all of those places, which. is, like, 20 minutes work. Sucks. So it finds typos for me. And, like every spell checker I've ever used, it flags a bunch of things that aren't typos. So here's one absolute rock solid truth about AI. is unless you know your subject, AI is not going to be a consistent help. for you in using it. I have discernment. JON STEWART: You already have to be versed. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, look, I've written more than 30 books.

I've been telling copy editors and publishers, lawyers that they're wrong for 25 years. I've been telling spell checkers. to go to hell for 40 years. Now, when I look at the suggestions that come back, like, I have collaborators who are, like, institutionally. using Microsoft Office 365, which has all this incredibly. intrusive AI suggestion stuff built in, and so we're working on a document together, and I'm like, this is the worst advice I've ever seen. And if you don't know what you're doing. and you take that advice, your writing's going to suck.

But it's true in different ways for other spell checkers. JON STEWART: And there is an uncanny--. there's an uncanny valley to what. is brought out by those chatbots. and those other things. And when you read it, it's pretty clear, as much as it flatters you with, wow, that's a great idea that you just came up with, and then it creates it-- there's definitely, as you read. it, you think to yourself, there's. something not quite right here, whether it's. soul, or art, or anything. CORY DOCTOROW: And you've just reminded me of something. So this flattery-- earlier, you talked about AI.

as a job killing technology. Is it or isn't it? I think it is, but not the way that the AI guys say it is. JON STEWART: OK. CORY DOCTOROW: Right? The AI guys say this can do your job. And getting back to criti-hype-- we. should distinguish between this can do your job. and an AI salesman can convince your boss. to fire you and replace you with this, even. though it can't do your job. Because your boss is a credulous dolt. who is infinitely horny for replacing. workers with chatbots.

[JON LAUGHING]. I was out on the picket line during the writers strike. JON STEWART: Yeah. CORY DOCTOROW: And I'm a member of an affiliated union. I'm in the animators guild and the writers union. So I was out there carrying a sign. It was around the corner from my place in Burbank. And a writer told me something really important. He said, you give shitty notes to a writer's. room the same way you prompt a chatbot, right? JON STEWART: Oh, that's so smart. CORY DOCTOROW: Like, give me ET, but it's about a dog. Put a love interest in it and, like, a car chase.

And, admittedly, that's just Air Bud. But you tell that to a writers' room, and either explicitly or implicitly, they're. going to go, like, why don't you fuck off. and make a spreadsheet? We're writing a movie here. [JON LAUGHING]. Whereas you say it to a chatbot, and it just shits out the script, and you go off to the steakhouse, and you come back, and the movie's made. Now, the fact that it's, like, unproducible, I think, may not matter as much as we think it would when that's.

weighed against the ego shattering confrontation. with people who know how to do things, and who roll their eyes, and tell you. that your brilliant idea is stupid, illegal, or will. kill people-- or impossible. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: Right? Because you're the boss, right? You tell yourself you're in the driver's seat. But you know if you don't show up for work, everything is fine. And if they don't show up for work, nothing happens. You're in the back seat with a Fisher-Price steering wheel, and AI might wire that toy steering wheel. directly into the drivetrain.

So you can be sold that technology. JON STEWART: Oh, you know I like to sleep because I'm old. That's a new song I've been working on. You know I'm in a band. We do original songs. I have not presented this song yet to the band to see what. they think of it, but I might. It's called "I Like to Sleep Because I'm Old.". When you get older, you got to have yourself. a little bit of the comfort.

And that's where the Avocado Green Mattress comes in, man. And, unlike most mattress brands. that'll only sell you online, they do have stores, too. You can go into a store, you can try them out. Unbelievably comfortable. Avocado Mattress is designed for comfort, support, helping. your body stay aligned. You know the last time my body was aligned? It's been-- I think it might have been the last time. the Mets won the World Series. That's how long it's been since it's been aligned.

But these mattresses, Avocado Green Mattress, responsibly sourced organic materials. that are built to last. So get an Avocado Green Mattress. Avocado products are made, not manufactured, and thoughtfully. crafted with real materials to deliver. lasting comfort and support. You can experience them in-person at an Avocado. showroom or premiere retailer near you, or shop online at AvocadoGreenMattress.com/TWS. to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's AvocadoGreenMattress.com/TWS.

AvocadoGreenMattress.com/TWS period. [MUSIC PLAYING]. This is where your book is really-- what you're talking. about is who's zooming who. So are we in control of a tool, or is a tool. and a story in control of us? And that's where you get into your story of centaurs. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: So how do you become its master blaster?

Are you the little guy sitting on top of the big guy, or are you the big guy and the little guy's. sitting on top of you? CORY DOCTOROW: Or are you Tina Turner in just. the best fit you've ever seen? JON STEWART: Or are you Tina Turner-- you. look so good in Thunderdome. CORY DOCTOROW: God damn. Yeah. JON STEWART: But, like are we master or are we blaster? CORY DOCTOROW: Or Mel Lastman hunting the last Jew. across the wasteland. JON STEWART: Yes. What are we? CORY DOCTOROW: Not Mel Lastman--. Mel Gibson. JON STEWART: Mel Gibson. CORY DOCTOROW: Mel Lastman was the terrible mayor of Toronto.

He wasn't an anti-Semite as far as I know. He was Jewish. JON STEWART: Mel Lastman was the mayor of Toronto? Was there an era before the Fords? I thought the Fords had always run Toronto. CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. He walked so Rob Ford could run. JON STEWART: Oh, beautiful. Somebody had to. CORY DOCTOROW: He was a buffoon. Yeah, he was a--. and also, he had a secret family. It was awesome. A small plug here--. "No Gods, No Mayors," a podcast about buffoonish mayors. My favorite podcast in the world right now. JON STEWART: Oh, my god. That's hilarious.

CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, my god. It's so good. So, yeah, centaurs, reverse centaurs. It won't surprise you to know that this. isn't the first time that labor and automation came. into conflict. So there is a literature. We know, like, how this works. And, broadly, when labor drives automation, it's in service to quality. And when capital drives automation, it's in service to throughput-- to quantity. And that's because, like, if you buy a subscription, you want to get maximum value out of it. Or if you acquire an asset and it's depreciating, you want to use it before it depreciates off the.

books, right? So this is why, especially when you have a market dominated. by, like, cartels, and monopolies, and duopolies, automation often makes things worse but more plentiful, because-- remember Lily Tomlin doing the phone operator. on Saturday Night Live? JON STEWART: One ringy dingy, two ringy dingy. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company. When you're the only game in town, you can make things worse. And if you can make them cheaper and worse, well. So, in automation theory, we call a person assisted.

by a machine a centaur. And the analogy here is you've got the human head. It's got all the judgment. It's got the discernment. It's got the intellect. And it is on the body of a horse. And the horse is strong. It's tireless. It's dexterous. It's fast. And the horse takes orders from the person, Master Blaster. So when you're riding a bicycle, you're kind of a centaur. You even look like a centaur. But, like, when you're using a spell checker, you're a centaur, too-- or a calculator. A reverse centaur is the reverse. It is the horse's head on the human body.

It's the machine giving orders to the person. And so that is because there's a part of the job. the machine can't do. So think here of, like, Lucy and Ethel. at the end of the conveyor belt putting the chocolates. in the chocolate box. The conveyor belt can do everything except. get the chocolates in the box. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: Why is the conveyor belt running so fast? Because if you automate the chocolate factory, you're not going to run the conveyor. belt more slowly than the workers at the end of it. You're going to run it at the limit. of their speed and endurance.

JON STEWART: Right. Productivity, I believe they call it. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And this is why Amazon warehouses are the most. automated warehouses the human race has ever. seen and have triple the injury rate of other warehouses. in the sector. That's not a coincidence. It is the consequence. When you spend seven figures to automate a warehouse, you're not going to run it slower than you need to. And so if you're a human and you're the peripheral. for the machine, right, doing the part of the job. at the perimeter that the machine can't do, and you're working at the absolute limit.

of your endurance, you're working at the absolute limit. of your dexterity and the absolute limit. of your strength over long periods, you will eventually make a mistake. And in a warehouse, you get impaled on a forklift. when that happens. And so that's the difference between a centaur. and reverse centaur. As you mentioned at the start of this, I'm a science fiction novelist. And a good science fiction is not about what gadgets do. It's about who the gadget does it for. and who the gadget does it to. It's about the social arrangements of our technology. Because while objects do have politics,

those politics are still contingent on the society. that they're based on and the way they come into being. And if you finance an AI bubble by raising $1 trillion a year. on the promise of firing workers, a lot of workers. are going to get fired, even if the AI can't do the job. And when you run out of money and those chatbots get shut. off, you end up with this circumstance-- we take people. who do a job that needs doing. We replace them with chatbots that do that job badly. And then the chatbots go away. You can't find those workers again, right? They've retired, they've become discouraged, they've retrained,

they've exited the workforce. All the process knowledge they had about, like, how things work and where things are. stashed, that's gone forever. It's vaporized, incinerated. And then you spend generations rebuilding it. This is asbestos in the walls of the. technological civilization. And that's not because it's AI. It's because the force of the AI bubble is fire workers. and replace them with automation. JON STEWART: Because that's the dream. The dream is this is-- and I've heard them say it-- not to us, but to each other-- which is AI is a way for people who run.

companies to get more productivity without the tax of. labor-- they refer to labor. So it almost feels like this AI bubble. is kind of the final boss battle. between capital and labor. It's this idea-- yeah, go ahead. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Never say "final," right? Who knows? JON STEWART: The second to last battle. CORY DOCTOROW: What's the Albert Einstein quote? I don't know what World War 3 will be fought with, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.

JON STEWART: Sticks and stones. Yes, yes. CORY DOCTOROW: So maybe that's the final battle, right? But you mentioned the Magnificent Seven. 35% of the S&P 500 is seven companies. Six of them are losing money on AI, and the seventh one is the one they're losing the money to. They're all passing around the same $100 billion. IOU really fast and pretending it's in all of their bank. accounts at once. Someday, because anything that can't go on forever. eventually stops-- someday, they will implode. And, look, we don't have to greet environmental calamity.

with austerity. Even, like, Trump during the pandemic, like, figured out that stimulus is. what you do when the private sector. is no longer employing people. JON STEWART: Jon Maynard Keynes, baby. Everybody forgets about Jon Maynard Keynes. Bring him home. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah. So we don't have to do that. But if we fall into the pattern we've done for the last 25. years, our response to vaporizing. a third of the economy is going to be more austerity. And, like, again, like, the jury is no longer out on this.

When you do austerity, you make people into fascists. JON STEWART: That's right. CORY DOCTOROW: There was just a study--. I live in the UK now. My wife quit her job in Hollywood, and I followed her to London to work at the BBC. And there was just a study here about what. happens to your voting when your doctor's office closes. Because, remember, we have socialized. medicine here with the NHS. And they've been doing austerity for 15 years. JON STEWART: How are you not all dead? I don't understand. We've been told if that happens, everyone is dead.

CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Well, I've got to go see the death panel later. I'll let you know how that works out. JON STEWART: Thank you. I'd love to know what they decide. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. So when your NHS doctor's office, what's. called the surgery-- that's what they call a doctor's. office-- when your primary care physician. surgery shuts down, in the next election, you vote for the Fascist Party. You just become a sucker for people who show up and say. undeserving others are the reason. you don't have what you need. And not everyone falls for that.

JON STEWART: Good thing that could. never happen here in America. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, right? So this is what I'm afraid of. I'm not afraid that AI is going to turn us into paper clips. I'm not afraid that AI can do your job right. I am afraid that you might get fired and replaced with AI. that can't do your job. And I like the job you do. And I like the job lots of people do. And I don't want them fired. I like benefiting from their careful and. conscientious labor. And I'm worried that the economy is going to collapse. JON STEWART: The real threat is the economic disruption.

This takes me back to a more analog time of the world. before all this, but I remember AOL. AOL came out, and it was this revolutionary community. And you could go on, and there were message boards, and there were little--. it was sort of a mini Facebook and Twitter--. it was before the social media companies specialized. And it looked monopolistic. And it looked inevitable. And their market cap, in the same way that we're.

talking now, soared. And it was the future. And they bought Time Warner. AOL came in and went, we're the future. There's this other company, sort of a sustainable. analog growth company-- yeah, they make money every year, shit tons of it. We're going to absorb them. And then the bottom fell out. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: Now, there was enough around it.

to absorb some of that damage. And we went through a recession during that time. Are we in a position now where we can't even. absorb-- there's too big to fail, and then there's too big to recover from. CORY DOCTOROW: Well, look, people have dug themselves. out of bigger holes, right? And I always say this when we talk about monopolies more. broadly, because Enshittification, you mentioned. this other book I wrote, it's really. a story about monopolies. It's a story about what Lina Khan calls too big to care. JON STEWART: And the cycle of how these companies bring.

you in and then abuse you. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. And the businesses that they bring. in because you're stuck there. So people say if you're not paying for the product, you're the product. Ask a Facebook advertiser what kind of deal. they're getting from Facebook, right? Everybody gets screwed. It doesn't matter if you're paying for the product or not. Productization is a function of capability, not, like, a customer loyalty perk. for giving them enough money. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: So I often talk to people about monopolization, as you'd expect.

And people get very discouraged. They're like, well, what hope do we have of breaking. up these giant monopolies? And I'm like, guys, the anti-monopoly laws that we. stopped enforcing 45 years ago, they weren't passed because it. seemed like a good idea in case a monopoly. emerges in the future. They were passed because people were being crushed. by rapacious monopolists. And we figured out how to shatter their power. And we didn't have the internet we could.

use to coordinate ourselves. They were running different scams in different countries, so enforcers didn't really have any common cause. If you hated John D. Rockefeller in Germany, it was because he was screwing up your ports. If you hated him in Pennsylvania, it was because he was screwing up your refineries. Even if US enforcers and German enforcers. were, like, firing a Zeppelin across the ocean every day. full of files, it's not like they had the same case. Google? Google does the same thing in every country. JON STEWART: But even back then, when they would do that, at least. they would build you a fucking park. Like, at least those guys--.

CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, no, that came later. That came later. You need-- yeah, no, no, that was. when they started to clean--. that's when they got worried about guillotines. on their lawns. No, no, no. They weren't building parks. They were hiring Pinkertons to beat your brains out. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: So here's the thing. Here's the point I'm making, though, is, like, what these people did is not the lost art of a stolen. of a fallen civilization. When I say we need to break up monopolies, I'm not asking you to figure out how to embalm a pharaoh. or, like, build a pyramid without power tools.

There are people alive today who. learned their trust busting from the people who. broke up Rockefeller's empire. Like, this is-- like, they did it. We can do it. They weren't smarter than us. JON STEWART: We did it with Ma Bell. We did it-- and guess what? People still use phones. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: And the other thing. that drives me nuts, and you brought it up earlier, which is the thing you worry about in all this, is in the inevitable hollowing out of this, what that. does to a society that's going to move. towards authoritarianism.

And we're living through another Red Scare moment. But they always say the biggest threat to this country. is communism or socialism. And my view is the biggest threat to this country. is the inability to positively reform the kind of capitalism. we practice now, which will lead. to the kind of social unrest that. allows demagogues and authoritarians to take over. That's the real issue. CORY DOCTOROW: You, and FDR, and Henry Ford all agree.

Like--. JON STEWART: It's the only thing the three of us agree on. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. Henry Ford does not agree about Jews in any way. Let's make that very clear. JON STEWART: No, he's not--. Henry Ford, not a big fan of me being. allowed to speak like this. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. But, no, I mean, look, there's been lots. of people who recognize this. That, like, to put this in economics terms, there is an equilibrium between the cost of stopping people. from building guillotines on your lawn. by hiring chuds in, like, body armor, and the cost of, like, building hospitals and roads.

so that no one wants to build a guillotine on your lawn. JON STEWART: That's right-- of a social safety. net that makes sense. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: And since the Snowden. days, one of the questions I've asked. myself, because I should say--. I should have said this before--. I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. You just talked to my old boss, Cindy Cohen, about her--. JON STEWART: Cindy Cohen. She's fantastic-- a fantastic woman. CORY DOCTOROW: Amazing. I've been there 25 years. Not as long as Cindy, but I've been there for 25 years. And so I've worked on all these issues. And, like, back to object permanence. Like, I saw the policies that we made.

that led to this happening. And I know that when those policies. were coming in, we said, hey, this is going to happen. And then it happened. And, like, one of the things I'm on a mission to do. is to make people understand this isn't the weather. It's not the great forces of history. It's not the iron laws of economics. It's just these assholes who did. things that they were warned would fuck shit up and did it. And then, like, if we call it the weather, right, then we don't know how to fix it. Like, what do you-- everybody complains about the weather. No one does anything about it. If you actually know that there's some space lasers out. there-- thank you, Marjorie Taylor Greene--.

then you can get to the guys with the space lasers, right? So these guys, they did this to us. They stopped enforcing anti-monopoly law. They allowed a string of mergers. When Google bought Waze--. Tim Wu tells the story, it's great. When Google bought Waze, Tim Wu was at the Federal. Trade Commission. He's like, why are we letting the company. that owns Google Maps by the maps company everyone. started to use? And they said, oh, well, we figured that Google Maps is how. you know where you are, and Waze is how. you find out how to get there.

[JON LAUGHING]. That's, like, the stupidest thing I've ever heard. JON STEWART: Waze is how you find out. that there might be a car abandoned. on the side of the route. CORY DOCTOROW: Like, what the hell? JON STEWART: So are they falling for this? Or are they enabling this? Because there's a distinction between are they being fooled, or are they enabling the scam? I understand if the rubes--. I'll fall for it. I'll download the ChatGPT and go buh buh buh.

CORY DOCTOROW: Right. JON STEWART: But how is it that the experts, the investors, the economists, the banks-- how the fuck. did they not understand this? CORY DOCTOROW: Well, let's start with the top. layer, right? Let's start with the capital allocators, the billionaires. So to be a billionaire, I think, like, a lot of them. are basically solipsists. You can't really think other people are. real if you inflict the kind of pain that you have to inflict. JON STEWART: We're all NPCs in their game. CORY DOCTOROW: This is what Elon Musk says. Everyone's an NPC.

And they are surrounded by sycophants. And so they're already living, like, the AI future where. no one's real, and everyone tells you you're great, and just glazes you all day. So those people, I think they're, like, kind of primed to believe we can. replace humans with chatbots. But there's also, I think, a cohort of cynics. So, like, imagine-- think about, like, all the vast panoply of chuds. we've met thanks to Trumpland. JON STEWART: By the way, if Vast Panoply of Chuds. is not the name of your next book, I don't know what we're doing here. CORY DOCTOROW: It'll be a chapter.

It'll be a chapter. I just started work on the next book. It's a novel. It's called Once is Enemy Action. It's a James Bond quote--. James Bond reference. Anyway, that might be a chapter. So this vast panoply of chuds. And some of these guys, they're like RFK, right? They really believe-- like, there is no peptide that guy. hasn't met that he won't, like stick under his eyelids, like Jimi Hendrix doing acid. JON STEWART: But vaccines are the problem. Peptides are safe. They haven't been tested. Nobody knows what they do. But put as many of them as you can into your body.

CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. But there's a ton more who are, like, I. don't know if this shit works, but Andrew Tate can sell it. Joe Rogan can sell it. I don't have to believe it works to do it. You don't have to believe that putting a Jade. egg in your vagina is good for you. to believe that Gwyneth Paltrow can sell a lot of vagina rocks. JON STEWART: Right, right, right. CORY DOCTOROW: So I think at the top, you've got these two groups, right? And they're kind of a toxic mix. Because, like, the true believers and the cynics--. where one says, well, maybe that's.

not the right thing, that's where. the other group is actually, like, in their sweet spot. And so there's a bit of acceleration there. And then I just think that, like, to ask, like, how can the banks put this money. into is to invite the question, where were you in 2007? JON STEWART: Oh. But that's my point. Are learning curves for losers? Like, are we ever going to understand that inflating. these kinds of bubbles with the sorts of futurist, utopian nonsense is going to come.

back and create giant craters? CORY DOCTOROW: This time, it's different, supposedly. It's always different. And, like, I just think that we have really fallen prey. to this story about the efficient market, despite all of the times that the market has been inefficient. and grossly inefficient. JON STEWART: Or the fact that we've manipulated it to--.

the other story we tell ourselves is there. is a free market. And that somehow, the government hasn't been picking. winners and losers forever. And that the free money that they give to corporations. in terms of subsidies and not taxing capital in the same way. that labor is taxed is somehow not them making a choice. There is no free. CORY DOCTOROW: Sure. And, like, look, I think there's, like, two ways. to think about regulatory capture. If you ask the Chicago school people, they'll tell you regulatory capture. is as soon as you have a business that's.

going to try and capture the state, therefore, you can't have a state. Which is just, like-- we have to get rid of the regulators. JON STEWART: That's the libertarian. That's all the Hayek and everybody else. As long as the government's not involved in anything, they can't be corrupt. OK. CORY DOCTOROW: Sure. But, like, I always tell my friends, like, the libertarians. I know, like, even if you're so, like, Musk addled that you. can't even open your copy of Atlas Shrugged. because the pages are all stuck together, and you think the only reason we should have a government. is to, like, enforce contracts, you still.

want-- you still want the people who are, like, making. the contracts to be held to account by the person. who's enforcing the contract. They have to be more powerful. The referee has to be more powerful than the players. on the field. Which means that the largest government-- or the smallest. government you can have is determined. by the largest corporation you're willing to tolerate. So the decision 40 years ago to allow runaway mergers, right, this kind of orgy of consolidation--. and, like, now we have these cartels that are so inbred, they have corporate Habsburg jaws, right? And they just, like, they can't do anything.

They're completely unintelligible. [JON LAUGHING]. And, like, this decision has produced the circumstances. for regulatory capture. So, like, people-- like, a lot of the bad stuff that we worry. about with AI, I should say, is actually. just worrying about privacy. Same with algorithms. It's just worrying about privacy. JON STEWART: Well, they're data Hoovers, and they're bringing it up-- CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: And, by the way, you do make the point. in the book that I think the way that it's generally. utilized is not efficiency.

It's surveillance state. It's basically your boss can now learn a lot more about, you are now very much an NPC in a game. that they are moving around on. And they're watching you. And what they're using the technology for. is not what they've promised it for everybody else, which. is doing these great jobs. It's finding ways to make sure that you are more. controlled by your bosses. CORY DOCTOROW: Sure.

Well, and let me ground that in, like, something material and not, like, mind control race. So one thing that, like, AI is genuinely good at, and it's actually quite exciting, is multivariate statistical analysis. That's, like, a kind of--. JON STEWART: Nothing more exciting than that. CORY DOCTOROW: It is if you want to do cancer research. It is if you want to, like, find out about, like, what's going to happen with rising seas. You're got, like, a whole bunch of variables--. JON STEWART: Crunching numbers. CORY DOCTOROW: --and you're trying to like make. statistical analyses of them. So one of the things that you can do with AI.

is surveillance pricing and algorithmic. wage discrimination. So surveillance pricing, your rabbi on this. is a woman called Lindsey Owens, who's got a book. coming out called Gouged. JON STEWART: She's the best. CORY DOCTOROW: She's amazing. And then algorithm wage discrimination, Veena Dubal is a lawyer and a scholar has written about this. And they're both the same thing. It's when you use an algorithm to segment. an audience based on behavioral surveillance data--. I've seen what you do. I've followed you around and your use of a service.

And then you start running experiments on the segments. to see what the highest price they'll accept. or the lowest wage they'll accept. So on the wage side, this started with Uber, where drivers who accepted lowball offers-- and, remember, when you're an Uber driver, you have. 20 seconds to decide whether the offer is good or. bad, right? So you're, like, looking at the mileage. You're looking at the time. You're driving in traffic. You have 20 seconds to go yes or no. JON STEWART: Oh, wow. OK. CORY DOCTOROW: So if you accept a lowball offer, your next offer is lower. And it keeps pushing you down. Now, if you're picky, it's higher.

And then if you start taking the lowball. offers they sneak into there, they push it down again. So whatever it is that's your side. hustle that lets you be picky, eventually, you lose it. JON STEWART: Wait, that's the Uber algorithm. doing that to its own drivers? CORY DOCTOROW: To drivers. Yeah. JON STEWART: Why? CORY DOCTOROW: So this is algorithm--. to push their wages down. That's how Uber got profitable. For 13 years, they lost $31 billion of the Saudi royal. family's money. $0.41 on every $1.00 they. brought in, they pissed away. They eventually, like, put all the other cab companies out. of business, induced a lost decade in transit investment,

became the only game in town, started screwing the drivers, and started raising prices on riders. And they decoupled riders from drivers. You remember it used to be if you got surge priced. for the ride you were paying for, they got surge paid for the ride they delivered. Now, it's totally decoupled. JON STEWART: That's decoupled. CORY DOCTOROW: It's, like, bizarro world Marxism where you. pay according to your ability, and they. work according to their need. JON STEWART: It's Enshittification. It goes back to the other book. It's that Enshittification. CORY DOCTOROW: That is Enshittification.

So I'm going to make you really angry here. JON STEWART: Cory, no. CORY DOCTOROW: Groundwork collaborative. and the Roosevelt Institute. So Groundwork Collaborative is Lindsay Owens'. outfit, and the Roosevelt Institute. published report on nurses. So it used to be contract nurses. were hired through like a local body shop, a staffing agency. JON STEWART: The travel nurses and people like that. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: Yeah. CORY DOCTOROW: Now, it's four national apps. that compete with each other. They all call themselves Uber for nursing. So maybe you can see where this is going. JON STEWART: Oh, boy. CORY DOCTOROW: They buy credit card data from data brokers.

And the more outstanding credit card debt you have, the lower the wage you're offered. JON STEWART: Oh, my fucking god. CORY DOCTOROW: Because it's a desperation premium, right? JON STEWART: The company that you're working for looks. to see your level of desperation. so that they can lowball you and--. CORY DOCTOROW: So, Jon, like me, you have. heard of Tennessee Ernie Ford. You know that there are coal bosses. who would have done this shit if they could have, right?

But they weren't going to be able to hire. the army of Pinkertons to follow every coal miner around. and figure out who was in the most debt, and then get the boiler room full of guys in green eyeshades. to mark up the ledgers and change their wages 10 times. a minute, right? This is the thing you need AI for. This is what automation gets you on the wage side. And the same thing is happening on the price side. where, again, like, it used to be demographers would do. this kind of cute Mad Men style thing. where they'd be like, well, we got. the little old ladies who own seven. cats who live in Sheboygan.

And we've got this and that. And they would go do focus groups. AI just naively buckets people into groups based. on behavioral data, and then automatically. runs experiments to see the highest price they will accept. JON STEWART: OK. So hear this out, then. All right, so we've been talking a little bit about, like, well, what is, then, the value of AI? What does it do? Why would it fulfill this promise of investment. that is being made? You're almost making the case that AI. is a kind of metaverse globalization tool.

One of the things that globalization. did is it allowed companies to become. much more profitable because it allowed them to search--. CORY DOCTOROW: Shift the wage bill. Yeah. JON STEWART: Right. Look for the worst conditions, look. for the most desperate people, look for who you can exploit. CORY DOCTOROW: The lowest tax rate. JON STEWART: Exactly. And so, in some ways, you're making the case for AI's value.

You're diffusing the bubble. But the effect of it is to diffuse the bubble, you have to abuse the worker. CORY DOCTOROW: Sure. I mean, that's the promise. But back to, like, criti-hype. So now, let's talk about the values here. So not the human values-- the costs. The dollar figures. JON STEWART: Yes, yes, yes. CORY DOCTOROW: Pauperize all the cab drivers in the country. Do it again to all the nurses. Do it to all the poor commercial illustrators who. are already the poorest people I know-- poor as church mice--.

and you do not touch the sides of the operating. expenditure bills of the AI companies, right? You have to come for, like, very high waged workers. And those are the areas where I think we're going to notice it, although I don't think they won't try. So, look, I have an extremely treatable form of cancer. I don't want to alarm you. And I see oncologists, radiologists, and so on. And so I've been following the stories. about radiologists and AI. JON STEWART: Sure. Well, that's the one they always say like you won't even.

need radiologists anymore. CORY DOCTOROW: Some solid mass tumors, probably the AI. can spot some that the human misses, right? I think that's fine. So I've been getting my treatment. at the Kaiser Hospital in LA. Despite it being private medicine, I have no complaints. They took really good care of me. Four weeks ago, a radiologist told me I'm cancer free. JON STEWART: Congratulations, young man. CORY DOCTOROW: Very happy about it. Yeah, yeah. JON STEWART: I'm looking forward to your next 50 books. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah, yeah. There you go. So if, right now-- you know, the Kaiser Hospital on Sunset.

in LA, I don't know if you know it--. next to the big Church of Scientology, because that's how we roll in LA. So if right now there was, like, a salesman for [INAUDIBLE] Sam Altman deking out. some Scientologist who wanted to give him a personality. test, going up to talk to the CEO of Kaiser. and say, look, here's my pitch to you. You've got 10 radiologists on the strength. They cost you $300 grand each. That's $3 million a year in wages. You give me another $1 million dollars on top of that, and I'm going to sell you an algorithm. And it's just going to sit behind them. A couple of days times a day, it's. going to tap them on the shoulder.

and say, take another look at that one. And sometimes you're going to save a life doing that. It's going to cost you an extra $1 million. Plus, you're probably, like, going to go from 100 x-rays. a day to 98. So you might have to hire another part time radiologist. As a cancer survivor, that's fine with me. JON STEWART: Yes, sir. CORY DOCTOROW: I think that's great. No one has invested in AI on the thought. that someday it would make the things. that people do more expensive. JON STEWART: Or need more labor. CORY DOCTOROW: Right. So the sales call right now is salesman. rushes past the Scientology trying to give them.

the personality test up to the CEO's office and says, you got 10 radiologists on the strength. They cost you $3 million a year. You fire nine of them, you save $2.7 million a year. You give $1.35 of that to my boss, Sam Altman. You keep the other half of it for yourself. That one radiologist, he marks the AI's homework. If someone dies because he's doing this at a speed. that no human could pay sustained attention to, he is what Dan Davies calls the accountability sync. And we blame him for the person who dies.

And I tell this to radiologists, and they're like, OK, but we have labor power. They do. They're in short supply right now. When we use AI, it's on our own terms. But the point of AI is to take away your labor power. JON STEWART: Yes. CORY DOCTOROW: Right? It's to find ways to erode your wages and segment you. JON STEWART: It's that globalization. It's that same-- it's another frontier. It's the vast expanse of the ocean or space. that they haven't explored yet. It's taking what they've tried to do in the real world. and laying it into the virtual world in that same.

exploitative manner. But I'll tell you a story--. this goes to the flip side of it, and I talked to Daron Acemoglu, who you may know, who's the economist from MIT. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. I've been on a panel with him at the American. Association for the Advancement of Science. JON STEWART: I'm sure. Wonderful guy. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: Really, really smart. His concern is always when AI begins to marry robotics. and how that will come together. But I'll tell you a story--. I happen to be a fan of what I like to call. the Crunchwrap Supreme.

Every now and then, I'll go with a Nachos Bellgrande. If you're a vegetarian, it's a great place to get whatever--. diarrhea epidemics say otherwise. CORY DOCTOROW: Be damned. JON STEWART: Be damned. I still go in. But I drove in--. I have my local. And they know me. When I hit my order, they know me. I drive up one day, and I hear this-- hello, may I take your order? And I'm like, they're never this happy. It's AI. They've replaced the person at the takeout drive-thru with AI.

My order is no beef, but can you put in the refried beans? Well, that blew AI's fucking mind. And to the point where, like, then the person in the thing. had to come out and go, like, hey, man, what do you need? I'll get it for you. I pull up. So now all I do is I talk to the AI, and then I pull up to the drive-in window. and just talk shit with the person who's at the register. about the AI bot. And we talk shit a little bit, and we share anecdotes. CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. JON STEWART: The point being, people hate it.

I hate it. People hate it. It hasn't saved them any labor. And, by the way, if you think replacing the guy making. your Crunchwrap Supreme with a robot will be cheaper, you've never tried to service an ice machine. Like, machines are wickedly more expensive. than human beings who will work when they're sick. and break down. And you're not on the hook for any of it. So they think they're getting the high level people. They can't even get the lower income.

CORY DOCTOROW: Totally. And going back to the '90s-- going back to the late. '90s, early 2000s, the dotcom era-- you go, you pull out, like, the Harvard Business Review, you pull out, like, the business press of the day, Wall Street Journal, full of these op-eds wringing their hands and going, what are the CEOs going to do when all these young. workers who insist on using the web show up in the workplace? You go pull those same periodicals off the shelf. today, and they're like, CEOs are. firing workers because they're refusing to use AI. JON STEWART: Wow. CORY DOCTOROW: Right?

And saying, if you don't use AI, we're going to fire you, right? So I think back to, like, automation driven by labor. is in service of quality. Automation driven by capital is in service to throughput. And when capital has a monopoly or cartel, they can lower quality. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: This is we don't care. We don't have to. We're the burrito company is what you're going through. at your local drive-thru. JON STEWART: So, Cory, how do you--. you said something earlier that I think really. struck me, which is it is no mystery. how to diffuse this bomb.

There really isn't. The last 40 or 50 years economically, we have valued capital to the expense of labor. And it is that imbalance that has driven, I think, a lot of the turbulence. in our political scene, in our social scene, in all of those things. Rebalancing that is not revolutionary. CORY DOCTOROW: No. JON STEWART: It's incremental. It's what if we just taxed capital gains at the same level.

as salary gains? If you work and earn $100,000, shouldn't that be taxed. the same way if you bought an investment and it. just threw off $100,000? Why is that different? CORY DOCTOROW: Yeah. Yeah. Look, there's a joke from Eastern Canada. [JON LAUGHING]. The punch--. JON STEWART: People in Winnipeg won't know what. the hell you're talking about. CORY DOCTOROW: They won't. No, I'm talking about Newfoundland. But the problem is, if you say there's. a joke from Newfoundland, people. think you're going to tell a Newfie joke, which is like an Irish joke. It's not a Newfie joke.

It's a joke told by people from Newfoundland. JON STEWART: Got it. CORY DOCTOROW: There's a joke from Newfoundland. whose punchline is, if you wanted to get there, I wouldn't start from here. [JON LAUGHING]. Right? And, look, when America had more unionized workers, when it had more fair electoral districts, when it had people who had more disposable time because they. had a better split with capital in terms of the disposition. of the surplus generated by their labor, it would have been easier to do this.

But, again, like, we are starting from a place that's. still better from the place our forebears. started from back when the labor movement was. starting in America. Now, Donald Trump thinks that you get rid. of the National Labor Relations Board, and you end labor activism. He's like the Grinch that Stole Christmas. He thinks that you steal the tinsel, and Christmas goes away. Like, the reason you have tinsel. is that Christmas is in the hearts of the Whos. down in Whoville. The reason we have the labor law. is because workers struck and formed unions.

when they were wildly illegal. They risked beatings, and murder, and lynchings. They created so much pain for capital, the capital sued for labor peace. And Donald Trump's big mistake here. is he thinks that when you fire the referee, the game ends. And we all know when you fire the referee, all bets are off. There's no rules. For a guy who claims to be a wrestling guy, he seems to, like, not really understand this. JON STEWART: Well, that's because he's. all hat, no cattle. I mean, Donald Trump is, as they say, he's all trailer, no movie. And that's why we find ourselves in these situations.

His attention span does not allow him. He's the announcement guy. It's liberation day. I'm going to destroy Iran. And then when things don't come to pass, but it's been two weeks, he's like, OK, what's my next episode of The Apprentice? He just wants to move on to that next level. But what strikes me more here-- and I. don't know if you have an insight into this. or what your feelings are--. is that it's less about Donald Trump's inability to understand.

it and more about the opposition party's inability. to harness this energy in a manner that. is accessible and reachable for voters thirsty. for this kind of rebalancing. CORY DOCTOROW: So, look, on this call, I have mentioned my affiliation with the FF. And we're a 501(c)3, so I can't endorse a party. But what I can say is that the people who. oppose Donald Trump's agenda in both parties.

have completely failed to speak to the things that people need. and that people want and to show. them that there is the possibility of an alternative. So one of the things I've been trying. to work into this conversation here. is how we ended up in this situation just in respect. to privacy. So, like, you have these companies--. they're screwing nurses. They're, like, fueling data theft, and identity theft, and so on. When I testified at the Consumer Finance Protection.

Bureau in the last couple of days of the Biden admin. when they were banning data brokers, which Trump unbanned, and the speaker before me was a speaker from the American. Association of Retired People, who wanted the committee. to know that the ad broker industry would sell you. ad targeting to people with dementia, and then the person after me was from the Pentagon, who. wanted them to know that you can buy, as an ad targeting group, military personnel on base who. have gambling problems. JON STEWART: Oh, Jesus Christ. CORY DOCTOROW: So, like, this-- so. how do we end up in this horrible place with privacy?

Well, here it is. The last time Congress passed a federal consumer. privacy law was in 1988. And that was a law that makes it. illegal for video store clerks to disclose. your VHS rental history. [JON LAUGHING]. Right? And every other form of privacy invasion is legal in. America, right? They spy on you because they can. JON STEWART: Because that's where the money is, Cory. We talked about it earlier. CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, but the money's there because they can. JON STEWART: Yes. CORY DOCTOROW: If every time you spied on someone--.

look, if Visa could 10% of the time just keep the money. and not give it to the merchant, and they were the only game in town, they would. Just like your dog licks its balls because it can. and no one makes them stop. Like, it takes an act of will to not connect the fact. that we don't have a new privacy law. to the harms of surveillance. JON STEWART: Right. CORY DOCTOROW: In the same way that, like, we're like, how do we get all these monopolies? Well, we had these economists who, 40 years ago, told. us monopolies were efficient and told us to not. enforce anti-monopoly law.

And now, we have monopolies. And they're like, what do you mean it's my fault? I did tell you not to put down the rat poison. And rats are eating your face off. But, like, it's the time of the rat, dude. JON STEWART: But I think because they're extorting. our economy-- what they're doing is they're saying, if you take this away from us, it implodes. And suddenly, your economy is hollow. They've extorted us. And as far as the difference in privacy, look, Daniel Ellsberg reveals that the Vietnam War is a lie. And he's attacked by Nixon, but he's hailed as a hero.

And the tide turns against the Vietnam War. Edward Snowden does the same thing. about the NSA having a mass surveillance program, and what do we do? We go, oh, I'm sorry, you got to get the fuck out of here. Like, we've changed in our relationship. to that in a huge way-- and not to the better, for sure. CORY DOCTOROW: But no one wants to be--. even so, even if there's some apathy, no one wants to be spied on. You remember Apple turned on a little tick box.

in iOS, the operating system for phones and tablets. JON STEWART: That's right. CORY DOCTOROW: You ticked it and Facebook can spy on you. 96% of iOS users tick that box. And you'd assume, like, the other 4%. were either drunk or Facebook employees or drunk employees--. JON STEWART: Just didn't see it. CORY DOCTOROW: --which makes sense. If I worked at Facebook, I would be drunk all the time. But, like, no one wants this. And here's the kicker-- the same time Apple did this, they turned on surveillance in iOS. to power their own ad brokerage with no tick box. to opt out of it. And when they got caught doing it, they lied about it, right?

JON STEWART: Wow. CORY DOCTOROW: Like, people don't want surveillance. No one goes into the cell phone store. and says, now, which of these phones. is going to spy on me the most? They might be indifferent to it, but no one is out there going, oh, I love being spied on. And when they get ripped off at the grocery store, or they get racially discriminated. against in hiring, or in lending, or someone makes deepfake porn of them, these are all downstream of, like, no new privacy.

laws since 1988. These are all the same thing. They're just, like, different epiphenomena. of the same root cause, which is we let them spy on us. And we don't punish them. And so it's profitable to do it. It doesn't have to be profitable to do it. Like, the fines from spying on you. could be more than the benefit. JON STEWART: And that brings us around to the conversation. And I thank you so much your time. And it's been so interesting. CORY DOCTOROW: Pshaw. JON STEWART: Inevitability-- one.

of the things you talk about a lot this is not inevitable. And we are centaurs. And we have agency. We are master, not blaster. But that has to be exercised. And it's exercised not just through Democratic power, but through legislative power and through people power. These are the types of things that there is not-- there's. a learned helplessness that goes along. with systems that seem too complex and too.

large to have any impact. It's not a true story. And the story that you've written in this new book, Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, is a story of agency. And I really appreciate it. CORY DOCTOROW: Well, thank you. JON STEWART: And appreciate you, Cory Doctorow. CORY DOCTOROW: Oh, well, Jon, this. has been an absolute delight. I feel like I've known you for a million years. because I have this parasocial relationship with you. [JON LAUGHING]. JON STEWART: I'm not that interesting, unfortunately. Sit around feeding chipmunks.

CORY DOCTOROW: You have really given me some of the real hope. in the dark on many's the day. And I really appreciate what you do. And it has been just an honor and a pleasure to be on. And I will say, to people who are feeling discouraged, look, they keep telling you to vote with your wallet. And the reason they want you to vote. with your wallet is their wallets are thicker than yours. Shopping isn't politics, right? Like, a boycott-- like, Montgomery bus boycott was not. people waking up for 380 consecutive days and going,

I guess I'm walking to work today. It was a movement. It's not agonizing in the grocery aisle. about whether to buy this product or that product, or whether you use Twitter or Bluesky. It's a movement. And if all you do is try and change politics with shopping. and nothing happens, you're going. to look over at your friends who shop differently from you. You're going to go, like, oh, it's your fault. And the people you need to be in community. with and in solidarity with, you're going. to end up being angry at them. Join a local group. Local politics-- like, we never thought.

local politics were important. There's one thing Moms for Liberty taught us, it's that the stupidest people you know. can join the most unimportant, unregarded local offices. and make huge material differences to people's lives. JON STEWART: That's right. CORY DOCTOROW: Local politics are like, do you get a data center? Is there a flock camera? Do chuds round up your neighbors. and shoot them in the face, right? And get involved in national politics. and get involved with civil society groups. So EFF.org, the group I've worked for for 25 years, the best and most important digital.

rights group in the country, but also the whole--. I won't say panoply again-- the whole basket. of other civil society groups. JON STEWART: Non-chuds. Get involved with the non-chuds aspects. The panoply of non-chuds. CORY DOCTOROW: And join your union or organize a union. JON STEWART: Yeah. CORY DOCTOROW: And that's how we get shut of it. And if you wanted to get there, I wouldn't start from here. But, you know, our ancestors in the not so distant past face. challenges worse than the ones we're going through now. They did it.

They weren't smarter or better than us. We can do it too. JON STEWART: Cory Doctorow, words of wisdom, words of encouragement. And thank you so much. And thanks for being here. Cory Doctorow, Enshittification, The Reverse. Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, and a million other books that are all wonderful. Thank you for being with us. CORY DOCTOROW: Thank you, Jon. I really appreciate it. [MUSIC PLAYING]. JON STEWART: I love a dude whose mind works faster than I. can even-- like, it's one of those guys--. his mind is working, and I feel a little bit like,

am I in low oxygen? Why isn't my-- why can't my brain do that? GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah, that-- he was running ahead of everybody. on that one, for sure. JON STEWART: Right? GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. JON STEWART: He was leading the Peloton. And we were all like, let's catch. that guy in the yellow jacket. Let's get up there-- the yellow jersey. And go through. But I also love that--. and this is not, obviously, for his fiction, but in his nonfiction--. he really does write like he thinks.

GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. Yeah. He writes like he talks too. I mean, he's a great writer. JON STEWART: Yes. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: And not everybody is. able to connect to that force as easily and as naturally. And he seems to be able to do that in a really prolific way. GILLIAN SPEAR: I know. That's what makes him so enjoyable to read. It's like, I don't-- like, maybe that comes. from his blogging experience. And that's maybe why he's so prolific too. JON STEWART: Right. GILLIAN SPEAR: It's conversational but in a way.

where it's, like, you know the smartest conversation somebody. could just be having. JON STEWART: Conversational and constructed, but also quotable in a way--. I mean, honestly, vast panoply of chuds? Come on. [LAUGHTER]. GILLIAN SPEAR: That was off the top of the dome? What? JON STEWART: Come on. You can't just throw that in there. and walk away like it's nothing. No. Fucking, that was great. And interesting in it, I think, changed my view of what.

the realities and what the dangers are of it. and, in some ways, made me more hopeful. Like, I left the conversation feeling like, oh, no, systemic agency could have real efficacy on--. this is not inevitable. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yes. And it feels like the solutions to our problems. are solutions we're aware of. There are things that we are familiar with,

but we've been avoiding regardless. It's like the way we've been talking about protecting labor. against AI is, like, UBI and, like, creating dividends from these companies. But it's really just stronger labor protections. And it's something that we know is possible. But we just haven't been doing it. JON STEWART: Yeah. It's possible. And it was done with Pinkerton boys, with bully sticks beating the shit. out of people in the streets. And it can be done again. But I also thought, cognizant of.

how that ball has been dropped by opposition parties and how. and it's been difficult to articulate it. And then you can see like, oh, that's why the DSA stuff is. gaining such urgency, because it's a language. people are thirsty to hear. GILLIAN SPEAR: I know. I was thinking that during the conversation. I was like, there was a lot of class. consciousness in the book. And it's like, if they were mad at us. about communism last week, like--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, boy. JON STEWART: Yes, they were. All the right wing blogs went crazy. Look at Stewart nodding his head.

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: How dare he? JON STEWART: Like Lenin did with Marx. [LAUGHTER]. Such fucking ridiculousness. Brittany, what do the kids want to know? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, there's. 107 days until the midterms. JON STEWART: Oh, god. Math. All right. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Dems still don't have any plan. JON STEWART: 107. I think there's less when that question came in. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Why does that number sound so familiar? JON STEWART: Oh. 107?

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: 107 days. JON STEWART: Wait, am I missing something here? GILLIAN SPEAR: There was a book. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Title of a book, I think. JON STEWART: Oh, shit. Was her book 107? 107 Days. Oh, for fuck's sake. First of all, the listeners of this program. are far more in tuned and brilliant than I could ever be. And they bring a question like that, so perfectly framed, and I completely whiff on the significance of it. So apologies to the people who framed that so beautifully.

I think they don't have leadership. And, from what I understand from the New York Times, they also have no money--. the DNC being slightly different. But when you're in a position for a wave election, and the article that comes out is the guy in charge. of the logistics of it is throwing phones at people. and is broke, that feels like the story. of how I ended up on skid row.

This feels like such a strange--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Doesn't feel great. Doesn't feel great. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Hope, baby. JON STEWART: The Democrats feel like, we. have a great opportunity here. And then they just go around the meeting asking for ideas. of how to fuck it up. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: And then throw phones. GILLIAN SPEAR: There are no bad ideas. There are no bad ideas. JON STEWART: There are only bad ideas. No good ideas. I don't want to hear how we could save this thing. I want to understand how we could. snatch defeat from, clearly, the jaws of victory.

And the problem with is it seems so easily rectifiable. But it is when you don't know the difference between Chuck. Schumer and Mamdani, and you don't. know how to square that circle, and you don't have anybody. who can unify that message? How the fuck they haven't come up. with their own Contract for America--. or even if it's a gimmick--.

to centralize the general complaints of a public thirsty. for some actionable ideas and leadership. is malpractice bordering on criminal. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: But the infighting. has been astonishing. My Twitter feed of just people still. so completely mad at Mamdani--. even Dems responding to last week's episode. JON STEWART: What are they mad at? What are the Democrats mad at? And also, why is he engendering anger?

Other than, yeah, he's on the third rail. of Israel-Palestine-- but, talking to him, how did that not diffuse when he's like, so what you do. is you take the budget and you defer it to '32 instead of '26. And then what we do is we fix the potholes. There was nothing in there that was in any way. a call of revolution. It was let's run this city with top of mind.

the people who help us run this city, meaning the essential workers and the middle class. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. I think it's this weird thing that people. just want to be right. And they want to be the person or group to, like, crack the code for the plan forward without putting. any actual plan forward. So, like, there's people just trying to have a following, essentially, that I'm seeing versus. actually putting sustainable, followable things forward.

JON STEWART: So it's almost like the caricature. that they're reacting to is incentivized. by the social media that they're reacting to it on. And it just creates this wild cycle. of a battle royale over a straw man. and a caricature that didn't really. exist in the first place. Gillian is positing this. I want to get her thought. There's something spinning in the mind. GILLIAN SPEAR: I was thinking about what Britney said, just. about, like, it's almost like there hasn't been.

a need for a ton of introspection. because Donald Trump has been so terrible and, like, so. unpopular that we haven't had to, like, really have a reckoning with why our policies. are also very unpopular. And there's a lot of people that are. entrenched in these positions. And, central to their livelihood, central. to their relevance, central to their health care, their having a staff that weights on them.

at the ripe age of, like, 85 or whatever. is maintaining the status quo. So these things really are a threat. to them and their position. JON STEWART: And they haven't had to face that reckoning. They haven't had to look in the mirror. because the car crash in front of them. is so distracting that there hasn't had to be--. I think that's definitely right. And, by the way, the infighting is necessary and should happen. It should be out fighting. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah.

JON STEWART: We should be watching it. so that there is a robust discussion about what. the direction of this is. And, within that discussion, leadership of that party. should emerge. That's all. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. I mean, this was happening with Biden where everyone was, like, so mad that people were drawing attention to what we. could all see with our eyes. It's like we all have to get on the same page. JON STEWART: That's right. Fuck that. GILLIAN SPEAR: There's a time and a place for the same page. JON STEWART: You know what you want to do? You want to have a battle of ideas and let steel temper--. or iron sharpen iron.

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: And you make your ideas better. And that's the free market of ideas. GILLIAN SPEAR: Especially in fucking primaries. It's like people are so mad in certain primaries. that you have people coming from different points of view--. JON STEWART: Wild. GILLIAN SPEAR: Like, we're supposed. to have an ideological, like, pure primary? JON STEWART: We have to have same running against same. Otherwise, you're just like--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Well, no, you have same with blonde hair. You have same with brown hair. You have same old and same young, you know?

JON STEWART: Right. Yeah. It's nonsense, dude. But hopefully it's moving us in a better direction. I'm not even going to dive that deep into this. because I'm on a optimism high. I'm on optimism high. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: All right. JON STEWART: And I'm not--. Brittany, what else we got? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Love that for you. JON STEWART: What else we got? I'm thinking about the panoply of non-chuds. Go ahead. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Jon, why do you think Gutfeld. didn't get a cabinet position?

JON STEWART: Because he has one. Fox News is part of the administration. GILLIAN SPEAR: Deep. JON STEWART: Yeah. It's the Department of Marketing. It's the Department of Communications and Marketing. It's an adjunct to the administration. So when you work there, you are in the administration. You are in a cabinet position-- or you're in a cabinet position. when they're out of power, working in the opposition. But they are part of the framework.

that works hand in hand--. and the way you know it is they all talk to--. I mean, they all have his phone number. They all have all that-- like, the interesting thing about it. is everybody always accused us of, like, working with the Democratic Party or working with--. like, we never talk to those people. And if we do, those conversations. were generally pretty aggressive and not so pleasant. What you're being accused of is always the thing.

that they're themselves doing. And so they're already part of the party apparatus--. and a valuable one, by the way. And they do it well. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Execution. Yeah. JON STEWART: Yeah. I mean, when you can do it from a couch. GILLIAN SPEAR: I know. In New York City, too. Like, you don't have to go down to DC. JON STEWART: Right. And you don't have to sit in those meetings. where you have to laugh at his shitty jokes. GILLIAN SPEAR: Oh, my god. JON STEWART: We showed that last night. We showed-- like, the reason why he bombed so bad.

is he's used to working bringer rooms. When you're a young comic, you have to do these bringer shows. where, like, you have to bring your friends, and, like, you get to do stand-up, and they're all like, "oh, my god!". [FAKE LAUGHING]. And then when you go out into the real world of stand up. and the first performance and you're like, oh, hey, what's going on here? That's what happens. But he's working rooms where the bar for comedy. is, was that a joke, boss? GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: I'm dying to know, A, who wrote the speech.

Like, did they bring in roast writers? GILLIAN SPEAR: He's dying to know who wrote it, too. Who wrote that? JON STEWART: Can I say something, though, in defense of the writers of Donald Trump's--. so they had very serviceable premises. Oh, we're going to do another UFC Fight Night. Here are the battles. Chris Christie against cake, AOC against foreign policy, you know? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: Those jokes, I will guarantee you, were written professionally and concisely.

And he went in and Trumped them up. GILLIAN SPEAR: He weaved. JON STEWART: He weaved. He went in, and he went, Chris Christie--. the worst. He's the worst. Sloppy Chris Christie. And immediately, you're like, wait, what are we talking about? He is the one-- and then he would go, who wrote this? They did well. Who fucked it up? BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The performer. JON STEWART: That's right. Old Bumbles McGee on stage, weaving around.

and talking about all kinds of other shit until nobody even. had any idea. He introduced the premise and went 4.5 minutes. before getting back to the payoff on the premise, and then complained that the joke wasn't written right. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: Wow. Wow. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: It's never him. GILLIAN SPEAR: It was a tough watch. JON STEWART: Oh. It was a beautiful watch. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Satisfying, I actually think.

JON STEWART: For a comic, no one. is ever happier than a comic watching another comic eat shit. on stage. GILLIAN SPEAR: I couldn't handle it. If I was in that room, I would have been laughing because. of how uncomfortable I was. I would have been like, I'll give him the laugh. JON STEWART: That's how we all--. like, I love watching people bomb, especially when they love to bomb. Like, when you're a comic, you have to love the bomb. The bomb is, like--. it's like a snow day. It doesn't happen all that often, but it's so fun. And you get to do shit you wouldn't normally get to do.

And you can always tell when somebody is really bombing. and other comics are there, because no one's. laughing except for three weirdos in the back who. are doing this. [LOUD OBNOXIOUS LAUGHTER]. That's how you knew the writers for Trump's roast. were not actually in the room, because it was quiet. If they were in the room, they'd. have been back there going. [LOUD OBNOXIOUS LAUGHTER]. Oh, I love watching you eat it! BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Oh, my god.

JON STEWART: It was great. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Last one. Jon, in your opinion--. who is more pathetic, Punch or Jimothy? JON STEWART: Oh, Punch. I don't even think that's controversial. Is that a--. Jimothy is-- look, Punch is not pathetic. Punch is a beautiful soul searching for love--. and, by the way, has been more accepted now. Has learned to temper whatever Punch was pulling.

Look, the wisdom of the tribe-- we cannot replace our wisdom. for the wisdom of the tribe. And the wisdom of the tribe shaped Punch's behavior. to such an extent that the tribe-- all right, the hazing period is over. You are no longer a pledge. Welcome, brother. Now, you can lose the stuffed animal for comfort, and you can wife it now. You can join in with us and just use it for whatever--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Purposes you find.

BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Yeah. JON STEWART: Jimothy-- sorry, I'm gonna [INAUDIBLE]. [LAUGHTER]. Jimothy is an angel on Earth who. is Tiny Tim, who was respected and embraced by his family, by the community at large. They recognized the brilliance of a raccoon that could also--. GILLIAN SPEAR: Has a spinal issue.

JON STEWART: --be an Ottoman. Like, you're not quite sure what Jimothy is. Is that a piece of furniture with a raccoon head? Or is that-- what are we dealing with, this hybrid? But there was something special about Jimothy. Was Jimothy born in a manger? I'm not going to go that far. [LAUGHTER]. GILLIAN SPEAR: A Jimothy, born in Bethlehem. JON STEWART: Was he visited by three wise chipmunks. who brought him--. I'm just saying there was a recognition from the get-go.

that Jimothy had to be nurtured, and adored, and respected. And this is not to diminish Punch, who has, to his credit, found his way back--. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Sure. JON STEWART: --from whatever the shit he was pulling before. GILLIAN SPEAR: Abandonment. JON STEWART: Settle down. [LAUGHTER]. Settle down. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: The things that we. talk about on this podcast.

JON STEWART: All I'm saying is there. needn't be a cure for Jimothy, because Jimothy is the cure. GILLIAN SPEAR: Beautiful. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: That's perfect. JON STEWART: Thank you. I've actually written a song about it, and it goes a little something like this. Oh, Jim--. GILLIAN SPEAR: I was going to--. I was wondering how long you could go. JON STEWART: Brought from the Angels.

Yeah. The only problem we have with Jimothy. is, obviously, rhyming his name in the rap. songs and odes that should praise him to the hosannas. That's really the only problem that we have. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: Sure. JON STEWART: It's been harder for him to embed. himself in popular culture. GILLIAN SPEAR: Yeah. I bet he's doing it in spite of that, you know? That's why he's such an inspiration. JON STEWART: Gillian, thank you. You're exactly right. He's everything.

[LAUGHTER]. GILLIAN SPEAR: This is how religions start. Yep. JON STEWART: As they should. This is how they should start. Well, that's all we have. That's all the time. Brittany, how can they keep--. you know, people are just going to stop asking questions. They're just going to go, I didn't-- what am I doing? I'm in my car. I'm going to work. I don't need to listen to this nonsense. BRITTANY MEHMEDOVIC: They can ask us at Twitter. We are WeeklyShowPod.

Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Bluesky, we. are WeeklyShowPodcast. You can like, subscribe, and comment. on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. JON STEWART: Ah, the perfect episode for a lovely late. July morning. Producer Brittany Mehmedovic, Producer Gillian Spear, Video Editor and Engineer Rob Vitola, Audio Editor. and Engineer Nicole Boysen, and our executive producers. Chris McShane and Caity Gray. Once again, thank you guys very much. Very enjoyable. We'll talk to you next week. The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart. is a Comedy Central podcast.

It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy productions. [MUSIC PLAYING].