#278 Artificial Intelligence w/ Roger McNamee
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2023
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roger McNamee has spent decades helping American tech companies secure financing. In the last few years, however, he's become well-known for helping American citizens secure themselves against tech companies. After helping convince Mark Zuckerberg to retain control over Facebook, Roger documented social media's role in amplifying social division in his 2019 New York Times Best Seller Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. Recently he's turned his attention to AI, and he has a warning for us: don't believe the hype.
In this conversation Roger joins Bob and Ben to discuss Artificial Intelligence, why he says it's far from the disruptor its proponents have claimed it to be, and how our current assessment of AI actually causes many of the problems that will likely come from this new technology. Roger also shares his solution to better tech regulation, why he's more hopeful about the future of the US than he has been in decades, and his second career in his band Moonalice (click here for music and tour dates).
If you enjoy this conversation, you can hear our uncut conversation, which includes almost 30 minutes of additional audio, but joining us on Patreon at Patreon.com/TheRoadToNow. Already a Patron? Click here to listen to the uncut episode!
You can hear our previous conversation w/ Roger in RTN #178 "The Facebook Catastrophe w/ Roger McNamee."
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 0:07.2 | And this is the road to now. |
| 0:08.7 | Yes it is. Bob, you and I are both on the West Coast right now. |
| 0:11.6 | Yes, we are. |
| 0:12.8 | We are in Pacific Time, Pacific Time Zone. |
| 0:15.5 | And so is our guest. |
| 0:16.5 | That's right. |
| 0:17.5 | Our guest today, returning to the podcast, I have recommended this man's book to so many people I have |
| 0:23.0 | referenced them in so many conversations since we first had him on welcome back roger magnamee |
| 0:27.7 | it is such a pleasure to be back I you know Bob and and Ben your podcast stands out for me |
| 0:35.2 | as having been the most fun that I've gotten to do. |
| 0:39.3 | We are so honored that you said that. |
| 0:41.3 | We are. And let's jump into it, Roger, because we got a lot to talk about, and I'm happy we get to share your wisdom on our show again. |
| 0:49.3 | So let's just go with this. Everyone's talking about AI right now. It's like the buzzword, |
| 0:54.6 | AI, artificial intelligence. And what's fascinating about you is that we've all just assumed |
| 1:00.8 | that this is AI, but you've even drawn this into question. So what separates what's being |
| 1:06.5 | called AI right now from what we've had before? And is it truly AI? |
| 1:11.0 | So the important thing to understand is that the technology industry had went through a big |
| 1:16.9 | cultural change 15 years ago. After the financial crisis hit, interest rates went to zero. |
| 1:24.7 | And in that environment, the tech industry felt it had license to change its model |
| 1:32.7 | from using technology to empower people and to create productivity, to using technology as a |
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