AI Is Here To Stay Part Two

We talk honestly about why AI feels so huge right now, from the money pouring into it to the way it is spreading faster than any tech before it. We also get specific about what scares us, what is overhyped, and what we can actually do to stay grounded as deepfakes, job shifts, and data center buildouts accelerate. 
• AI as a national security race and a global story 
• why adoption is so fast when tools feel “free” 
• transparency limits and what ordinary people can realistically know 
• job disruption vs adaptation and the case for trades 
• agentic AI as collaboration instead of replacement 
• deepfakes, voice cloning, and the new burden of verification 
• how AI-generated junk content floods platforms and distorts trust 
• data centers, land use, water, electricity, and local moratoriums 
• practical ways we use AI as an assistant for production tasks 
• why human-made art may become more valuable 
• AI in politics, viral “fake but effective” ads, and persuasion 
• pushing AI toward medicine, research, and real problem-solving 

If you are not a subscriber to the podcast, go back and download the podcast on your favorite podcasting platform. Search US Phenomenon with Mario Magania. 

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

VO 0:00

Welcome to U.S. Phenomenon, where possibilities are endless. Put down those same old headlines. It's time to expand your mind and question what if. From paranormal activity to UFOs, Bigfoot sightings, and unsolved mysteries. This is U.S. Phenomenon.

Mario 0:19

From the Pacific Northwest in the shadow of the 1962 World's Fair, the Space Needle. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are on God's Green Earth, this is U.S. Phenomenon. I am your host, Mario Magania, where the unexplained meets the unknown. Tonight, we continue our adventures with the part two of this series, where we're taking a look at the mysteries of all different kinds and the machine we've built and whether we still understand them. Our guest tonight is no stranger to this show. He hosts his own podcast at Michael Parker Media, LA based, covering the counterculture, the conspiracies, the history, the psychedelics, the mind control. It's all over the place. It is my pleasure to welcome back to U.S. Phenomenon, Michael Parker, man. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

I'm good, Mario. Thank you for having me on and happy, belated July 4th, 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Woop whoop.

Mario 1:22

You know? Yeah. Woop whoop. Yeah. Hey, um, condolences out to uh Senator Graham, man. I can't believe that he um, you know, if if you're listening to this, we we we we definitely had to get the recording in. Uh breaking news um earlier in the week uh of him passing away unexpectedly. Um the reports are going around right now that um it may have been a um cardiac arrest. We're still waiting for more details on that. Um by the time that this podcast comes out and the radio broadcast is aired, we probably will have more details on that as well. So condolences to his family.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yes, sir.

Mario 2:05

So um let me ask you something here. Um, while I'm uh looking through my notes, man, how how you been?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I have been good. It is a busy summer here in Los Angeles, and as I mentioned to you just a moment ago, we're well, I don't even want to bring it up, man. We're kind of worried about earthquake weather here these days. And my wife and I have been listening to some reports for the last couple of weeks and knock on wood, everything goes well, nothing happens. Um, but but besides that, um, just busy and uh doing our thing. I was back in Texas last week for the Fourth of July weekend and seeing family, and now I'm back here in LA.

Mario 2:45

So

Why AI Is A Big Deal

Mario 2:46

as we continue this two-part series about you know AI, we had an opportunity to have um, I was trying to get you both to come on at the same time to kind of do that the yin and yang effect of um you know what AI is. And uh we had um Mark Jacobson on last week to discuss what his thoughts and what uh William Milton Cooper may have thought of AI. And clearly, if you have missed that uh broadcast, you can go back to my website at onairmario.com and you can click on the podcast link to listen to that as we continue moving forward with the part part two of this AI series. Um, you know, I gotta ask you, Mark, I know that you've covered a lot of, you know, counterculture, pop culture, you know, a spectrum of different topics. Where do you think AI is sitting on the spectrum right now?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

It is something that is profound in its nature, and it can't be under underestimated for the effect that it's going to have on humanity. I am part of an investment group, and we talk about AI and all of the companies that are part of the build-out quite often. And I've done research on AI. And for example, if you compare the capital expenses on AI versus things in the past, let's say the railroad in the earliest part, earlier part of the American history, and then you price that out to what that would be today, or the advent of other technologies, and then the rate at which it's being accepted and used, there's no comparison. I mean, the amount of money that's being spent to build out AI is gigantic. And our closest competitor is China, and we far exceed what they are spending on it. So I think right now, look, it's very easy to think, oh my God, Skynet's coming and it's going to take over and all this. Now, that being said, there are, you know, legitimate questions to be posed about AI. However, on the other hand, there's a lot of people thinking about AI. And today I was looking at the Stanford University HAI Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Index Report. And also there's another group called the International AI Safety Group. They both put out reports on an annual basis. And so all of the fears that you and I have, and the fear of the things that we don't even know to be scared of, they're contemplating all of that. And um it's funny because if you ask the experts, right, if you ask the experts, they are more optimistic than the general public is about the safety and efficacy of AI. Um, but already AI is being used by so many people so much faster than any previous technology. And I think the reason for that is A, it's largely free. Okay, so yeah, it is. You look at how people adapted and started buying PCs. Well, that required money. So that's your first um kind of uh introductory to it, right? Yeah, you well, inter expense, right? And then the internet was kind of the same way. If you wanted to use the internet as it was being rolled out, you had to have a platform, and that required spending money. Now, on AI, if you're using general AI, whether it's Chat GPT or Grok or something like that, it's largely free. Um, there are paid plans, but so people are adjusting to this and using it with a rate that we haven't seen before. So, I mean, it's part of the human mental and spiritual evolution. And it's here to stay, it's only going to get bigger, but there are people that are trying to figure out how do we create some guardrails, not only for the AI itself, but my larger concern is almost the human element because you could use AI to do nefarious things if you want to.

Mario 7:03

And my second question, uh well, my other question to you as we continue going through this is like, is AI still staying, you know, above the world story, like corporate, institutional, or do you think this thing's gonna go underground, where it's gonna be like almost like um you know, do you see it staying mainstream, or do you feel like that that we're at a like a tipping point where this could go this could go underworld?

SPEAKER_02 7:30

I mean, maybe, but the deal is I think that if you look at the investment class and you look at the governments of the world, right, especially the US and China, who are the two leaders, and we are on par. We lead slightly, and then it it kind of goes back and forth uh month by month. This is uh a national security issue. That's how both countries view it. And on the American side, you have a great deal of corporate spending and investment into this. On the Chinese side, the private industry expense is far less, but we don't know how much their government is spending on it. Regardless, in both cases, this is a huge issue that both countries and look, I mentioned earlier the international AI safety report. That's 30 different countries that are involved in that. So this is, you know, this is a global issue. Everyone's mind is on it, at least for the time being. It is the biggest story, certainly, of the last five years, I think. And um so it could go underground. I'm sure there will be some aspects uh of that, but I think it's it's largely above ground.

Mario 8:40

How

National Security And Going Underground

Mario 8:41

do you think uh big tech's gonna stay transparent? You know, is there gonna be you think there'll be transparency, lack thereof of it, you know, around the AI, you know, comparison with government, you know, you know, uh securities and things of that nature, or do you think this is gonna go, you know, do you think, you know, with big tech being involved, uh, you know, they're kind of running.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Do I think it'll be transparent?

Mario 9:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I think you have a better chance um going to the moon with the with I think you have a better chance with American companies than you would companies abroad, um, because we can only control what we can control, and we can't even control all of that, right? But what I'm telling you is that there are groups who are looking into these topics and they're trying to do the right thing. And I think with a lot of these corporate interests, because they have investment um issues, I think they'll largely be transparent. But the problem is, I mean, how much do we know to even look for? And I'm talking about this to you today with a guy on the street point of view. I'm not embedded, I'm not embedded in the AI um industry. So there's a lot, I have a lot of blind spots. But I think that it's such a big story, and so many people report on it that for the most part, I think we have a semi-accurate idea of what is happening.

Mario 10:06

I uh and I think that's what our listeners want. You know, someone uh you and I having a water cooler conversation, and people who may not understand AI really want to don't want to hear the jargon in the lingo of this high-tech jargon talk where it's like above their head, where they don't really understand that. And I think having this normal conversation at the water cooler really helps everyone, including myself and anybody who's you know hanging out with us this evening or listening to the podcast. It it just is one of those things where I think that all of us as average, you know, people hanging out, learning about AI and like where do we fit in this thing? And you know, say the same thing that we've talked about on pre on the previous show in regards to part one, you know, where where is this AI gonna fall along? And how does the you know, with Skynet, and you know, we talked about that as well and joking around with that, and you know, as as you continue doing, you know, your shows in the past, and you know, um I'm not sure where you're at and you know, content-wise, but has has AI up uh the conversation come up in some of your past shows and with different people that have been on the show?

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yes.

Jobs, UBI, And Agentic Collaboration

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Um, I honestly I've been talking about the potential for AI for at least 10 years. I just had lunch, pardon me.

Mario 11:28

So I'm oh good.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Um so this is you know, this is something that's been the backdrop of the conversation for a long time. I remember one of the first conversations I had on a show about it was around 2015, 2016. And at that time, I was talking to a guy named Zoltan Isvan, and he is a transhumanist writer. And at that point, I believe he was running for he didn't he knew he wasn't gonna win, but I believe that he was running for president as the leader of the transhumanist party, and we were talking about this idea of universal basic income because one of the big questions a lot of people have about AI is like, do I lose my job? Am I gonna lose my job? Right, right. And this is what I'm getting to. So, in in one of my very first conversations about this, it was coming from the transhumanist point of view, who was pro universal basic income, which is essentially an idea where we just give money to people. And we were gonna do that for a couple of reasons. One of them being in the few is in the future that technology would replace jobs. However, now I think part of that idea has changed. So as AI is accelerating, one of the ideas that's being um appreciated and adapted to by its developers is the idea that we're creating agentic systems, which means that we are using the AI in a collaboration effort, right? As opposed to, hey, here's the job, do you do it? And certainly look, there are things that AI can writing code. Um, it can do that quite easily. You and I could make apps for the iPhone or whatever right now by just describing or a web page describing something to AI. However, I think the AI developers, you know, they're taking that into consideration. So the real, I think the real point now is how do we create AI that I work with? And because what's funny, and now when I was reading today, there's what they call jagged um the jagged portion of AI, and that is that it's not necessarily going in a linear pattern of increases. For example, AI can can write some code, it can perform complex mathematical equations, yet visually, AI can't read a clock sometimes. So there's these things that you there's these things that AI cannot do. And as most people who are listening to the show, they've probably had experience with AI at one point or another now. And sometimes you'll ask AI a question. Like sometimes if I'm researching for a show and I need a fast, you know, fast lesson in a particular topic, whatever it is, I'll ask AI some questions. And every now and then, AI will give me an answer that I know is not correct, and I ask it to look further into that, and then I just start spinning my wheels. AI refuses to do it. So AI, while extremely advanced and performing PhD level work at times, it still has areas that it can't do the same thing as a human. So I think that one of the big areas that we're looking at is this agentic collaboration. So we're not creating successors, we're creating collaborators, if that makes sense.

Mario 14:55

Sure. Um this is gonna be one that I we talked about this in the previous show last uh week with um uh Michael, uh, with uh Mark James uh Mark uh Jacobson in regards to is this gonna is AI going to hollow out communities and professions and and erase a class, you know, with the technology turn you know turn being turned up, certain towns just going into like little ghost towns. Do you think that AI has the capability to wipe out a class in regards to you know job reduction or removal of you know, like some of these entry-level jobs for kids in high schools? Or I mean, God forbid, I don't know. You know, some people may enjoy working in you know whatever these small different whatever the field may be. Do you feel like we're gonna see a reduction with AI in regards to some of these other jobs? You think we're gonna start to lose the town, you know, small towns and go have more ghost towns, you think?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Or well, in relation to small towns, I would say become a welder, become a mechanic, become a plumber. AI can't do that. AI cannot perform physical jobs at this level yet. So what we're describing, this is not, and this is not a new idea because for the longest time, um, many people have recognized the fact that we need people tradesmen with skills because people want to be influencers or they want to be this, that, or the other thing, but they don't want to work on a car or whatever. So these manual skills and these skills that require knowledge and experience at a particular trade, and some of them can be, you know, some of these things could be dangerous and they require a skilled hand. So I would say that there is a renewed interest in those types of jobs. Meanwhile, yes, there are certain communities where the jobs are probably drying up. We mentioned um guys that write code previously, and it's funny because um uh as I was mentioning apps, that I heard this phrase a couple of months ago, and I was like, what do they mean by that? So there's vibe codes, right? And my understanding of a vibe code is I didn't write any code. What I did is I told I told AI, make me a particular kind of app that does this particular function, looks like this, but I didn't write any of the code and then it just makes it. Now, that may be a little janky, it may require some uh work after the fact, but yes, there are certain skills that probably are going to dry up, but I think that humanity's always been that way. I mean, how many blacksmiths do you see these days? I mean, so as manufacturing and the industrial revolution came on board, people adjusted what they wanted to do with their lives occupation-wise. And I'm not saying I'm not saying this to try to be a cheerleader necessarily for AI. I'm just saying, based on our history as human beings and human nature, people kind of adapt to what they are given. And remember, we're talking about the US. So we are kind of getting everything first in many cases. So in some third world countries or other countries, there may be great interest in AI, but at the same time, you still need somebody that could dig a well. You still need someone that could build a house, that can wire a house. So those types of trades and skills, I think, are going to continue to have value for a long time because otherwise, you're gonna have to create a robot that not only can perform those skills physically, but also has the computational ability to adjust to a problem and the kind of history of knowing what to do. People gain wisdom through repetition sometimes. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.

Trades, Small Towns, And Adaptation

Mario 18:50

I'm looking for Sarah Connor. You know, I mean, when you said robot, it made me think of Terminator 2. Um, what do you I mean, what what's your thoughts on this? Uh, the AI fake stuff, like the deep fake stuff, you know, the vo the c the voice clones in the wild. I mean, what do you think?

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Okay, now that's that okay, that's a real problem. So in this report, in um the Stanford University report and in the international AI safety report, they both talk about that. They both come up with these lists of things that we should actually be concerned about, and that is one of them, which is an interesting point because on this kind of sci-fi scale, we're worried about the machines. I'm more worried about people using the machines. So um we can do as much as we can do trying to prepare for what the the AI might do, but we also have to be wary of the fact that there are people who use these kinds of tools for nefarious things. I'm not gonna mention them on here because some of it scared me when I read it, but you did mention like deep fakes and things like that. Um, yeah, you could ruin somebody's reputation, you can do those kinds of things, but there's also use of AI for information that you know maybe regular people shouldn't have. So that is that's that's a legitimate concern. Faking things uh yeah, deep fakes are a perfect example.

Mario 20:13

It's interesting because you know, some of the stuff that's out there now that uh it's you know, fooling the uh, you know, the boomers that are you know using social media or doom scrolling. Uh we all do it. Um doesn't, I guess it doesn't, it's not generational, but I think we all do it, uh, you know, do some doom scrolling and the stuff that's uh available, uh, you know, and the the deep AI fake stuff is just really crazy. The clone stuff is wild to me. Um you know, it's just it's it's it's I think that we live in a society where we everything is so it comes to us so quickly in regards to can how we consume media, you know, social media, whatever the case may be in regards to that platform, these platforms. But we also have to remember we gotta do our you know, we you do your due diligence, and a lot of people who aren't in the media business will would, you know, we you know, we've always been you know trained to say, you know, get three sources to make sure this is real legit. And what's crazy to me is like you're like, is that real? You know, even you know, the Lindsey Graham stuff, I had to go, you know, take a deep deeper look to make sure that this wasn't some fake, you know, headline.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

That's exactly right. So at the time of this recording, which is Sunday, I woke up to this news that you're mentioning. I woke up to a text from my wife about you know the passing of Lindsey Graham. And I'm like, the my first question I I ask her, we're waking up at like six o'clock in the morning. I'm like, is this real? And these days, there's so much content. I've heard various numbers. Um, if you go on YouTube or you go on Spotify, so whether it's video or whether it's audio, the amount of AI generated content now I think is probably equal to the amount of content created. Created by people, some of it good, some of it not as good, some of it outright amateurish. But now every time you see something, there was this story today I saw about a man at Yellowstone National Park, and he was a bison, an American buffalo, hit this man and tossed him into the air. Okay. And you see the video. So here again, like this was an actual thing. But right now, every uh every time we see some kind of outrageous video, we have to wonder is this real or AI? And yeah, that that day is here.

Mario 22:34

I

Deepfakes And Verifying Reality

Mario 22:35

I and it's it's interesting you say that. I saw a video that was uh generated on YouTube about Mount Rainier and the rumblings and you know, get ready. There's you know, there's some I don't know. I don't it was not real. So if you're listening to this, nothing is going on with Mount Rainier, but this was the content that's available to make you think something's going on and it's not really happening. You know, it's like you're like, I I'm like looking at USGS to make sure that I'm like, that's that's that's significant, something going on with Mount Mount Rainier. But you know, that's again, that is the type of content that is available uh at your fingertips and disposals and algorithms that you know for me, obviously with you know doing the radio show and the podcast, I I do get that type of content where it does change, where sometimes I'm getting you know Bigfoot, you know, Sasquatch content or you know, earthquake content. Um, and it just was interesting to see that fake AI video come up in uh on the feed. I'm like, wow, this is not not you know, again, if you're listening, you're just tuning in or you're just whatever to the you know the radio show and the podcast, nothing is going on with Maureenier. This is uh again, we're talking about AI and how potentialities, yeah. It is just and stories. Yeah, it is it's it's it's wild out there, so you have to really do your research and just make sure you're staying on top of you know what is important to you and not just consuming it and and and making it gospel because uh there are people out there that may want that to be the case.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because uh, like you, I consume social media and I love to research things that I'm interested in. And the amount of stuff, just go on YouTube and the amount of stuff that is obviously AI generated, oftentimes it's got that canned voice that you've heard many times. A person speaking never comes up in the video, and it's very generic information about whatever subject it is. I mean, there are people who are using AI just to like just churn out half-ass content um that's not really particularly good, and there is a lot of it. And then on the other hand, so the the upside to that is that a lot of this is not very good. And I think that everyone should find your trusted sources on whichever topics you are interested in, and don't just listen or to whatever you see because a lot of this is AI generated, and somebody's just trying to make a buck by filling a slot on whatever platform it is, and they don't really care, they're not pro or con, they're just trying to create content that makes some money and get some ad dollars. So find people that you know are real human beings with real opinions that you trust or at least think are legitimate, and follow those people and kind of siphon out some of the AI-generated stuff. And it's easy to look at at the negative sides of AI, but I do think that it's here to stay. And whether people like it or not, whether people like data centers or not, it's here. So I think the impetus is now on us, humanity, globally, to make sure that we handle this subject in the right way. And I do believe that there are groups that are trying to do that. And the more that we all know about it, the better, I think.

Mario 26:06

And it's

Data Centers, Water, And Power

Mario 26:07

interesting because you think about it. Um, you know, you talked about data centers and the stuff is mega, it's not like it's you know micro you know scopic in nature. It is very large, it's very uh cumbersome. It it uses tons of resources. Yes, it does. And um, you know, people don't want that in their neighborhood, you know, people who may, especially who you live out next to uh Mount Rainier or you live next to uh uh the in the woods in the out out in the outbacks, you know, somewhere in the rural areas of uh you know the Pacific Northwest where it's beautiful, pristine, you know, the mountains, the wind, the rivers, you know, the little lakes that you got around the streams and things of that nature. These things are massive in size. And there's there's a lot of real estate that, you know, and they they use a lot of real estate.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Um so a lot of people are concerned about that, and rightly so. I read a I read a fact today when I was getting ready for the show. I don't remember where I saw this, and at first I was like, is that right? And it said that there's over 5,000 data centers within the U.S. So I'm guessing that those aren't all the gigantic ones that we have in our mind, but many of them must be, because I don't know that we figured out how to do it that well on a small scale. But what I would also say in relation to data centers are there are also companies who are trying to come up with the solutions for the questions that we have, like um, how do we come up with the amount of energy that is required to run these things? And is there a way that we can recirculate some of this water? And in my home state of Texas, it's a big question because we have a lot of data centers, and some of them are in arid areas. Yeah. So these are all big questions, but there's people that are trying to answer them and make money at it. So it, I don't, I'm not trying to be crass, but there is a practical aspect to this as well. And when we're talking about a job being taken away here, there may be a new job over here, and not everybody wants to see this completely devolve into an AI super god, and we are just its minions. You know, I I do believe that there are good people, conscientious people who are trying to do the right thing. Now, that being said, that's that's more for us, and other countries will go and abide by their particular compass, whatever that is, and hopefully everybody will try to do the right thing.

Mario 28:37

We're giving text messages in. Uh Sarah sends us a text message. She's like, I'm honestly scared where AI is heading. I feel like everything is moving so fast and nobody really is in control of the AI. Am I overreacting? Uh, Sarah, look, I I think what I'll tell you right now, uh, thanks for sending us a text in. Um, look, the volume of text messages that are coming in, but let me let me just say this, Sarah. Educate yourself. Uh, you know, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself, and educate yourself on what's going on with AI. If it's going to be in your local municipalities, uh, find out what your city's doing, have a better understanding. Is it coming to your backyard? You know, um, is there moratoriums being put in place by your local city council uh to say, hey, look, we don't want these big things in our name in our backyards, uh, you know, taking away resources from the average Joe, the retirement communities out here. You know, can you imagine they put this out in ocean shores where it's just a small little retirement community and all of a sudden the resources are gone? You know, like you're sharing these resources of you know cheap electricity, and now you have the, you know, you you have a small community that is not maybe on fixed incomes and uh living closer to the ocean and and and living that retirement life, and they're like, wait, I don't want this huge monstrosity of you know hungry machinism of you know consuming consumables such as electricity and you know water and things of that nature. So just again, Sarah, just educate yourself. Anything that you'd like to add uh to the topic, Michael?

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Look, I'm not I'm not gonna kid you. Yes, there are ethical concerns, and I think that we're working on those, and I think that we don't know what we don't know, right? So, and these reports that I was reading over, they are including the inexplicable inexplicable things that we don't currently foresee. So I'm not saying everything is hunky-dory. There are certainly concerns that we're gonna have, but on the upside, one of the things I think that we could think about is if AI is a force multiplier and can compress years of research into shorter spans of time, then one of the questions that we face is okay, so what are some of the things that we should have AI figure out for us? How can we, instead of us all being completely just fear-based on this, what can we pressure corporate, the corporate world and our government officials to push for? The meaning, you know, what kind of advances could we see in medicine? Um, what kind of advances could we see in resource management? I guess when I imagine AI, and AI can already answer questions the way it thinks you want to answer them, but if we had completely unbiased uh AI and we instructed it, look, help me figure out this problem. Don't tell me what you think I want to hear. Don't tell me what you think is gonna be best for me. Give me the best answer as you see it. I think that you may see real results in the medical and health industry. And by that, what I mean is I think that AI, and this is for an example, I think that AI might look into ways to treat illnesses that the current medical and pharmaceutical establishment is not behind. And because if it's unbiased in this kind of scenario that I'm describing, it might look into, say, light and sound therapy, uh frequency therapy, some of these things that are unrelated to a for-profit motive. So that's just one example. I'm trying to put out positives here. Let's try to steer our partnership with AI into a positive instead of Skynet.

Mario 32:49

Uh,

Practical AI Use And Human Value

Mario 32:50

Derek sends a text message in from 775-990-5151. Uh, I feel like everyone's freaking out, freaking out over AI, but basically it's just autocomplete on steroids. Am I are we overreacting as a society? Thanks, Derek, for sending your text message in. Um I don't know because I'm still I'm still on the I've been using AI to help with, you know, some of the workload, you know. It's no secret, I'm a one-person show, you know. Uh just I'm sure just like you, uh, it's nice to have when I'm putting content together, uh, clearly when the podcast goes into the podcast um company to get, you know, distribu, you know, to get put up and placed, I just put the show in there and then AI takes over to do this, you know, it you know, do its thing to clean up, add. And when I not even edit because I'm already done, but um in regards to like look through everything.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Tags or something?

Mario 33:50

Tags, uh summarize what the show is.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Sure.

Mario 33:54

Give me some uh hooky catchy um title, excuse me, uh titles for the show. Uh so I mean I've been using AI in that realm where I've it's been my assistant. Um it does I try to use it yesterday to do some um Man on the Street and I try to use AI to edit the video and it was like garbage. It was terrible. So I had to go back into you know the iPhone, iMovie to do the editing um portion of it because I know how to do it myself in movie, in iMovie, versus having you know, AI do it. It's just garbage. It's like okay, I'm like, I'm trying to tell it what to do, and maybe it's the end user, maybe there's an air gap there where it's like end user trying to figure it out, and I'm like, I don't have time for the curve, so I just go back to what I know best. That's uh that's that's uh that la long way around the block, uh Derek. But yeah, that's my thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Well, I think that's exactly right, and I think that that's a real world use. Now, listen, there's gonna be people out there who are very skilled at this, they're gonna make a lot of money, they're gonna do whatever they do with AI. But for most of us, and I've already told you, like the adapt adaptivity or the adaption rate of AI versus other previous technologies is off the hook. And this is all demographics. Even older people are using, you know, even if it's just Chat GPT, I need a recipe for tonight. But that's you kind of your gateway into using it, and different people will use it to different levels. But one thing I've noticed, because I'm a musician right now, I'm working on a record, and a lot of musicians were completely freaked out. Like, oh my God, you know, AI generated music is going to replace us all. I have a different take on that. Artists, as well, media uh painters at such were like, oh my God. But here's the deal. I think maybe the opposite is going to happen. And I am I may have said this on your show in the past because this has been a long-standing thought that I've had, which is I think actually a premium will go towards human-created work versus AI. Let's say I have a small um retail store of some sort or a dry cleaning business or whatever it is, I may not want to pay someone to develop a logo for me and all of my PR materials. That's where P that's where the AI can come in. So it's kind of a cheap gateway for people who don't have a great deal of capital to do certain jobs. Whereas, okay, now if I'm a movie producer or a huge corporation, um, and I have access to a great deal of capital, I might want to hire a contemporary Picasso or a contemporary, I don't know, Stevie Wonder or something. I don't want, I don't want AI music for that project because everybody's gonna go, well, that was bogus. That was AI, we could tell, we could hear it. Meanwhile, the guy that's got whoever the current artist of the day is in their project has a lot more clout. So I think there's places for human-created content and AI created content, and the AI created content oftentimes is going to be very utilitarian and for the guy with a smaller budget.

Mario 37:22

You know, it's funny you say that you know, the Texas have been just blowing us up in regards to this. Um, I guess we missed some of them from last week as well, but um Praya says, uh, and I probably butchered her name, uh, I use AI every day for work and honestly made it's made my life easier. We are too focused on the scary stuff and not enough on what it actually actually is good for. So again, like you were just saying, uh she's just reiterating the same thing. She's using it on a daily uh in her you know normal day uh tasks. I mean, same with me when I when I do the radio show as much as I possibly can, I'm using the you know, using these tools to help me uh take some of that workload off so I can record the show, edit, and then get out. Because it's it's it's it's so much time consuming uh to you know to do these things. And you know, when we do these shows, there's not a lot of editing to be done. I I try to do them live to tape. If if there's a swear word, we gotta go back and get those. But for the most part, it's you know, I don't I don't want to doctor the show and I want it to make it too I want it just to be as true to form as it possibly can. But um thank you for your text messages if you're sending those in. Uh thank you. I I well here's what I will say. If if you were if you missed last week's show, you gotta go back and listen to it. Go back and listen to it, download the podcast. It's free, it's a really long show. It's an hour and a half and some change. And we're really we're really getting into the p the nuggets of what William Milton Cooper, I think, and you know what we were kind of like talking about in regards to how much he really was worried about the government and you know, he was always worried about the government, you know, coming after him, or the government had there were he had all alternative mo motives, even talking about you know, secret society, things of that nature. Now, and that's the kind of thing that I kind of wanted to you know cover is like do we see like a secret society pull in and manipulate and kind of work AI in the background, like as we continue to consume AI, use AI, as as we all have in some way, shape, or form? Are do we think that these big companies, I think I think we already covered this, but the technology, are we just feeling that that there's that these companies really I mean it's it's costing these companies to build these these server farms? I mean, this is not like microscopic stuff that they're building, it's it is acres of land and resources that are being used and it cost money. So some people may be subscribing to a premium version of their AI um bot. Um is that what they call those? Or their AI tool, if whatever, whatever whatever flavor that might be. Um so it it does cost resources, it does take resource if it's money, if it's you know, land, if it's water, it's you know, electricity, things of that nature to cool these things to to you know, these rooms are not small in length. And I know even in the I think they just uh passed a moratorium for a two-year moratorium in the city of Seattle, so there will not be any server farms here.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Um that's probably true.

Mario 40:51

Um, it probably would be best not to be putting that in a beautiful city like Seattle. I mean, after you know, after being showcased in the World Cup, I mean, man, Seattle looked good on TV, man. Seattle looked real nice. Uh, you know.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

Wait a minute. Who looked nice?

Mario 41:10

Seattle or oh yes, uh City looked great, man.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

You watched Seattle. Yeah, it's TV, it's TV, man. I mean, I don't remember if I watched one of the Seattle games, I'm sure I did. I listen, I never followed soccer my entire life. Um, but I've watched more soccer in the last month than I've watched in my entire life today, and I actually found it really enjoyable. And listen, I was rooting for Norway yesterday, so I ain't gonna lie.

Mario 41:34

Yeah. Here's what I will tell you, man. Um, and I I sent this to uh Jacobson last week. The city showed out, man. I was walking around, driving around the city. It was fantastic during this time. I've never seen a city look puff its chest more, look good. Just it was just see the people um just living life in regards to even driving at night. I went, I was like, man, I'm hungry. I want to get these tacos, and so I had to, you know, kind of move around. But you definitely I definitely noticed that these were people that were World Cup soccer fans consuming the city and doing city nightlife stuff on a Wednesday, Thursday that typically doesn't normally happen in the city. And so the city was vibrant, and it was good to see the city back in a in a in a great light like that, man.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Absolutely. Listen, I think this was a great thing for the US as a whole and for the world, because a lot of the world came to the U.S. They're like, hey, holy cow, these guys are actually all right. And my God, man, they have great food and great stadiums and air conditioning and yeah, uh ranch dressing and barbecue sauce, and it's quite awesome. So let's get back to AI. Yeah, and this is the weird thing about AI. We're doing this show about it right now, and we're wondering about it. And it is here, and it's a big thing, and it's going to change humanity. Yet, AI wasn't the story for the last two or three weeks. The World Cup was the story. And my lesson in that is that even though I use AI, I don't really use it very much, to be totally honest. And that doesn't mean that I don't use it, that doesn't mean that I'm not interested in it. It's just, I think that AI and its uses, these days, everything's moving so fast that we just kind of become tired of things quicker. Everything's just happening very quickly. And I think we as people, we don't see things as novel as we would have in the past because there's just so much going on. And this doesn't alleviate any concerns that we have about AI, or it doesn't slow any of these companies or countries from making it. But you and I were watching World Cup for the last two or three weeks, right? And we weren't really worrying about AI, and I think that's most people. And a lot of times when I've used AI, I've had higher hopes for it than it produced. It's going to continue to get better, and like I say, I know a lot of People are could are concerned about it for a variety of reasons. Do we have the Skynet thing? Is it going to take my job? Is it going to make better art than I do?

Mario 44:09

Maybe.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

I mean and maybe it makes your life better.

Mario 44:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

So I think it's a mixed bag. And I think the honest is going to be on us to do what we can. Don't just let the thing run free. Try to work with it. And I do believe, I honestly believe, that there are good faith actors in this. Of course, there's going to be bad faith actors as well. And of course, there may be people that want to get up to these nefarious deeds that you're discussing. And there may be organizations or individuals who want to do bad things with it. Hey, they want to do bad things with guns and other, you know, with a written word. Sure. So this will be another tool that we can choose to either use in a positive or a negative sense.

Mario 44:50

I mean, you think about it too. I mean, uh, you can use AI, they can get it out faster now with AI in regards to if it's fake, you know, f fake media, fake news, um, and I hate to use that word, but um, yeah, I mean, there I mean, that's why this show exists, you know what I mean? We we gotta ask the we gotta ask the boogeyman question. You know, it's it it really boils back to like, hey, what I mean, what are we, you know, what are we dealing with? I mean, for some who may be listening and maybe of the older generation who may not consume social media, and maybe this is you know, they're sitting down and you know, having you know, dessert or whatever the heck they may be doing this late at night or wherever the time may be. Um, and this is the only consumption of this type of information. I mean, it's out there, it's not going anywhere, and it's not going back in the bottle. You know, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

So and these reports that I mentioned at the top of the show, I would encourage anyone to go out there and look at them because you can learn a lot really fast. And any questions that you have, it may be answered in these reports. So one of them is the International AI Safety Report that came out in February 2026, and the other one is uh the Stanford University's AI index report, which weirdly enough also came out in February 2026. Now, that being said, six months is a long time in AI, but I learned a lot really quickly from reading these reports, and it actually made me feel better. Look, somebody's got somebody's hands on the wheel. There are people that are thinking about these questions that we are posing, and yeah, they won't get everything. This is gonna be this is gonna be an experiment, and there will be good and bad, but at least there are people contemplating the ethical uses of this and how we go forward. Um, it's not just the wild west where anybody's doing whatever they want without anybody paying attention to it.

Mario 46:42

Oh,

Politics, Viral AI Ads, And Influence

Mario 46:43

as we uh get close to wrapping things up here from the Pacific Northwest, I gotta I gotta ask you this what's the most convincing piece of AI-generated content you've uh uh uh you've seen personally that you're like, damn, was that real?

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, okay. When you ask me that question, I'm not sure right off the bat. I've seen a lot of stuff where it looks like a celebrity or something doing something. Okay, here's one. So here in California, um we just had that this election in June. Spencer Pratt um was a person that was running for mayor here. And he wasn't a Republican, but he was kind of carrying the just everyday kind of semi-conservative outlook, I guess. What's interesting about that, he was running against our current mayor, Karen Bass, and another person, Nitya Rahman, both of whom are Democrats. Anyway, one thing that he had going for him, we all knew it was AI, but my God, it was super effective and really funny. So all these people started making all these AI advertisements for Spencer Pratt. We all know they were fake, but they were incredibly effective. And his the amount of donations that he had was probably greater from outside of California than it was in California because these ads were going so viral and they had a huge effect. So sometimes it doesn't even have to look real. We don't have to know that it's real for it to have a strong effect.

Mario 48:11

Do you think that's gonna play into the uh politics of uh the masses of the nation uh to to come, you know, midterm elections? Do you think we'll start seeing more of that then? I mean, I guess this is a question I have no, I had no idea that that was going on, but I I guess now I gotta ask. We're gonna see and they were really funny.

SPEAKER_02 48:27

They were they were funny and they were truthful as well. Do I think it's gonna happen more? Probably, but it's also got to fit the candidate because it's gotta feel it's gotta feel on brand and legitimate. Because at the same time, other candidates do these same things, emulating him, and it looked really contrived, it wasn't funny, it just didn't hit it didn't hit the same way. So it's gonna depend on the person and the purpose. Is it does it seem genuine? Is it on brand? Was it made by individuals who support this particular idea or person, or was it made by a campaign? So again, it's gonna be a mixed bag, but the more real it is and the more community source it is, the more legitimacy I think that it will have.

Mario 49:15

And I know we talked about some of the, you know, the jobs, the evolution, and I think we you know we talked about this pr earlier, but we are gonna see different jobs kind of go away in regards to, you know, maybe it's uh AI generated art or maybe it's you know AI generated content that may be on brand for whatever the company may be doing, in regards to maybe even doing uh simple skill sets as copywriting or you know, things of that nature where they can kind of trim. There's still people that do that, but it won't be a full force of individuals, it will be a reduction in force. You'll see that versus like job elimination, and maybe there may be some smaller companies that may do that, but on a larger brand with bigger companies, you'll probably see some of the that reduction happen. But I think you're really on on point in regards to making sure individuals are, you know, learning skill sets that are not going to be in that regards to losing their jobs, you know. Uh, like if you're a plumber or an electrician, you know, these those types of skill sets will be here for a while until you know Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terminator, comes out and starts, you know, these draw, you know, you have these robots come and start working on things.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Right. Well, you know, another pot idea popped into my head. Uh my daughters are both in their 20s. And when they were little, you know, I live in Los Angeles. I've worked in the television industry. Um, I got a degree in media from my college, and I grew up with certain ideas about how film, television, music was made, right? Right. And what was acceptable in the marketplace. And I had a lot of friends who were farther along in the film and TV business than I was. So when YouTube first came out and kids started watching all these videos, at first, like you know, here I am, their dad, and I'm like, wow, that looks terrible. You know, that that that that just looks so amateurish. And the way they're shooting it is on this flip phone or whatever, and just and now the aesthetic has changed, right? The aesthetic has changed to the medium. So we may see people's opinions about what is acceptable in the future um as a result of AI. Movies may begin to look slightly different, um, shorter. I mean, every day it seems like something comes up in my feed, like, oh, here's the world's first generated film. I've seen that 10 times. But I will say that it looks pretty good. I'm not saying I want to pay money for it, but if it's going to come up for free, I'll give it three minutes of my life and check it out. So, one thing I do think is that our opinions about art and certain things will become more acceptable perhaps than they were in the past.

Using AI For Good And Closing

Mario 52:11

As we get close to wrapping things up from the Pacific Northwest, man, it's uh it's real. It's not going anywhere. It you we're not putting it back in the bottle by any means. Um it's it really, you know, I mean, it's coming to a it's coming to a neighborhood near you. I mean, it's already here, but in regards to the back infrastructure of this, it's going to be in places that uh may need resources in regards to is this going to remove a farmer, you know, is that farm that was maybe doing wheat now becoming a server farm where he's leasing out his land to said, you know, Michael Parker, you know, server farm system where you're you're leasing the land in resources that may, I mean, that may be the case, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Well, to that it to that end, that has already happened prior to the AI revolution, where certain farmers would be paid not to grow crops for various reasons. So what you're talking about already exists, and it was even before AI. Yes, there are going to be job losses in certain certain sectors, and there's going to be changes, but we are humans and we have always adapted to the world around us because we had to to continue to exist. And I guess what I'd like to ask people is like, let's think more about what we can do with AI in a positive sense, while keeping our eye on what might be done in a nefarious sense, but I would ask those in the AI communities and developments and also in medicine, in all the all of these natural sciences are questions that we need to fix. Maybe that's a great way to use AI. Let's remove some of our uh focus groups and NGOs and all these let's let's get an unvi an unbiased scientific approach to some of these big questions that we still have to figure out. Let's use it for that.

Mario 54:16

If you are not a subscriber to the podcast, go back and download the uh the podcast if you missed some of this, which you will if you are listening to the radio experience. Go back and uh download the podcast on your favorite podcasting platform. Search US Phenomenon with Mario Magania. Our guest Michael Parker, we appreciate you coming to hang out with us. As always, it is always a pleasure to have you come on for my entire team, myself, Sofia Magania, and myself, Mario Magagna. Be sure to look up at the sky because you never know what you might see. Good night.