scott is mike's podcast partner for the silicon valley insider, a weekly overview of silicon valley in the tech industry. he holds a degree in political science from ucla. welcome mike and scott, we are looking forward to your conversation. take away. >> thank you so much. welcome to everyone. michael, welcome to you. it's great to talk to you and this time i get to ask you a question. please allow us to be informal, we are fully i capable of anythg else. [laughter] >> this is an honor to be here for many reasons. i am a big fan of yours and as a tech reporter, i've been standing on your shoulders for years but also computer history museum, some of the earliest stories i did as a silicon valley reporter were at hm and you have allowed me to host programming there to do many interviews and geek out both individually and children to be the exhibits and i always appreciated that. it's an honor to be associated with that. >> if i can add, i am deeply honored, i've done many things over the years, i go back so far, i remember when gordon and bell were making the decision to move to silicon

scott is also mike's podcast partner for the silicon valley insider weekly overview of silicon valley tech industry scott holds a degree in political science and ucla. welcome mike and scott but we're so looking forward to your conversation, take it away. >> thank you so much. welcome everyone, and michael welcome to you. it's great to be here. >> it's great to talk to you, this time i get to ask you the questions. >> and folks, please let us be a little informal. scott and i are not really capable of anything else. [laughter] this is an honor to be here for many reasons. mike, you know i'm a big fan of yours. as a tech reporter i've been standing on your shoulders for years. in some of the earliest stories i did as a silicon valley reporter were at sea hm and you have allowed me to do many there and geek out. individually to see the exhibits. always appreciate it it's an honor to be associated with that. >> if i can add, i am deeply honored. i've done many things at the museum over the years. i go back safari member would gordon glenn bell made the decision to move to silicon valley

silicon batteries so no silicon is come back to silicon valley but is there v product going to work? i don't know but it's possible that batteries can now get on the freight train in not the semi conductors. i think batteries are going to be crucial and whoever has the great breakthrough, you know i had lunch a while back with frederico and i said what's the greatest invention in valley history? is it the tryout -- triode or the transistor? is it the integrated circuit? visit you and your team with the microprocessor and he said no, i think the one true moment of genius in that whole history to play in our process. he said everything else that wee all do you could see it coming. you are extrapolating from where we are now to what we could do in the future but he says the idea of taking the transistor and laying it flat and the printing process and being able to scale it down 10 nanometers with the planar process that was not an active engineering. he said that was an act of artistic creation and he said everything else pales next to that moment when they came up with that so i though

and, you know, the programming, the counter cultural attitude of the early age of silicon valley, well, those programming data have now become the goliath and the pandemic has actually reinforced this for me at least, which is we're already aware of the some of the problems of big tech 18 months ago, but now our lives have become even more enmeshed in the decisions made by a very small number of people inside a very small number of tech companies. we're dependent on ways that we first, even 18 months dependent upon a small number of platforms through our work lives. through our private lives, for our educational lives and the power that's vested in a tiny number of people in silicon valley amounts to private governance and that's not serving us as citizens very well at all. >> from a technologist point of view, how we actually think about the systems that get built. they get built with particular metrics that are jaunt quantifiable and part of that that they're easily quantifiable. that doesn't mean they match what we really want. they're proxies for what we really want. and when you g

. >> i thought he was just silicon valley. >> now-- no, technology chief at google and it developed ai the response to gmail. responses that allow you to anticipate how you are going to respond to it. >> i noticed the responses have been getting more courteous and more specific. i suppose it's due to his development. >> that's his contribution. really i think all these people forgotten the fundamental principles of computer science. >> that's what's striking about this book because you don't seem to be as much as a doomsday or as some. in fact, you seem to think the potential of ai may be oversold, but that even in the overselling there could be some collateral damage and you are trying to avoid that. have i got that right? >> yeah, i think that's right. the idea that somehow ai competes with human minds is a fundamental illusion. >> a lot of these technology creators came to the work having already observed the idea that the human mind is nothing more than a neat machine and so if they knew that quote unquote knew that to begin with and it's not surprising that the conception of artif

it is embedded in the structure of the capitol industry driving the growth of silicon valley and face companies that prioritize the scale before we even understand anything about the impacts of technology in society. it reflects the path paved to market dominance by market in retreat from exercising oversight. so stanford has an important role to a play and there are individuals who may look inside it didn't pay attention to the consequences of the moment of tremendous optimism. the bottom line is there are systemic challenges that need addressed stanford needs to be at the center of addressing those challenges but stanford can't do alone. >> thanks, that makes a lot of sense and i recognize even if i've only been at stanford about two years, the change in the questions people are asking, the awareness after january 6 storming of the u.s.g capitol after disinformation around covid, people really thought problems are not just in other communities, they can truly hit home. the harms are real, not virtual so too say that we see how hard it is for students to find jobs outside of the big

we y hear from corporate leaders are investors in silicon valley that the antiregulation push to do that regulation will slow down innovation and get inw the way of the progress that we need. we want you to understand that anti-regulation pushed as a rejection of democracy. to rejection of the role of our political -- the technology that we selected as a society to help us referee the critical values that exist. you are right to say and our democracyha isn't up to the task not only because of of technical knowledge that you pointed to put because of theno institutiol huge -- features that have made our very difficult and so cheveryone's reasonable expectation about what's like you to come out is crowned -- of congress the best prediction you could make in this current system at the moment. questions about content moderation the communications act but one of the places that we start and this is excerpted in the piece in the atlantic which was published a couple of days ago is can we find a set of areas for legislative action were democracy can do what it's a best at which is achieve conse

also michael malone chronicles the beginnings of silicon valley with his book the big score. then "the memory thief" about the effects of opioid use on the memory. what can teach doctors about alzheimer's disease followed by biologists carole hooven explaining how testosterone dries behavior. >> some people say that artificial intelligence is going to make a the human race obsolete. people don't want to think that a artificial intelligence, and intimidating subject that the thing about ai is even if you don't want to think about it, it is thinkingut about you, or is ? that will be the question we will be discussing today on this episode of independent conversations. greetings everybody who has joined us. i'm graham walker coming from the independent institute in oakland, california. we try to bring notable experts on aic variety of topics to discuss topics of the day and we think giving your perspective that you're not likely to hear elsewhere, and today we'll be talking with george gilder. let me welcome george gilder to independent conversations. hi, george. [inaudible] >>

a flat university society in silicon valley, binary symbols which can play games better than us. there are black and gray, white and gray stones and the stones are symbols and they don't show beyond the board. if you have a computer, they can move billions of times faster than a human can. obviously they can play better than a human. >> i think you're saying a man is going to be superseded by a threshing machine. a man with a single side of that doesn't mean the machine is more sophisticated than the man. >> that's right. >> you say early on in the book and you repeated in a few places that you have two basic claims notion of sort of supremacy of artificial intelligence and both don and self defeating. i find it reassuring to learn from you and your book and other sources that the human mind is more complex and maybe the entire world internet system,ur that is reassuring. i'm glad to know maybe there's evidence but my mind is more than just a meat machine with electronics pulsing threat. so maybe it is done but the trouble is, could this view of artificial intelligence rise to a

i think companies in silicon valley that revive their business plan is also leaving their customers and contributors are going to fail. >> yeah, if that's how they approach it, then they're going to make themselves superfluous. in fact, they seem to anticipate that. if you proceed in business on the assumption that your job is to make your own customers superfluous, , you're going to n out of things to do it that your business model, aren't you? >> i think it's quite absurd. i'm even contrary enough to not believe that -- i think technology is continuing to advance at a tremendous pace, but it don't think it's advancing any more rapidly than it did at the time of the industrial revolution. i think that nobel laureate economist william nor house -- nor house did a study of the advance of writing. this is the invention, creation of light, the amount of lumens you need to light a room at night. and he shows that the advance in lighting has been a hundred thousand times more rapid than is measured in the economic models. essentially, economists while they are writing about them satanic mill

it's played a critical role in bridging the ecosystem that is silicon valley and it wrote this period of tremendousf tech optimism and we saw that reflected in every aspect of the campus. about riding that wave of optimism and backlash, we now face exactly that dynamic playing out on campus. a lack of trust in the tech companies and the concern among the individuals and the majors about whether they want to be associated with these societal harms. so it puts us in the position of educators on campus where we have to think and dig deep with our students around the questions of how do we amplify the benefits of technology while also mitigating these evidence harms. so the book itself calls for this kind of nuanced adult pragmatic conversation that's not a tech optimism and that's not a tech to pessimism, but recognizes that technology itself isn't neutral and involves trade-offs. it generates benefit alongside of the challenge collectively to think about how to weigh those things. >> but often i would say on this point, while we can focus on stanford and think about its potential role a

you really see the attitude representing a trent in silicon valley. living in a world where it is normal. new technology companies could create harmful effects. so, i want to ask may be a little bit more of a critical question. to what extent has safford university, you have a long history and a lot of experience in working with students, to what extent have they actively and successfully created the very culture where disruption is admired. giving access to the company but also inviting ceos and other tech executives and to teach. i would love to hear a bit of a reflection from each of you on how stanford plays a role in that typical disruptive ecosystem. starting with rob and shooting for this question with jeremy. >> absolutely. a significant responsibility for some of the problems we see a big tech and for that cultural orientation to aspire. looking for ways to code in your pajamas and roll your product out quickly and see what happens throw spaghetti on the wall and figure out any problems downstream. personally, i have seen in teaching generati

a big chunk of the masters of the universe of silicon valley don't seem to know a lot about the world outside of a relatively narrow elite american band and i think it is a failure of education of high school and as well as college they don't have that range of cultural and historicalal knowledge and grounding. but it wouldn't get better if you just do away with the four-year experience altogether. host: let's take some calls. new york c times columnist and author are caller comes in from tampa good afternoon. >>caller. my question is i am confused by the conservative christianity content of dominion is on that calling the believers to take control of all aspects of culture family, religion, entertainments and government. to me that conflict with the consultation on the very basic level that with article six that there should be no religious test for anybody for any qualificationff of office. and the government should in no way link any lot of the establishment of religion. host: do you know where dominion is him comes from? >> okay. i would like to a understand more about that. >> so

valley in california, he and i worked on cybersecurity and we will continue to work on those issues but i am willing to find a way if others are willing to join me. >> nancy mace, do you hear from constituents more about the vote to subpoena steve bannon or your efforts to end of testing on puppies? >> the experiments by doctor fauci and the nih certainly garnered much more attention in my vote. as i promised i swore the vote on the subpoena power i wouldn't want to waterdown those powers for congress because when republicans are in the majority we want to have hearings and investigations. there has to be a method to hold those individuals responsible and it wasn't long ago that weat had at the hearings into the committee was created in the same manner and even the secretary of state showed up to ignore the subpoena so as somebody that is on oversight and at the ranking member of the civil rights subcommittee, i'm going to protect those rights to call people to testify and if they don't show up hold them in contempt regardless of the political affiliation and regardless of who's in

silicon valley has a version of it where they effectively censor or moderate content the movement doesn't want to see online. the new democratic party looks the other way when it comes to leaving the monopoly power. whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing is working masterfully for both sides to shine some sunlight on that reality so the consumers into the citizens can at least make their own judgments about whether it's a good thing or bad thing but step one is seeing the phenomena itself that is part of what i try to do in the book. >> the examples that we talk about when the companies were deeply cynical, they were sort of using a progressive agenda to further their own goals which were not political at all. what about the stakeholder capitalism more generally. can a ceo and race stakeholder capitalism, does it make sense should the shareholders have other goals so as ceo i'm going to pursue those whether it's combating climate change, diversity. >> i'm going to take this as an opportunity worth unpacking in the discussion. a few different kinds. it is a problem, the phenomeno

valley and elsewhere were sort of semi- religious progressives ideology. where you know, incorporation will stage an acknowledgment when they talk about have landed is being held on was taken from a native american tribe right before you know they get into their strategic report or something. it is super weird, that is one thing to be said about this, it is very weird to sort of watch the incorporation of these five again, academic progressive rhetoric into corporate hr and baldwin park, was reflectingrt sort of extent to which is the scene that i think by people who run big companies sort of given something to progressivism. to avoid the kind of bernie sanders version like american corporations, they would much rather you know, have a diversity program and training along the lines at robin d'angelo suggestse in white fertility, than they would be subjected to bernie sanders side tax rate so there sort of the way in which this is a way for corporations to save your progressives as well, don't access, we have a diversity program and we got antiracist traini

a big chunk of our sort of masters of the universe weather in washington or silicon valley and so on, don't really seem to know a lot about the world outside of relatively narrow, you know, elite american. i think it is a failure of education. as well as college that they do not have that range of historical knowledge and grounding. i do not think that it would get better if you just did away with the four-year experience altogether. >> let's take some calls. new york times columnist and author.ng karen is calling in from tampa. good afternoon to you. >> good afternoon. my question is, i am confused bn the conservative christianity concept off romanian -ism.nt the call to believers to take control of all seven aspects of culture, the seven mountains. family, religion, education, media, business and government. to me, this conflicts, in conflict with the constitution on a very basic level that is in article six there should be no religiouson test for anybody, fr any qualification of office. the government should in no way make any law of establishment of religion. >> karen, do you know

now you have a conflation on the left of sort of corporate culture especially this silicon valley and elsewhere with, you know, sort of semi-religious progressive ideology where, you know, the corporation will stage a land acknowledgment where they talk about how the land is being held on was taken from a native american tribe right before they, you know, get into their third quarter strategic report or something. and it's super weird -- [laughter] it's just very weird to sort of watch, to sort of watch the incorporation of these, this kind of, you know, again, slightly academic progressive rhetoric into corporate hr speak. but what in part it reflects is sort of, you know, the the extent to which this is seen, i think, by people who run big companies in part as a way to sort of give something to progressivism to avoid the kind of bernie sanders version of progressivism. like, americans, american corporations would much rather, you know, construct diversity programs and trainings along the lines that robin deangelo suggests in "white white from if jillty" than they would be to be subj

like a big chunk of our sort of masters of universe whether they're in silicon valley and so on, don't know the world outside of a relatively narrow elite american of kind of band and i think it's a failure of education and high school as well as college that they don't have that range of cultural and historical knowledge and grounding. but i don't think it would get better if you just did away with the four-year experience altogether. >> well, let's take some calls. ralph is our guest. the new york times columnist and karen is calling in from tampa. good morning to you or good afternoon to you. >> good afternoon. mr. douthat, my question is, i'm very -- i'm confused by the conservative christianity's concept of the minionism to take control of seven cultures. seven mountains, family, religion, media, entertainment, business, and government. how, why do they -- to me this conflicts -- is in conflict with the constitution on a very basic level, that is with the idea in article 6 that there should be no religious test for anybody, for any qualification of office and also, that there shou

i think silicon valley does a version of it were they effectively censor or moderate they don't do it for free the unspoken ascus new democratic party looks the other way when leaves monopoly power intact. whether it's a monopoly or not it's a trait working masterfully for both guys run the goals of this book is to shine some sunlight on that reality so the consumers at the example of state street using a progressive agenda to further their own goals which are not political at all. what about capitalism more generally. can a ceo or a board embrace stakeholder capitalism does it make sense? might shareholders have other goals of maximizing profits. will help pursue those goals whether it's company climate change, diversity and the width and packing in the discussion anyway. there's different kinds of woke capitalism or stakeholder capitalism. it's at least three different things. first you have the problem of the executive who ultimately it's a problem he loves his position as ceo to advance a common good. even if that means using shareholder resources as part of his platform to do it.

i think silicon valley does a version where they effectively censor or moderate language. content that the movement doesn't want to see online but they don't do it for free because their unspoken asked is the new democratic party looks the other way when it comes to leading their monopoly power. i think that trade is working . whatever you think of the merits of whether or not their monopoly power is a good or bad thing it is the trade that's working masterfully for both sides and one of the goals in this book is to shine some light on that reality so that consumers and citizens can make their own judgments about whether it's a good thing or bad thing but step one is seeing the phenomenon itself with cleareyes . >> the example of the state street and goldman we've been talking about was in a sense that the companies were deeply cynical. they were using a progressive agenda to further their own goals and perhaps generate more profit. but what about stakeholder capitalism more generally? can a ceo or a board on cynically embrace stakeholder capitalism? does it makesense for

one key thing to remember is if you think about silicon valley before 2020, this was the industry that the most access to all the forms of remote work. is this what yahoo! did? is this what google and facebook did, sine qua non? exactly opposite. marissa mayer famously ordered a going back but google bot 1 million have square feet in downtown manhattan. they all try to create these work playgrounds to make sure people are around each other all the time because they believe creativity works by connecting people. one of the interesting things that come out of microsoft is there's a nice study that came out last month that there's a real decrease in connections across different groups which the paper really thinks is going to lead a decrease in crete giving microsoft because these were teams are becoming more siloed. one final is that the remote world is a very hard world for onboarding new workers and is an unequal world. the onboarding point is if you look at productivity computer programmers, some studies have suggested it's all just fine but if you look at new hires for computer progr

i think silicon valley does a version where they effectively censor orhe moderate content the woke movement doesn't want to see online, but they don't do it for free because they are unspoken ask is that the new left look the other way when it comes to leading their monopoly power intact and again i think that trade is working. whatever you think of the merits of whether or not the monopoly power is good or bad, it's a trade that's working masterfully for both sides and one of the goals is the book is to shine some ligh on the reality so consumers and citizens can at least make their own judgment about whether it's a good or bad thing and people can come to their own conclusion but step one is to see the phenomenon itself with clear eyes and that's part of what i s try to o the book. >> example of state street and goldman that we've been talking about with a sense that companies are deeply cynical, using progressive agenda to further their own goals and perhaps to create more profit. what about stakeholder capitalism more generally? can someone, can a ceo or a board constantly embrace stake

ition arrested in silicon valley up and down the peninsula so a lot of things are different. but you're arguing that there's something central to the relationship with china that is not that different from the relationship with the struggle the conflict with soviet union is that cent? >> absolutely. you can see this in jamie and wills superb essays this is a competition that also requires, you know, a high degree of clarity so, i mean, the phrase that comes to mind if i could paraphrase from reagan speech is chairman xi teared down that firewall. or we should do our best to get around it and this is what jamie does for us every day is it to reach a press people, peoples who are not permitted to access a wide range of sources of information. so that they have an opportunity to think differently to have and as will said or jamie said early that authoritarians are touchy they are sensitives, and you see this with -- you see this with the china communist party. i think there's a tremendous opportunity for us to use the kind of clarity of the berlin speech to compete much more eff

better can't happen unless we have a massive increase in the supply of critical tech minerals like silicone, copper and lithium. but china controls most of them. does he agree with me that the success of our green industrial revolution hinges on -- [inaudible] silling con valley and free of the e.u. what fiscal incentives can he now provide to make -- [inaudible] >> prime minister. >> i thank my honorable friend for that. as you know, there are some very, very interesting and potentially very lucrative the sources of minerals such as lithium in the country whose exploration, discovery and reuse we are encouraging. secondly on the tax point, as he rightly raises, we're going to use three points to insure that we support them as hubs for the processing of those critical minerals here in the u.k. >> [inaudible] >> thank you, mr. speaker. in 2014 my constituent's 3-year-old son was killed by an unsafe trailer. every year -- [inaudible] and now government is abolishing that test. unleashing thousands of untrained, untested, unsafe drivers onto our roads. why is the government with breaking its p