Podbit · This Week in Tech (Audio)
The Trump administration blocked Anthropic's Fable model without congressional consultation or scientific review, labeling an American company a 'supply chain risk.' France and China immediately released competing models, and developers learned they can't count on American AI platforms.
Where this was said
At 27:50 · chapter starts 22:20
As the conversation turns to public sentiment around AI, Dan Patterson pulls from fresh Blackbird AI research to offer a nuanced picture. The backlash against AI and data centers is real and organic — people have legitimate concerns about jobs, privacy, energy consumption, and the rapid pace of change — but it is also being systematically amplified. Russian and Chinese inauthentic accounts push these narratives into new communities faster and make them seem louder than they actually are. Leo Laporte shares polling data that crystallises the scale of public scepticism: 71% of people say they don't want a data center near them, and only 18% trust AI search results. Daniel Rubino identifies a deeper structural problem: unlike previous technology waves that grew organically from enthusiast communities, AI is being imposed from the top down by companies requiring enormous capital. Ordinary consumers haven't seen meaningful personal benefits, only threats to their livelihoods and a flood of AI-generated slop on social media. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy adds that her daughter's generation is viscerally opposed to AI, particularly around creative jobs and what she sees as the unchecked release of technology whose creators don't fully understand its capabilities.
Public backlash against AI and data centers is genuinely organic — but it hits communities faster and seems louder than it really is because Russian and Chinese inauthentic accounts amplify it. The fear is real; the scale is manufactured.
Polls show 71% of people say they do not want a data center built near them, reflecting broad public anxiety about AI infrastructure.
Only 18% of people say they trust the AI-generated search results they receive, indicating deep public skepticism about AI reliability.
Fei-Fei Li went back to Stanford from Google in 2018 specifically to build a multi-stakeholder governance framework for AI. Her argument: market forces are not societal norms. Just as biology uses IRBs and cars have safety laws, AI needs layered oversight from educators, governments, and the public — not just a few industry titans.
Andrew Santino's personal MCU of political villains is collapsing. He and Bobby speculated that a circulating photo of Mitch McConnell with a Chinese official was AI-generated compositing two separate images.
Mass surveillance is here to stay. The real battle isn't stopping cameras — it's ensuring judges and laws keep that data out of family court and civil disputes, admitting it only for violent crimes and national security. The surveillance economy currently yields more upside than downside, but only if we build the legal guardrails now.
When people cite Scandinavia as proof socialism works, Galloway says they've got it backwards. Northern Europe runs highly competitive free-market economies with more competition in many sectors than the US — they just make sure taxes are actually paid and redistributed. Billionaires and universal healthcare can coexist.
Two percent adjustments to income tax and stamp duty tweaks are deck-chair rearrangements. The UK's competitiveness hinges on four structural levers: currency valuation, energy costs, regulatory burden, and tax rates. Devalue the pound, build 56 nuclear plants, slash red tape, introduce a flat tax — and the country transforms.
Lisbon had one of Europe's worst heroin crises. Then Portugal legalised drugs and redirected all enforcement money into rehabilitation and housing. Crime collapsed. Addiction fell. Then politics moved the money elsewhere, and the problem started creeping back. Chesterton's Fence: you forget why you were spending that money.
Congress passed the Boland Amendment 411 to 0, explicitly banning CIA and Defense Department funds for the Contras. Reagan signed it — then immediately moved the operation deeper underground, essentially responding to a bipartisan prohibition by going more illegal.
The CIA planted mines in Nicaraguan commercial harbors, wrote the Contras' press releases taking credit, and promptly blew up ships from four allied nations. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, Congress erupted, and the Boland Amendments multiplied.
Oliver North was a decorated Marine and devout Catholic with zero covert operations experience. He ran the entire shadow war against Congress — planes, airstrips, arms shipments, shell companies — learning on the job. And by every operational measure, he crushed it.
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