The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
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.
00:05:35 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:05:35] S1: Mhmm. [00:05:36] S0: First off, I find that anyone who lectures about free speech other than you is full of shit, and is the first to suppress [00:05:41] S1: free are, unfortunately. They don't make us look very good. [00:05:43] S0: Yeah. Whether it's it's Vance telling telling Europeans to embrace free speech as they kick CNN or whoever out out of the White House. Yeah. I believe platforms should be deleting, moderating when they see a bot influencing the dialogue, and that is the free speech isn't real. It's... Sometimes, and I might be being paranoid here, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. Sometimes I think two thirds of my comments are bots that have... Are serving a different alternative or objective that we're not even cognizant of. Do bots have free speech rights? [00:06:21] S1: They don't, but the people who created them generally do. But at the same time, given we're talking about private companies, why do companies actually tolerate bots to the degree that they do? I think it's partially because they help juice their traffic numbers and they make it look like there are more people out there. What you have to do in that case is kind of change the incentive structure to disincentivize the benefits of bots.
00:06:21 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:06:21] S1: They don't, but the people who created them generally do. But at the same time, given we're talking about private companies, why do companies actually tolerate bots to the degree that they do? I think it's partially because they help juice their traffic numbers and they make it look like there are more people out there. What you have to do in that case is kind of change the incentive structure to disincentivize the benefits of bots. [00:06:45] S0: I find that in the instance of corporations, use free speech as a shield for reckless spread of conspiracy theories sometimes from bots and agents that don't represent free speech or don't represent the actual views of sentient beings. And I and I struggle with that balance. I wanna talk about... You joined Jake Tapper on CNN to discuss one of the most noteworthy free speech incidents recently, and that is Macklemore and Ed Sheeran. [00:07:14] S1: Oh my god. I hate the fact that I have to keep talking about them, but yeah, [00:07:17] S0: go You. I called them an anti Semite, which was probably, I don't know, maybe it was fair, maybe it wasn't. And that's all anyone's commenting now. No one's listening to anything I'm doing. Everyone's just commenting on McLemore. But anyways, so I apologize in advance. But you were on CNN with Jake talking about this. Why do you think this specific incident has captured so much attention? What are your views on it? [00:07:42] S1: Because
00:07:42 · Greg Lukianoff, Scott Galloway
[00:07:42] S1: Because [00:07:42] S0: I I think our views might be different on this one, especially as it relates to to Robert Kraft deciding that he he should not play it at the stadium.