The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
00:00:00 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:00:00] S0: Support for the show comes from Alumni Ventures. We've said it before, diversification is our Kevlar vest. But do you know how concentrated your public stock fund actually is? A handful of mega cap stocks with an AI story are doing most of the work. That's not the diversification you think, especially when so much value creation is happening before companies ever go public. Alumni Ventures ranked a top 20 US venture firm by both Time and CB Insights gives accredited investors a smart, simple way to assemble a blue chip venture portfolio and participate in the value creation that is occurring in private markets. You can sign up for free, see the weekly deal flow, and decide for yourself. Or write one check into the Alumni Ventures Foundation Fund for a diversified portfolio of about 25 private venture deals. Go to av.vc/propg. [00:00:47] S1: Not an offer to sell securities. Venture capital involves substantial risk, including loss of capital invested. See disclosures and fund offering materials for more information. [00:00:57] S0: Support for the show comes from Brex. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or grinding through month end close, it's time to get Brex AF, agentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com/af. That's brex.com/af.
00:00:57 · Scott Galloway, S2, Greg Lukianoff
[00:00:57] S0: Support for the show comes from Brex. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or grinding through month end close, it's time to get Brex AF, agentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com/af. That's brex.com/af. [00:01:21] S2: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini in Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, availability varies 18 plus. [00:01:45] S1: My biggest fear is that people use the knowledge function of AI. Because if power can get its hands on the ability to tell everybody what is true, that's the nightmare outcome.
00:01:45 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:01:45] S1: My biggest fear is that people use the knowledge function of AI. Because if power can get its hands on the ability to tell everybody what is true, that's the nightmare outcome. [00:02:02] S0: Today's Prophecy Plus deep dive is on free speech in America. We're joined by Greg Lukianov, president and CEO of FIRE, which stands for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. We speak about the government's pressure on the media, whether AI bots have free speech rights, and what's going on on college campuses. Plus, what does it mean to support free speech when you find the speech itself offensive? We've interviewed Greg before, incredibly pragmatic, very insightful, a real blue flame thinker. Always enjoy our conversations and I'm sure you'll enjoy this one. Greg, where does this podcast find you? [00:02:38] S1: I moved up to the suburbs of New York City, because that's where I was spending all my time anyway for media and fundraising, but I brought my whole family up. [00:02:48] S0: Oh, nice. So when we last spoke with you in July 2025, we discussed free speech in America, the rise of cancel culture, protests, and more. Since then, we've seen the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a government that's increasingly tried to silence dissent and the proliferation of AI tools that force us to question whether, you know, to try and discern what speech is even real. What in your view is the most important topic or incident as it relates to free speech today?
00:02:48 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:02:48] S0: Oh, nice. So when we last spoke with you in July 2025, we discussed free speech in America, the rise of cancel culture, protests, and more. Since then, we've seen the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a government that's increasingly tried to silence dissent and the proliferation of AI tools that force us to question whether, you know, to try and discern what speech is even real. What in your view is the most important topic or incident as it relates to free speech today? [00:03:18] S1: It's the ongoing campaign of Trump versus the media. We're seeing that really demonstrated dramatically by the exclusion of Politico and CNN and MS Now from the White House press pool, that by itself is not as dramatic as his as his utter campaign against it. But the thing that I think we're gonna be thinking about, you know, twenty years from now is whether or not we got AI regulation right or wrong. Because in terms of that being a boon for freedom of expression and for inquiry, it absolutely could be. It could also be a disaster. [00:03:53] S0: Give us the fulcrum between those two. Give us examples of how it could, it's like the godfather of AI, Hinton is saying, we could have good AI, we could have bad AI. Outline a future where it's bad for free speech
00:03:53 · Scott Galloway, Greg Lukianoff
[00:03:53] S0: Give us the fulcrum between those two. Give us examples of how it could, it's like the godfather of AI, Hinton is saying, we could have good AI, we could have bad AI. Outline a future where it's bad for free speech [00:04:04] S1: and good for free speech. I've been trying to outline this on on my Substack to to try to explain what my biggest fear is for AI. And and I'm gonna agree a little bit with Michel Foucault. Even though I think he was dead wrong on the fact that power decides what truth is, I think that got completely short circuited by the, by scientific method and the enlightenment. But I do think that power wants to control truth. And it doesn't necessarily think that's a bad thing, that that essentially, you know, this is the idea of having a ministry of truth, having misinformation be be your primary guiding light. And my biggest fear is that people use the eventual regulation of AI at some level, which which is going to happen as an excuse to go into, you know, what we call on on Substack, the librarian function, the knowledge function of AI. Because if power can get its hands on the ability to tell everybody what is true, that is, you know, kind of power that totalitarians would have dreamt of. So that... That's the nightmare outcome. The positive outcome is we use it as a way, as a distributed small l liberal system for better understanding what the world actually looks like in in a in a great sort of disconfirmation Karl Popper kind of way of trying to see what is true by figuring out what isn't.
00:04:04 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:04:04] S1: and good for free speech. I've been trying to outline this on on my Substack to to try to explain what my biggest fear is for AI. And and I'm gonna agree a little bit with Michel Foucault. Even though I think he was dead wrong on the fact that power decides what truth is, I think that got completely short circuited by the, by scientific method and the enlightenment. But I do think that power wants to control truth. And it doesn't necessarily think that's a bad thing, that that essentially, you know, this is the idea of having a ministry of truth, having misinformation be be your primary guiding light. And my biggest fear is that people use the eventual regulation of AI at some level, which which is going to happen as an excuse to go into, you know, what we call on on Substack, the librarian function, the knowledge function of AI. Because if power can get its hands on the ability to tell everybody what is true, that is, you know, kind of power that totalitarians would have dreamt of. So that... That's the nightmare outcome. The positive outcome is we use it as a way, as a distributed small l liberal system for better understanding what the world actually looks like in in a in a great sort of disconfirmation Karl Popper kind of way of trying to see what is true by figuring out what isn't. [00:05:24] S0: I'll start with the question I'm leading up to. Do bots have free speech rights? Because I I think we're gonna look back on this era, and I worry that we're gonna have erred on the side of free speech. [00:05:35] S1: Mhmm.