Episode 798 Scott Adams - Clearview AI app that Identifies Criminals, With David Scalzo, Impeachment

pom pom pom pom pom um hey everybody come on in we got a good one today it's gonna be it's gonna be lit it's gonna be off the hook it's gonna be amazing today we're gonna have a special guest which I'll introduce in a moment but first things first right that's right first things first and I think you know what's coming up first we're a little low on followers for some reason so let me see if there is I think I've got a bug here I'm gonna tweet going live live now oh I'm gonna tweet that out because I think the notification failed or something well happy weekend and I think I know why you're here at least part of the reason you're here yes I do it's because you'd like to be here for the simultaneous up I usually wait for a thousand people but is everybody watching the AAP or watching the impeachment or something somebody says I didn't get a notification yeah I think there's something wrong with the notifications and it might have something to do with having a guest on so I don't know exactly but we're gonna find out anyway first first if you'd like to participate in simultaneous if all you need is a cup of marker glass the tanker chalices die and the canteen jug replies the vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine's here the day the thing makes everything better simultaneous it go yeah yeah that's a good one yep just as good as I thought now if technology is working and I believe it is I'm gonna activate my guests and give you a little see you know my guests and we're going to be talking to David Scalzo founder and managing partner of Kirin nego I hope I am pronouncing it correctly if you're wondering why we're gonna be talking to David Scalzo it's because he's an investor in a company called Clearview AI which is all over the news front page of New York Times controversy everywhere it's the app that allows law enforcement at the moment law enforcement is using it to take a picture of anybody could be a dead body a John Doe a person on the street that they've stopped and it will tell you tell the police who it is it will give the identification from us photograph scary we'll find out David can you hear me I can hear you good morning how are you doing I'm doing great good morning now I'm correct that your investor in Clearview a yeah absolutely yeah we're uh we're venture capitalists the name of our firm is Pierre Naga actually Japanese name Japanese term but before we get started I just want to say you know I'm an engineer by training and when you're an engineer by training you know there's two people in the world you have a man crush on one is Elon Musk and the other Scott Adams so you know I I really appreciate that I'm able to be here with you today well well thank you I did notice from your biography that you've got two degrees in engineering engineering and then engineering management and then you've got a an MBA from a top school in the country so you're sort of an example of what I talk about in terms of talents tax you know you've you've combined different skills together so that you've just got a greater view of the world which brings us to clear view ai you put money into that your firm did tell tell us well first describe what the app is doing today so that we can get a little bit of context here absolutely so there is an explosion of digital information out in the world more and more people are being are connecting to the internet and everyone or a lot of people are posting information it could be information on academic journals it could be videos of it could be people doing tick-tocks it could be philosophy sports religion charity everything people are putting on and some of the most powerful tools for humans to improve ourselves to be give happier healthier life is using things like search engines like Google for instance to search for words and find where those certain keywords come up on the Internet so what Clear View does is something very similar you take a picture a photo of a person and then it directs you to links essentially all across the internet showing where that person shows up in various contexts so it is so in short it's a search engine for faces so that you can put in identification with the face absolutely which is now let's talk about the the social implications but but tell us where it's being used how many people are using it who is using it who has access to it is it the public or is it just police force yes right now it's a start up then whenever you do is start up you know start up 101 whether you're at Harvard northwestern Stanford Business School is you target a specific industry vertical someone who is a super user and where they're using right now is law enforcement so there's over a thousand independent law enforcement agencies and so this is everything from the federal government all the alphabet agencies to state police departments to County sheriff's who are elected directly by voters to local municipal police officers and there's independent decisions to use Clearview now is there it's not limited to the United States right well right now it is but you know the technology is definitely powerful enough and broadly enough to to be used elsewhere as well all right so how to give us some use cases tell us what crimes are solved why do police like using this thing well if you think about a detective any crime show you watch what's the number one thing they want to do they want to generate leads who are possible suspects and then they want to track them down using their skills and they use credit card data and cell phone data and all sorts of other information fingerprints so what Clearview does is it helps them generate leads more quickly so if you have a suspect in a human trafficking Child Exploitation case and you only have a photo of someone you can use clear view clear view the photo and then it will show where that person may be in on the Internet with whether they have a Twitter profile or a Facebook profile or whether they're you know it's some sort of basketball game and that generates leads and ideas for the police officers and detectives where it's exceptionally powerful is when you're working with gangs whether they are terrorist networks whether they're drug cartels whether they're mob games and where you may have an inkling of one person in the game but you may not know that the other five six seven people and so if you take a group photo then what you can do is identify the other people or at least give you some leads and then of course our law enforcement will follow those leads and determine whether they're you know whether the person should be implicated or not all right leads our funds I haven't how many cases have been solved tell us about any happy endings that we know about was so far well the New York Times article specifies one where the Indiana State Police have really talked about where they busted a whole network of unfortunately individuals who were taking advantage of children and so getting those people off the street is very good there was another one and in Florida that they talked about where a person had a certain type of tattoo and that tattoo was then being was able to be matched based on that those are some examples now what's what types of crimes are the ones that are most likely to be usefully salt well it's clearly the most vile crimes out there right it's you know it's the Child Exploitation the human trafficking the domestic violence the the drug the the drug cartels terrorist those are the ones more likely to be solved but it's also you know for shoplifting petty thieves assault subway gropers is one where it's used a lot where you have a grainy photo someone that's you know pickpocketing on the subway those are those are different types of things where Clearview can be use alright I'm watching the audience the audience is going crazy in the comments because they want me to push you on the social risks so let's talk about that so accepting that I would imagine law enforcement would be drooling over this product because it allows them to identify somebody who may not want to identify themselves or it might be in a situation where you're not necessarily in a conversation with them but they've also can it be used to identify unless is a dead body that doesn't have identification it would do that right oh it could it could be helpful in that you know what I've talked to paramedics and EMTs people and a lot of times what you have is someone who has had a heart attack or who's fallen ill and there you know unconscious and you who is this person do we have any context and so to be used with paramedics would be great well what if somebody is I just saw a question a really good question go by in the comments what if somebody was an undercut undercover cop and and the bad guys got this app could they find their undercover cops potentially sure absolutely so so there are like every new technology there's going to be the good and the bad now people are asking where did the data come from are you scraping only from public legal sources do you have secret sources where do you get your database of faces from so we've you know let's start out what I talked about there's an explosion of digital information that people are voluntarily putting up on the Internet right and so there's millions of faces up there and people have public person on Facebook on Linked.

In on tick-tock on Instagram in addition to all the other places that informations put for instance almost every single work employ corporation out there has a public-facing website that has the pictures of for instance all the lawyers in their firm or all the consultants in their firm or their leadership so what we do is we index all that public information and then just connect the dots essentially link it all together so it is only public sources now there are other things that are public sources and that the government wants to get out those informations are like the most wanted list where they you know we we link that together they have the Center for Child Exploitation and trafficking we link those stuff and we link those together but it's all publicly available information that is helpful to everyone so I I noticed that so story that in New Jersey is that the New Jersey police department decided to not use it to ban it is that do I have that information right so there was a pronouncement by one of the AG's of something to that extent but let's let's take a broader view you know there's autonomous vehicles that are taking photos there's gonna be Fed.

Ex that drones flying over our heads that are gonna be taking photos the best thing we can do is get this technology out to everyone because what it does is it increases transparency and when you increase transparency you increase trust with people and when you have trust you increase the opportunity for meaningful relationships now here's what's going on in in New Jersey and you know this is obviously very early so I don't want to sound too hyperbolic on how this happens but let's say they ban this technology and they only allow government to use this what's gonna happen is you're gonna have a two-class you know a Hunger Games type society where the private where the the politicians can live in security and the rest of us wander among thieves and exploiters and so what will happen in New Jersey is more people will move to places where it's safer like North Carolina and Florida and we'll you know that is the dystopian future when it's actually banned if we are to be you freely I creates a better society for all of us alright let me let me let me tell you my personal stake in this in the sense that as a semi-famous person my my reality is that when I go in public people recognize me by face quite often especially since I've been doing the live streaming so pretty much everywhere I go there's gonna be somebody who recognizes me by face but they also know because I'm a public figure they know something they read about me that could be bad usually not true something you know something about my background my education my career so I've lived in this world you know 20 years ahead of the rest of you for a long time and so you're probably wondering what would it be like if every time I went out in public well you know we're going to assume that this technology creeps into the public because it's inevitable wouldn't you say it's inevitable that the public will have this tool while Peter Diamandis says there's going to be a billion Internet connected sensors in the next five years which means we're going to know everything at anytime in anywhere and so it is inevitable that this digital information will be out there yeah so let's just complete the thought so if you're wondering those of you watching this you're wondering about yourself right you're thinking okay what does this mean to me you know what would happen to me how would it feel what's life like if every time I went out anybody who saw my face could know also my biography and the answer is that's my life that's exactly my life every time I go outside people recognize me I don't recognize that and they know my whole biography and they and they can treat me differently if they if they choose to I'm sure some people discriminate against me because they think oh you said good things about the president that one time I you know I've got to be mean to him so I've lived in that world and I got to tell you it doesn't make much difference so here's here's the weird thing about it if I could snap my fingers and change it and make all of my privacy come back I don't know if I'd care you know but believe it or not if you had asked me would I choose this I probably would said no I want my privacy because everybody let's everybody's first reaction right there's nobody who wants to give up privacy if you ask them but nobody asked me I just lost my privacy because I let life choices and it didn't make any difference I can tell you I go through life and it makes absolutely no difference now if let's say I had a criminal record would it make a difference to me if people I interacted with and knew I had a criminal record but I saved my time I'm clean with society what do you say about that world where somebody who really has paid their debt followed the rules but now it's going to follow follow them around in a way that it couldn't just before what about that person what do you say to that yes so those so that the question is whether information should be hidden from people and then the second part is whether it's relevant to decision making or being left alone and so we're against discrimination it's very simple so we have laws in this country for instance that have statues of limitations for instance Oh let me let me stop it right there nobody cares about the laws in the real world people are going to react the way they react and they don't give a about the law so you know people are either gonna kick you out of the restaurant or not or or b.a.p bad service and dirty looks or or not hire you but they won't say it's because of your criminal record although what is the law in that is the current law that if you have a criminal record you have to disclose it or you you can choose not to what is the law on that well I'm not an expert in here and and very much depends on context let's say you're applying for a job if you're applying for a job can the employer ask that question I don't know what the current laws on that well David Koch and Charles Koch of Koch Industries very famously have an initiative called ban the box where they want to make it illegal for employers to ask that question because they want to encourage people who have had felonies or prison sentences and have formed to be able to be on a level playing field and get hired based on their skills and and and you know initiative rather than being discriminated against because they have to disclose something that maybe was what if their crime was let's say a sex crime you know let's say they had raped somebody don't you think that the other I'm putting this on you like you have to solve all of the world's moral and ethical dilemmas but would the employees of that company have a right to be to know there's somebody who had a history of let's say sexual assault which is unique it's not like anything else should they have a right to know that hey Scott I'll just say these are very complex issues that a lot of people need to think about but I'll put it this way you know based on your writing that humans are biased right that we that we take information and we filter it through our own lens and decide how to interact so the question is do we hide what people concede we try to manipulate their bias so they act a certain way or do you give them all the information all the data points so that they can have a better sense of how they want to make a decision and we're of the belief that transparency is better for everyone then trying to manipulate people by hiding information so so let me let me do what I always caution people to do which is to show both sides because typically these conversations want somebody's an advocate for one thing or the other so they're just going to say the costs are just going to say the benefits so if I can list the benefits it would be massive improvement I mean really substantial improvement in law enforcement catching people who need to get caught so that would be one benefit another benefit would be more information people would simply have better more information deeper information about other people that could protect the people who get the information it could be bad for the person who's whose privacy has been given up because they might want to hide some things until later but certainly good for the person who who is getting the information that person has benefited as somebody else's expense but and and you make this point which is fascinating and I'm trying to think throughout human history can anybody come up with an example where more transparency was worse and I think the the worst case scenario which you hinted at is that when somebody has full privacy and somebody does not that that's your very worst situation especially if the people have the privacy or the government and the people who do not are the citizens that's horrible but it's also just as bad if your neighbor knows everything about you but you don't know anything about your neighbor so this is the sort of tool that sort of just opens Pandora's box and allows all of us to know way too much about each other and I've long predicted I'm in writing I have predicted this a number of times that partial privacy is the worst situation where somebody has it that somebody doesn't the best situation which we may never get to people will resist because it's just natural to resist it is where we all know enough about each other that we no longer give a about each other's flaws and I know that's hard it's a hard concept to hold Amen but if you actually know a lot about another person and you know all their flaws and they know a lot about you and they also know your flaws and they still say it's got you want to go to lunch I am so cool with that person I'm as cool with that person as you could possibly be because I know you you know me if you're cool with me and I'm cool with you I'm gonna understand you're a human being you know we've all messed up this is why in part why I have the twenty year rule and the 48 hour rule about forgiving people's past behaviors I'm a real big proponent of judging people by who they are right now not judging people by that thing they did that's this follows them around forever and I feel like we all have to get to that place and this may force us there because if you think about it you wouldn't like anybody if you knew all of their mistakes you wouldn't like anybody you know it would be the end of friendships the end of hiring the end of marriage everything but if you all know that the other is just as flawed as you are different flaws but it just exposes your humanity you say huh I think I'm okay with that and by the way just tying everything back to President Trump because we do that I think the fact that all of his let's say his personal life peculiarities some would say their flaws are so known that we were kind of comfortable with them there's some things about knowing people's flaws that allows you to get past them it's the not knowing that can be kind of scary so given all that what is the biggest pushback what do you think is the what do you think society is going to gel around to say we don't because you know there's gonna be pushed back what do you think they're gonna focus on is the thing that's the big expense of this well I think the biggest complication is when people say the word privacy it's really split into two things anonymity and autonomy or can you be hidden and can you be free and those can be separated being hidden maybe everyone knows everything about you but the most important thing is is just leave me alone and those are the that's the complication and that's where we work as a society I'm figuring out what the rules are about being hidden which i think is is being eliminated by technology and being left alone which I think as a government as a society we come together and figure out what the rules of engagement are you know we're always afraid of the unknown and one of the things I like to point out is if you could if you could rewind to 20 years ago and I said to any one of you how would you feel if you lost all of your privacy about where you go and what you buy you know all of your transactions and all of your physical location what if what if that was all knowable or known how would you feel and most people would say my god I could not live in that world but we live in that world we live in a world where all of our transactions many of us have our DNA already on some database I do I've got my DNA's in several databases I would think and it doesn't really make much difference I still wake up drink my coffee you have my periscope and unless I'm committing a crime and somebody's looking for me it makes no difference so I think we're approaching a time when crime might just go away because we would give up so much privacy not to every single person but at least to the government and law enforcement should they want to check and I'm looking for the costs you know I keep looking for the tragic societal cost of either me who has no privacy when I go outside people know who I am and the government knows everything i buy and everything they can probably tell everything I browse all that and it doesn't seem to make any difference in my life now I don't know how unique that is I guess it's but if I were involved in criminal activity it might make a pretty big difference but I'm not so I think for most of you you would be more afraid than you need to be it's just natural to be afraid of the unknown and it's natural to be afraid of giving up any kind of privacy but what would you say is this the most valid argument by the people who say hey there's some costs coming at us some societal costs what is their best argument on the other side I like to ask this to see how see how unbiased your yeah I think the best argument is always about historical data you know what happens if someone accused me of something I didn't do or was found innocent what happens if it's a long time in the past is that information readily available should it be available what friction is there and then who controls the past right who decides whether data can be erased or not shown and who chose you know who decides what can be shown and that is a very difficult question to answer and a and there's there's a cost to to doing it both ways there's a cost to letting people see everything that happened in the past and there's a cost to allowing some group to manipulate the past about what can be shown so there it's not an easy answer for that one so so I'm seeing some good questions going by here in the comments people are saying what if you're not multi-millionaire I assume that's I assume that's directed at me you know and pointing out that I don't have as much to lose so I would imagine if you were trying to you know get a foothold in life gear get a job after some bad situation in these past that would be pretty devastating but well how do you see that evolving do you think there's some people who would just be just totally left by the side of the road by this kind of technology it's just know nobody will nobody will interact with them because of something they did in the past so I have three teenagers and they upload hundreds of photos every week and they're interacting with hundreds of friends and Instagram and tik-tok and snap and it's interesting that they realize most of the stuff is transitory and even dumb and they do allow their friends to evolve and change positions and they're still friends with them kind of like what you said is that they can be authentic and vulnerable and out there without having long-term biases against these friends and the other thing that people need to understand is most people don't give a crap about you or all your flaws they really don't I mean I think we all like to have this huge ego that I am so important and that anyone knows that I did something wrong ten years ago they're gonna care most people don't care and if someone does beer find a different friends it's like oh yeah let me give you a to two other filters to look through certainly that's that's one of the most important things that people don't care about you so much but let's say everybody knew that you were a furry you know you I'm just making this up let's say they do that you like to dress up in animal costumes sure now now your neighbors would immediately say oh I don't know if I can let the kids come over there anymore because you like to dress up in animal costumes but here's the thing people never never think about all the other people who dress up in animal costumes would also be able to identify you and next thing you know your life is ten times better because you don't care too much about your neighbor who doesn't like your habit you just met a hundred friends that you're hanging out with and they're and they all have the same interests so the first thing is if you're the only person they know has some weird you know or let's say unusual I'm not even going to call it weird let's say non-standard practice you can find all the other people like you and suddenly life's actually better not worse the second thing is I'm gonna give you this real-life example my late steps on when he was a I think he was 18 or so I got him one of the greatest jobs you could ever have which is a job at a DJ company he was gonna be an apprentice to be a DJ kind of a cool life etc he lasted one week on the job because somebody sent his boss a picture of somebody else who had taken a photo and put it on snapchat in which use in a room with some marijuana paraphernalia and the boss quite reasonably I don't disagree with the boss at all said I don't want any employees who have this kind of a picture on social media and he fired him there was a great job lesson one weekend got fired now imagine if he also knew what was happening with his other employees what he would have found is he would have had to fire his whole damn staff only one of them got caught every one of them did something that would be you know roughly equivalent to this level of you know bad behavior if you can call it that and I would say that probably my stepson would have kept his job if your technology was ubiquitous I would agree with you I mean what did what did the boss do when he was in college and high school you know what if there is any way because remember the boss did not fire him for his behavior he fired him for being caught in his behavior he was very specific he it wasn't a moral it wasn't anything moral ethical or anything he just said that's that's not the reputation I want associated with my company because we deal with the public he would have soon found out that was pretty standard with all of his employees I think all right so give us give us some wrap up here I've got a few more topics I want to share with my peeps so look I know I know on your show you talk a lot about America and great and and the reason why America is the greatest and the most prosperous is because of our Bill of Rights and the First Amendment right says we do not have to be hidden to be free we do not have to be hidden to say what we want to share ideas to share information and to be with people and so if we just embrace that and understand that that's why we're the greatest we don't need anonymity we can be free because of those Bill of Rights and Clearview helps us you know make a happier healthier safer place I would even go so far as that it might help even race relations because you're going to start seeing people for what they do instead of your first impression but that's that's maybe a little little too optimistic so thank you David Skell so tell us again the name of your investment firm here nagas partners spelled ki r e and e ga ga sorry no prior and where can they find you on twitter uh Scalzo underscore David all right thank you so much for joining us and we're gonna talk about some other topics and I'll talk to you later all right that was fun this this topic fascinates the heck enemy because it's going to change everything but let's talk about some other stuff let's talk about impeachment and Adam Schiff and all that stuff Scott Jennings wrote an interesting piece for CNN in which he notes that Adam Schiff is essentially doing Putin's work because if what if what we were worried about is that Russia was trying to undermined trust in our system and that's what we're worried about right we're worried about those pesky Russians interfering with our elections and undermining our faith in her own system and as Scott Jennings points out is there anybody who's eroding faith in our system faster than Adam Schiff I mean that's all he's doing so we can't really care about eroding faith in our system if we're all engaged in doing exactly that I mean even just watching it you're part of that and as Joel Pollock pointed out the Democrats are literally obstructing their own their own election because the Democrats by forcing this impeachment vote have taken several of the people running for president as Democrats off the field and they they basically are seeding Iowa to the people who were not already employed you know Joe Biden and and booney judge so it turns out that being unemployed just turns into a big advantage for running for president if you're a Democrat so I don't think we can claim that there's any kind of moral superiority going on with any of this impeachment stuff because everybody involved is doing nothing but chasing their own political gain you know in lawsuits how if you sue somebody and I don't know if this works in every case but if you sue somebody and it turns out that you're wrong and the other the other party wins they can often if not always I don't know how this works but they can often recoup their legal fees so in other words there should be a cost to impeaching and failing you you feel me if you impeach and win then the the side that starts the impeachment wins politically and every other way I guess and but what if they try to impeach and fail what if they fail should there be any blowback any any any cost to that and I think maybe there should be because Tucker Carlson always says this and I swear I probably heard Tucker Carlson say this for a solid year this is one of those things he says regularly and every time I shook my head and I said to myself Tucker Tucker that's crazy you know I agree with a lot of stuff you say but that's crazy and here's what he says he says that every time the Democrats accuse the Republicans of doing something it's because they themselves are doing it and I thought to myself there's no logical reason that's true and I haven't really noticed it and it's sort of a crazy thing to say and then I started paying attention and I don't know what causes it I don't know if there's a cause and effect I don't know if it's a perceptual thing but see am it's consistent we're watching it again it is just time after time after time it is exactly that the Democrats are complaining that Trump has put our system at risk by degrading its your trust and integrity but it's what they're doing they're spending 12 hours a day eroding our trust in our system they've actually just destroyed part of the Constitution while we were watching you know that part of the Constitution the said impeachment was a real solemn thing they just took a real solemn tool probably the most one of the most important maybe the most important it could be the most important part of the Constitution that there's a way to remove the top person and they've they've degraded it they've turned it into a joke you can't make a cleaner argument that they're doing actively at this moment the thing they're accusing somebody of doing you've never seen a cleaner example that I wish I could tell why yeah when Tucker says it makes me think that it's actually a strategy he doesn't say that but it but it feels like a strategy even if it isn't just the way it plays out all right and so I ask you this yeah if shifts claim is that the only reason that Trump did what he did with Ukraine asking them for the investigation the claim is that the only reason it was done was for his personal political benefit the only reason now that borders aren't crazy because there's obviously something to be worried about if your next president might have some blackmail material or some corruption entanglement anything that's a problem over in Ukraine so obviously there's a little bit of interest or should be but what is the standard for how much a decision by a government official how much of it is politically motivated in other words personally beneficial versus good for the country what if it's ninety ten what if it's 90 percent for their own good and ten percent for the public can they be impeached what if it's ninety nine and one what if one percent of it is for the public yeah it's good for the public to and in some trivial way but 99 percent of it is just for me personally is that the standard 50/50 what if it's 49 49 51 the point is there is no rational logical way to make a standard for how much you know what percentage of the reason is personal versus what percentage of the reason is good for the public and certainly with this Biden and Prisma situation it is trivially easy to show that there's some national interest I mean you could argue how big that national interest is but I don't think you can argue it exists it clearly exists let let me prove it to you let me prove that there's some national interest in the Bur yzma Biden thing here this is an absolute proof right I'm a citizen of the United States I have an interest and knowing what happened with Marissa and Biden I'm not lying absolutely honestly I'm interested in knowing that because I think it could be important if I had to guess probably not that much but I'm interested I would like to eliminate that as a risk now can it be said that there's a national interest yes I just proved it I proved that one and 300 and whatever 60 million Americans is legitimately interested in that question would it matter if there are two of me does it make a difference if there's there are a million people like me at what point can you say you've satisfied the question of national interests because I'm part of the nation I just said I had an interest so there's some percentage this certainly has an interest so my point is you could not create a standard where you're trying to parse out what percentage is national interest and what percentage is personal and that's the entire case their entire case is that that's a standard which they can recognize and act on and it can't be done it is rationally logically impossible to parse those out now did our founders know that to be the case yes they did they designed a system in which that those those decisions of what percentage was personal and what percentage was for the nation they designed a system where that doesn't matter does not matter because you can vote and you can you can change it to lawyers she said mind-reading is there somebody but I would love this to be true so I'm just so in the comments and I assume that that means that the impeachment defense has started have are you talking about officially as part of the defense did they blame Schiff of and their side of mind-reading is that what happened I'll have to check on that but it looks like somebody's saying that I will look for confirmation there anyway so let's see it's a standard that can't be enforced which is what percentage was for your own good let me ask you this there are two things that people say just like it's certainly true and it could be but I'm gonna push back on both on one is that Russia wants to undermine the trust in our system so that's one claim another claim is that China has this strategy of something called total war in which it's not just military but they're in a current war with the United States it goes goes this line of thinking in which they are trying every possible Avenue to damage the United States and lessen us for their own benefit and that total war would include everything from spying and stealing intellectual property sending us fentanyl you know you name it it's like everything you know messing with our elections just everything it's all on the table so so the the the two claims are that Russia and China are two biggest rivals in terms of military prowess that they're engaged in a current war with us and I say I'm not convinced I'm not convinced now I do believe that all the things we talked about are you know they're probably relatively true Russia probably hacks US China does all the things that it's been said but do they have do they have a some kind of a comprehensive plan or strategy that starts at the top it only counts if it's the leaders of the country who want to do this yet are the leaders of the country saying to themselves uh-huh if I can degrade to trust in the United States by 20% Russia's GDP will go up what how do they connect the dots can somebody explain to me what a ration Putin or irrational President Qi what would they actually be thinking in which this would be smart because I can't think of it now if they were really dumb people then you could explain it you'd say oh they're so dumb they think they're gonna put the United States out of business with their clever tricks and then once we're out of business they'll have all our they'll take over and they'll have all our resources and then they'll be richer or something do you think they're thinking that I mean does it doesn't pass any kind of a sniff test we are clearly in a world of abundance meaning that we don't really have shortages of stuff we just have systems that are not optimized to get that stuff to the right people in some cases but we don't really have a shortage of anything and so when you move from the world in which you have shortages of stuff and maybe you need a war because if you don't have food you don't have resources maybe you need a war but if everybody can get everything they want which is our current world if they if they play their systems right and they work their economy right what reason do we have to be anything like an enemy to China or anything like an enemy to Russia and vice versa there simply is no reason there isn't and it seems to me that somebody like a president Trump could change the frame on this and let me suggest a frame I believe that the United States Russia and China have a common enemy maybe more than one and the common enemy is anything that disrupts the system in other words anything that could put any one of the three of us on a business is something that all three of us probably ought to fight against for example how about a major pandemic wouldn't we be on the same side I think so don't you think Russia and the United States are gonna fight as hard as we can to help China stop this latest coronavirus thing I think we will we got a common enemy there there's no such thing as one side wins in this thing what about climate change now some of you say it's a hoax bla bla but you can at least agree that you want cleaner environment and cheaper energy so don't we have a common interest there to make sure the planet doesn't get destroyed don't we have a common interest in making sure that a terrorist state doesn't attack any one of us don't we have a common interest in it what if aliens attack we definitely have a common interest there so my point is that we should reframe what Russia China and us care about and we should be on the same team instead of spending all our money and wasting it being enemies of each other why don't we find some common enemies you know something we can fight on the same team for because there's just no strategic advantage to being enemies and picking in each other like this if it's happening some of it may be fake news I would also like to know what is it the United States is doing through Russia and doing China that we the public don't know about are we poking them just as hard as they're poking us and what's our reason has anybody ever told us our reason is it revenge is it to make sure they don't poke us so hard you will poke you if you focus so that's how we keep you a check what's the reason maybe there's a good one I'm not even saying there's no reason I just I feel like I should know it as a citizen of this country can somebody explain to me why the the countries that absolutely should be on our team fighting with us as hard as they can against common challenges why are we at each other just doesn't make any sense I think maybe that'll change maybe maybe we'll rethink that let's talk about chef a little more he's talking about future crimes of the imagination so chef wants to get rid of President Trump according to his eloquent speeches that he's been giving to the Senate he wants to get rid of President Trump not so much because of what he's done because what he's done has no measurable impact so everything he's done so far or is alleged to do everything that ship and team alleges President Trump is done if you added it all together you couldn't you couldn't fill a tablespoon there's no measurable negative and anything the president has already done and so the Democrats knowing that and there's no measure build a magenta make the case there's the future somebody says you were kidding no I'm not kidding do you see any measurable harm that has come from the president's actions nobody's even allegedly nobody has made the case nobody who said we lost this money we lost this deal we we got attacked none there's there's zero alleged cost and so they have to make the case that this president is just gonna get worse we're going to encourage him we're going to be encouraging this president to future unspecified bad behavior what could be less Americans is there anything less American than published them trying to remove somebody from a job for the future potential problems I don't think the country is gonna buy that but maybe they will so this is how chef argues it he said quote can you have the least bit of confidence talk about Trump they he'll stand up and protect our national interest over his own you know you can't which makes him dangerous to this country really you don't trust that the president who will be watched more than anybody has ever been watched including when he made the phone call he had all kinds of witnesses and he released the transcript it's the most transparent presidency you've ever had in your life he has already lost all of his all of his privacy essentially so am i are any of you worried about the president doing something so purely personal that it would damage the country because I don't think he has any incentive for that what incentive does the president have to do a bad job as president I mean let me frame it that way to show you how a ridiculous it is so Schiff is arguing that in the future the president would be in a position in which he would choose he would rationally choose according to chef what is good for Trump personally and is bad for the country can you see any any imaginary world in which President Trump could even imagine the situation we're doing the worst job you could do as a president would benefit him personally because because he would allegedly be doing this selfish thing how do you even what kind of world is that the president is watched all the time if he did something that was purely for him and had no benefit whatsoever not even one that you could argue that would be terrible for his legacy why would he do that it doesn't make any sense all right the funniest thing about it was when Schiff was getting choked up with emotion did and all of the shift shift lovers on CNN and other networks were saying that his his presentation was emotional and passionate and they were saying that that was a positive because he was so passionate and emotional and I looked at it and all I saw was a bad actor trying to act like he was emotionally distraught did any of that look genuine to me yeah he almost cried to me that didn't even look slightly believable now I hope he's better at writing screenplays that he isn't acting but seriously did anybody is there anybody in this country it was so stupid that they would watch those days of presentations and at the end see that little fake emotional thing and imagine that that was real could anybody imagine that was real oh my god I don't think so I would like to defend myself from the future problems I'm going to have I have a I have a crime in progress right now crime against humanity let's see if I can show it to you it's better as a visual so in order to understand this what you have to know is that I after the Dilbert comics are drawn they are sent off to my syndication company who has I think it's a third party party that they hire and the third party as the color so you can see that the strip well you can't see it but let me see if I can lower the temperature on this so you can see it take it way down so all the characters are filled in with color as you can sort of see here so I actually don't see the the colored version until it runs so the first time I see it colorized is when it runs in on the internet and in papers and I was tweeting the sound today and I noticed that whoever adds the color had decided that the character who's talking to Dilbert should you know display some diversity because most of the characters are generic white people except for a shook the in turn and they decided to add a little diversity now I think to myself good choice you know especially when I have you know one of the non regular characters let's let's have that character as you know somebody who's not a generic white guy show a little flavor in the strip that's good idea right X the person they decided to add the darker-skinned color to is the character that I had decided to depict as an idiot that's right so my decision was that the second character would be the idiot and Dilbert would call him out for being an idiot or reading the comic so the character comes up behind Dilbert and says this data can only can mean only one thing and then Dilbert says actually it could mean any one of about 17 things and then the other character says and why can I only think of one and Dilber says please don't make me answer that now of course you may find some correlation with current events in this but I promise you I was not the one who decided that the dumb guy would have the darker skin can we put that on the record not me all right so I have accidentally been turned into a racist by somebody I don't know who decided to colorize that comic so there you go the simultaneous simultaneous it did happen but I'm sorry there's some of you missed it why are why are we using leftist framing yeah well I'm just telling you what the public is gonna say alright it's alright no big deal well those of you say it's no big deal don't know the history that cartoonist experienced when I introduced shook the in term so if you follow the Dilber strip you know that the intern is named Ashok yes okay which is the less common spelling it's usually a sa SH okay but I knew somebody I worked with who spelled it differently a s okay so I named my character after that and now shook was born in India but he's an American citizen in the East strip and as soon as I introduced that character what do you think happened that's right the african-american community attacked the newspapers and said why is this why is this African American character so stupid when all of the other characters you know are smarter now first of all it wasn't and isn't an African American character so the the basis of the complaint was wrong it was a somebody born in India who's an American citizen now secondly it's not the dumb character in the strip I make a comic strip in which all of the characters are acting dumb on different days sometimes they're all acting dumb it's only a comic about dumb people it's that's all it is everybody in the comic except Dawg were I guess it was not even a human is dumb it's a whole comic about dumb people now what do I do I introduce one character who's got brown or skin who's an Indian American and the african-american community tries to get me canceled or not even talking about them in any way whatsoever now many people have asked and actually a lot of a lot of black fans of the strip say can you add can you add an african-american character I would love to I would love to do you think that I'm perfectly happy having a comic strip with a whole bunch of white people in it in 2020 absolutely not I am not happy with that it isn't because the strip is designed to sort of you know mirror civilization and it doesn't you know if you go to Silicon Valley or you can see a bunch of only white faces and then the technical staff no you are not you're not gonna see only a bunch of white faces you can see you see the whole world represented there so my strip is completely out of touch with the real world on diversity I would love to fix that can i no we don't live in a world in which I can introduce a character easily who would be an african-american regular character and have any bad flaws because to him to make a comic character interesting they have to have flaws it's the flaws that make it a comic you know Dilbert is is socially inept and he's you know he's a little too trusting he's gullible you know he's got his flaws Alice is angry and competitive and Wally's lazy and I shook I tried to give a shook the interim the least objectionable flaw I'm it's the the least smallest little flaw human can have inexperience because he's young that's it Oh shucks only flaw is he he's not yet very experienced because he's young and still I almost got canceled for that little flaw so imagine me introducing a a black character into the strip and I just think I'm gonna have a good time I'm adding a little diversity trying to give people what they want and the first time that black character exhibits any kind of a flaw doesn't matter what it is I'm canceled that's it so that's the world we live in you could have your diversity or you can have your outrage but you can't both I can't give you both that's all for today talk to you tomorrow

pom pom pom pom pom um

hey everybody come on in we got a good

one today it's gonna be it's gonna be

lit it's gonna be off the hook it's

gonna be amazing

today we're gonna have a special guest

which I'll introduce in a moment but

first things first right that's right

first things first and I think you know

what's coming up first we're a little

low on followers for some reason so let

me see if there is I think I've got a

bug here I'm gonna tweet going live live

now oh I'm gonna tweet that out because

I think the notification failed or

something

well happy weekend and I think I know

why you're here at least part of the

reason you're here yes I do it's because

you'd like to be here for the

simultaneous up I usually wait for a

thousand people but is everybody

watching the AAP or watching the

impeachment or something somebody says I

didn't get a notification yeah I think

there's something wrong with the

notifications and it might have

something to do with having a guest on

so I don't know exactly but we're gonna

find out anyway

first first if you'd like to participate

in simultaneous if all you need is a cup

of marker glass the tanker chalices die

and the canteen jug replies the vessel

of any kind fill it with your favorite

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and join me now for the unparalleled

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simultaneous it go

yeah yeah that's a good one

yep just as good as I thought now if

technology is working and I believe it

is I'm gonna activate my guests and give

you a little see you know my guests and

we're going to be talking to David

Scalzo founder and managing partner of

Kirin nego I hope I am pronouncing it

correctly if you're wondering why we're

gonna be talking to David Scalzo it's

because he's an investor in a company

called Clearview AI which is all over

the news

front page of New York Times controversy

everywhere

it's the app that allows law enforcement

at the moment law enforcement is using

it to take a picture of anybody could be

a dead body a John Doe a person on the

street that they've stopped and it will

tell you tell the police who it is it

will give the identification from us

photograph scary we'll find out

David can you hear me I can hear you

good morning how are you doing I'm doing

great good morning now I'm correct that

your investor in Clearview a yeah

absolutely yeah we're uh we're venture

capitalists the name of our firm is

Pierre Naga actually Japanese name

Japanese term but before we get started

I just want to say you know I'm an

engineer by training and when you're an

engineer by training you know there's

two people in the world you have a man

crush on one is Elon Musk and the other

Scott Adams so you know I I really

appreciate that I'm able to be here with

you today

well well thank you I did notice from

your biography that you've got two

degrees in engineering engineering and

then engineering management and then

you've got a an MBA from a top school in

the country so you're sort of an example

of what I talk about in terms of talents

tax you know you've you've combined

different skills together so that you've

just got a greater view of the world

which brings us to clear view ai you put

money into that your firm did

tell tell us well first describe what

the app is doing today so that we can

get a little bit of context here

absolutely so there is an explosion of

digital information out in the world

more and more people are being are

connecting to the internet and everyone

or a lot of people are posting

information it could be information on

academic journals it could be videos of

it could be people doing tick-tocks

it could be philosophy sports religion

charity everything people are putting on

and some of the most powerful tools for

humans to improve ourselves to be give

happier healthier life is using things

like search engines like Google for

instance to search for words and find

where those certain keywords come up on

the Internet so what Clear View does is

something very similar you take a

picture a photo of a person and then it

directs you to links essentially all

across the internet showing where that

person shows up in various contexts so

it is so in short it's a search engine

for faces so that you can put in

identification with the face absolutely

which is now let's talk about the the

social implications but but tell us

where it's being used how many people

are using it who is using it who has

access to it is it the public or is it

just police force yes right now it's a

start up then whenever you do is start

up you know start up 101 whether you're

at Harvard northwestern Stanford

Business School is you target a specific

industry vertical someone who is a super

user and where they're using right now

is law enforcement so there's over a

thousand independent law enforcement

agencies and so this is everything from

the federal government all the alphabet

agencies to state police departments to

County sheriff's who are elected

directly by voters to local municipal

police officers and there's independent

decisions to use Clearview now is there

it's not limited to the United States

right well right now it is but you know

the technology is definitely powerful

enough and broadly enough to to be used

elsewhere as well

all right so how to give us some use

cases tell us what crimes are solved why

do police like using this thing well if

you think about a detective any crime

show you watch what's the number one

thing they want to do they want to

generate leads who are possible suspects

and then they want to track them down

using their skills and they use credit

card data and cell phone data and all

sorts of other information fingerprints

so what Clearview does is it helps them

generate leads more quickly so if you

have a suspect in a human trafficking

Child Exploitation case and you only

have a photo of someone you can use

clear view clear view the photo and then

it will show where that person may be in

on the Internet with whether they have a

Twitter profile or a Facebook profile or

whether they're you know it's some sort

of basketball game and that generates

leads and ideas for the police officers

and detectives where it's exceptionally

powerful is when you're working with

gangs whether they are terrorist

networks whether they're drug cartels

whether they're mob games and where you

may have an inkling of one person in the

game but you may not know that the other

five six seven people and so if you take

a group photo then what you can do is

identify the other people or at least

give you some leads and then of course

our law enforcement will follow those

leads and determine whether they're you

know whether the person should be

implicated or not

all right leads our funds I haven't how

many cases have been solved tell us

about any happy endings that we know

about was so far well the New York Times

article specifies one where the Indiana

State Police have really talked about

where they busted a whole network of

unfortunately individuals who were

taking advantage of children and so

getting those people off the street is

very good there was another one and in

Florida that they talked about where a

person had a certain type of tattoo and

that tattoo was then being was able to

be matched based on that those are some

examples now what's what types of crimes

are the ones that are most likely to be

usefully

salt well it's clearly the most vile

crimes out there right it's you know

it's the Child Exploitation the human

trafficking the domestic violence the

the drug the the drug cartels terrorist

those are the ones more likely to be

solved but it's also you know for

shoplifting petty thieves assault subway

gropers is one where it's used a lot

where you have a grainy photo someone

that's you know pickpocketing on the

subway those are those are different

types of things where Clearview can be

use alright I'm watching the audience

the audience is going crazy in the

comments because they want me to push

you on the social risks so let's talk

about that so accepting that I would

imagine law enforcement would be

drooling over this product because it

allows them to identify somebody who may

not want to identify themselves or it

might be in a situation where you're not

necessarily in a conversation with them

but they've also can it be used to

identify unless is a dead body that

doesn't have identification it would do

that right oh it could it could be

helpful in that you know what I've

talked to paramedics and EMTs people and

a lot of times what you have is someone

who has had a heart attack or who's

fallen ill and there you know

unconscious and you who is this person

do we have any context and so to be used

with paramedics would be great well what

if somebody is I just saw a question a

really good question go by in the

comments what if somebody was an

undercut undercover cop and and the bad

guys got this app could they find their

undercover cops

potentially sure absolutely so so there

are like every new technology there's

going to be the good and the bad

now people are asking where did the data

come from

are you scraping only from public legal

sources do you have secret sources where

do you get your database of faces from

so we've you know let's start out what I

talked about there's an explosion of

digital information that people are

voluntarily putting up on the Internet

right and so there's millions of faces

up there and people have public person

on Facebook on LinkedIn on tick-tock on

Instagram in addition to all the other

places that informations put for

instance almost every single work employ

corporation out there has a

public-facing website that has the

pictures of for instance all the lawyers

in their firm or all the consultants in

their firm or their leadership so what

we do is we index all that public

information and then just connect the

dots essentially link it all together so

it is only public sources now there are

other things that are public sources and

that the government wants to get out

those informations are like the most

wanted list where they you know we we

link that together they have the Center

for Child Exploitation and trafficking

we link those stuff and we link those

together but it's all publicly available

information that is helpful to everyone

so I I noticed that so story that in New

Jersey is that the New Jersey police

department decided to not use it to ban

it is that do I have that information

right so there was a pronouncement by

one of the AG's of something to that

extent but let's let's take a broader

view

you know there's autonomous vehicles

that are taking photos there's gonna be

FedEx that drones flying over our heads

that are gonna be taking photos the best

thing we can do is get this technology

out to everyone because what it does is

it increases transparency and when you

increase transparency you increase trust

with people and when you have trust you

increase the opportunity for meaningful

relationships now here's what's going on

in in New Jersey and you know this is

obviously very early so I don't want to

sound too hyperbolic on how this happens

but let's say they ban this technology

and they only allow government to use

this what's gonna happen is you're gonna

have a two-class you know a Hunger Games

type society where the private where the

the politicians can live in security and

the rest of us wander among thieves and

exploiters and so what will happen in

New Jersey is more people will move to

places where it's safer like North

Carolina and Florida and we'll you know

that is the dystopian future when it's

actually banned if we are to be you

freely I creates a better society for

all of us alright let me let me let me

tell you my personal stake in this in

the sense that as a semi-famous person

my my reality is that when I go in

public people recognize me by face quite

often especially since I've been doing

the live streaming so pretty much

everywhere I go there's gonna be

somebody who recognizes me by face but

they also know because I'm a public

figure they know something they read

about me that could be bad

usually not true something you know

something about my background my

education my career so I've lived in

this world you know 20 years ahead of

the rest of you for a long time and so

you're probably wondering what would it

be like if every time I went out in

public well you know we're going to

assume that this technology creeps into

the public because it's inevitable

wouldn't you say it's inevitable that

the public will have this tool while

Peter Diamandis says there's going to be

a billion Internet connected sensors in

the next five years which means we're

going to know everything at anytime in

anywhere and so it is inevitable that

this digital information will be out

there yeah so let's just complete the

thought so if you're wondering those of

you watching this you're wondering about

yourself right you're thinking okay what

does this mean to me you know what would

happen to me how would it feel what's

life like if every time I went out

anybody who saw my face could know also

my biography and the answer is that's my

life that's exactly my life every time I

go outside people recognize me

I don't recognize that and they know my

whole biography and they and they can

treat me differently if they if they

choose to I'm sure some people

discriminate against me

because they think oh you said good

things about the president that one time

I you know I've got to be mean to him so

I've lived in that world and I got to

tell you it doesn't make much difference

so here's here's the weird thing about

it if I could snap my fingers and change

it and make all of my privacy come back

I don't know if I'd care

you know but believe it or not if you

had asked me would I choose this I

probably would said no I want my privacy

because everybody let's everybody's

first reaction right there's nobody who

wants to give up privacy if you ask them

but nobody asked me

I just lost my privacy because I let

life choices and it didn't make any

difference I can tell you I go through

life and it makes absolutely no

difference now if let's say I had a

criminal record would it make a

difference to me if people I interacted

with and knew I had a criminal record

but I saved my time I'm clean with

society what do you say about that world

where somebody who really has paid their

debt followed the rules but now it's

going to follow follow them around in a

way that it couldn't just before what

about that person what do you say to

that

yes so those so that the question is

whether information should be hidden

from people and then the second part is

whether it's relevant to decision making

or being left alone and so we're against

discrimination it's very simple so we

have laws in this country for instance

that have statues of limitations for

instance Oh

let me let me stop it right there nobody

cares about the laws in the real world

people are going to react the way they

react and they don't give a about

the law so you know people are either

gonna kick you out of the restaurant or

not or or b.a.p bad service and dirty

looks or or not hire you but they won't

say it's because of your criminal record

although what is the law in that is the

current law that if you have a criminal

record you have to disclose it or you

you can choose not to what is the law on

that well I'm not an expert in here and

and very much depends on context let's

say you're applying for a job if you're

applying for a job can the employer ask

that question I don't know what the

current laws on that well David Koch and

Charles Koch of Koch Industries very

famously have an initiative called ban

the box where they want to make it

illegal for employers to ask that

question because they want to encourage

people who have had felonies or prison

sentences and have

formed to be able to be on a level

playing field and get hired based on

their skills and and and you know

initiative rather than being

discriminated against because they have

to disclose something that maybe was

what if their crime was let's say a sex

crime

you know let's say they had raped

somebody don't you think that the other

I'm putting this on you like you have to

solve all of the world's moral and

ethical dilemmas but would the employees

of that company have a right to be to

know there's somebody who had a history

of let's say sexual assault which is

unique it's not like anything else

should they have a right to know that

hey Scott I'll just say these are very

complex issues that a lot of people need

to think about but I'll put it this way

you know based on your writing that

humans are biased right that we that we

take information and we filter it

through our own lens and decide how to

interact so the question is do we hide

what people concede we try to manipulate

their bias so they act a certain way or

do you give them all the information all

the data points so that they can have a

better sense of how they want to make a

decision and we're of the belief that

transparency is better for everyone then

trying to manipulate people by hiding

information so so let me let me do what

I always caution people to do which is

to show both sides because typically

these conversations want somebody's an

advocate for one thing or the other so

they're just going to say the costs are

just going to say the benefits so if I

can list the benefits it would be

massive improvement I mean really

substantial improvement in law

enforcement catching people who need to

get caught so that would be one benefit

another benefit would be more

information people would simply have

better more information deeper

information about other people that

could protect the people who get the

information it could be bad for the

person who's whose privacy has been

given up because they might want to hide

some things until later but certainly

good for the person who who is getting

the information that person has

benefited as somebody else's expense

but and and you make this point which is

fascinating and I'm trying to think

throughout human history can anybody

come up with an example where more

transparency was worse and I think the

the worst case scenario which you hinted

at is that when somebody has full

privacy and somebody does not that

that's your very worst situation

especially if the people have the

privacy or the government and the people

who do not are the citizens that's

horrible but it's also just as bad if

your neighbor knows everything about you

but you don't know anything about your

neighbor so this is the sort of tool

that sort of just opens Pandora's box

and allows all of us to know way too

much about each other and I've long

predicted I'm in writing

I have predicted this a number of times

that partial privacy is the worst

situation where somebody has it that

somebody doesn't the best situation

which we may never get to people will

resist because it's just natural to

resist it is where we all know enough

about each other

that we no longer give a about each

other's flaws and I know that's hard

it's a hard concept to hold Amen but if

you actually know a lot about another

person and you know all their flaws and

they know a lot about you and they also

know your flaws and they still say it's

got you want to go to lunch I am so cool

with that person I'm as cool with that

person as you could possibly be because

I know you you know me if you're cool

with me and I'm cool with you I'm gonna

understand you're a human being you know

we've all messed up this is why in part

why I have the twenty year rule and the

48 hour rule about forgiving people's

past behaviors I'm a real big proponent

of judging people by who they are right

now not judging people by that thing

they did that's this follows them around

forever and I feel like we all have to

get to that place and this may force us

there because if you think about it you

wouldn't like anybody if you knew all of

their mistakes

you wouldn't like anybody

you know it would be the end of

friendships the end of hiring the end of

marriage everything but if you all know

that the other is just as flawed as you

are different flaws but it just exposes

your humanity you say huh

I think I'm okay with that and by the

way just tying everything back to

President Trump because we do that I

think the fact that all of his let's say

his personal life peculiarities some

would say their flaws are so known that

we were kind of comfortable with them

there's some things about knowing

people's flaws that allows you to get

past them it's the not knowing that can

be kind of scary so given all that what

is the biggest pushback what do you

think is the what do you think society

is going to gel around to say we don't

because you know there's gonna be pushed

back what do you think they're gonna

focus on is the thing that's the big

expense of this well I think the biggest

complication is when people say the word

privacy it's really split into two

things anonymity and autonomy or can you

be hidden and can you be free and those

can be separated being hidden maybe

everyone knows everything about you but

the most important thing is is just

leave me alone

and those are the that's the

complication and that's where we work as

a society I'm figuring out what the

rules are about being hidden which i

think is is being eliminated by

technology and being left alone which I

think as a government as a society we

come together and figure out what the

rules of engagement are you know we're

always afraid of the unknown

and one of the things I like to point

out is if you could if you could rewind

to 20 years ago and I said to any one of

you how would you feel if you lost all

of your privacy about where you go and

what you buy you know all of your

transactions and all of your physical

location what if what if that was all

knowable or known how would you feel and

most people would say my god I could not

live in that world but we live in that

world we live in a world where all of

our transactions many of us have our DNA

already on some database I do I've got

my DNA's in several databases I would

think

and it doesn't really make much

difference I still wake up drink my

coffee you have my periscope and unless

I'm committing a crime and somebody's

looking for me it makes no difference so

I think we're approaching a time when

crime might just go away because we

would give up so much privacy not to

every single person but at least to the

government and law enforcement should

they want to check and I'm looking for

the costs you know I keep looking for

the tragic societal cost of either me

who has no privacy when I go outside

people know who I am and the government

knows everything i buy and everything

they can probably tell everything I

browse all that and it doesn't seem to

make any difference in my life

now I don't know how unique that is I

guess it's but if I were involved in

criminal activity it might make a pretty

big difference but I'm not so I think

for most of you you would be more afraid

than you need to be it's just natural to

be afraid of the unknown and it's

natural to be afraid of giving up any

kind of privacy but what would you say

is this the most valid argument by the

people who say hey there's some costs

coming at us some societal costs what is

their best argument on the other side I

like to ask this to see how see how

unbiased your yeah I think the best

argument is always about historical data

you know what happens if someone accused

me of something I didn't do or was found

innocent what happens if it's a long

time in the past is that information

readily available should it be available

what friction is there and then who

controls the past right who decides

whether data can be erased or not shown

and who chose you know who decides what

can be shown and that is a very

difficult question to answer and a and

there's there's a cost to to doing it

both ways there's a cost to letting

people see everything that happened in

the past and there's a cost to allowing

some group to manipulate the past about

what can be shown so there it's not an

easy answer for that one

so so I'm seeing some good questions

going by here in the comments people are

saying what if you're not

multi-millionaire

I assume that's I assume that's directed

at me you know and pointing out that I

don't have as much to lose so I would

imagine if you were trying to you know

get a foothold in life gear get a job

after some bad situation in these past

that would be pretty devastating but

well how do you see that evolving do you

think there's some people who would just

be just totally left by the side of the

road by this kind of technology it's

just know nobody will nobody will

interact with them because of something

they did in the past so I have three

teenagers and they upload hundreds of

photos every week and they're

interacting with hundreds of friends and

Instagram and tik-tok and snap and it's

interesting that they realize most of

the stuff is transitory and even dumb

and they do allow their friends to

evolve and change positions and they're

still friends with them kind of like

what you said is that they can be

authentic and vulnerable and out there

without having long-term biases against

these friends and the other thing that

people need to understand is most people

don't give a crap about you or all your

flaws they really don't I mean I think

we all like to have this huge ego that I

am so important and that anyone knows

that I did something wrong ten years ago

they're gonna care most people don't

care and if someone does beer find a

different friends it's like oh yeah let

me give you a to two other filters to

look through certainly that's that's one

of the most important things that people

don't care about you so much but let's

say everybody knew that you were a furry

you know you I'm just making this up

let's say they do that you like to dress

up in animal costumes sure now now your

neighbors would immediately say oh I

don't know if I can let the kids come

over there anymore because you like to

dress up in animal costumes but here's

the thing people never never think about

all the other people who dress up in

animal costumes would also be able to

identify you and next thing you know

your life is ten times better because

you don't care too much about your

neighbor who doesn't like your habit

you just met a hundred friends that

you're hanging out with and they're and

they all have the same interests so the

first thing is if you're the only person

they know has some weird you know or

let's say unusual I'm not even going to

call it weird let's say non-standard

practice you can find all the other

people like you and suddenly life's

actually better not worse the second

thing is I'm gonna give you this

real-life example my late steps on when

he was a I think he was 18 or so I got

him one of the greatest jobs you could

ever have which is a job at a DJ company

he was gonna be an apprentice to be a DJ

kind of a cool life etc he lasted one

week on the job because somebody sent

his boss a picture of somebody else who

had taken a photo and put it on snapchat

in which use in a room with some

marijuana paraphernalia and the boss

quite reasonably I don't disagree with

the boss at all said I don't want any

employees who have this kind of a

picture on social media and he fired him

there was a great job lesson one weekend

got fired now imagine if he also knew

what was happening with his other

employees what he would have found is he

would have had to fire his whole damn

staff only one of them got caught every

one of them did something that would be

you know roughly equivalent to this

level of you know bad behavior if you

can call it that

and I would say that probably my stepson

would have kept his job if your

technology was ubiquitous I would agree

with you I mean what did what did the

boss do when he was in college and high

school you know what if there is any way

because remember the boss did not fire

him for his behavior he fired him for

being caught in his behavior he was very

specific he it wasn't a moral it wasn't

anything moral ethical or anything he

just said that's that's not the

reputation I want associated with my

company because we deal with the public

he would have soon found out that was

pretty standard with all of his

employees I think all right so give us

give us some wrap up here I've got a few

more topics I want to share with my

peeps so look I know

I know on your show you talk a lot about

America and great and and the reason why

America is the greatest and the most

prosperous is because of our Bill of

Rights and the First Amendment right

says we do not have to be hidden to be

free we do not have to be hidden to say

what we want to share ideas to share

information and to be with people and so

if we just embrace that and understand

that that's why we're the greatest we

don't need anonymity we can be free

because of those Bill of Rights and

Clearview helps us you know make a

happier healthier safer place I would

even go so far as that it might help

even race relations because you're going

to start seeing people for what they do

instead of your first impression but

that's that's maybe a little little too

optimistic so thank you David Skell so

tell us again the name of your

investment firm here nagas partners

spelled ki r e and e ga ga sorry

no prior and where can they find you on

twitter uh Scalzo underscore David all

right thank you so much for joining us

and we're gonna talk about some other

topics and I'll talk to you later all

right that was fun

this this topic fascinates the heck

enemy because it's going to change

everything

but let's talk about some other stuff

let's talk about impeachment and Adam

Schiff and all that stuff

Scott Jennings wrote an interesting

piece for CNN in which he notes that

Adam Schiff is essentially doing Putin's

work because if what if what we were

worried about is that Russia was trying

to undermined trust in our system and

that's what we're worried about right

we're worried about those pesky Russians

interfering with our elections and

undermining our faith in her own system

and as Scott Jennings points out is

there anybody who's eroding faith in our

system faster than Adam Schiff I mean

that's all he's doing so we can't really

care about

eroding faith in our system if we're all

engaged in doing exactly that I mean

even just watching it you're part of

that and as Joel Pollock pointed out the

Democrats are literally obstructing

their own their own election because the

Democrats by forcing this impeachment

vote have taken several of the people

running for president as Democrats off

the field and they they basically are

seeding Iowa to the people who were not

already employed you know Joe Biden and

and booney judge so it turns out that

being unemployed just turns into a big

advantage for running for president if

you're a Democrat so I don't think we

can claim that there's any kind of moral

superiority going on with any of this

impeachment stuff because everybody

involved is doing nothing but chasing

their own political gain you know in

lawsuits how if you sue somebody and I

don't know if this works in every case

but if you sue somebody and it turns out

that you're wrong and the other the

other party wins they can often if not

always I don't know how this works

but they can often recoup their legal

fees so in other words there should be a

cost to impeaching and failing you you

feel me if you impeach and win then the

the side that starts the impeachment

wins politically and every other way I

guess and but what if they try to

impeach and fail what if they fail

should there be any blowback any any any

cost to that and I think maybe there

should be because Tucker Carlson always

says this and I swear I probably heard

Tucker Carlson say this for a solid year

this is one of those things he says

regularly and every time I shook my head

and I said to myself Tucker Tucker

that's crazy you know I agree with a lot

of stuff you say but that's crazy and

here's what he says he says that every

time the Democrats accuse the

Republicans of doing something it's

because they themselves are doing it

and I thought to myself there's no

logical reason that's true and I haven't

really noticed it and it's sort of a

crazy thing to say and then I started

paying attention and I don't know what

causes it I don't know if there's a

cause and effect I don't know if it's a

perceptual thing but see am it's

consistent we're watching it again it is

just time after time after time it is

exactly that the Democrats are

complaining that Trump has put our

system at risk by degrading its your

trust and integrity but it's what

they're doing they're spending 12 hours

a day eroding our trust in our system

they've actually just destroyed part of

the Constitution while we were watching

you know that part of the Constitution

the said impeachment was a real solemn

thing they just took a real solemn tool

probably the most one of the most

important maybe the most important it

could be the most important part of the

Constitution that there's a way to

remove the top person and they've

they've degraded it they've turned it

into a joke you can't make a cleaner

argument that they're doing actively at

this moment the thing they're accusing

somebody of doing you've never seen a

cleaner example that I wish I could tell

why yeah when Tucker says it makes me

think that it's actually a strategy he

doesn't say that but it but it feels

like a strategy even if it isn't just

the way it plays out all right and so I

ask you this yeah if shifts claim is

that the only reason that Trump did what

he did with Ukraine asking them for the

investigation the claim is that the only

reason it was done was for his personal

political benefit the only reason now

that borders aren't crazy

because there's obviously something to

be worried about if your next president

might have some blackmail material or

some corruption entanglement anything

that's a problem over in Ukraine so

obviously there's a little bit of

interest or should be but what is the

standard for how much a decision by a

government official how much of it is

politically motivated

in other words personally beneficial

versus good for the country

what if it's ninety ten what if it's 90

percent for their own good and ten

percent for the public can they be

impeached

what if it's ninety nine and one what if

one percent of it is for the public yeah

it's good for the public to and in some

trivial way but 99 percent of it is just

for me personally is that the standard

50/50 what if it's 49 49 51 the point is

there is no rational logical way to make

a standard for how much you know what

percentage of the reason is personal

versus what percentage of the reason is

good for the public and certainly with

this Biden and Prisma situation it is

trivially easy to show that there's some

national interest I mean you could argue

how big that national interest is but I

don't think you can argue it exists it

clearly exists let let me prove it to

you

let me prove that there's some national

interest in the Bur yzma Biden thing

here this is an absolute proof right I'm

a citizen of the United States I have an

interest and knowing what happened with

Marissa and Biden I'm not lying

absolutely honestly I'm interested in

knowing that because I think it could be

important if I had to guess probably not

that much but I'm interested I would

like to eliminate that as a risk now can

it be said that there's a national

interest yes I just proved it I proved

that one and

300 and whatever 60 million Americans is

legitimately interested in that question

would it matter if there are two of me

does it make a difference if there's

there are a million people like me at

what point can you say you've satisfied

the question of national interests

because I'm part of the nation I just

said I had an interest so there's some

percentage this certainly has an

interest so my point is you could not

create a standard where you're trying to

parse out what percentage is national

interest and what percentage is personal

and that's the entire case their entire

case is that that's a standard which

they can recognize and act on and it

can't be done it is rationally logically

impossible to parse those out now did

our founders know that to be the case

yes they did they designed a system in

which that those those decisions of what

percentage was personal and what

percentage was for the nation they

designed a system where that doesn't

matter does not matter because you can

vote and you can you can change it to

lawyers she said mind-reading is there

somebody but I would love this to be

true so I'm just so in the comments and

I assume that that means that the

impeachment defense has started have are

you talking about

officially as part of the defense did

they blame Schiff of and their side of

mind-reading is that what happened I'll

have to check on that but it looks like

somebody's saying that

I will look for confirmation there

anyway so let's see it's a standard that

can't be enforced which is what

percentage was for your own good let me

ask you this there are two things that

people say just like it's certainly true

and it could be but I'm gonna push back

on both on one is that Russia wants to

undermine the trust in our system so

that's one claim another claim is that

China has this strategy of something

called total war in which it's not just

military but they're in a current war

with the United States it goes goes this

line of thinking in which they are

trying every possible Avenue to damage

the United States and lessen us for

their own benefit and that total war

would include everything from spying and

stealing intellectual property sending

us fentanyl you know you name it it's

like everything you know messing with

our elections just everything it's all

on the table so so the the the two

claims are that Russia and China are two

biggest rivals in terms of military

prowess that they're engaged in a

current war with us and I say I'm not

convinced I'm not convinced now I do

believe that all the things we talked

about are you know they're probably

relatively true Russia probably hacks US

China does all the things that it's been

said but do they have do they have a

some kind of a comprehensive plan or

strategy that starts at the top it only

counts if it's the leaders of the

country who want to do this yet are the

leaders of the country saying to

themselves uh-huh if I can degrade to

trust in the United States by 20%

Russia's GDP will go up what how do they

connect the dots can somebody explain to

me what a ration

Putin or irrational President Qi what

would they actually be thinking in which

this would be smart because I can't

think of it now if they were really dumb

people then you could explain it you'd

say oh they're so dumb they think

they're gonna put the United States out

of business with their clever tricks and

then once we're out of business they'll

have all our they'll take over and

they'll have all our resources and then

they'll be richer or something do you

think they're thinking that I mean does

it doesn't pass any kind of a sniff test

we are clearly in a world of abundance

meaning that we don't really have

shortages of stuff we just have systems

that are not optimized to get that stuff

to the right people in some cases but we

don't really have a shortage of anything

and so when you move from the world in

which you have shortages of stuff and

maybe you need a war because if you

don't have food you don't have resources

maybe you need a war but if everybody

can get everything they want which is

our current world if they if they play

their systems right and they work their

economy right what reason do we have to

be anything like an enemy to China or

anything like an enemy to Russia and

vice versa there simply is no reason

there isn't and it seems to me that

somebody like a president Trump could

change the frame on this and let me

suggest a frame I believe that the

United States Russia and China have a

common enemy maybe more than one and the

common enemy is anything that disrupts

the system in other words anything that

could put any one of the three of us on

a business is something that all three

of us probably ought to fight against

for example how about a major pandemic

wouldn't we be on the same side I think

so

don't you think Russia and the United

States are gonna fight as hard as we can

to help China stop this latest

coronavirus thing I think we will we got

a common enemy

there there's no such thing as one side

wins in this thing

what about climate change now some of

you say it's a hoax bla bla but you can

at least agree that you want cleaner

environment and cheaper energy so don't

we have a common interest there to make

sure the planet doesn't get destroyed

don't we have a common interest in

making sure that a terrorist state

doesn't attack any one of us don't we

have a common interest in it what if

aliens attack we definitely have a

common interest there so my point is

that we should reframe what Russia China

and us care about and we should be on

the same team instead of spending all

our money and wasting it being enemies

of each other why don't we find some

common enemies you know something we can

fight on the same team for because

there's just no strategic advantage to

being enemies and picking in each other

like this if it's happening some of it

may be fake news I would also like to

know what is it the United States is

doing through Russia and doing China

that we the public don't know about are

we poking them just as hard as they're

poking us and what's our reason has

anybody ever told us our reason is it

revenge is it to make sure they don't

poke us so hard you will poke you if you

focus so that's how we keep you a check

what's the reason

maybe there's a good one I'm not even

saying there's no reason I just I feel

like I should know it as a citizen of

this country can somebody explain to me

why the the countries that absolutely

should be on our team fighting with us

as hard as they can against common

challenges why are we at each other just

doesn't make any sense I think maybe

that'll change maybe maybe we'll rethink

that let's talk about chef a little more

he's talking about future crimes of the

imagination so chef wants to get rid of

President Trump according to his

eloquent speeches that he's been giving

to the Senate he wants to get rid of

President Trump not so much because of

what he's done because what he's done

has no

measurable impact so everything he's

done so far or is alleged to do

everything that ship and team alleges

President Trump is done if you added it

all together you couldn't you couldn't

fill a tablespoon

there's no measurable negative and

anything the president has already done

and so the Democrats knowing that and

there's no measure build a magenta make

the case there's the future somebody

says you were kidding no I'm not kidding

do you see any measurable harm that has

come from the president's actions

nobody's even allegedly nobody has made

the case nobody who said we lost this

money we lost this deal we we got

attacked none there's there's zero

alleged cost and so they have to make

the case that this president is just

gonna get worse we're going to encourage

him we're going to be encouraging this

president to future unspecified bad

behavior

what could be less Americans is there

anything less American than published

them trying to remove somebody from a

job for the future potential problems I

don't think the country is gonna buy

that but maybe they will so this is how

chef argues it he said quote can you

have the least bit of confidence talk

about Trump they he'll stand up and

protect our national interest over his

own you know you can't

which makes him dangerous to this

country really you don't trust that the

president who will be watched more than

anybody has ever been watched including

when he made the phone call he had all

kinds of witnesses and he released the

transcript it's the most transparent

presidency you've ever had in your life

he has already lost all of his all of

his privacy essentially

so am i are any of you worried about the

president doing something so purely

personal that it would damage the

country because I don't think he has any

incentive for that what incentive does

the president have to do a bad job as

president I mean let me frame it that

way to show you how a ridiculous it is

so Schiff is arguing that in the future

the president would be in a position in

which he would choose he would

rationally choose according to chef what

is good for Trump personally and is bad

for the country can you see any any

imaginary world in which President Trump

could even imagine the situation we're

doing the worst job you could do as a

president would benefit him personally

because because he would allegedly be

doing this selfish thing how do you even

what kind of world is that the president

is watched all the time if he did

something that was purely for him and

had no benefit whatsoever not even one

that you could argue that would be

terrible for his legacy why would he do

that

it doesn't make any sense all right the

funniest thing about it was when Schiff

was getting choked up with emotion did

and all of the shift shift lovers on CNN

and other networks were saying that his

his presentation was emotional and

passionate and they were saying that

that was a positive because he was so

passionate and emotional and I looked at

it and all I saw was a bad actor trying

to act like he was emotionally

distraught did any of that look genuine

to me yeah he almost cried to me that

didn't even look slightly believable

now I hope he's better at writing

screenplays that he isn't acting but

seriously did anybody is there anybody

in this country it was so stupid

that they would watch those days of

presentations and at the end see that

little fake emotional thing and imagine

that that was real could anybody imagine

that was real oh my god I don't think so

I would like to defend myself from the

future problems I'm going to have I have

a I have a crime in progress right now

crime against humanity let's see if I

can show it to you it's better as a

visual so in order to understand this

what you have to know is that I after

the Dilbert comics are drawn they are

sent off to my syndication company who

has I think it's a third party party

that they hire and the third party as

the color so you can see that the strip

well you can't see it but let me see if

I can lower the temperature on this so

you can see it take it way down so all

the characters are filled in with color

as you can sort of see here so I

actually don't see the the colored

version until it runs so the first time

I see it

colorized is when it runs in on the

internet and in papers and I was

tweeting the sound today and I noticed

that whoever adds the color had decided

that the character who's talking to

Dilbert should you know display some

diversity because most of the characters

are generic white people except for a

shook the in turn and they decided to

add a little diversity now I think to

myself good choice you know especially

when I have you know one of the non

regular characters let's let's have that

character as you know somebody who's not

a generic white guy show a little flavor

in the strip that's good idea right X

the person they decided to add the

darker-skinned color to is the character

that I had decided to depict as an idiot

that's right so my decision was that the

second character would be the idiot and

Dilbert would call him out for being an

idiot or reading the comic so the

character comes up behind Dilbert and

says this data can only can mean only

one thing

and then Dilbert says actually it could

mean any one of about 17 things and then

the other character says and why can I

only think of one and Dilber says please

don't make me answer that now of course

you may find some correlation with

current events in this but I promise you

I was not the one who decided that the

dumb guy would have the darker skin can

we put that on the record

not me all right so I have accidentally

been turned into a racist by somebody I

don't know who decided to colorize that

comic so there you go the simultaneous

simultaneous it did happen but I'm sorry

there's some of you missed it

why are why are we using leftist framing

yeah well I'm just telling you what the

public is gonna say alright it's alright

no big deal

well those of you say it's no big deal

don't know the history that cartoonist

experienced when I introduced shook the

in term so if you follow the Dilber

strip you know that the intern is named

Ashok yes okay which is the less common

spelling it's usually a sa SH okay but I

knew somebody I worked with who spelled

it differently a s okay so I named my

character after that and now shook was

born in India but he's an American

citizen in the East strip and as soon as

I introduced that character what do you

think happened that's right the

african-american community attacked the

newspapers and said why is this why is

this African American character so

stupid when all of the other characters

you know are smarter now first of all it

wasn't and isn't an African American

character so the the basis of the

complaint was wrong it was a somebody

born in India who's an American citizen

now secondly it's not the dumb character

in the strip I make a comic strip in

which all of the characters are acting

dumb on different days sometimes they're

all acting dumb it's only a comic about

dumb people it's that's all it is

everybody in the comic except Dawg were

I guess it was not even a human is dumb

it's a whole comic about dumb people now

what do I do I introduce one character

who's got brown or skin who's an Indian

American

and the african-american community tries

to get me canceled or not even talking

about them in any way whatsoever now

many people have asked and actually a

lot of a lot of black fans of the strip

say can you add can you add an

african-american character I would love

to I would love to do you think that I'm

perfectly happy having a comic strip

with a whole bunch of white people in it

in 2020 absolutely not

I am not happy with that it isn't

because the strip is designed to sort of

you know mirror civilization and it

doesn't you know if you go to Silicon

Valley or you can see a bunch of only

white faces and then the technical staff

no you are not you're not gonna see only

a bunch of white faces you can see you

see the whole world represented there so

my strip is completely out of touch with

the real world on diversity I would love

to fix that can i no we don't live in a

world in which I can introduce a

character easily who would be an

african-american regular character and

have any bad flaws because to him to

make a comic character interesting they

have to have flaws it's the flaws that

make it a comic you know Dilbert is is

socially inept and he's you know he's a

little too trusting he's gullible you

know he's got his flaws Alice is angry

and competitive and Wally's lazy and I

shook I tried to give a shook the

interim the least objectionable flaw I'm

it's the the least smallest little flaw

human can have inexperience because he's

young that's it Oh shucks only flaw is

he he's not yet very experienced because

he's young and still I almost got

canceled for that little flaw so imagine

me introducing a a black character into

the strip and I just think I'm gonna

have a good time I'm adding a little

diversity trying to give people what

they want and the first time that black

character exhibits any kind of a flaw

doesn't

matter what it is I'm canceled that's it

so that's the world we live in you could

have your diversity or you can have your

outrage but you can't both I can't give

you both that's all for today talk to

you tomorrow