MAGA Is Wrong About AI. Trump Is Right.

Plus: a weak jobs report and Trump’s economic record, New College of Florida weighing privatization after its clash with DeSantis, and the DOJ pushes to block transgender Americans from gun ownership

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MAGA Is Wrong About AI. Trump Is Right.

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This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch dig into Sen. Josh Hawley's (R–Mo.) speech at the National Conservatism Conference, where he denounced artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies as threats to liberty. They debate why MAGA populists are embracing anti-tech rhetoric, how this mirrors parts of the labor left, and what it means for President Donald Trump's simultaneous push for AI investment and closer ties with Silicon Valley.

Our editors also break down the latest jobs report, analyzing labor force participation, manufacturing losses, and whether tariffs and immigration limits are holding back growth. They then turn to New College of Florida's talk of privatization following its clash with Gov. Ron DeSantis, and what that would mean for university governance. A listener question prompts each editor to explain how they came to identify as libertarian and why the label matters to their work. Finally, the panel examines the Justice Department's move to ban transgender Americans from gun ownership.

How can we make The Reason Roundtable better? Take our listener survey and get a chance to win $300: http://reason.com/podsurvey

 

0:00—Does AI threaten liberty?

11:53—AI social anxieties

20:01—Abundance agenda embraces AI

23:40—Trump jobs report raises alarms

32:37—New College of Florida talks privatization

44:31—Listener question on becoming libertarian

52:15—Gun ban for transgender Americans

1:04:33—Weekly cultural recommendations

 

Mentioned in This Podcast

"Josh Hawley's Anti–Driverless Cars Policy Would Kill a Lot of People," by Jennifer Huddleston

"Google's Industry Dominance Isn't Unprecedented—and It Isn't Forever," by James Czerniawski

"MAGA Economics Is Losing," by Eric Boehm

"A Bad Jobs Report," by Liz Wolfe

"American Manufacturing Needs Relief From Trump's Tariffs," by Eric Boehm

"Major Gun-Rights Groups Oppose the Trump Administration's Idea To Ban Trans People From Owning Guns," by C.J. Ciaramella

"The Proposed Ban on Gun Possession by Transgender People Would Be Neither Legal Nor Constitutional," by Jacob Sullum

"Graham Linehan's Speech Must Be Defended," by Robby Soave

 

 

Upcoming Reason Events

Why Europe Can't Get Rich, September 10

The Soho Forum Debate: Melanie Thompson vs. Kaytlin Bailey, September 15

Reason Versus—Mass Immigration Is Good for America, October 2

 

Today's Sponsors:

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• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

What are we consuming this week?

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History by Moudhy Al-Rashid

Matt Welch

• Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21

Nick Gillespie

• Where the Wild Things Were: Boyhood and Permissive Parenting in Postwar America, by Henry Jenkins

Peter Suderman

• Highest 2 Lowest, by Spike Lee

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Comments

[Chumby]

How can we make The Reason Roundtable better?

Have Matt explain his “Red Wedding” social media post. That’s how.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

It’d be a start.

[SQRLSY]

https://mobile.twitter.com/mattwelch/status/1102654202545913857?s=12 “Now would be a good time to throw a big cocktail party in New York or Washington, and invite every single conservative writer you know. #RedWedding2”

That’s the full quote. Did Welch call for “…all conservative writers be invited to a red-wedding style mass-slaughter…”? If in your fevered dreams, he WAS calling for that, was it for the party-going writers to be the dishers-out of the violence, as the victims, or as mere spectators? If as spectators, for their amusement, or to demonstrate the real horrors of real violence to them? Or, to see MOVIES about red weddings? … Y’all LOVE to rush to judgments, without any data, don’t you? Whenever doing so, fits YOUR story line!

https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Wedding for reference

Are YOU criticizing Welch for this questionable-meaning(s) allusion? I, for one, would urge adults who want to understand the ugliness of violence and revenge, to see “Clockwork Orange”. That has ZERO to do with me threatening ANYONE!!! Hello?!?!

“Party at my place. Invite your teenaged relatives and friends. #StarWars”
Did I just issue an invitation to blow up (“I sense disturbances in the Force”) entire planets full of teenagers, using Death Stars? … Well, yes, if you hate me and my kind, and honesty means NOTHING to you, I could see you using my party invitation that way, sure…

I’m sorry that you suffer under the illusion that you know exactly what Matt Welch meant by that. There are MANY possible interpretations!
Below is my interpretation:
He meant that the conservatives should be invited to a party in which “Red Wedding” is screened for all viewers, so that conservatives (ESPECIALLY Trump-cultist conservatives) could learn exactly WHAT it is like, to be invited to a party, in order for KILLINGS to happen! And then maybe the Party of Trump Cultists will STOP inviting YOU to THEIR POLITICAL Party, in which democracy is deliberately murdered!!! (I know that it is WAAAAY too much to ask, that they should actually STOP trying to murder democracy, there in the Trump-Cult Party.)

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

They could invite me for each session. Where at the end I eliminate the most leftist panelist. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t auger well for Welch.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

Guessing we’ve got to wait till tomorrow for Sullum’s reporting on today’s SCOTUS decision?

Haha, losers.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

2 of them today. Poor Sullum.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Funny seeing Reason praise AI while applauding a weak jobs report. Groups like Salesforce are bragging at large reductions of workforce due to AI. Believe the CEO said 5k in their case.

But this is where I'll disagree with Trump. We've been trying to use AI to benefit engineering for 2 years. So far all the tools are pretty terrible. We spend more time code reviewing what is produced than we would writing it and testing it ourselves. It is mildly okay at generating test cases. About it.

Where we've seen it's uses is using it as a data analysis tool for things like Supply Chain. About it.

[JDS1]

The people who said COVID would only kill 5,000 Americans are now telling us AI is no big whoop. So that's reassuring.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Will we die of AI or with AI?

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

What kind of mask stops an AI virus?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Used underwear - fauci

[SRG2]

Recall that law prof Richard Epstein originally said 500, and then claimed he'd made an arithmetical error and it was 5,000.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

I'm sure you never made and order-of-magnitude error...
To be honest, I'm quite certain a self-important, dishonest, twit like you has done far worse.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"...a weak jobs report..."

It takes tiny hands to pick cherries that small.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Um there is no DOJ push to deny transgenders gun rights. Bad enough that Liz pushed this rumor. More bad that a roundtable repeats it. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

A listener wants to know why Reason editors call themselves libertarian. A lot of us are also bewildered by the claim.

[MasterThief]

I wish they would answer this. On occasion they'll cite a very narrowly applicable libertarian principle, but typically the foundation of their articles is partisan bias.

[JFree]

As usual, Reason is pretty damn useless re its take on anything.

Hawley is a moron. Don't need Reason to illuminate that.

The main AI in the US is driven by Big Tech. Their intention is absolutely to destroy liberty and to centralize everything into Skynet and general/super intelligence so they have all the power that oligarchs require.

The REAL decentralization model for AI is local/small language models NOT large language models. Small LM's reside on your computer, are trained in very specialized datasets, use no extra electricity, and remain private/secure. It is CHINA that will likely win with that model since they see themselves as 'fast follower' of tech. Think open-source Deep Seek or ZeroSearch.

Big Tech (and VC's and Wall St) can only comprehend proprietary LLM's. Meta is only different because it can't seem to hire talent for under $1 billion each. LLM's require hyperscaled data centers everywhere that will drive your electric bill to the point where residential electricity turns into a luxury. While the VC's hype that everyone will lose their job because otherwise the $2 trillion in data center spending and $18 trillion in marketcap/bubble diversion will fail.

As is always the case - Reason will support whatever business model is supported by Big Tech, VC's, and donor. Fortunately - the AI bubble is going to pop. Sooner than later. But that bubble popping in the US will harm the US far more than countries that are skeptical of AI-as-is.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

You are starting to sound paranoid.

[JFree]

Why are you stalking me

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"Stalking" you, JFucked? You mean calling you on every lie you post here?
That's not "stalking", it's calling you on every lie you post.

[Fu Manchu]

Anyone seen Trump's page in the Epstein birthday book? Fucking LOL, you guys worship Mr. Pedo Lord.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

You mean the fact that he was an informant against epstein right shrike?

Nobody does CP quite like you though.

[Chumby]

Shrike is the MAPedo lord here. That big ego, low self-esteem, double digit IQ retard posted links to CP with his original account and got it banned as a result. What a pathological loser.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"Anyone seen Trump's page in the Epstein birthday book? Fucking LOL, you guys worship Mr. Pedo Lord."
Pretty sure everyone has since TDS addled lying shits like you hoped to lie about it.
Fuck off and die, asswipe.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Ya know, the TDS-addled lying piles of lefty shit keep hoping the lies will stick.
They won't, asswipes.