Divia and Ben: 4/27 Conversation

Divia and Ben discuss politics, reminisce about elections gone by, and try and make AI predictions.

This transcript is machine generated and contains errors.

Ben Goldhaber: [00:00:00] so how's it going Divia?

Divia Eden: It's going well. Great to have a chance to talk to you on the podcast.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, same back at you and Hi. Who, who else is joining us for the next minutes?

Divia Eden: Yeah, this is my 15 month old son. He'll be here just for a few minutes and and then, then it'll be just the two of us.

He's our, our podcast guest. Yeah. Likely.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. One of our easiest to understand guests. I would bet. You know, just very clear and direct. Absolutely. In a straightforward way. This is no slur against our previous guests but we, I feel like we invite people on in some ways for loving the Galaxy Brain takes.

And the beautiful thing about a 15 month year old is just you know, that's right. Simple, clear wants, I imagine I'm speaking as if I have any actual parenting expertise, but,

Divia Eden: It's all good one day. Yes. So we don't, we don't have a guest for today. But we have a plan that sometimes just two of us [00:01:00] are going to talk and catch up about things that are on our mind.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Seems good.

Divia Eden: And before we started recording, we were just exchanging a few predictions about some political stuff, you know, as you do. So I thought, I thought maybe we would, we would talk about

Ben Goldhaber: that. Yeah. As maybe some listeners know and, and Dvia knows. I, I was about to say I don't have many vices, but I don't think that's for me to say.

But one vice that I do have is I very much enjoy betting on politics. And I will say it has been exciting to see that predict it is looks like it's gonna survive, which, yeah, I was actually much more negative about a few months ago. I did not think it was gonna happen.

Divia Eden: Yeah, there wasn't, unfortunately, I think there was no prediction market for predicted unpredicted, so we

Ben Goldhaber: were left not unpredicted.

There was one unlike poly market, which I don't think I ever, I I, I have, the crypto ones have always been just a little, I don't know. I've, I've done some stuff with them, but I've always been like [00:02:00] feel like they're about to fail or about to run away. But yes, poly market had one, but yeah, was not, when I predicted that would've been way cooler.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I'm also a longtime political better. I, one of my at the, this is actually, I don't know if you'll ever listen to this. Hello to my dad. If, if we had and wonderful short conversation with my dad back when, so I bet on Obama on, I guess it was Intrade at the time when he was running the first time.

And I remember I, cuz my dad was, he was a big, like, he, his read was, Obama's gonna win. He was like, this guy's very charismatic, he's gonna win. And so I was talking to him and I was like, all right, well you think he's gonna win? He's trading it like at whatever it was like 57% right before the first debate or something like that.

I was like, well how much do you think I should bet? And he was like, yeah, you should bet like 50 bucks or something. And I was kinda like, well, okay, but if you're so sure. And we talked about it for a while and then he, we hung up. Yeah. And then he called me back maybe an hour later and he was like, wait, how much do you have liquid?

And I was like, yeah, this is the right question. Cause in fact, yeah. Yeah, [00:03:00] it was a big, and I mean I was, I think I was just out of college. I did not, I had very little money at the time, but I think I did put little liquid on Obama and Nice. It paid off. So that was then, you know, and then I was kind of hooked

Ben Goldhaber: after that.

Yeah, it's, it's compelling. It's, we don't need to get into all the very good reasons. Prediction markets are, are awesome and, and should be more widely used. But yeah, it's just, it's, it's also just fun because I feel like when you're kind of chatting like with your dad, like I, I talk about politics with my, with my dad as well and with friends.

It's really, it's easy to get into the kind of like blather mode and. It's both nice to have as a forcing function, thinking about what your actual bet is gonna turn into or like what this actually means in terms of betting. And also just adds like a nice little, like I, I guess this is for people who are more into sports than I am.

It's the same reason why gambling on sports is probably fun. Just add when, then when you keep following it, you get to like have that additional zing of [00:04:00] excitement of like, oh I've got, got money on this debate.

Divia Eden: Yeah, totally. And yeah, and I also, like, I've been on Trump the first time, but I didn't have a, the thing I was just saying before we started recording was that I, I think like many very online people, underrated Biden last time.

I think I didn't make any big bets. I don't remember. I think I made some small, small ones. I don't remember what they were, but I like, yeah, the people that I personally knew and this was in the primary, weren't that excited about Biden. So I, I guess I didn't really see it, but I think that, I think it's an easy mistake for people like me to make, cuz I think the fundamentals were actually pretty strong.

Totally. And my husband Will kept pointing this out to me.

Ben Goldhaber: Respect. I definitely did not see that happen in the, in the 2021 either. Yeah. As I was, I was saying, I feel like I'm still a little bit surprised that Biden won the 2020 primary, and it's not just because of the fundamentals thing, me ignoring them, but rather the Democratic party.

The way I remember it was like the [00:05:00] Democratic party elites got together in a smoke-filled room, one imagines and convinced the other candidates to drop out so that instead of Bernie winning in their Super Tuesday, I think it was, mm-hmm. Biden was the one . So I think in part I was surprised that the.

Unity of the Democratic Party to deny it to Bernie and give it to Biden.

Divia Eden: Yeah. So that, I think that's kinda interesting because remember, I forget whose thesis this was, but like the party decides that thesis. Yep, yep. Or like, that was a really good predictor. Like how many of the delegates had pledged a basically like, support within the party was meant to be a very good predictor.

And at least the way I remember it, maybe this theory was around for a long time, but like I was started reading articles about that theory not so long before then Trump won the Republican primary. And so I guess I, at that point I was like, well, maybe the party doesn't decide, cuz that clearly wasn't right, what the party elites were going for.

He didn't have any of those early people pledged to him. So then [00:06:00] I thought the theory was dead. But as you say, then with Biden, it seems like that theory was line shot.

Ben Goldhaber: No, I think split. I, I think the party decides on the Democratic side and I don't think the party decides on the Republican side, and I don't know how long, this does not strike me as a.

The evil equilibrium place. Like it doesn't seem like, like something is not finished adjusting. But that is my read over the past, I guess eight years. . Wow. eight Time is weird.

Divia Eden: Yeah, I think it's right.

Ben Goldhaber: It's right.

I think the ultimate example party not deciding is the Jeb Trump matchup and, yeah, I don't know. I guess in some sense then what, like Trump went on to, to do against Clinton. Like that's obviously a different kind of party deciding thing, but certainly some larger narrative of anti-elitism.

Divia Eden: Yeah, and in fact, like the thing I, I most strongly remember from those debates was the, I guess it wasn't Trump, but it was when. Chris Christie called out Rubio, do you remember this? For repeating himself. Oh, I

Ben Goldhaber: remember that, [00:07:00] yeah. Oh, that was great. Watching it with

Divia Eden: Will and, and in real time. I was like, wait, wait.

Did you just rewind for a second? Because it was so, I, I don't know if you guys, the listeners know what I'm talking about, but Rubio had something

Ben Goldhaber: describe a little bit. They have a young group of them.

Divia Eden: Yeah. Cause they were like, oh, but you know, we don't want another inexperienced politician like Obama or something.

And he was like, the, the problem with Obama wasn't that he didn't have experience. He knew exactly what he was doing and he said this whole thing. And then Chris Christie responded, and then he started saying it again. And then Chris Christie called him out and he started saying it a third time. And it was very bizarre.

And to me it was a little bit of like a mask off moment for like, yeah, this isn't really, A lot of people would prefer something less canned, in fact. Yeah.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. I, I I, I totally agree. It's one of the moments that made me. Quite like Chris Christie, without knowing honestly that much about how he governed in New Jersey.

I was just somewhat impressed with his quickness. On the take and ability to kind of like orient and not have Yeah, [00:08:00] totally. The canned lines that they're practicing. Because I do think, what's funny is that I, I think political consultants and strategists tell the politicians like, look, a debate is your chance to get your message directly to people.

And the key thing to get your message directly to people is you repeat the lines over and over again. And so I have this story that like Rubio was like really trying to internalize that actually now as I bad.

But that's not actually, yeah, exactly what you're saying. It's not what you actually should be doing in on some level.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I think it's also tricky because I'm more sympathetic to the Rubio strategy when people are talking to the press. Where the press, at least my dynamic of like what people look, my, my impression of what people learn in press trainings and like how I would wanna talk to the press is that they'll ask me some questions and then I just wanna say my canned statement because they're looking for a quote and all I want them to use is the thing that I thought about.

But again, like a debate. Yep. It's a little [00:09:00] different. It's, it's televised. It's a little different.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the best parts I think about everything that happened with 2016 Crazy election, all that is some, look, it's like it was a real win for aliveness. , even if you don't like Trump, it's like he is a very alive person. And similar in that moment, I know I was with Christie and with Rubio, but the whole thing is just like, this is yeah, no, like I think some rejection against tilted.

Divia Eden: . So, so the other, that was the other moment I remember from that. And this is, this is one of those little things, I guess I was very into the debates at the time. I don't know if you reme, it was, I think when they didn't introduce Ben Carson. Like they had an order and they were supposed to tell everybody to come out.

Okay. And they skipped him for some, or maybe he, sorry, maybe they didn't skip him. Maybe he didn't hear it. Whatever it was, Ben Carson was standing there. He was clearly confused. And then they started calling other people and it was like, it was so fun for me at least to see them reacted real time. Like, I think like Ted Cruz [00:10:00] was kinda like okay.

Like, and then he went at least someone else. Yeah. And Trump, Trump was, he was more, he stood there and he like put his hand on Ben Carson and he clearly could tell what was happening. And he didn't wanna go out until bed. Carson also went out. And it was another one of those moments where, I mean, I guess this time it was Trump last time was Chris Christie.

But sort of win for like, oh, he was, he was actually paying attention and not, not following a script. Right. Right. And then he, he came out with him as like a gesture of like, I don't know. Anyway. Yeah,

Ben Goldhaber: that's a perfect example. Those are my campaign ing. Yeah, I'm trying to, it's for, it's kind of blended together now for me with the 20 12 1 of, like MIT Romney, I keep wanting to give mentions of MIT Romney in the, in debates, but that was obviously four years prior to it.

Actually the only thing I remember from the Obama MIT Romney debates were Romney something with his dog on top of his car binder thing full. There was like ran of attacks that like shouldn't have landed. And then also like Romney, [00:11:00] like betting Obama, like 10 grand about something like offering to, and

Divia Eden: this might actually, well, I don't remember that.

Ben Goldhaber: Exactly. I was like, people pointed this as a gaff, but I'm like, obviously we don't all you know, it's, it's big money, Mr. Ramen. You should have said that. True, true. Should have said a dollar to connect with people, but I still, I liked it.

Divia Eden: Yeah. Interesting. I'm gonna look that up. Yeah. Yeah. Again, this was all by the way on my mind cuz I was like, what happened this week?

And I was like, oh yeah, I guess Biden's running, which is not really news, but it's, I guess it's a little bit news. Yeah.

Ben Goldhaber: In terms of the matchup, it looks like presumably it's gonna be Biden as a democratic nominee though.

I do wanna How much weight do you put on somebody else challenging him for the crown?

Divia Eden: I think I'm fighting the last war here where I'm like, well I underestimated him last time, so I kinda, I don't wanna make any strong bets. Yeah. But I think it'll probably be Biden if he's running. [00:12:00] He's running. I think the establishment will be behind him.

It's not that I think there aren't other people, but I haven't seen anyone so compelling where, I dunno, it seems like a real uphill battle to fight an incumbent supported by the establishment.

Ben Goldhaber: I can't think of a time where this successfully happened. Right. I can think of times where in the past people have challenged the sitting president for their nomination and they've weakened him, but never to the point where he didn't get the nomination.

Divia Eden: Yeah, I'd have to look it up. I mean, I think it happens with, you know, with Congressmen. Sure. But yeah, it's a, I can't think of a time when it's happened with the president either and I don't think it'll happen here.

Ben Goldhaber: The only scenario where I see something like that happen is Biden is incapacitated in some way.

It's a health problem withdraws cuz of a health thing. It is definitely anybody's game.

Divia Eden: This is maybe a little, I don't know, a little of a tangent, but did you happen to watch the diplomat. It's a new

Ben Goldhaber: Netflix show. No. Why? Talking about the [00:13:00] diplomat. You're talking about it. Daniel Flins talking about it.

Well, I think's the

top

Divia Eden: reading show on Netflix, some people saying it's like a West Wing successor. I said yes. A friend of mine, Andrew Reddick on Twitter was like, well, maybe not. Cuz the West Wing really captured the dynamic of what it's like to work, to have that type of job in a way. Anyway, there's some debate about how good it is.

I watched it, but it's ok.

Ben Goldhaber: Now I wanna go on a tangent. Sorry. You go first. No, I wanna keep your diploma. I

Divia Eden: definitely, when I watched it, I was like, oh, this is supposed to be, this president, I think was supposed to be a Biden type and certainly it was like a Democratic president and they were Gotcha. I dunno, these jokes about like, oh, like the doctor won't let him have coffee or like, better not let him go off script or I was like, okay.

I think that's, that's what they're doing with this guy.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, that fun. I haven't like seen any comedy about Biden. It hasn't been. About his, I guess I just, it's hard for me to think of comedy about Biden at this point, Joe. No, but that, that all lands. I mean, I, I was just,

Divia Eden: I think they made him pretty, it [00:14:00] wasn't like, I think they made him a pretty sharp character ultimately, I feel like.

Got it. That was sort of a fun thing about the diplomat was it was usually like, oh, these people are doing something more interesting than we think at first. Not, I guess that's too spoily for some people, but not for me.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, not for me. I now, I've gotta watch the diplomat also because it feels like all of my friends have just suddenly decided that we need to watch the Diplomat.

So I, I thought it was pretty good. I'm very susceptible to peer pressure. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I've tried rewatching the West Wing and it did not hold up in the way that I remembered it. When I watched. Yeah. I, I was quite young when I remember when watching it, and I feel like now when I watch a few episodes, maybe I'm just not as idealistic.

Maybe the times are not as idealistic as they were in the nineties. Early two thousands.

Divia Eden: Definitely some idealistic times.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Very idealistic times. And West Wing is so idealistic and it's like cliche now to compare that show with Veep, but it does, that is the comparison [00:15:00] that comes to mind whenever you watch it.

Divia Eden: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, the diplomat, I, it, I would say it, it has some of that idealism too, for sure. Mm. Not, not from all the characters, but I, it, well, I, I, I should probably stop talking about the diplomat, but it, I would say it's like a deep

Ben Goldhaber: state type of idea. This is how we get the sponsorship. This is, this is how we finally get Netflix to sponsor the pod.

Divia Eden: Yeah. That would, that would be a big get. Mm-hmm.

Ben Goldhaber: But Okay. No, I was gonna ask you so outside of the nomination, and cuz we both enjoy betting and making predictions on things what's your, what's your take on Biden overall? In the general who, whoever he's up against on the Republican side. Right. I mean,

Divia Eden: well, if it's Trump, I, I mean, Biden won last time against Trump.

I tend to think they're both weaker candidates this time around. I don't have a strong prediction. Hmm. [00:16:00] I guess like, if I really had to say I, I think maybe Biden, but I'd wanna, it's not a very informed guess. And I think I'm saying that because I'm like, well, that's what happened last time. Right.

Ben Goldhaber: So I sort of did.

I mean, I feel like it's a, yeah. Yeah.

Divia Eden: Have there been rematch? Which one? There have been rematches in presidential election history. Right. But I don't, I don't remember what happened with them.

Ben Goldhaber: There was one person, I wanna say Benjamin Harrison, who became president again. Right. It was like out of order like Trump would do if

Divia Eden: you would president.

Exactly. I, I think But was he running? He let lemme look it up.

Ben Goldhaber: That's a good question. That I'm not sure.

Divia Eden: Okay, so he, Benjamin Harrison is the 23rd president of the United States. Let's [00:17:00] see,

this might not be the right guy cuz he's just saying he's the 23rd. I think it's gotta be someone, we can cut this out. Maybe. I

think

Ben Goldhaber: it's someone else. I'm willing to let people know that I don't know. Relevant facts on Benjamin Harrison.

Divia Eden: Yeah, that seems fine. I to be bored.

Okay. Oh, do you mean Grover Cleveland?

Ben Goldhaber: If that's the right answer, then yes.

Divia Eden: Yeah. Grover Cleveland is the only president in US history to serve two non-consecutive presidential. There we go. Terms, he won the popular vote in the middle election though. Wow. That's kinda interesting. And so who, but

Ben Goldhaber: the question is, and Benjamin Harrison [00:18:00] won the electoral college vote in between.

I

Divia Eden: get it. Okay. So Benjamin Harrison, you, you were right to reference him, but he was there in the middle, thank goodness. And yes, so he was, And he was or was not an incumbent? No, he beat.

Ben Goldhaber: Okay. So he must have beat Benjamin Harrison. I, I, without who he lost to before, which would count in this case.

Divia Eden: Interesting. Yeah. Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president. And then did he run again to fail at becoming the 24th?

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, I

Divia Eden: I looks like he did. So he, okay. So this [00:19:00] is our one, this is our precedent. This is like the, the Biden Trump. This is our president.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And this is also now the president, I'm gonna quote all the time in the rematch, which is, it's a classic Rover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison set up.

Divia Eden: That's right. Yeah. Okay. So, so it has happened. Trump could do it.

Ben Goldhaber: Yep. And I was saying I was saying before the show or what I'll just say now is I am I am, I am pro-Trump in this matchup. I think it's more likely I, I, I think I am bullish on Trump in this match, in large part because the 2020 campaign was such an outlier in terms of how it was conducted because of Covid.

That I think the kind of advantages that Biden had in that situation, like the drains on stamina that happened in that kind of campaign, he's not gonna be able to pull again. He's gonna need to be out in public, right? Even if the media does give him more of a [00:20:00] past, I don't think that that's going to be enough.

And yeah, I just think Trump seems far more. Robust in this environment than Biden does.

Divia Eden: Yeah. He's, I mean, literally the campaign doing rallies and stuff, right? So what, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is different. I think it's a good argument.

Ben Goldhaber: Mm-hmm. I, I, and I see, I see also on the other side, which is just like, you know, we've run this once, didn't go in Trump's labor that time and went to Biden's.

That should have some evidentiary weight.

Divia Eden: Well, I, so I guess the next question though is, do you think Trump will be the nominee?

Ben Goldhaber: I do. I think Trump is gonna be the nominee. I think it's, I wish I'd done a better job of actually recording my predictions earlier because now I feel a, like little bit, it's a little easier now to make that prediction.

I think I had that prediction a few months ago as well, which is just the polling is tracked. The Republican party is not a party that gets to its side, [00:21:00] the nominee. For president for Republicans, it they once upon a time maybe, but at this point that they don't have that, and voters seem to, at this point, overwhelmingly like Trump.

I, I need to look back at how the polling has changed since the indictment because my impression is that that caused just popularity among Republican voters to go up and ok. I see. I think that that I, I, and I think that, I think it's interesting to, like, I wonder what I, I have no idea what back room machinations go on in these kind of things.

I doubt that it actually influenced this, so I try to push him to be the nominee or against, or what people were thinking. But it does seem like the outcome of all this has just mostly been, he's become more popular as the candidate.

Divia Eden: Yeah, I guess I, I guess I make the same prediction because again, I'm like trying to fight the last war.

I'm like, I think the same things that caused me to Underrate Biden last time caused me to intuitively underrate Trump this time. And so probably. [00:22:00] Probably will be Trump. It is, it's super early. That's the only thing I can say. That's it. Yeah. On the other side of it, I think the super early thing doesn't really matter for Biden, cuz he's an incumbent, unless, as we say, there's some sort of health problem.

But with Trump, I feel like, I don't know, it counts somewhat. Like it makes me more uncertain. It makes me not sure. Yeah,

Ben Goldhaber: no, I think I, I mean agreed. If it was this kind of polling and we were about to enter voting or like about to go into the debates, that seems compelling. Like I would, I would feel even more confident.

I just seems like the, the only like black WANs am I anticipating, which makes it obviously not a black swan, is if there is some radically different person, not a, anywhere in the, like, not, not a senator, not a governor who comes in and has the money and like some kind of existing base. That could really throw things off, but I just can't even, [00:23:00] nobody immediately comes to mind.

Who, who has

Divia Eden: Ellan Can't be a president. He's not a natural board. Elon can't

Ben Goldhaber: be president. I think Dwayne the Rock Johnson. Oh yeah. That would do it. A good choice to just be a celebrity wish. It does seem like That's right. That seems like a better lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know what Tom Hanks' politics are, but I, I suspect that he also will just be content.

Being a charismatic self. This is a, this is a bet that I had with a friend that did not come out my way last time. And so I don't know what to believe. But it, it seems like we should have many more celebrities entering into politics than we do. And I was betting that the Democratic nominee in the last election cycle would be a celebrity.

I was completely wrong. Mariana Williamson underperformed. But it still seems, it still seems weird that we don't

Divia Eden: Yeah, they, I mean they have a pretty high success rate when they choose to run. Right. I think I've tried to look this up. Yeah. [00:24:00] Yeah, I think they do well. But maybe it's like what you say.

I know media do media anchor. Oh, well, okay. So the, we have to at least touch on that. Sorry, I forgot what the other current thing is from this week. There is a current thing, which is Tucker Left Fox. Oh yeah. Yes. Perfect. Speaking of media natural segue. Yes. Yeah. I don't have a ton. I don't know. I have sort of the same speculation everyone else has about that, I guess, which is, it doesn't seem great for

Ben Goldhaber: Fox.

Yeah. Doesn't seem great. I don't know what their stock price ended up at, but I do remember looking right after the announcement and it like, I think it took like a 5% hit.

Divia Eden: What makes, I mean, yeah. And is it like, do we know how much it was Fox saying it was over versus Stocker saying it was over? I feel I haven't seen anything clear on this

Ben Goldhaber: speculation.

I've heard, and it seems like it's all come into the same place now, is that mm-hmm. It was Fox saying it is over and that it did [00:25:00] not strike me as a shareholder maximizing decision, but rather the texts and communications that came out as part of pre-trial discovery for the Dominion lawsuit had. Okay.

Tucker really badmouthing some of the Fox execs in management. Oh, I

Divia Eden: see. That does, that does make sense. I guess why they would do something that seems so against their interests, because I guess that's a typical sort of situation where people do things that are superficially, at least against their interests.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. And this seems much more plausible than what I initially thought it was, was a surprise entrant into the Republican race. Yeah.

Divia Eden: No, I mean, I think, but it makes more sense. Absolutely. I mean, I think if Tucker runs, he has a very, very good shot. I think. I mean, I don't, well, I don't, I haven't really thought about this that hard.

Intuitively,

Ben Goldhaber: it seems to me. Yeah. He seems like he's the only one. Yeah, he's, he's popular. I think a lot of people like him. I, I like him. He's [00:26:00] charismatic. I don't know, he's, he's like got some weird ability to draw from a lot of different pools of energy. That's right. I wonder, I, I don't know, like I saw predicted unpredicted, man, are we just gonna come up predicted podcast?

I don't know. I've gotta stop referencing it so much. His, his chairs jump to at least fives like after the news. I bet it has gone down since, but I dunno, maybe, maybe people think now he can no longer be a Fox News host. Maybe he should settle for trying to run for president.

Divia Eden: Yeah. He's 3% right now behind Glen Youngen, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley at 6%.

Mike, that's only 2%. I mean, I guess. I guess, I don't think it's gonna be Pence, but two. Two seems low for a vp.

I

Ben Goldhaber: don't know. He's pretty low. Yeah, I think that's much lower. I don't know. I would put him over, well, I don't know. Certainly he's, he's in the same camp in my mind as Young Kin and Nikki Haley.[00:27:00]

Divia Eden: Yeah. This is, by the way, you know, this is the era of the, of my people, the female South Asian, or partly South Asian women finally in politics. Yeah. Kamala Harris. Finally, the first, I didn't think I was gonna see a half Indian VP in my time. So,

Ben Goldhaber: Representation at, at last? We haven't actually talked. Nobody talks about that part.

I'll say it. Nobody. I'm, here's, I'm talking about it.

Do you, do you feel like now you, there's no longer a glass ceiling?

Divia Eden: Less than I might have thought. Less than I might have thought. What's I don't know

Ben Goldhaber: is I was not, we might have different opinions on this. I, I feel like she is nobody’s favorite, definitely not mine.

Divia Eden: That's right. [00:28:00]

Ben Goldhaber: Hmm. It's clearly a sign that if Biden, for whatever reason, did not run again, I do not think the Camala Harris would get the nomination. Who do you think would.

Huh. I really don't know. I think maybe I'm blanking on his name, but the California governor, the judge.

Divia Eden: Oh, Newsom. Yeah. Newsom. That makes sense. Newsom.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, I think maybe Newsom. But that's another one where I'm a little bit like, well, maybe it'll just be some person who's not on. Oh, Newsom Radar.

Radar at the moment.

Divia Eden: I didn't really look into this, but there was some headline about that he sent. He was like sending in the, not the National Guard, but like the California state something to like clean up San Francisco.

Ben Goldhaber: Oh. Oh yeah. I did see this. I did not look into the details at all. Definitely felt like the kind of thing where if you're maybe setting up a run Yes.

You wanna be able to talk to that? That's, yeah.

Divia Eden: I mean, cuz otherwise, like, I'm like, why now? [00:29:00] Like that's, I, I don't, I don't get the, unless. Unless it's that

Ben Goldhaber: it's absolutely so people can't point to the crash fire that is Francisco and say, you did nothing about this. Oh, no.

Divia Eden: National Guard. Okay. I just saw a headline from two hours ago saying, I don't know the, the political leanings of, oh no, this is Fox.

I see no signs of California National Guard in San Francisco to tackle fentanyl crisis is what Fox, K T V U has to say about this as of

Ben Goldhaber: recently. I think that's I think that's fair reporting. I'm not even, what is National Guard gonna do about, like, are, I don't believe they have the power to arrest.

Oh, sorry. Wait, it says the

Divia Eden: people, right? California's National Guard to help San Francisco fight fences. Yeah. I don't know.

Ben Goldhaber: I, I'm, I feel like there's some amendment in enough. Again, we're stretching my civics know, sorry. But I don't believe the National Guard can come and hideous.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I think they're supposed to help law enforcement.

They will. Yeah. Through this new collaborative partnership, we are providing more law [00:30:00] enforcement resources and personnel to crack down on crime, et cetera, et cetera. Do you remember? Yeah. Newsom's very, I don't know what to call it, but his rhetoric in the, like March, 2020 on co, he was making Covid speeches and I was watching them cause I was trying to understand what the Covid response was to me.

Yeah. And he kept talking about the nation state of California, and I think someone called him on it. And they were like, what do you mean by that? And he was sort of like, well, it's like as big as, you know, many countries. And so that's, that's another thing

Ben Goldhaber: I, I, I don't remember.

Divia Eden: That's maybe a little prone towards some grandiose language.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. That's, that's pretty excellent. I mean, I do I, I, I do think there's a point that he's right about there. Not, not the language that is crazy. It, it, it's like dramatically underappreciated the degree to which California is a, a huge economy, huge cultural force, all that. But then also B is just like, if it were its [00:31:00] own country, would be a failed state or would be like an example of like an Italy level kind of mismanagement.

I think. I'm not sure if you agree with me on this, but it just seems like Yeah,

Divia Eden: no it does. Right.

Ben Goldhaber: It's not even on the housing side, but just on the like kind of one part.

Divia Eden: I'll defend it a little bit on the housing side. I mean, I think the housing has been a disaster, but it seems like the ybi movement has outperformed my expectations by a lot and I think it really did come out of California, which maybe becau, you know, people were desperate.

And so that's not, that's not to California's credit, desperation,

Ben Goldhaber: breed breeds innovation.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I mean it's, it's honestly the political, I mean, I guess this is a cold take, but it's the political thing that I am been the most excited about in years is the success of the MB thing.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. No, is I, I I, I, it seems great and as like an example of a actually organic political movement, like fueled by just like people, I mean, [00:32:00] I actually, I should learn more about the history of the Bmb movement before I say this, but it strikes me as something.

That was like, no, I think you're right. Yeah. Very grassroots in a laudable way.

Divia Eden: Yeah. And then it wasn't that many years before people, like, I think that when London Breed was first elected, I remember in that mayoral election, it was like people wanted the Indian endorsement. I was like, oh, interesting.

Like, I didn't even realize, like Right. I didn't know it was net popular enough that, that the candidates would be looking for that. Yeah. But, but they got it. So, or I think, I think London Breed did get it, and I, you know, in terms of actual, like it's a moving at time. Yeah. I could say both. Like, this MB thing seems to have grown faster than I expected, and it's like, okay, but what's the actual rate of housing being built?

And I'm like, well, that's, Hmm. I think still very slow, but like the ADU laws, like there is stuff happening and I, I think I expect it to be gaining momentum and, and being a real thing.

Ben Goldhaber: I, I, I think you're right about that. Do you think it would. Do you see this becoming a national [00:33:00] movement that translates I do into changes in other states.

Okay.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I think there have been, at least I, so I'm, I'm far from an expert on this, but I think at least multiple states have like laws on that are either being proposed or maybe some of them passed to allow people to create ADUs accessory dwelling units in their backyards. I think that that, the thing that I've heard about that so far is to kind of like, not bank on it too much in the short term, because even when laws get passed, it's often like lots of challenges and technicalities, and I think the California one has been around long enough that it's sort of well understood and more ironed out.

But yeah, I think that's, I see that as maybe a leading indicator. I mean, I think, I think housing is, is a major, is a top issue for people, you know? People our age. Yeah. And people in general, and I don't, I mean, I think. Yeah, I guess that's my prediction. I think em Bism will take off and be more of a national thing and we'll see it like substantially grow in the next four years or so.[00:34:00]

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. I, I think you're right. I haven't given it as much thought, but your description of it resonates in part cuz I feel like in the last election cycle, a number of Republican candidates were running more or less on a, almost on a housing policy agenda. Mm-hmm. Where they were pushing. An idea that I also endorse and think is a good point, which is like, you should be able to own a home raise a family on one person's salary.

Like it should not require the entire family to be in the workforce in order to be able to have the. Quote unquote, traditional American dream. And I think many of them, I'm, I'm particularly thinking about the candidates running in Arizona and Ohio on the Republican side were yeah, really pointing out the way in which there's like a systematic discrimination against young people that kind of [00:35:00] manifest itself a lot in housing policy.

So, I don't know. I'm optimistic about that in part because I do think tying it into the, the generation gaps, the divides, there also kind of points at the way in which, okay, over the next four years, over the next eight years, you'd expect to see this become more and more of just the default main view of the both of the, of the groups.

Yeah, I think

Divia Eden: that's right. Yeah. That's good. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say one more thing about that and it's gonna include a segue, right? Get excited. Yeah. I see it. This is maybe a bit of a cynical take also on Ybi, but I think, I don't know that in a lot of ways the economic. Fundamentals for America right now are not looking awesome from my perspective.

Mm-hmm. And I think that at a certain point, I don't know, I guess I see like a lot of what I would think of as economically inefficient policies, as sort of like a luxury good that politicians are more in favor of when times are good and then if [00:36:00] actually like economic growth is sort of iffy or like people have been like, eh, we don't feel like our wage has been going up for a while.

Then like politicians are like a little more eye on their ball for trying to create economic growth. And I, I think MB is one of the easier ways to do that. I think the other one, here's my segue is that I think this is gonna inform, I, I think the AI thing's gonna be really tricky and they're gonna be forces pro and anti in the government.

And one of the things pushing politicians to support it is gonna be they're looking for economic growth somewhere, anywhere.

Ben Goldhaber: Mm. Right. Okay. So something like, We e everybody wants, all politicians want some baseline little economic growth. Yeah, maybe it doesn't always need to be maximized and can trade off against other values.

Maybe in fact, like too much economic growth has some kind of feedback loop trigger where then more signaling values are, are pushed. I don't know. That sounds a little too galaxy brains, but,

Divia Eden: well, I mean, I, I would [00:37:00] like someone to do an analysis on this point, but I do, yeah. I think, I don't know. I, yeah, I, I guess that is something I think that like more people can talk more about things that don't matter very much when times are good.

That's, yep.

Ben Goldhaber: Definitely seems true to me.

Divia Eden: Yeah. And, and you know, someone could also argue with me about like, whether, like maybe other people would be like, no, the, the economy's going fine. Like, what are you talking about? I, I'm not super, like I said, optimistic, but I don't know that that's a super uncontroversial position.

I, I'm not sure.

Ben Goldhaber: No. Seems right. To me at least,

Divia Eden: not like, like covid. Ok. I think here's an Uncon uncontroversial thing. Covid was obviously a big hit. Yep. And I think it wasn't mm-hmm. That bad because in fact, a lot of people cut back and saved money. And so, you know, insofar as people were saving, they can now spend it and, and that'll, that'll show up.

And I think it has been. But, but yeah. I think still obviously major blow.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. And, and [00:38:00] major blow, the huge amounts of inflation that we've had since. Yes. The general just sense of fragility, that's not really an economic indicator, but it's certainly, to me, one of the takeaways is, was like something about many more things being up for grabs than I expected.

And I think that applies to the economy as well. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I guess, well, like, I don't know, what do you think about an argument that AI will. Cause economic benefits, but they'll be very like localized to a few firms or to a few individuals. I guess I tend to have in mind some version of AI where it's like not actually being that widely distributed of a benefit.

So I suspect politicians. Yeah, I think that's not be as responsive.

Divia Eden: Well, yeah, I guess I wonder, I I think so. Like, I think Tucker actually, he gave a speech about the, I think we talked about this, about like, no, he doesn't want self-driving cars because truck driver is what, like the most common [00:39:00] occupation in America and this is not gonna be a smooth situation.

And anyway, so like, yeah, I, I think there's a real thing that politicians will be responsive to there. I also tend to think though, that some politicians, rightly or wrongly, like I don't know how much this feeds into public op opinion. I think somewhat. I think because public opinion is somewhat based on this, we'll wanna be like, no, I want overall GDP to go up and then I can run on that.

Right? Right. So I, I guess I see both pressures. And it doesn't seem, I mean, I think, I think, I think that makes sense. It doesn't seem like an entirely pro-social, I mean, I don't know, I guess it seems neither entirely pro-social nor anti-social. It seems like a sort of somewhat unaligned political

Ben Goldhaber: goal.

Yeah. I I, in some ways I think a four politicians being, having a multiplicity of values they're trying to benefit most of the time. Yeah. Like, I think I would want the people in office to both be trying to cause GDP d to go up, but also [00:40:00] not sacrifice children to a demonn in order to make GDP grow up.

Which is not what I'm saying is happening here, but like, you know, let's have some values there or I dunno what my point is there.

Divia Eden: Yeah, I mean, is there anything you wanna say about, I don't know, any of your latest thoughts on AI while we're talking about it? Yeah. If you want, if you want a more specific question to lead you off in the betting house, that would be great.

Yeah. So I, I can pull this up on Twitter. There are probably stuff since then, but I believe somebody said something and then Robin Hansen was offering to take bets. Oh, on, yes. Yeah, I think the operationalization was something like only 20% or less of humans, of the economy, of humans are employed in, I wanna say 2037, something like that.

Hmm. Which is, it was meant to be like a proxy for like, are we gonna have strong AI soon? Right. [00:41:00] And he definitely got some takers,

so, yeah. Do you have thoughts? Are there any bets you'd wanna make? What do you think of this bet? I don't know. Any thoughts of the people making the bets? I think it's a good

Ben Goldhaber: bet. I think it's a good operationalization. I,

I, I think I would bet against against, against, well, no, hold on. Let me, let me think a little bit more here.

Divia Eden: Okay. Sorry. I, I will read the exact terms of his bet in case I got them wrong. Please. I'm happy to bet against anyone who sees full human level, AGI realized across the entire economy as, oh, it's earlier than I said, as likely by 2033.

I give you stuff now, and then you give me stuff after 2033. If agi, I doesn't come, you just have to prove to me that I'll actually get the stuff. Then he says, I suggest defining AGI as US adult labor force participation rate is less than 20%.[00:42:00]

And yeah, there's some, there's some takers for sure in the comments.

Ben Goldhaber: Mm.

So I'll give some, like broad models I have about the current wave of development in ai and then hopefully that will yeah. Be interesting and also help inform which side of this bet. I'm gonna have to tweet at Robin that I'm taking

one, it, it seems like the wave of G P T innovation that we've had is actually being adopted. It is not just demo tech. That's something that I now believe. Yeah, I expect that it is actually having meaningful productivity boost for a lot of people and random pieces of evidence of that are both for my own life.

How awesome it has been coding with the assistance of G P [00:43:00] T. Right. The various ways I've used it to rewrite things. The degree to which it is just better than me at like various engineering style tasks. So I don't know all that. Also because I've started to see products that seem to be like using it well in some fashion where I'm like, oh yeah, this is like smart design.

This is like a small example. I think I have better ones. But somebody added it into terminal commands so you can use G P T in your terminal, which I was like, this is great. Cause I've never remembered a terminal command in my life. Yeah. It was a very natural thing to do. I second though, I think I'm still a little skeptical about this current wave of heck fully replacing people in roles.

Mm-hmm. I. In part, I've been burned too many times before, cuz I really did believe that like ophthalmologists might be out of [00:44:00] work because of advances in computer vision and they're not. And same with like radiologists and also self-driving cars. I was betting on that maybe like in 2018, thinking that we'd see it much sooner than we have.

So yeah, it just does seem, seem like there's a lot No, no, no, no.

Divia Eden: Around. I think it's just like an overall thing that I, and I think, not just to me, but definitely I got wrong about ai. I remember when I was in high school, I went to some computer science competition and that somebody did a presentation about self-driving cars.

And I think it was the first time I'd ever thought about it. And certainly the first thing that occurred to me is I was like, oh, well once the computers can do it, then they're gonna have such low accident rates, it's gonna be awesome. Like quite the opposite. I mean, which in some ways I'm like, well I guess that makes sense because they go from the can't do it and then the people are working on having them be able to do it.

And so somewhere in the middle they have a higher accident rate than humans. Like I guess when I put it that way, it seems sort of clear, but it wasn't how I was thinking of it [00:45:00] before. I was like, had this more deterministic like, oh, well once it's done algorithmically, then it'll be easy to get the error rate down.

Right? That wasn't right.

Ben Goldhaber: That, that's the kind of thing that I think seems like the update that I've also made on a lot of these applications of it. Cause I've, I've been following like benchmark progression on many of these tasks for a number of years now, and it seems like we've had human level for a long time on a lot of benchmarks.

And yet I don't think that you can actually just give the algorithm a full on, I don't know, write a book style pass and you get a good response. And I feel like there's just, and, and say, I think radiology is an example. I tweeted about this a while ago. I got a lot of good examples from working people in the field about like why it hasn't replaced them.

Like why they can't just give it to the software. And it feels like that's just true in a lot of parts of the economy. So I, I, I continue to expect like, high productivity gains without [00:46:00] maybe seeing like immediate job loss from it. I mean, one way I could have know is

Divia Eden: you could just like, but okay, so devil's advocate.

I, I think that's my ultimate prediction too. But if I, if I wanna make the, take the other side of it, I'd be like, well, but if the same programmer can do, I don't know, like even just three times as much, then why wouldn't I hire fewer of them? And I guess the, I mean, if I take the other side of that one, I'm like, well, maybe actually, I guess some goods go the other way.

Like if the good gets more valuable, you buy more of it. So like maybe if the programmers become more productive, then I write more code. I don't know

Ben Goldhaber: my pr my prediction though, I don't know if this tracks with formal economic logic, but it is what I have in my head, is it we'll see bimodal distributions in a lot more professions with far with like, I don't know if it's gonna be the same number of programmers, but something like many more programmers in [00:47:00] the like lower quadrant getting paid less and then a few getting paid a lot, lot more.

And basically just a split, I guess this is Tyler Cowen's averages over kind of thesis, but applied specifically to ai. And I don't know, I guess that's my prediction for the next few years. And then when I start thinking into 2030, I'm like, I, I really, things get kind of foggy for me. That's one reason why I might take the bet on the other side from Robin is just, it seems like there's so much transformative potential in various ways that I'm like, I don't know what my odds are, but it certainly seems far more possible than many more things are gonna be.

Like mechanized is radically different. Yeah. Mechanized. That is a old school term. I don't know why I used that.

Divia Eden: Ok. I, I'm gonna go back to what you said about programmers. I see part of what confuses me here, [00:48:00] and it's not that I necessarily think you're wrong, but this sort of old wisdom about programming, is that in fact, productivity differences between programmers are huge and that within.

Like when people are employees, it's, the pay never really reflects that. And so if people want to actually capture, if the, you know, I guess this is cringe, talk about the 10 x programmers, but they, but they obviously, some programmers are much more productive than others and if they wanna capture that, they have to go, I don't know, do startup or whatever else.

Yeah, because I, because I don't know the pre, the measurement is hard or the pressures for GAL are strong enough. I mean, it seems like measurement is not that hard. But then like what pro I, but then I don't know, like salespeople. Mm-hmm. I guess measurement is easy enough that it overcomes whatever tendencies towards egalitarianism and people, people get paid based on

Ben Goldhaber: what they do.

Yeah. I don't know if this is quite the same as the [00:49:00] measurement problem or it's not how I would describe it, but the salespeople example I think is a good example of, because. It is a eat what you kill profession. It is just a far more direct incentive. And right, there is no third party that needs to allocate things in some way that like, yes, a team spirit.

And I say this is somebody who has never really worked in a sales profession. So plausibly it's different. But my impression if we're talking to friends who have is it is like, yeah, you have a team, but it is still a solo artist kind of practice. And I do, it's culturally very different. It's probably different for programmers.

It's culturally very different. Yeah. And like I think for most programming jobs, you are programming with a team and that has Right, both harder measurement problems where okay, now you have a credit allocation problem of like who really enabled this person's success along with trying to maintain team cohesion.[00:50:00]

Yeah, so

Divia Eden: I guess,

Ben Goldhaber: okay. No, I know. It's still a good point though

Divia Eden: now that we've talked this out. I think you might be right about the productivity differential and I think it's mostly not gonna be reflected in in salaries. Yeah. That seems I we'll

Ben Goldhaber: see. Compelling to me, I guess we, if we look at other professions, because it wouldn't just be programmers like, right.

Should we expect sales becoming even more bifurcated? I think maybe copyright and it would be reflected in salary. Yeah, exactly. Copy you, copy be able to just be far greater.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I think the, the copywriters that embrace the, the AI and they figure out their prompts and whatever, and see, I, I don't know a ton about copywriting as a profession, but I, I think that, I'm guessing they get paid sort of by the individual copy and how well it performs in a sales type way.

That that's, that's my impression that could be wrong about that. This is great. And Yeah, I, I think there, the compensation is gonna get way more skewed and some people will probably stop doing it. Mm-hmm. [00:51:00] Because the other people get so good.

Ben Goldhaber: Right? Yeah. Seems right. Seems like that could apply to a number of things.

I think actually this is helping me re when I think about the, the, the, the hanon bit is one reason I would not take the other side of it. Why I would be skeptical of a only 20% of the workforce still being in the workforce would be, I feel like there's so many feedback loops in society that would prevent that from happening.

Like in the world where things have not radically transformed. I think if you only had 20% of the population still currently employed, you would see a lot more buildings being burned down. A lot more civic on this. Yeah.

Divia Eden: No, and I think the politicians are gonna make policies to try to stabilize all of that.

I think that's right. Totally. Yeah,

Ben Goldhaber: and I think I, I had an argument, oh, sorry. This will be I, I had an argument that I think in [00:52:00] particular the P M C class, the professional managerial class will be threatened by some of these things, and politicians are far more responsive to their concerns than to the rest of us.

And that will drive some legislation faster. Yeah, I,

Divia Eden: I think like the, the scenario that I, sometimes, I, I don't, I like don't even wanna think about it, cuz to me it seems too dystopian for like the, the other, the sort of less political solution to that is like a lot of jobs. Is the paperwork gonna explode?

Like people are gonna using the ais to create additional paperwork and then additional paperwork requirements. Right. And like everybody's, listen, look at some arms race against like, I guess this is sort of the b******t jobs hypothesis. Like in some sense, yeah, many people are doing things that are not really necessary, but people wanna have these other from more nebulous, more statusy, whatever reasons that they wanna hire people.

And then is the make work just gonna explode even without any political intervention? [00:53:00]

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. I mean, I guess there's some political solution here, which is like, look, we can never fully trust the ai. Maybe this is an AI alignment. Yeah. And a make work program where you have a human verifying every X number of ais outputs, and this way everybody's employed and nobody's doing real work.

Right.

Divia Eden: And I think, I mean, I think sort of makes sense because insofar as people's job is to be accountable, There's not really a way to have an AI do that at this time, and I, I don't see, yeah, it seems not that close to having

Ben Goldhaber: that. This is in part why at least some people on Twitter have said radiology is still done by humans, is you need somebody accountable at the end of the day and the software would scan the the, the tests.

It would, it would, it would try to indicate whether or not there was some kind of thing present that a radiologist needed to look at, but the radiologist still had to [00:54:00] sign off on them, and in terms of liability, they were the ones who would be sued if they got it wrong. So in the end, it didn't really provide that big of a productivity gain.

I, I wonder if this would happen in many more professions.

Divia Eden: Yeah. And, and like it could, it could. I, it would not surprise me if the way it went, and I don't, I don't have a, I don't know, the technical is, I don't know how far off self-driving cars are. I think I would predict that we'd see way more of them deployed by 20 Now you're ok.

On what time

Ben Goldhaber: scale? I, I, I, I, I am bullish on a five year time scale without thinking about any of the social implications, which I dunno. I agree with Tucker's take, I'm worried about that doesn't seem strictly great, but in terms of self-driving cars in cities, yeah. Where like instead of Uber, I'm calling a self-driving car in San Francisco and New York and Boston in like a major metropolitan area.

I, I think that [00:55:00] becomes even more of a reality. It's already kind of a reality now in San Francisco.

Divia Eden: Ok. So two questions. One elsewhere. Yes. So, and you think that even if the car is for all practical purposes, self-driving, there's not gonna be a human in their supervising? Or you think there will be? I think there won't be.

Okay. I think I predict. And I, I'm talking about something I don't know that much about that with the truck drivers. It's gonna be that even past the point where cabs don't have a person in them, the trucks will, because again, somebody I think has to be accountable for the goods and maybe they'll be some more, I agree with that trusted way to do it, but I, I think it'll take a while and I don't know.

And the

Ben Goldhaber: companies, I actually also think truck driving is a lot harder than people anticipate. Oh wait, you said in cities, truck driving is a different problem. Yeah, I think cities for truck driving, I'm not sure. And that's another area where we get into areas that don't fully gro. But yeah, it's something [00:56:00] I learned when looking into like why, I don't know why my initial prediction several years ago didn't take off.

I like looked a little bit at self-driving trucks is there's just like a lot that truck drivers do as part of their profession that is not just keeping the truck in between the white lanes. Like it is a lot of loading and unloading things. A lot of maintenance, a lot of like. I think like supervising and interfacing with other people, tasks of like getting cargo and things and all of that.

I, I think this goes to the ways in which like, yes, maybe actually you just need like weak h e I or full HCI before you can get some of these things automated. Cause there's Yeah. A lot of generality in, in the, in the job of the truck driver.

Divia Eden: Yeah. I think, I think that sounds right to me, so, okay. You're, I, I think I would agree with, with what you're saying, bullish on the cabs in cities, but not so much Yeah.

On the, in the next five years on truck drivers being replaced.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Which I think, I'm stealing this from somebody, but I do think it's a beautiful sign of irony that it seems much more likely that the opinion [00:57:00] columnists who were writing about the way the like truck driving would be automated five years ago are far more likely to be automated now.

Oh, yeah. Than the truck drivers.

Divia Eden: Yeah. That is funny. But I, yeah, that would, that, that's another prediction you could make or not. Do you think any. I don't know what this means. Major news publication that is not comedy. Mm. Will regularly, like a regular segment where they put what the AI writes about something.

Oh, that's a good question. I think comedy, I'm gonna say yes, absolutely. Comedians are gonna do it. Comedy,

Ben Goldhaber: I think. Yes. How familiar are you with V2 or the whole movement of like avatars that are AI generated? I should be clear on not, not, not familiar, I'm curious. No, I'm not. It seems like it's taking off and maybe we need to do a segment at some point where we talk to one, but it seems like it's taking off and strikes me as like a real possible avenue [00:58:00] for exactly what you're talking about, which is just almost fully AI generated.

I suspect there'll be some human in the mix for a little while, but like almost fully AI generated personalities. Interesting. So I don't know if a major one will do it for a while. I do think that a startup vertical will do it in the next arbitrary length of time. I'm gonna say three years. We'll see a like who, who did people used to write to?

A Miss Mans style columnist. Yes,

that's

Divia Eden: right. Alice's, what's your name? But yeah, miss Mans.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, one of those. I think we'll see that. That's okay. Well, definitely. I'm gonna go back through this transcript, by the way. We need to get all these predictions out. And also what is what's, what's your take on that, do you think?

Yes. No, sometimes the V YouTube thing. Numerical conf. Yeah.

Divia Eden: I, I, I'm gonna defer to you on that one. I, I know little enough about

Ben Goldhaber: this. I have [00:59:00] my finger on the pulse of what the youth are into, and I'm gonna tell you it's messed up. And the youth are wrong.

Divia Eden: Okay. Next que next prediction. Since, since we're gonna do something, how much do you think AI is gonna come up in the next round of presidential debates?

Do you think it'll happen in the primaries? Do you think it'll happen in

the

Ben Goldhaber: general? I definitely think it will. I, I think that people are, I'm going to go strong prediction on this. I don't know what that turns to in I should be better at making percentages on this, but I'm all right. I'm willing to definitely go above 50%.

It's mentioned at least one time in all of the debates. I think actually that's even, I should say, like, I'm gonna go over, I'm gonna go 70% or higher that it's mentioned in at least one of the, one of the debates. Okay. Mm-hmm. Right. And I guess another question is like a strong topic what the primary or [01:00:00] sorry, be like, does it become like an argument in the primary?

Yeah, I think so. Okay. I think so. Maybe like I'll like cut that down to like, I don't know, now I'm just really pulling numbers out, but like 55, 60, it gets a like, like a, it's like an actual like topic of discussion.

Divia Eden: Mm-hmm. Interesting. Okay. That's pretty high. Yeah, I think, I think that's a little bigger than I was thinking, but, but I think you, I, again, I would probably defer to you on this.

I had been thinking, I don't know, I think I would've said maybe more like 35, 40% PRI bill. It'll happen in the primaries. But in part, cause I w I think I was surprised how I think that the Democratic primary debates were happening last time. During Covid? Yeah, during Covid. And it, yeah, it, it did come up, but it was a little later than.

I would've thought, and I, yeah, so I guess I, maybe this is like, my theme is I'm almost trying to fight the last war with my [01:01:00] predictions.

Ben Goldhaber: Oh, another argue way to put that is if you're trying to like have an outside view, would you reference glass? Well, I'm just like, no, no, no. It is in the discourse, but that is kind of, mine is strictly inside view is unlike, I think that this has dominated the discourse over the past month or two months.

And we're getting like Wall Street Journal articles now about like dealing with AI grief, all of these topics

Divia Eden: that, no, it's a good point. There have been news article, why journals. Yeah. No, I, I think you've persuaded me that I

Ben Goldhaber: think the news just set the tenor cool. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

My turn. When do you think if slash when would you expect to see a. Major Luddite style protest or event doesn't have to be a protest, but you get kinda what I'm pointing at. [01:02:00]

Divia Eden: Yeah. I get, when you first said that, I was like, I, my stereotype of different populations, I'm like, I think maybe we see this in Europe first Hmm.

Ben Goldhaber: More. Right. I

Divia Eden: dunno. Like, and I don't wanna, again, I'm talking about things I don't know that much about, but I think the base rate of like, is there a major protest happening right now in France, for example, is very high

Ben Goldhaber: Francis all the time. It's, it's so, they're so, they're so professional about it.

They're just doing it constantly, so, yes. Yeah.

Divia Eden: I mean I used to, I took French in high school. I, my French is not that great, but I, for a while I tried to watch French news. It was like I don't know. I thought it would help me get better at French. And there was part of what struck me, I news is all about either American pigs or it's about local protests.

Which again, I'm, so this is probably an offensive thing to say to French people, but this was, this was my impression as

Ben Goldhaber: American from what I watched. I feel like they need to own that. Yeah.

Divia Eden: Yeah. And so, yeah, I think, okay, that's, that's my, I haven't answered [01:03:00] your real question yet, but I think, and also, isn't there some, like, I wanna say German legislation or something that just came out about like, you have the right to insist that your personal information be removed from any AI training set.

Isn't there something like that happening?

Ben Goldhaber: There's, there's definitely something like that. I dunno if it was German or not, and

Divia Eden: it's, I don't know how far it got. Certainly people were like, well, that, I mean, as with many of these laws, it's like written by people with like not a lot of Right. It's sort of impractical, given the architecture to implement it the way that the law, which is maybe the intended point of law.

Maybe they're, they're sort of hoping to effectively ban it. But, but anyway. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna say, so how is just any protest. It's co let's say that's covered by some news or something. Yeah.

Ben Goldhaber: It's covered by some news and it can't just be like 10 people milling around Right. Just for the photograph or something.

It needs to have that kinda it all, it has to have [01:04:00] a spark of a liveness, of a protest. I a French protest where something's getting burned. Not something doesn't have to get burned, but you get it.

Divia Eden: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So I definitely think that it's of course much more likely if there is some major AI incident.

Yeah. And I, and it doesn't have to be a huge incident, it just some newsworthy thing where the AI screws something up. Mm-hmm. I don't, I think then that's pretty likely to spark a protest. I don't wanna like make this too conjunctive, but, I guess, I'm trying to think. Right. So I think, I think it could happen.

Yeah. What scenarios I see. Yeah. Right, right. So it could either be like, there's some accident that's newsworthy because of an ai, or maybe there's some, even if this isn't broadly what's happening, there's some major unemployment event due to an ai That I think is, that's a bit what I add in mind. Yeah.

Yeah. That could totally spark a protest. I also think we could, it's, you said Luddite. I also, [01:05:00] I feel like there's already some small contingent that's like, but we're not treating AI well enough too, which is not really a Luddite thing. I don't know that those people are inclined to go out and protest, but I think there's some sentiment and it will only grow because, I mean, that's another one of those things you could talk about is like, I think this is again, a pretty cold take among people who've thought about it, but I think people are gonna start falling in love with these ais soon.

Yeah.

Ben Goldhaber: I mean, arguably they already have. I don't, I didn't look into it myself, but I remember reading about the replica AI. Yeah. And I mean, and people who didn't

Divia Eden: look, I think the bar is fairly low for people that are pretty lonely. Like Eliza really was a, was fun to interact with for the, for people who don't know, that was like a very early chatbot that did a not even very interesting version of sort of repeating back what people said and asking them some more questions about it.

And it was clearly to an adversarial examiner. Clearly not very intelligent, but, [01:06:00] but still, I think I, to me, this is one of the sort of compelling mysteries, and people say they have explanations to me, it still feels mysterious about human communication, that there aren't facts. Hmm. According to me, relatively formulaic ways to interact with people as described in communication books, most of which say similar things that tend to be actually pretty fulfilling for people.

And I think most people don't spend a lot of time leaning on these formulas. What's the example? So I, I, for example, I'm a fan of non-violent communication. But like lots of activism, sort of things like that. Like, like, ok, so a really basic one. I'm also, you know, that book never Split the Difference, the host, that, that's another one of those.

There's so many things. It's like if somebody says something, even just being like, oh yeah, like, tell me more about that. Like, like that's sort of the most basic non-responsive formula where people are Hmm, yeah. Like they make some interested noise and they want the person to keep talking. I feel like many people actually really like it [01:07:00] when they're engaged with a counterparty that's doing that.

And then I think Totally. I think maybe, yeah. And then I think a level beyond that is when people say things in response that both reflect that they understand what the person is saying by some sort of rephrasing and in a way that then what I'm hearing

Ben Goldhaber: when you say that, yeah. Is that, it's great. No, sorry that was too easy, but exactly.

Divia Eden: And look, I, I don't know. I consider myself extremely privileged in life to have, I don't know, people that I really enjoy talking to. And actually, I don't know, like I have, yeah. I don't really know how to put it, but like I And that

Ben Goldhaber: are alive, sentient humans, right?

Divia Eden: Yes. I actually, I have, I know a lot of humans that are, that are pretty down to talk, but I think, I think there's a substantial contingent of people that doesn't so much.

Yeah. And so I think it's combined that there are relatively formulaic ways of interacting that I think tend [01:08:00] to work okay for people, and that a lot of people are kind of lonely. Look, okay, sorry. Here, here's a more concrete prediction. I think, and I don't know how it's gonna work out in a regulatory way, but I think, and this is already starting to happen, I, I think AI therapists are gonna be better than the median human therapist in the next few years if they aren't already.

And I partly say this because I think the bar is low. No insults intended to therapists. I think it's, but I think some of the, some of the advantages that the AI has is one, I mean, it seems trivial if somebody has an AI therapist, unless there's some idiotic insurance rules that someone could access it on demand, which I think is a major value add.

Right. Talking to someone when, when I'm upset as opposed to once a week seems huge. Also, I think many people will have an easier time being vulnerable with an ai and then additionally, yeah, it

Ben Goldhaber: also seems very plausible.

Divia Eden: Like I, you know, something I've been [01:09:00] pretty into internal family systems therapy over the past decade or so.

I, I first, I first heard about it and then I bought the book and so the book comes with an appendix that's, it's, it's honestly very formulate. Cause this is another example of formulate communication that I think people tend to be, be pretty engaged with. Like, it's not, I. Right. It's not fully a formula, but you're like, okay, well you did, did this part of you, how does, how do you feel towards this part of you?

And then it's like, okay, well, you know, okay, now it's like a tree of, and they have it in the appendix and they map out all these questions and is there some human discernment? Like of course there are many ways that people can add value to this, but I think the formula gets people pretty far. And then, especially if you ask this ai, like maybe I'm going on about this too much, but like people could pick their modality.

Maybe somebody's like, I wanna try internal family systems this week. I wanna try cognitive behavioral therapy. They're gonna be fluent in all these things. They're gonna be available on demand. I think it's not gonna feel near perfect memory. Near perfect memory will feel pretty easy to open up to them.

So anyway, that, [01:10:00] that's my, that's my prediction. I think AI therapists are gonna outperform. I don't know whether people will adopt them much, but I think they might, because I think it's pretty easy to make some business. Yeah, I, I, I think, yeah, I think adoption will also be, I

Ben Goldhaber: saw a great prompt that was I saw a great prompt that was like, all right, now pretend to be chat v p t ad sponsored and it would like include a mention of the front trap supreme or something like that at the tail end of every random number of ones, and make it a natural segue and it nailed it.

So I really do think you could have an AI therapist slash best friend slash lover, but that's how you monetize it. That's usually worse than a mention of a Pepsi. Yeah,

Divia Eden: yeah. No, that's, I haven't even thought of that.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Seems right, right. Like

Divia Eden: so I I still haven't answered your question. I, I'll, I please.

This is me trying to like, imagine scenarios AI protest when, so this is like my, is it probability in the next interval of [01:11:00] time or like my point estimate for when it'll occur.

Ben Goldhaber: Pick either whichever one feels, I dunno, maybe easiest or like best to visualize.

Divia Eden: Oh, also, sorry. Do we count like the, I don't know, the.

Sort of our people in a way, like the ows rationalists, like if they, if they set up a protest, does that count?

Ben Goldhaber: I was gonna ask, does Ludite also, should I be using Judite as a term? Yeah, it's, I think, yeah, I feel like, no, I doesn't count. Yeah. That seems somehow like not correct. It's not, there's not not authentic people movement.

I dunno why I say that though.

Divia Eden: Fair enough. Yeah.

Oh, I don't, okay. I guess I'm gonna say three years.

I, and I think, yeah. Right on. I think having talked this through, I kind of wanted to say something sooner, but I think, I [01:12:00] think the thing is like, there's so many causes that people care about a lot that never get protests because it's only like the protestor class that protests. Does that make sense? Yes.

And I don't really, yeah, I don't think I understand the mind of the protestor class. Other than that, I think it doesn't like large unemployment events. I think that's something, I think it also doesn't like restriction of freedoms. Yeah. Or at least some, but again, some of them, like did we see any protests about like the, I forget, you know, like the, what do you, the Patriot Act or something?

No. Like we didn't see protests about that. Right.

Ben Goldhaber: I think we saw a few. I don't know what the scale was. I remember,

Divia Eden: oh, sorry. Wait. Ok. I thought of a new scenario. I thought of a new scenario, which is anti-war protests are totally a thing. So what if there's some sort of AI weapons event? I still am gonna go with three years.

Yeah. But that's now a new scenario that, that seems sort of plausible to me. Yeah.

Ben Goldhaber: No, I don't know. This seems, this seems quite plausible. So three years you would give it at like [01:13:00] 70, 80% some kind of like, High level of confidence? Or is it more like I, I said, sorry, now I'm putting you on it.

Divia Eden: No, it's good.

I said point, point. You gave me a range. What, what exactly? I think point estimate means like median, right? Yeah. So I think I meant like 50%. It happens by then. Cool. Is that what put, yeah, I think that's what point estimate

Ben Goldhaber: means. Oh, I, I, I feel like Point could mean, could be used a couple ways, but that seems like a very fair way to use it.

We might wanna wrap up as it is approaching midnight here on the East Coast. Oh, are you on the east coast now? We wanna, I, I'm back the great state of North Carolina right now.

Divia Eden: Oh, I didn't quite realize that. Cool. Congratulations.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Having made the returns. Yes. It's good. I will be, Taking an [01:14:00] Amtrak tomorrow to visit my sister up in Virginia, but otherwise North Carolina for a little bit.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. This is,

Divia Eden: this is good to catch up and, and just talk about stuff. This is, I guess people can get used to it because if we don't have a guest for a particular week, we're gonna try to keep doing this. We,

Ben Goldhaber: I think people need parasocial relationships that are not just ai and we're doing our part here.

And I think I'm also on demand, if anybody wants somebody not skilled in any of the modalities people talked about, just subscribe to the premium subscription. We're gonna roll out and I promise to try

Divia Eden: all versions. All our truly unhinged shakes only for the, you know, a hundred dollars a month subscribers.

That's for

Ben Goldhaber: the premium. Yep. Oh, wow. Wait, we can, that's a great plan. We'll bring a chat bot. In our style. And then premium subscribers get that. And it'll also include whatever hallucinated[01:15:00] hot takes you want from it. That's right. Perfect.

Divia Eden: Like, you know, there's the observation there was the, the ai ai, the azer gives up on alignment.

I don't know, is it a deep fake? I mean, it was obviously fake, but it it was pretty funny.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Yeah. I liked it. Certain things

Divia Eden: to come. Oh, that I, I'm still not on this. I'm like, what specific scenarios? Like do you think if some deep fake causes a problem that could cause a protest? Maybe, I don't know what it would be.

Maybe not. I don't know. I,

Ben Goldhaber: I think it's gonna be some kind of unemployment thing, as you pointed out. That seems like the most likely one to me. Or a scandal involving AI with a. Beloved celebrity or sacred value of some kind? Yeah. There was a Twitch streamer who, I don't know the details, I don't follow this community at all, but I [01:16:00] remember it was apologizing for watching deep fake horns of his fellow Twitch treatment.

Yeah,

Divia Eden: I saw this discourse. Yeah, a little bit.

Ben Goldhaber: Yeah. Yeah. Which, I mean, I think it's obviously kinda messed up, but something like that. Hmm.

Divia Eden: Somebody caught the streamer doing it right?

Ben Goldhaber: Somebody caught the streamer doing it. Exactly. It was like on his stream. He went switching away from it. Mad Ops fat obsec.

That's actually one of the big takeaways here is, wow, come on. Terrible offset. But something like that I could see causing some kind of, I don't know. It's, it's, I think something I don't get about protests or is like, it seems like there's catalyzing movements. Catalyzing triggers it. Yeah. You would never predict ahead of time.

And so maybe it was an unfair question to me, but like the classic like Arab Spring protest that was set by a Tunisian Street offender, setting himself a fire. It feels like conditions become very ripe for protests. And then the actual thing that causes it [01:17:00] is, yeah. Who knows what.

Divia Eden: Yeah. Yeah. It'll, I mean, we'll probably get to find out, so we'll report back on that when it happens, I guess.

Ben Goldhaber: Yep. And we should create manifold markets or cheap predictions on various ones of these. Oh yeah. That other people's predictions are on this. Yeah. Yeah. I

Divia Eden: like that we

Ben Goldhaber: put this more opportunities to gain notes.

Divia Eden: Yeah. All right. Well anyway, I think, I think that's it for today, but we'll, mm-hmm. Record another one soon.

Ben Goldhaber: Yep. Talk to you, Divya and everyone else later.

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