0:09

This is System Crash, a weekly tech news show

0:12

willing to tell the hard truths about how

0:14

tech and the Titans who own and operate

0:16

it is really transforming the world. I'm Paris

0:18

Marks. And I'm Brian Merchant. This system has

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just begun to crash, so support the show

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by heading over to patron.com/system crash pod, where

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you can sign up to give monthly bonus

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episodes. Also, rate the show on Apple, Spotify.

0:29

or wherever you listen. This week we are

0:31

back to the news and of course Elon

0:33

Musk is making more news as he always

0:35

tends to do. We had this big Tesla

0:37

earnings call but also news about his future

0:40

with Doge what it might be and

0:42

so we figured We need to dig

0:44

into that. And then later in the

0:46

episode, we'll have an interview relating to

0:49

some more international questions, particularly around Canada

0:51

and the Canadian election that is about

0:53

to happen next week on Monday, actually,

0:55

so quite soon. But Brian, what did

0:58

you make of this Elon Musk news,

1:00

this earnings call, you know, his future

1:02

at Doge, what is happening there? Yeah,

1:05

seems like at this point, it's only

1:07

been two months, really, of the Trump

1:09

administration and Elon. It feels like two

1:11

years. as everybody will say, is by

1:13

design, they're flooding the zone and trying

1:15

to do what they can with the

1:17

social and political capital that they have,

1:20

you know, it makes it hard to.

1:22

resist or yell about any piece

1:24

of it if it's all happening at

1:26

once. Basically, you know, we saw signs

1:28

that the facade was cracking in the

1:31

Elon sort of power base, I guess,

1:33

in the Trump White House, going back

1:35

to when he failed to move the

1:37

needle on the Wisconsin Supreme Court election

1:40

and even maybe like was a liability

1:42

in the end despite spending millions of

1:44

dollars wearing his cheese hat and looking

1:47

a little bit like a dummy. I

1:49

don't know how the voters of Wisconsin...

1:51

Johnson didn't go for that. Elon Musk

1:53

and a cheese hat promising to fire

1:55

you. Yeah, it's so no appealing. I

1:57

can't. But he's also handing out check.

2:00

to connect people who the party wants

2:02

to make sure is in the circle.

2:04

Like literally trying to buy it. You

2:06

know, if all that shit works and

2:08

you win the election, then you can

2:10

stay in the good graces. But one

2:12

thing we know about Trump is that

2:14

he doesn't like losers. He doesn't like

2:16

people who lose. He doesn't like weakness.

2:18

And you know, as long as Musk

2:20

is the richest man in the world,

2:22

he's gonna have like, he's gonna get

2:24

a special aura, I think of invincibility

2:26

as far as far as Trump's concerned.

2:29

moment when I wish I could do a

2:31

Trump impression, but I really can't. Every time

2:33

I think about doing one, I'm just like,

2:35

yeah, better just, let's leave that on the

2:37

table. As we know, I can't do a

2:39

Brian merchant impression. I also can't do a

2:41

Trump impression. Unless you're doing one right now,

2:43

unless this is just you. I just

2:45

need to do more cross talk

2:48

to prove to all the haters

2:50

out there who think I'm a

2:52

figment of Paris's imagination. It is

2:54

interesting to me, like, it did

2:56

ultimately come down to the stock

2:58

price and the performance of Tesla

3:01

and the fact that it has

3:03

been materially affected by backlash against

3:05

his operations with those with the

3:07

organized protests which have really gotten

3:09

under his skin. So, you know,

3:11

a round of applause to all

3:14

the takedown. protesters who've been showing

3:16

up at dealerships and at protests

3:18

around the world because you have

3:20

deeply affected the outcome of this

3:22

of Musk's involvement in politics and

3:24

almost got him crying on national

3:26

television like it's beautiful you know

3:29

I listened to some of the

3:31

earnings call so I get what

3:33

you had to stay what that

3:35

is so on the earnings call

3:37

he announced a couple of things

3:39

Tesla announced number one that profits

3:42

are down seven Which is crazy.

3:44

Yeah, it's really crazy. And it

3:46

shows just how much consumer sentiment

3:48

has started. I mean, there's a

3:50

number of factors in there, right?

3:52

Like, they were actually, you know,

3:54

the company was failing to sort

3:56

of facilitate deliveries at the same

3:58

pace. There's some. with the brand models

4:01

that they have and cyber trucks have been

4:03

a failure by and large. I'm shocked. I

4:05

can't believe it. I can't believe people aren't

4:07

going for it. I know, I mean you

4:09

drive yours all the time. I know, you're

4:11

recording this podcast from the bed of a

4:13

cyber truck. Isn't that where you record? from

4:16

as well? All the time

4:18

roving around LA. Like, like,

4:20

it's in self-driving mode and

4:22

you're just in the back

4:24

recording a podcast. Didn't, like,

4:26

you too, catch some flack

4:28

for doing, like, a video

4:30

where they were, like, in

4:32

the bed of a truck

4:34

that drove around New York

4:36

and they were supposed to

4:38

be, like, cheering people up

4:40

as they performed, like, there's

4:42

a lot of things that

4:44

contributed, but... Clearly and we'll play

4:46

a little clip of the of the

4:49

earnings call right here so you can

4:51

hear it now the purchase that

4:53

you'll see out there they're very

4:55

organized they're paid for

4:58

They're obviously not going

5:00

to say it meant that the

5:02

reason that they're protesting is

5:04

because they're receiving

5:06

fraudulent money or that

5:09

they're the recipients of

5:11

wasteful largeness but

5:13

They're going to think I come

5:15

up with some other reason. But that

5:17

is the real reason for the

5:20

protests, the actual reason

5:22

is that the first receiving the

5:24

waste and fraud wish to

5:26

continue receiving it. That is the

5:28

real thing that's going on here,

5:30

obviously. He's really angry and

5:33

almost seething in his way

5:35

about what's happened to Tesla,

5:37

and he's fabricated this really

5:39

dumb narrative in his own

5:41

mind that the people showing

5:43

up to the Tesla takedown

5:45

protests are the people who

5:47

have been robbed of their

5:49

fraud and waste that Doge

5:51

has taken away. So in

5:53

his mind, it's just like

5:55

all people from USAID who

5:57

are coming out to Yale.

5:59

at Tesla and not just people who

6:02

are furious about what's happening to the

6:04

state of American democracy and how this

6:06

unelected oligarch is wielding power. It's either

6:08

that or they're paid protesters by George

6:10

Soros or something. Exactly. So they're paid

6:13

and they're organized as you can hear

6:15

in this clip. I was thinking it's

6:17

just like it's very sort of... One

6:19

dimensional, it's so simplistic, it's almost childish.

6:21

You're a Musk, childish? What? What are

6:23

you talking about? It comports so much

6:26

with this video game mindset where you

6:28

do one thing and then like the

6:30

bad guys do something else and their

6:32

motivations are just one to one and

6:34

he just can't. There's politicians who will

6:37

spin things and reach for the most

6:39

sort of salient message that's going to

6:41

be most popular or sort of play

6:43

the best. Elon Musk doesn't, I think

6:45

he really believes. I think he really

6:48

is this dumb on a social level.

6:50

Not only does he think that he

6:52

actually maybe is rooting out fraud and

6:54

abuse because he looked at a spreadsheet

6:56

and misread it and that was all

6:59

the evidence that he needed. He is

7:01

very sort of dull-brained in this way.

7:03

I do think he's sitting there on

7:05

this earnings call telling people, oh, well,

7:07

we're just succeeding so much that I

7:10

think that if we don't carry out

7:12

Doge, then it's going to lead to

7:14

the destruction of America. and then there'll

7:16

be no Tesla, so we have to

7:18

keep doing this. And he's, so, but

7:20

the big news is that Tesla's down,

7:23

71% profits are down. And automotive revenue

7:25

is down 20% on top of that

7:27

as well, right? Yeah, so Tesla said

7:29

it earned $409 million down from 1.4

7:31

billion in the first quarter of last

7:34

year of 2024. It's a huge stark

7:36

decline. Investors, you know, before this have

7:38

been sort of goading him to sort

7:40

of give up the dose stuff, both

7:42

because they know it's. bad for the

7:45

brand and because they know that him

7:47

returning will be this symbolic gesture and

7:49

the stock market will celebrate which is

7:51

pretty much exactly what happened because Musk

7:53

says that he's going after the end

7:56

of the month in May, he's going

7:58

to be allocating more of his time

8:00

away from Doge. And he's not leaving.

8:02

He's still gonna be doing a day

8:04

a week or something, he says. A

8:07

day a week instead of just kind

8:09

of like camping out in the White

8:11

House and being the first buddy, it

8:13

was enough to say. Yeah, Elon's going

8:15

back to Tesla to save the day.

8:17

And so the market was back up

8:20

at time of recording today. Yeah, which

8:22

is Wednesday, we should say, because who

8:24

knows by end of the week. Who

8:26

knows? We crash back down again. Might

8:28

be new tariffs or whatever. Well, I

8:31

feel like that also played in tariffs

8:33

or whatever. Well, I feel like that

8:35

also played into the story. Right. Well,

8:37

I feel like that also played into

8:39

the story as well, right. very much

8:42

is just like they realize the impact

8:44

of these tariffs is very negative for

8:46

the United States and so they're going

8:48

to be rolling them back and there's

8:50

also discussions of other potential like tariff

8:53

rollbacks and changes in the types of

8:55

approach there that could be beneficial to

8:57

Tesla but is not driven just solely

8:59

by Tesla but by the broader impacts

9:01

of Trump's global trade war and what

9:04

that is meaning for different places and

9:06

I believe on the call Elon Musk

9:08

like not just called out the impact

9:10

of tariffs specifically but how Tesla saw

9:12

diversification to Canada and Mexico as a

9:14

key part of kind of like future

9:17

growth and that this trade war really

9:19

gets in the way of. And that

9:21

is like the one thing that Musk

9:23

says that he's like I'm gonna keep

9:25

trying to sort of advocate for lower

9:28

tariffs to the Trump administration because it's

9:30

one of the clear points of. contention

9:32

between the two camps. But so far,

9:34

Trump hasn't really listened all that much.

9:36

You know, it's hard to say what

9:39

is even going on. He's cutting deals

9:41

and it's now turned into a patchwork

9:43

and who knows what's going to go

9:45

back into effect at the end of

9:47

the month. Clearly, all the hardcore capitalists

9:50

and the tech guys, they don't like

9:52

the tariffs. The tariffs have been, as

9:54

we've seen, have been one of the

9:56

hardest to dislodge ideas from Trump's addled

9:58

brain, because he just has such an

10:00

affinity for them, clearly. It's just something.

10:03

It's a beautiful word. It's a beautiful

10:05

word. It's a beautiful word, like groceries.

10:07

Yeah. So while I do think the

10:09

Tesla takedown folks should take a victory

10:11

lap and and I do think that

10:14

it's this is sort of a victory

10:16

and that like it does show the

10:18

power of sort of organized protest and

10:20

smart protest and that kind of resistance

10:22

it does worry me a little bit

10:25

that if Musk is less involved in

10:27

Doge and he's not wandering around the

10:29

capital and he's not sort of participating

10:31

directly that some of the media spotlight

10:33

will kind of fall away from the

10:36

program in general. He has done, I'd

10:38

say, most of the work, right? Like

10:40

he has organized the program, he's staffed

10:42

it up with his lackeys, and he's

10:44

sort of associated himself with it. He's

10:47

become the avatar of Doge instead of

10:49

someone from the Trump administration that everybody

10:51

can just sort of get mad at

10:53

and write off and then get fired

10:55

or whatever. He's become like kind of

10:57

a human blame shield from Trump for

11:00

doing these firings and doing these layoffs.

11:02

There's been some reporting that Russ Vot

11:04

who had architect and a lot of

11:06

the other sort of transformations in government

11:08

was initially seen as a rival to

11:11

Musk, but now they've, you know, sort

11:13

of linked up, and now he's kind

11:15

of getting to a wheeled influence with

11:17

the benefit of Musk's, or initially with

11:19

the benefit of Musk's, sort of celebrity,

11:22

now it's arguable whether it's become sort

11:24

of a liability or not, certainly he's

11:26

riled up the conservative wing of the

11:28

party, and they've been cheering Musk. And

11:30

so it does become this, I think

11:33

this sort of complicated moment. because Doge

11:35

is still going to continue gutting the

11:37

government as much as it can, because

11:39

that has been an objective of Trump's

11:41

program or those more activated folks within

11:44

it. So I do wonder what happens

11:46

to those narratives if Musk does like

11:48

go back to Tesla. I just worry

11:50

because the media love... a narrative. But

11:52

that's where I think I disagree with

11:54

you a bit, right? Is that yes,

11:57

they love a narrative, but I feel

11:59

like because Elon Musk has been so

12:01

central to this, so much of the

12:03

focus has been able to be like,

12:05

this is what Elon Musk is doing,

12:08

this is what Elon Musk is doing,

12:10

this is what Elon Musk's pros are

12:12

doing, Elon, Elon, Doj, Elon, and I

12:14

feel like if he is more separated

12:16

from it, he's going to be doing

12:19

like weekly work on this project, so

12:21

he's not fully If he actually does

12:23

that in practice, maybe he'll find that

12:25

more difficult to do, then he seems

12:27

to think or maybe that's just something

12:30

he's telling investors because he knows that

12:32

Tesla is in trouble right now and

12:34

he needs to try to save some

12:36

parts of the business because it has

12:38

been declining and doing so badly and

12:41

saying he's going to take a step

12:43

back from Doge is very helpful for

12:45

the share price and investor confidence and

12:47

stuff like that. But I think if

12:49

he realistically does step away a bit,

12:51

it also makes it easier to be

12:54

easier. Oh, here is what is actually

12:56

going on in Doge. Here are the

12:58

people who are actually like wielding the

13:00

levers of power and moving things forward,

13:02

because I don't think that Elon Musk

13:05

is the real mastermind behind Doge. He's

13:07

certainly the figurehead, he's the public face

13:09

of it. He is making tweets that

13:11

are shaping some of what it's doing,

13:13

but there are people who, you know,

13:16

like we've talked about Project 2025, there

13:18

are people in kind of this right

13:20

wing. project who have been designing this

13:22

whole campaign for years and I'm sure

13:24

are engaged in seeing it through making

13:27

sure it takes effect and I feel

13:29

like those people are not receiving the

13:31

kind of scrutiny that they maybe deserve

13:33

because it's easier to be like, look,

13:35

it's Elon and it's Elon's boys and

13:38

all this kind of stuff, right? No,

13:40

I totally agree. In fact, I just,

13:42

I think it really depends on how

13:44

effectively folks can keep the pressure on

13:46

and some of that onus is going

13:48

to fall to workers. And in fact,

13:51

this weekend, I wrote a piece about

13:53

what federal workers can do now at

13:55

this like sort of this point of

13:57

potential vulnerability, you know, like a lot

13:59

of these. big reduction in forces that

14:02

have been ordered by and by the

14:04

Trump administration, are not necessarily legal and

14:06

are, you know, they kind of depend

14:08

on department heads signing off on them

14:10

and going along with them or not

14:13

resisting them. And so it really does

14:15

remain to be seen how various parties

14:17

sort of respond to this vacuum because

14:19

I could see it going either way.

14:21

And I do think it's a tremendous

14:24

opportunity for federal workers, for activists, for

14:26

pro-democracy activists to get in there and

14:28

to sort of take advantage. of the

14:30

fact that Elon has fallen away and

14:32

these guys who are much less popular,

14:35

much more polarizing, the story is all

14:37

about big balls and not about Elon,

14:39

then I feel like you're right. It

14:41

is becomes much less sympathetic. But I

14:43

also think it's helpful to frame Doge

14:45

as like this tech invasion of government

14:48

that is trying to do efficiency through

14:50

tech and bringing the tech model to

14:52

the federal workforce than being like, oh

14:54

look, there's all these right-wing ghools who

14:56

are undertaking this campaign. and using this

14:59

like tech narrative, tech framing to get.

15:01

a degree of legitimacy that would never

15:03

be there if they didn't have Elon

15:05

Musk and the Doge boys and stuff,

15:07

taking the flag. 100% that's what it

15:10

is. It's, I mean, it is like

15:12

the veneer, it's, that's what the AI

15:14

first strategy is all about, but you

15:16

know, I feel like on a campaign

15:18

level, like that is completely true. And

15:21

you know, this is, all they've done

15:23

is that a veneer of sort of

15:25

like Silicon Valley trappings and sort of

15:27

mindset. are really just sort of, you

15:29

know, mass layoffs and, you know, sticking

15:32

a little widget in instead here and

15:34

there. We know there's a few chat

15:36

bots and things around, but I mean,

15:38

I think that's why these two movements,

15:40

you know, the Project 2025 movement and

15:42

like the Silicon Valley Wright has wound

15:45

up being so aligned because they're basically

15:47

after very similar things with certain points

15:49

of contention for sure, but that all

15:51

really does come down. down to the

15:53

details, like Musks and the Silicon Valley

15:56

crew really want to keep some level

15:58

of immigration only because they're used to

16:00

exploiting those workers at their tech companies,

16:02

whereas the 2025 cohort doesn't. want to

16:04

have any black or brown people coming

16:07

into the country at all, really. I

16:09

do think it's going to be a

16:11

really interesting moment, and I do think

16:13

it is a sign of the project's

16:15

flagging power. You know, don't get me

16:18

wrong. It's still quite estimable. It's still

16:20

quite potent and has the authority of

16:22

the state and has immense power behind

16:24

it. but there are vulnerabilities here now

16:26

that are beginning to show, which again,

16:29

as we talked about up top, like

16:31

this is what they're afraid of and

16:33

why they rushed into so many of

16:35

these things. Well, I would say we

16:37

could also see it as like the

16:39

fragilities or whatnot, but we could also

16:42

see it as kind of like moving

16:44

from stage one to stage two, right,

16:46

to a stage of destroying things to

16:48

like entrenchment of this new model of

16:50

running government, right? Like I think there's

16:53

still very clear risks. remains to be

16:55

seen whether they can do that at

16:57

all or whether they have a plan

16:59

for it at all I think as

17:01

much as this has been a little

17:04

bit better organized than Trump 1.0 it's

17:06

still unclear what does happen after you

17:08

swing the wrecking ball and whether or

17:10

not they actually think the AI chat

17:12

bots are actually going to do government

17:15

or whether they care or whether they've

17:17

thought about what actually happens when people

17:19

do care that government doesn't work or

17:21

that there's tens of thousands of more

17:23

people out of work and unemployed and

17:26

screaming at Republicans and town halls. It

17:28

is another moment with a lot of

17:30

question marks. That's when you beef up

17:32

the police budget and the military budget

17:34

I guess. And then you know you

17:36

have a guy who's in charge of

17:39

the military. who's just like chatting about

17:41

bombing Yemen on family group texts so

17:43

it's like is the military again I

17:45

do feel like it's going on like

17:47

seemingly drunken rants when he's called out

17:50

about it yeah exactly who is at

17:52

no drunk and just yeah person and

17:54

then you know literally has like Nazi

17:56

tattoos like literally does and they're circling

17:58

the wagons around him again and again

18:01

the party is but one thing that

18:03

you know I wonder about and I

18:05

would love to see more reporting on

18:07

is like how like what does like

18:09

rank and file military and soldiers and

18:12

and people what do they think of

18:14

this buffoon this guy's a clown clearly

18:16

there are departments and plenty of people

18:18

who are quite allied with Trump and

18:20

certainly ice and there are all these

18:23

ghouls who are completely willing to put

18:25

on a face mask and apprehend a

18:27

college student who wrote an op-ed and

18:29

throw her into an unmarked van. What

18:31

is the breadth of that support? Like,

18:33

I guess, maybe call me an optimist,

18:36

but I don't know how widespread it

18:38

is. We did see Trump taking more

18:40

effort to clear ranks of non-loyal, quote,

18:42

DoD officials and whatnot. I feel like

18:44

my vibe is that the police and

18:47

like CBP, the border services and stuff

18:49

tend to be much more kind of

18:51

like... fascist right wing more ideological yeah

18:53

yeah then like the military which is

18:55

not to say that the military is

18:58

like a hotbed of liberal support or

19:00

anything but I feel like it's distinct

19:02

from what you see in those other

19:04

kind of groups right I guess I'm

19:06

just trying to say that like there

19:09

are fissures in unexpected places as monstrous

19:11

as everything that's happening right now as

19:13

horrible as it is as certain as

19:15

Elon Musk is to continue wielding power

19:17

in in many ways I do think

19:19

that these vulnerabilities that are being exposed

19:22

on different fronts are real and are

19:24

there and can be exploited and people

19:26

need to keep standing up, keep showing

19:28

up, keep organizing, keep protesting. The piece

19:30

I wrote today was an interview with

19:33

the Labor Studies professor at Rutgers Eric

19:35

Blanc and he's been following the federal

19:37

workers jobs crisis and and its confrontations

19:39

with Doge and drawing lessons from the...

19:41

recent spate of organizing over the last

19:44

few years and seeing what's worked and

19:46

and he has made a lot of

19:48

good arguments that like you know now

19:50

we the time for federal workers to

19:52

really push back, make noise, do things

19:55

that might go viral, get more attention,

19:57

really sort of crystallize the opposition. It's

19:59

hard to do, it's risky, but at

20:01

this point the trend lines are all

20:03

towards sort of the risk is you're

20:06

just gonna, you might just fall victim

20:08

to a big doge cut anyways. I

20:10

thought that there was a lot of

20:12

wisdom in that and it's hard and

20:14

I've already had people after I published

20:16

this, about ways to resist more and

20:19

I do think that's an encouraging sign

20:21

for sure. Yeah it absolutely is and

20:23

I would say just to go back

20:25

to the Tesla call really briefly the

20:27

earnings call and stuff one of the

20:30

things that that stood out from that

20:32

too that I saw at Niedermeyer tweeting

20:34

about or blue-skying about or whatever we're

20:36

calling it now was basically that one

20:38

of the areas Tesla identified as a

20:41

growing part of its business that's still

20:43

doing well as the automotive part is

20:45

struggling is the battery business selling is

20:47

the battery business selling batteries to utilities

20:49

and he just kind of flagged that

20:52

like hey this might be another place

20:54

for Tesla takedown organizers to focus on

20:56

in the near future if we're looking

20:58

to continue damaging this company right because

21:00

yeah the auto business is one piece

21:03

of it but Tesla is involved in

21:05

other things as well. And I think

21:07

it stood out to me that on

21:09

that earnings call again, Elon Musk was

21:11

calling out the robots as this kind

21:13

of major future growth play, which many

21:16

people really don't believe is going anywhere.

21:18

And he was again promising that self-driving

21:20

is going to be here next year,

21:22

going to be making all this money,

21:24

blah blah blah, which like no one

21:27

really buys, right, except maybe some really

21:29

die hardcore Tesla people. And I do

21:31

wonder that like, okay. If Elon Musk

21:33

really says he's not spending as much

21:35

time at Doge and spending more time

21:38

at Tesla, you have to wonder if

21:40

that's actually a good thing, right? Like,

21:42

this is the guy who pushed the

21:44

cyber truck onto the company who wanted

21:46

it to look a particular way and

21:49

be a particular way and kind of

21:51

forced the company's designers to make what

21:53

he wanted, and it's been a total

21:55

flop. He's the guy who went in

21:57

and said, we don't want a cheaper

22:00

car, we want a robot taxi, and

22:02

now we see them getting like creamed

22:04

by these Chinese EV makers in the

22:06

rest of the world, and of course

22:08

also struggling in North America as well

22:10

for distinct reasons. So like is the

22:13

idea that Elon Musk were turning to

22:15

Tesla? I don't know, like obviously the

22:17

investors of Tesla are people who tend

22:19

to believe I would say that Elon

22:21

Musk is some great man or whatnot,

22:24

but. in reality he makes terrible decisions

22:26

for this company. But it's almost immaterial

22:28

and I would like for everybody who

22:30

also already listened to our Elon in

22:32

Power episode with Ed they know but

22:35

if you haven't I go listen to

22:37

that episode because it really sort of

22:39

articulates what's going on there and why

22:41

despite everything that you just said being

22:43

true Elon returning is still enough to

22:46

rally the stock market like he hasn't

22:48

made like a good sound financial decision

22:50

in a long time and all of

22:52

the promises of late, even excluding all

22:54

the dose stuff, just in the context

22:57

of Tesla, like the robot butlers and

22:59

cyber, yeah, the big thing that came

23:01

out of this was he like, he

23:03

did, he went cybercab, it was all

23:05

like, he's like, oh, and he's imagining

23:07

this time next year again, as he

23:10

said, like, it is all very fantastical,

23:12

but the market has just kind of

23:14

agreed that Elon is the Superman, the

23:16

actual revenues coming out of the company,

23:18

are secondary to this belief that Elon

23:21

can sort of... will more profits will

23:23

more expansion will more product lines and

23:25

companies into existence whether or not they

23:27

like work or a profitable or anything

23:29

I mean that's been the story of

23:32

Tesla over the last 10 years as

23:34

Ed Niedermeyer pointed out to us starting

23:36

with the full self-driving which has still

23:38

yet to actually materialize the promise it's

23:40

all you know a fantasy and Wall

23:43

Street was just so happy to go

23:45

back it's like doged if anything draws

23:47

everyone out of that fantasy and into

23:49

real people dealing with his decisions and

23:51

dealing with his politics. and real people

23:54

getting fired, real people getting angry, and

23:56

it complicates the picture in a way

23:58

that nobody who was invested in Tesla

24:00

wanted to see. And so it remains

24:02

to be seen whether it will go

24:04

back up to the height before the

24:07

whole dosh incursion, but there are clearly

24:09

a lot of people who are still

24:11

willing to just sort of be happy

24:13

with this deeply stupid sort of conception

24:15

of Musk as the entrepreneurial ironman that

24:18

he's working. so hard to cultivate over

24:20

the last 20 years. Yeah, that's why

24:22

I don't believe that like the Wednesday

24:24

stock bump actually lasts. Like, you know,

24:26

reality has the set in. Based on

24:29

what you were saying about the self-driving

24:31

and stuff, there was this funny part

24:33

in the earnings call when it got

24:35

to like the questions aspect of it,

24:37

where an analyst from Wells Fargo basically

24:40

asked Musk about like dusk and Fogg

24:42

and glare issues with the cameras when

24:44

you're thinking about driving automation because Musk's

24:46

big thing was like you don't need

24:48

this Lydar sensor. and that will be

24:51

perfectly fine. And he was like, isn't

24:53

this going to cause a problem, like

24:55

when the cameras are obscured by different

24:57

weather things, or the sun, or whatever.

24:59

And on the call, Musk claimed that

25:01

Tesla, quote, bypasses the digital signal processor

25:04

and does, quote, direct photon counting. And

25:06

so the guy followed up and he

25:08

was like, so the camera still works

25:10

when there's direct glare on the camera

25:12

that like obscures thing. Musk was like,

25:15

yeah, of course. Like, it was like,

25:17

this is such a such a bullshit.

25:19

lie like what are you talking about

25:21

he's just so adept at that level

25:23

of bullshit it just spews out of

25:26

him naturally like he died yeah on

25:28

some level he believes that probably he

25:30

just because he's willed himself to believe

25:32

it he just I'm sure I have

25:34

no doubt but it's like This is

25:37

a fraudster. Like why is he not?

25:39

Why is he still able to get

25:41

away with this? Yeah, exactly. He lives

25:43

in a video game world. This guy

25:45

is an NPC to him and this

25:48

is just like something that he could

25:50

select from the drop-down menu to say

25:52

to override it. What does not matter

25:54

if it's true or not? One of

25:56

those situations where you're like, I'm not

25:58

surprised that the... is rallying around this

26:01

but like also like the world is

26:03

so stupid like it's because yeah oh

26:05

Musk is back yeah yeah what is

26:07

he gonna do everybody's and I think

26:09

you're right that it's just gonna set

26:12

in again just like oh right like

26:14

no one's gonna forget that he's a

26:16

huge asshole he's still on Twitter he's

26:18

still on Twitter he's still on Twitter

26:20

he's still going to be showing up

26:23

in photo hops with with the president

26:25

and it's still like it's Hezbollah boycotts

26:27

are not ending just because he's spending

26:29

a few fewer days irreparable damage at

26:31

this point. Like it's just, it's done.

26:34

And there was a report in Reuters

26:36

the other day that even their attempts

26:38

to like do a cheaper car kind

26:40

of thing continue to get delayed. Like,

26:42

I don't know, this whole company is

26:45

a shambles. They just had the complete

26:47

recall of all the cyber trucks a

26:49

few weeks ago, which I believe we

26:51

discussed, like this company is a mess

26:53

and has fewer prospects. You know, it

26:55

was like the dominant company in the.

26:58

the kind of wrap-up at the end

27:00

that deals with that so we can

27:02

leave it until then. But like no

27:04

one in their right mind really believes

27:06

that Tesla is going to be like...

27:09

a dominant EV company in the future

27:11

or anything at this point, like, or

27:13

if they do, they're like delusional in

27:15

my view. Yeah, I think it's just

27:17

resting back on sort of like the

27:20

momentum and the inertia from the last

27:22

10 years and just like praying to

27:24

the gods of the marketplace that bygones

27:26

can be bygones and that like this

27:28

fantasy can continue to be propelled forward

27:31

because yeah, certainly based on any of

27:33

the numbers coming out of the company,

27:35

then if it's actual prospects, I wonder,

27:37

you know, you know, what it would

27:39

take it would take. to wake me,

27:42

you know, a recession, pretty remarkable that

27:44

we're back here. We'll see, we'll see,

27:46

we'll see what happens, yeah. But you

27:48

know, like as we've been talking about,

27:50

obviously people understand what Doge is at

27:52

this point, right? Like it's very clear

27:55

what this organization has done, what this

27:57

ideology is doing, but we still see

27:59

internationally. these efforts by right wing parties

28:01

to say that they are going to

28:03

pursue doge like programs, right, which is

28:06

kind of wild to see, especially like.

28:08

as the reality of what this project

28:10

is becomes clear and clear, but to

28:12

still see them talking about it is

28:14

kind of wild. I've written in the

28:17

past about how tech folks in Canada

28:19

have been embracing right-wing ideologies like what

28:21

we're seeing in the United States and

28:23

many of them in Canada, but other

28:25

places as well, calling for their own

28:28

versions of Doge to kind of dismantle

28:30

the government in their own countries. And

28:32

so as listeners will likely know, Canada

28:34

is in an election at the moment.

28:36

We go to the polls on Monday,

28:38

April 28. where it's looking like we're

28:41

going to elect a liberal government, not

28:43

a conservative government, so maybe discussions of

28:45

Doge are not as key right now,

28:47

though I'm going to write a piece

28:49

hopefully before the election on how the

28:52

liberal party isn't a great savior from

28:54

these tech ideologies either, and leader Mark

28:56

Kearney, because of his longstanding relationships to

28:58

the tech industry, you know, the liberals

29:00

released their platform just the other day,

29:03

and there's a whole section in there

29:05

about embracing AI, building AI data centers,

29:07

implementing it in the public service. And

29:09

it's like, yeah, these shitheads are going

29:11

to be doing a lot of terrible

29:14

stuff we still have to be on

29:16

guard for. But there was an article

29:18

published in De Smog in cooperation with

29:20

the lever. And it's basically explaining how

29:22

the right in Canada is kind of

29:25

organizing and discussing how it would look

29:27

to do something similar in the Canadian

29:29

context. So the author Jeff Dembiki, the

29:31

global managing editor of De Smog and

29:33

the author of the petroleum papers, basically

29:35

wrote this article because there was this.

29:38

recent kind of gathering of conservative voices,

29:40

and you had fossil fuel executives, you

29:42

had an Amazon web services, senior public

29:44

policy person, and you had people from

29:46

like libertarian think tanks on stage together

29:49

discussing what it would look like to

29:51

implement a doge in Canada and why

29:53

it would be good for their various

29:55

different interests. And so when I saw

29:57

this, given all that we discussed on

30:00

the show, given that the Canadian election

30:02

is so close, I was like, I

30:04

think we should have Jeff on for

30:06

a quick chat to understand what is

30:08

happening here, because this is important for

30:11

Canada, but I also think it's important

30:13

for the broader conversation about what the

30:15

right globally is doing and how they're

30:17

trying to approach this stuff. I think

30:19

it's really important. I do think it's

30:22

another open question, why this juncture again

30:24

is so important with like how we

30:26

respond to like how we respond to

30:28

like, musks, quote, quote, stepping away from

30:30

its own independent logics and how related

30:32

they are to that Silicon Valley mindset

30:35

and the AI mindset. It's an opportunity

30:37

to think about, yeah, how conservative movements

30:39

can export those ideologies for their own

30:41

benefit, whether or not they'll be successful

30:43

without a charismatic or at least notorious

30:46

figurehead-like musk. I think we should be

30:48

interrogating AI in general. And like what,

30:50

you know, as, you know, people sort

30:52

of like, well, it's AI as a,

30:54

you know, as a tool or it.

30:57

It's an exciting thing in this case,

30:59

but we don't like how it's being

31:01

used over here. But we have to

31:03

consider sort of the general suite of

31:05

ideologies and programs that it enables, like

31:08

this one, right? Like with everybody harping

31:10

on about AI and how it's going

31:12

to transform the world and how it's

31:14

going to disrupt whole economies and all

31:16

these, it opens up spaces for doges

31:19

and maybe what's going to happen in

31:21

Canada and other parties. So I think

31:23

it is really an interesting and important

31:25

time. to look at the ways that

31:27

they are trying to export these properties

31:29

elsewhere. I completely agree. And so here's

31:32

our interview with Jeff Dambickey. I was

31:34

really happy he could chat with me

31:36

to dig into all this and we'll

31:38

be back on the other side with

31:40

some final stories to wrap up this

31:43

week's episode. Jeff, thanks for coming

31:45

on System Crash. Yeah, thanks for having

31:47

me on. Absolutely, you know, you have

31:49

this fantastic story, and I just wanted

31:52

to dig into it even more, right,

31:54

to learn more about it, because I

31:56

think for our audience, it's going to

31:59

be really important to understand how these

32:01

things are working, not just in the

32:03

United States, but other parts of the

32:05

world. And so I wanted to start

32:08

before we dig into kind of the

32:10

meat of the story. We have an

32:12

election right now in Canada. Pierre Polyev

32:15

is the leader of the Conservative Party

32:17

and up until recently was running high

32:19

in the polls. Has Pierre Polyev said

32:22

anything about Doge or about a similar

32:24

kind of plan or is there anything

32:26

in the Conservative Party policy platform that

32:29

suggests that they want to pursue some

32:31

kind of program like that? conservatives find

32:33

exciting and trying to I think water

32:35

it down and make it seem more

32:38

like polite and palatable to Canadians. And

32:40

so Paulia released his platform this week

32:42

and he's calling for tens of billions

32:45

of dollars of tax cuts and he

32:47

says he's gonna cut the federal bureaucracy

32:49

by like 17,000 positions a year, but

32:52

he says he's gonna do it without

32:54

mass layoffs and there's no mention. of

32:56

Doge or Elon Musk or anything, even

32:58

though Pauli, I think senses in some

33:01

level that his supporters can read that

33:03

into the plan. Yeah, read between the

33:05

lines, you know what we're getting at.

33:08

That makes total sense. So this article

33:10

really focuses on some information that you

33:12

got from a conference called Canada Strong

33:15

and Free Network. Can you talk about

33:17

what this conference is, like who was

33:19

really coming together for something like this?

33:22

So this conference is sort of a

33:24

Canadian version of CPAC. And it represents

33:26

a big networking opportunity for Canada's conservative

33:28

movement. And so you have conservative premiers,

33:31

you have conservative thought leaders, and then

33:33

you have a bunch of corporate people

33:35

who have viewpoints that could also be

33:38

described as conservative. Basically, they all get

33:40

together in Ottawa and they hash out

33:42

a bunch of the big ideas and

33:45

policies that people in the movement and

33:47

people excited about. having conservative governments in

33:49

Canada should focus on. Were there any

33:52

like really big standout names there this

33:54

year that people should know about? They

33:56

invited Barry Weiss to talk and she

33:58

sort of did her like usual spiel

34:01

about leaving the liberal New York Times

34:03

and it seemed to get a big

34:05

reaction there. She was kind of like

34:08

playing the hits, the greatest hits I

34:10

guess. But nothing new for the for

34:12

the Canadian audience just to kind of

34:15

pick it up on the old stuff.

34:17

Yeah, it kind of was depressing to

34:19

me to me to listen to that.

34:22

Fair enough. I would be depressed listening

34:24

to Barry Weiss as well, so I

34:26

don't blame you on that. But you

34:28

know, the poor of your piece really

34:31

focuses on, I guess it's a specific

34:33

panel that happened there where they seem

34:35

to be talking about Doge. Can you

34:38

talk a bit about what that was

34:40

and who was arrayed here to talk

34:42

about this issue? So there was a

34:45

specific panel that I was very... interested

34:47

in, and it's what I ended up

34:49

doing this piece on De Smog and

34:51

the lever for. And the panel was

34:54

about addressing inefficiencies in government, so sort

34:56

of like boring sounding title. The panel

34:58

itself, it included a former chief of

35:01

staff to Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen

35:03

Harper, really conservative guy from about 10

35:05

years or so ago. It also included

35:08

a representative from Amazon Web services. Canada,

35:10

an executive from the pipeline company TC

35:12

Energy, which tried to build the Keystone

35:15

Excel pipeline into the US, and it

35:17

included a senior fellow from a think

35:19

tank called the McDonald-Loree Institute, which is

35:21

part of a big coalition of free

35:24

market think tanks called Atlas Network. It's

35:26

based in Virginia. And so in terms

35:28

of the reporting I do on like

35:31

climate accountability in the conservative movement, this

35:33

was almost like the setup to a

35:35

joke or something like these four. people

35:38

walk into a bar like what happens

35:40

next. I love that and you know

35:42

there's an energy fossil fuel guy there

35:45

so you know there's going to be

35:47

some kind of climate adjacent stuff for

35:49

the reporting but this is a much

35:51

broader story as well that I feel

35:54

like we have been watching doge play

35:56

out for the past few months in

35:58

the United States you know the repercussions

36:01

of that everything happening in the United

36:03

States as a result of it the

36:05

upheaval in the US government what that

36:08

means for Americans more generally is it

36:10

surprising to you that you're still seeing

36:12

conservatives in Canada talk about doing something

36:14

similar even if they don't always you

36:17

want to use the term doge? Yeah

36:19

I mean I was totally surprised that

36:21

they just launched into talking about doge

36:24

because Obviously, that's been such a huge

36:26

news story in the US and has

36:28

become so politically toxic and has led

36:31

to nationwide protests and resulted in Elon

36:33

Musk being one of the most unpopular.

36:35

political figures in the country at the

36:38

moment. But this event starts at the

36:40

Canadian Conservative Conference and the moderator who

36:42

is this oil and gas executive, he

36:44

basically launches into it and he's like,

36:47

we've been paying very careful attention to

36:49

Doge and he addresses the former Stephen

36:51

Harper guy and he says, so what

36:54

do you think? Like how could we

36:56

do a Doge in Canada? And the

36:58

former Harper guy's name is Ian Brody.

37:01

To my kind of surprise and amazement,

37:03

he just like... launches into a very

37:05

specific playbook for how a Pierre Polyev

37:08

government could replicate Doge. And because of

37:10

some like legal and constitutional differences between

37:12

Canada and the US, that frankly, I'm

37:14

not going to pretend to like really

37:17

understand this guy Brody is like, actually

37:19

in Canada, we could do it faster.

37:21

than Trump is doing in the US

37:24

right now. Absolutely incredible. You know, like

37:26

you would even want to do it

37:28

faster after all that you've seen down

37:31

there. But of course, you know, this

37:33

is coming from a particular perspective, right?

37:35

These are the people who would be

37:38

probably enjoying what they're seeing in the

37:40

United States and think that it is

37:42

a good thing. I was a bit

37:44

struck by this formulation of this panel,

37:47

the type of people who were on

37:49

it, and how open they were to

37:51

be making these. arguments, right? Because one

37:54

of the things that we saw in

37:56

the past week was some of the

37:58

tech folks trying to distance themselves from

38:01

the idea of Adoge specifically and that

38:03

their group build Canada is Adoge, but

38:05

here you have people from many different

38:07

parts of this conservative movement from corporate

38:10

Canada, making this explicit argument for Adoge,

38:12

saying that this is something they want

38:14

to see and how we would potentially

38:17

even achieve it. Yeah, and the part

38:19

that really stuck out to me is

38:21

when the executive from the pipeline company,

38:24

T.C. Energy, he starts riffing a little

38:26

bit on what you do with the

38:28

critics of development. in Canada. And he

38:31

sort of goes, you know, these are

38:33

like anti-development groups. They're sort of opposed

38:35

to resource extraction. And this pipeline guy,

38:37

you know, sort of asked to the

38:40

room, like, how do we do with

38:42

these groups who obviously would be critics

38:44

of any Doge-style program? And so this

38:47

is when it gets sort of like

38:49

a little bit. chilling for me and

38:51

others have pointed this out and sharing

38:54

the piece. This guy Tim Sargent, who's

38:56

a senior fellow with McDonald-Loria Institute, like

38:58

very libertarian guy, he jumps in and

39:01

he says basically like, we could create

39:03

a list of like 20 billion dollars

39:05

worth of cuts like tomorrow. We have

39:07

to just start like doing them as

39:10

hard and fast as possible at the

39:12

same time we're cutting government funding to

39:14

these potentially critical groups. And then Sargent

39:17

is basically like, if we do it

39:19

so fast that this same time that

39:21

we're implementing all these other policies that

39:24

the critics don't like, they won't know

39:26

what, like where to look, how to

39:28

act, they'll just be overwhelmed. It's sort

39:30

of like, it reminded me of like

39:33

Steve Bannon's flooding the zone. Yeah, that's

39:35

a really good comparison. And even when

39:37

you're talking about that, it makes me

39:40

think about how we've been seeing these

39:42

stories about how the Trump administration is

39:44

potentially looking at targeting environmental groups, potentially

39:47

on Earth Day, right? in Canada as

39:49

well as in terms of how these

39:51

concerns folks would want to approach it.

39:54

I wanted to go back to Ian

39:56

Brody for just a second and you

39:58

were talking about there how he was

40:00

kind of laying out a program for

40:03

what Adoge in Canada could potentially look

40:05

like. And I know you said, you

40:07

know, obviously the constitutional differences and stuff

40:10

are a bit above I think both

40:12

of our pay grades or you know,

40:14

knowledge levels on these specific aspects of

40:17

how government works and what not. But

40:19

what was the idea that he had

40:21

for how Adoge would be implemented in

40:24

Canada and what it would look like?

40:26

in Canada, and he very much seemed

40:28

to be referring to like a Pierre

40:30

Polyev government. This new Prime Minister would

40:33

gather together the privy council, which are

40:35

basically like, they help. advise the prime

40:37

minister and sort of like top level

40:40

federal policy in the country. You get

40:42

this privy council all on board and

40:44

sort of give them targets for the

40:47

type of cuts to government they need

40:49

to do. You pull your cabinet together

40:51

and then you basically have some of

40:53

the most powerful people in the country

40:56

sort of just like going at the

40:58

bureaucracy with a chainsaw, similar to what

41:00

Elon Musk is doing. And actually the

41:03

pipeline guy at one point in this

41:05

conversation. where they're all sort of like

41:07

dreaming about what this could look like

41:10

in Canada. He brings up the Malay

41:12

government in Argentina as another possible example

41:14

that Canadians could look to as a

41:17

way to slash government, which I just

41:19

thought was like totally insane given what's

41:21

playing out in Argentina. It's absolutely incredible

41:23

that these people, I don't know, I

41:26

guess they're among friends, right? You know,

41:28

they're at this conservative conference, but just

41:30

to be like so open with so

41:33

many of these things. Yeah, we want

41:35

to do a go after. our enemies.

41:37

Yeah, we think Javier Milai has been

41:40

a great example for us. And I

41:42

wanted to talk about the tech piece

41:44

of this as well, right? Because as

41:47

you said, and as you wrote about

41:49

it in the piece, there was a

41:51

senior public policy person from Amazon Web

41:53

Services Canada on this panel as well,

41:56

which feels like a bit of a

41:58

weird place for someone like that to

42:00

be. What was she saying? about how

42:03

Amazon or the tech industry would potentially

42:05

contribute to a project like this? If

42:07

she felt that any of this was

42:10

bad or offensive or shouldn't be done

42:12

in Canada, she definitely didn't express that.

42:14

And instead she seemed to be offering

42:17

the full support of Canada's tech

42:19

industry to implementing some sort of...

42:21

Doge program and there were a

42:23

few lines from her that really

42:26

stuck out to me. So she

42:28

was imagining that like a federal

42:30

minister could have an iPad and

42:32

some sort of tech I guess

42:34

provided by Amazon or another company in

42:37

Canada and it would have a list of

42:39

all of the federal departments and programs how

42:41

much money was being spent on them what

42:43

they were kind of doing and then I

42:46

guess this minister would just go along and

42:48

be like oops I don't like that program

42:50

like slash I don't like this program slash

42:53

just do your little swipe to the left

42:55

or whatever I kill the program yeah There

42:57

goes climate research in the North, whoops. And

42:59

she had some line, I'm kind of paraphrasing

43:02

from the piece, where she said having this

43:04

data provided by the tech industry can

43:06

give you the political cover to

43:08

make some of these decisions because

43:10

you're able to defend them with

43:12

hard data to the Canadian public.

43:15

So it seemed based on this

43:17

Amazon person's comments that the tech

43:19

industry would be all in on

43:21

this type of program in Canada,

43:23

which is not particularly surprised. right,

43:25

because we have already seen these

43:27

initiatives like Build Canada and Canada

43:30

Spends that are coming out of

43:32

Canada's tech industry supported by many

43:34

Canadian tech executives that are effectively arguing

43:36

the same things. Some of them, like Jen

43:38

St. Dennis's report in the Thai has shown,

43:41

you know, have explicitly argued on Twitter and

43:43

in other forums for a Canadian doge, even

43:45

if now some of them are trying to

43:47

kind of roll that back or walk away

43:49

from it. And we've also had this open

43:52

letter from the Council of Canadian Innovators, this

43:54

tech lobby group. basically saying that they want

43:56

to see these changes in procurement and how

43:58

the economy works try to. benefit themselves, right?

44:01

But I think what was more surprising.

44:03

was, okay, yeah, you have these executives

44:05

or whatnot from various Canadian tech companies

44:07

coming out and saying these things, but

44:10

to actually have someone, a public policy

44:12

person from Amazon, on stage, at a

44:14

conservative conference, basically being like, here's the

44:17

way we could support your program to

44:19

gut the Canadian government, is just like,

44:21

kind of mind-blowing. Yeah, and like, it

44:23

will give you political cover, we'll provide

44:26

you a bit of cover to do

44:28

this. And yeah, you're right. It's interesting

44:30

with some of the bill Canada

44:32

stuff. a little of their message

44:34

and said, we're not trying to

44:37

do a Doge in Canada, even

44:39

though members of build Canada, have

44:41

specifically said online, let's do Doge

44:43

in Canada. But I think it

44:45

signals that they're starting to realize

44:48

how politically toxic all of this

44:50

stuff looks like outside of their

44:52

little worlds. Because at this conservative

44:54

conference in Ottawa, it seemed like

44:56

the crowd was really into this,

44:59

and they weren't getting any objections.

45:01

Canadians or Americans or whatever

45:03

country where this sort of

45:05

thing takes place are rightly

45:07

kind of horrified by the

45:09

assault on programs that that

45:11

make government function. But I

45:13

do think on one level,

45:15

the way people talk about

45:17

Doge in Canada is their

45:19

way of signaling that they

45:21

like Trump without having to

45:23

say Trump's name out loud

45:25

because Trump himself has become

45:28

so politically toxic and radioactive

45:30

in Canada due to him launching like

45:32

a terror for on the country in

45:34

the rest of the world. And so

45:36

a lot of leading conservatives, they're advocating

45:38

for like a Canada first policy, they're

45:40

criticizing Trump, but then at the same

45:42

time they'll go ahead and say like,

45:44

oh, we should do doge here. And

45:46

we actually like what Trump is doing

45:48

in the US. It's sort of this

45:51

weird dichotomy. We've been talking a lot

45:53

about the conservatives, but I wanted to

45:55

shift. to the liberals, right? Because a

45:57

few months ago it looked like Pierre

45:59

Polyev was going to be the next

46:01

Prime Minister. That was all kind of

46:03

in the can, but now things have

46:06

completely changed and it looks like the

46:08

Liberals and Mark Kearney are going to

46:10

be our next government and likely even

46:12

have a majority government. But Mark Kearney

46:15

has been talking a lot about promoting

46:17

AI, about rolling it out in the

46:19

federal public service, and government more efficient

46:22

and reducing spending. Is there any concern

46:24

that some program like this might actually

46:26

come to fruition under the liberal party

46:28

as well? effectively stop the growth of

46:31

the federal bureaucracy. And you're right, he's

46:33

kind of been pretty supportive of AI

46:35

and also the oil and gas sector.

46:37

He said we need to build all

46:40

of these new pipelines in order to

46:42

counter the economic threat from Trump in

46:44

the US. So I wouldn't want to

46:47

say that the liberals and conservatives are

46:49

like totally equivalent in how they're viewing

46:51

these types of initiatives. But it does

46:53

seem that even with all the chaos

46:56

and public pushback to Doge in the

46:58

Trump administration, But in some way, they

47:00

are sort of like stretching the Overton

47:02

window on some of this stuff. And

47:05

you're seeing the liberals who aren't exactly

47:07

like a leftist party or anything, but

47:09

they sort of portray themselves as center

47:11

or center left. They're sort of being

47:14

like pulled in this subtle direction towards

47:16

these type of government cutting policies. I

47:18

mean, I think personally, that's the exact

47:21

wrong way to go. And we've had

47:23

decades of evidence since the Thatcher Reagan

47:25

years. that austerity is actually really horrible

47:27

for society and makes inequality worse. So

47:30

I think that there should be public

47:32

concern and push back against the whole

47:34

range of this type of stuff and

47:36

not just the most extreme forms we're

47:39

seeing coming from the conservatives. I definitely

47:41

agree, right? I'm more than happy to

47:43

have a liberal government over a conservative

47:46

one, but that doesn't mean that they

47:48

get a free hand to do whatever

47:50

they want. We still need to be

47:52

concerned about what they might do as

47:55

well. Jeff, it was really great to

47:57

read to read this report. on how

47:59

the conservatives are thinking about this, keep

48:01

up the great work. and thanks so

48:04

much for taking the time to speak

48:06

with me. Yeah, thanks for having Beyond.

48:08

I really appreciate it. So that was

48:11

our interview with Jeff. You can see

48:13

how there is some really crazy stuff

48:15

in this story and basically that happened

48:17

at this gathering, right? You had fossil

48:20

fuel executives pointing to Javier Milai as

48:22

a good example for Canada to follow.

48:24

You had the senior public policy person

48:26

at Amazon Web Services Canada talking about

48:29

how cloud services and the tech industry

48:31

could help create a platform to do

48:33

these massive cuts to the federal government

48:35

and the public service like these are

48:38

wild things to be seeing and how

48:40

this conservative move feels that this would

48:42

actually be easier to implement in Canada

48:45

than it would be in the United

48:47

States because of the different structures of

48:49

government. So again, this is something we

48:51

need to be on guard for. Luckily,

48:54

it looks like the Conservative Party is

48:56

not going to win this election. If

48:58

it looks like the Conservative Party is

49:00

not going to win this election. If

49:03

you're in Canada, make sure to go

49:05

out and vote. If you haven't already

49:07

in the advanced polls, but I think

49:10

we should still be on guard for

49:12

what the Liberal it has a chance.

49:14

to be born Canadians go get them

49:16

obviously here if you're not going to

49:19

vote for the conservatives if you're listening

49:21

to no we don't need to worry

49:23

about that unless it's like Intel gathering

49:25

or something final stories of the week.

49:28

How about you start us off, Brian?

49:30

It's always good to have a fairly

49:32

inconsequential, but just absurd and humorous story

49:35

included in these roundups. So how could

49:37

we not bring up the story of

49:39

Henry Blodgett, the founder of Business Insider,

49:41

who That's started a sub stack and

49:44

felt like he was maybe missing out

49:46

on the AI boom. So he used

49:48

AI to make a newsroom and to

49:50

craft a whole media c-sweet and then

49:53

he generated a headshot for his his

49:55

AI media executive who was a woman

49:57

and then he promptly decided to hit

49:59

on her and to sexually harass his

50:02

AI. subordinate and then to write about

50:04

it and then to publish this online

50:06

where it was as you might expect

50:09

roundly mocked. So insane to me. Like

50:11

I just I guess this is you

50:13

know a true innovator. You can't we

50:15

can't empathize because they're just so far

50:18

beyond us. I guess he's this man

50:20

is richer than any of us ever

50:22

will be. I'm happy to see that

50:24

the woke ideology has not made it

50:27

into his newsroom and he can still

50:29

sexually harass his which is so absurd.

50:31

Oh my God, man. And bleak, but

50:34

it also like, there is like this

50:36

kernel in there that I do think

50:38

it's worth underlining and pulling out. This

50:40

is why AI is so alluring to

50:43

so many executives and CFOs, because they

50:45

do see a future where they're like,

50:47

oh, you know, if all of our

50:49

workers are AI, you know, we don't

50:52

have to worry about a toxic work

50:54

environment or we don't have to worry

50:56

about sexual harassment lawsuits, even as we've

50:58

seen. the mixed results of actually adopting

51:01

AI enterprise software. Companies are still trying

51:03

to do it. The AI companies are

51:05

still selling it on these grounds because

51:08

this dream is so alluring to them.

51:10

It's just so just imagine if we

51:12

could if we could just a just

51:14

like hit on our hot AI avatar

51:17

subordinates and no one would get mad

51:19

and we could just do that all

51:21

day long and if other people do

51:23

it then we don't have to pay

51:26

for it. There's no lawsuit like when

51:28

that would that be great. Yeah they're

51:30

clearly not spinning up the AI agent

51:33

for the HR department. That one's staying

51:35

away. Great story. Great find. I hadn't

51:37

heard of this one before you brought

51:39

it up. So yeah, wild. Our next

51:42

story is on X-A-I back to Elon

51:44

Musk. People might have seen an earlier

51:46

story earlier this year about a data

51:48

center that X-A-I had been spinning up

51:51

in Memphis, Tennessee. and the potential kind

51:53

of like environmental implications of that. Well,

51:55

more recent reporting based on leaked aerial

51:58

images show that. The data center is

52:00

now operating 35 methane gas burning generators.

52:02

It has permits for none of them

52:04

and has only applied for permits to

52:07

run 15. And we know that this

52:09

data center is located in like, you

52:11

know, near a traditionally black part of

52:13

the city, which has experienced greater environmental

52:16

impacts and health effects over the past

52:18

number of years, you know, air pollution,

52:20

things like that. And X AI is

52:22

only continuing that problem. is doing so

52:25

illegally. It doesn't have the permits to

52:27

operate these things and is not even

52:29

seeking them. It's a wild story. As

52:32

always, like the AI is going to

52:34

help us solve climate change, right? AI

52:36

is going to bring us into this

52:38

brighter future. It sure seems on the

52:41

ground to be accelerating all of the

52:43

trends that were already well underway. Another

52:45

great example of what's actually happening on

52:47

the ground here versus the promises, and

52:50

it does, it makes me think of

52:52

I've been reading Empire of AI by

52:54

Karen Howe, it's not out yet, but

52:57

it's such a great book that just...

52:59

No spoilers. Anyways. Anyways. Anyways. Anyways. It

53:01

argues that AI development is taking place

53:03

under a very imperial sort of framework

53:06

based on exacerbating certain conditions, extracting labor,

53:08

exacerbating environmental conditions, only to concentrate profits

53:10

at the top stuff that listeners of

53:12

System Crash will be quite familiar with,

53:15

but articulated in such a beautiful way.

53:17

Anyways, thanks for highlighting that, Paris. Open

53:19

AI released a new model. as those

53:21

who follow this kind of stuff will

53:24

already know. The news that came out

53:26

of it was initially that, oh, it's

53:28

so great. I think Tyler Cohen said

53:31

it felt like AGI was here when

53:33

he used it. But then, of course,

53:35

subjected to actual empirical use cases and

53:37

benchmarks, it runs into same of the

53:40

same flaws that a lot of the

53:42

old models do. And in fact, sometimes

53:44

more PC World notes that Open AI's

53:46

in-house benchmark. Mark Person QA, which is

53:49

used to measure the factual accuracy of

53:51

AI models when talking about people, found

53:53

that O3, the new model from Open

53:56

AI, hallucinated in 33% of responses while

53:58

O4 Many did even worse at 48%.

54:00

That is like a ton of hallucinations,

54:02

which means it's getting things factually wrong.

54:05

It's just making shit up at a

54:07

rate that is much higher than the

54:09

old ones, which 2001 and 2003 mini

54:11

which were yesterday years models hallucinated at

54:14

16% and 14% That's a huge jump

54:16

and there's a number of things to

54:18

glean from this number one We hear

54:21

an awful lot if you ever have

54:23

to listen to people talk about AI

54:25

about how this is the worst that

54:27

it will ever be and I just

54:30

case like this are pretty clear indicators

54:32

that that's not true It could get

54:34

better things could get better. They could

54:36

resolve issues like this, but there are

54:39

so many different factors in and number

54:41

two. It's we have to face the

54:43

possibility the possibility to face the possibility

54:45

that maybe they don't really care about

54:48

getting these things factually accurate. If they're

54:50

more convincing seeming, if they're more fluid,

54:52

if the interface is better, if all

54:55

of these factors are good enough, then

54:57

maybe they're just ultimately abandoning sort of

54:59

the accuracy element because it doesn't matter

55:01

as much as it doesn't matter because

55:04

it doesn't matter as much to them

55:06

if they can still sell it. They're

55:08

talking about building a social media network.

55:10

Like give me a great. They also

55:13

talked about buying Chrome. And I was

55:15

like, yeah, that's the last thing we

55:17

need is Chrome with even more AI

55:20

features. Like, if there's anything that's gonna

55:22

spur browser innovation, it's open AI taking

55:24

over Chrome. Well, that's where we are

55:26

now. And yeah, I guess, obviously, it

55:29

could go the way of Open AI's

55:31

app store, which has been just a

55:33

dud, a huge, but also, people are

55:35

chatting with ChatGPT endlessly. They still have

55:38

to solve the compute and energy issues,

55:40

if that's ever going to be profitable

55:42

in any kind of way. But we're

55:44

truly in the throwing shit at the

55:47

wall and seeing what sticks phase of

55:49

Open AI. just say some people are

55:51

chatting with chat TVT endlessly. I think

55:54

that's actually still quite a small percentage.

55:56

Our final story is just about battery

55:58

developments that we're seeing from these Chinese

56:00

automakers and battery companies, you know, going

56:03

back to what I was mentioning earlier.

56:05

You might remember the story from, I

56:07

guess it was a few weeks ago

56:09

or a month or so ago or

56:12

something like that, where B-Y-D, you know,

56:14

this massive battery and electric vehicle company

56:16

or vehicle company in general, in China,

56:19

announced that it had made this breakthrough

56:21

on fast charging abilities that it's going

56:23

to slowly start rolling out because it

56:25

will require new chargers in a different

56:28

kind of battery in kind of future

56:30

vehicles future vehicles. ATL which is again

56:32

a major battery maker in China has

56:34

announced that it has an even bigger

56:37

breakthrough now that will allow even even

56:39

quicker charging and things like that and

56:41

you know there's still some skepticism as

56:44

to how realistic these advancements will be

56:46

in the real world and I think

56:48

we're going to need to wait to

56:50

see about real world testing on those

56:53

sorts of things but I do think

56:55

that we're clearly seeing the Chinese companies

56:57

move further move faster they're dominating more

56:59

market share they're making technological advancements that

57:02

we're not seeing by Western automakers to

57:04

the same degree, and certainly not by

57:06

Tesla, going back to what we're seeing

57:08

there. I think again and again we

57:11

see that these companies are leaving Tesla

57:13

in the dust because Tesla can't innovate.

57:15

It's not updating its vehicle line. It's

57:18

not actually achieving the technological breakthroughs that

57:20

Elon Musk claims are constantly on the

57:22

horizon, but these Chinese companies are actually

57:24

doing things, are actually innovating. And I

57:27

don't. think that we're going to see

57:29

these companies be held to China, be

57:31

kind of restricted in the way that

57:33

the United States would like to see,

57:36

and they are just going to continue

57:38

dominating more and more market share globally

57:40

as American companies, as Western Automakers, more

57:43

broadly, cannot make us, as Western Automakers,

57:45

more broadly, cannot keep up. So I

57:47

think this is a story. We're just

57:49

going to continue watching and seeing how

57:52

it plays out. System Crash every

57:54

week. Crash is is hosted

57:56

by Marks and Prime Partners.

57:58

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58:01

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