00:12:11 · Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott
[00:12:11] S1: Yeah. And, you know, some people are like, oh, no. This is terrible for AI, like Dan Ives, friend of the pod. He... His... He reckons that, you know, 10% of data centers are not... Will not happen now. Maybe it's more, maybe it's less. Who knows? Right? We'll see. And speaking of that, you know, I was talking about Texas earlier. It became one of the most expensive political races in the history of midterm elections in America. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured in by Elon Musk, the world's richest man and, of course, resident of Texas. And it didn't work. He lost. So we're gonna talk about that and what that all means right after this. [00:12:56] S2: This episode of the Times Tech Podcast is sponsored by Adobe. AI is rapidly changing how brands reach customers, but simply adding AI to your tech doesn't guarantee results. That's where Adobe comes in, personalizing customer experiences and turning AI into real business value. With data at the center of decisions and governance built into every step, you can use AI safely. And with Adobe, your teams are free to focus on what matters most, setting strategy, defining goals, and bringing the creative insight and nuance that only people can. Turn AI's promise into marketing reality. It starts with Adobe. [00:13:36] S1: Today's episode of the Times Tech Podcast is sponsored by ServiceNow. [00:13:40] S2: ServiceNow describes itself as an AI control tower for business reinvention, connecting people, systems, data, and AI so work flows more smoothly across an organization.
00:13:40 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson, S4, S5
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00:15:20 · Danny Fortson
[00:15:20] S1: Well, again, I think it goes back to the day of the inauguration when you had Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and all the guys lined up directly. And, you know, it was very deliberate. And I remember saying at the time, I was like, we're gonna look back at that picture as, like, a historical artifact of, you know, this this president lined with, like, the world's richest men all lined up directly behind him in the shot, in the main shot. And... But what happened over the next few years is they got exactly what they wanted, which was they could run wild. You know? There was no AI regulation. You know? Donald Trump brought them to the White House a few times, had a a few kind of photo ops and powwows, but it was like, go forth and build. I'm not gonna stand in your way. And the framing was whoever wins AI wins. I... There's a big competition... Geopolitical competition with China we must win, and this is also, by the way, the engine of the American economy now is this one thing, AI, you know, putting trillions of dollars. I think the latest number as I saw it's... We're on course to spend about a trillion dollars in data centers and infrastructure this year, which is inflation adjusted, like the Marshall Plan every two months. It's crazy what's happening. And so the industry moved... Went very, very fast. And you talk to people here, and I think there was a sense of, like, we know we have two years to just run very fast. And then after that, who knows? Because the election's gonna come and, you know, he's an unpopular president. He's doing lots of crazy stuff. And so I think that's where we have got to.
00:17:01 · Katie Prescott, Danny Fortson
[00:17:01] S2: And Elon Musk's donations have just dwarfed everyone else. I mean, I mentioned it before, almost $500,000,000 to Republicans. [00:17:08] S1: Yeah. And it was funny. Elon Musk was like, he had said, you know, I'm gonna probably spend less on, you know, politics. Like, he said that last year. And then he ends up spending more money than any person or body or anyone in this election cycle. $224,000,000 just into the race to support Ken Paxton, Texas Republican senator. And he... Paxton got trounced by this guy James Talarico. So I do think that, again, it's this moment of people being like, there's a lot of triumphalism of like, the world's richest man tried to buy an election, and it didn't matter. So there is that. And again, I think when you step back, it's that cultural moment of people being like, mm-mm. I don't like the prologarkey. [00:18:00] S2: So He tried to buy Texas and it didn't work. He he even though admitted it. I mean, on X, he said, guess my election interfering space lasers didn't work this time. [00:18:10] S1: That's right. [00:18:11] S2: It's like, yeah. Throw those throw those billions of dollars up into space instead. [00:18:16] S1: Yeah. [00:18:17] S2: Where it might be more useful. [00:18:19] S1: We don't like the broligarchs. We don't like the coziness of the White House with the broligarchy. And then overlaid on that is just AI anxiety, which we've talked about a lot.
00:18:19 · Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott
[00:18:19] S1: We don't like the broligarchs. We don't like the coziness of the White House with the broligarchy. And then overlaid on that is just AI anxiety, which we've talked about a lot. [00:18:28] S2: Yeah. I mean, does feel like the the worries about AI's potential impact on society are growing, where there's a huge amount of worry about where AI is being created, EG, in your part of the world Mhmm. And the people who are creating it, mainly American. [00:18:46] S1: Yeah. Exactly. And I think, you know, for example, Jon Ossoff, who's a Democrat senator who won reelection in Georgia, he's a Democrat. In his speech, he was talking about, you know, the decline of US leadership and rearming of the world for global conflict. And then his line was, meanwhile, the titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the AI they're creating risks human extinction. And I think that kind of captures people's attitudes. What do people in The UK think?
00:18:46 · Danny Fortson, Katie Prescott
[00:18:46] S1: Yeah. Exactly. And I think, you know, for example, Jon Ossoff, who's a Democrat senator who won reelection in Georgia, he's a Democrat. In his speech, he was talking about, you know, the decline of US leadership and rearming of the world for global conflict. And then his line was, meanwhile, the titans of Silicon Valley dig bunkers for themselves and warn that the AI they're creating risks human extinction. And I think that kind of captures people's attitudes. What do people in The UK think? [00:19:18] S2: Everybody here has been talking about nothing else apart from mid midterm results, believe it or not. We've we've we've moved on from the budget. There's a huge amount of fear, as I said, about AI and the impact of AI and the control that Trump has over AI that was exacerbated by the controls that got put by the White House on anthropic models earlier this year. It's made everybody even more scared about Silicon Valley's tight grip on tech. So, yeah, it's been a it's been a moment here. Anyway, well, that's it for this week's episode of of Times Tech. We're gonna be back on Sunday with the interview where we're going to speak to Joel Roth. He is the head of trust and safety at Match Group, formerly of Twitter. And we spoke about whether AI can help you find love. Here's a clip.