Podbit · This Week in Tech (Audio)
Trump said on Air Force One that government ownership of AI companies could be 'a beautiful thing' that makes Americans rich. Sam Altman had already floated the idea. But the panel notes the U.S. government already took a 10% stake in Intel via the CHIPS Act — so the precedent exists, even if the implications are alarming.
Where this was said
At 2:01:55 · chapter starts 1:56:45
Leo presents Wired's finding: Meta has quietly embedded face-recognition code called 'Name Tag' in its AI app across millions of phones, designed to identify people in the real world via smart glasses. The feature hasn't been enabled, but the infrastructure is in place. Fr. Robert Ballecer reveals his own countermeasure: for seven years he has systematically tagged photos of random strangers with his name across Facebook and Google, so any face-recognition search for 'Robert Ballecer' returns approximately 150 different people [1] — Leo Laporte "Wired discovered face-recognition code called 'Name Tag' silently embedded across millions of phones in Meta's smart glasses AI app, pullin…" 1:56:41 . The conversation pivots to Trump's executive order requiring voluntary 30-day pre-release AI review, which the panel treats as regulatory theater. Fr. Robert connects it to the bigger story: Trump is also considering taking government equity stakes in AI companies, calling it 'a beautiful thing' that would make Americans rich. Joey de Villa notes this is just socialism with extra steps. The panel also flags that the U.S. already took a 10% stake in Intel via the CHIPS Act, so precedent exists.
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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