NBA Gambling Scandal, Billionaire Tax, Tesla's Future, Amazon Robots, AWS Outage, Dangerous AI Bias
NBA Gambling Scandal, Billionaire Tax, Tesla’s Future, Amazon Robots, AWS Outage, Dangerous AI Bias
Summary
This episode of the All-In Podcast covers several major topics spanning politics, technology, and business. The hosts open with a heated discussion about California’s proposed billionaire wealth tax ballot initiative, where the SEIU is pushing for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires’ net worth. Chamath explains the constitutional challenges while the hosts debate whether this is genuine policy or political theater designed to attack wealthy opponents.
The conversation then shifts to a major NBA gambling scandal involving players Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier, along with the broader implications for sports betting and Polymarket’s growing influence in prediction markets. The hosts analyze Amazon’s leaked internal documents about replacing warehouse workers with robots, with Jason arguing this represents a significant shift in employment while others push back on the “job loss narrative.”
The final segments focus on Tesla’s earnings call, Elon Musk’s compensation package vote, and a concerning study showing ideological bias in major AI models. David Sacks, now serving as AI czar in the Trump administration, discusses how LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others appear to systematically value white people and Americans as less valuable than other groups, while Grok appears to be the most neutral model.
Highlights
”My fundamental concern is if I build this enormous robot army”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*49:45-50:45" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-49m45s.mp4"
“My fundamental concern with how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I build this enormous robot army. Can I just be ousted in the future? I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have at least influence over it.” — Elon Musk (quoted), 49:45
”These robots are going to Mars”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*61:00-62:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-61m00s.mp4"
“I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that these robots go to Mars. I don’t think they’re going to… SpaceX buys them and sends them to Mars. You don’t want to figure out how to create portable water and breathing mechanisms on Mars for the first 5 years. Send robots. Guess what? They don’t need to eat or breathe or pee or poop.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 61:00
”Garbage in, garbage out - left-leaning publications as AI training data”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*68:45-69:45" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-68m45s.mp4"
“The problem that I think we have to confront now is that when you have garbage in, you have garbage out. And so if you use left-leaning publications like the New York Times and Reddit as your input source, then you’re going to have things that are perceived as biased to 50% of the population.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 68:45
”When Gemini said George Washington was black, people stopped using it”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*72:00-73:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-72m00s.mp4"
“When Gemini put out saying George Washington was black, people stopped using it. They’re like, ‘This thing’s a joke.’ So, I do think that consumers are not dumb and I don’t believe in taking away agency from consumers.” — David Friedberg, 72:00
”5% wealth tax on billionaires - political bait”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*0:00-1:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-0m00s.mp4"
“The SEIU filed a ballot initiative to amend the California Constitution to introduce a one-time billionaire’s wealth tax where billionaires have to pay a one-time tax of 5% of their net worth, including their private stock, including their real estate… it is very likely the case that the SEIU is simply using this as a baiting mechanism.” — David Friedberg, 0:00
”AI models value whites, males, and Americans as less valuable”
Clip command
yt-dlp --download-sections "*63:54-65:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l__Koacw_oI" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "l__Koacw_oI-63m54s.mp4"
“What the paper purports to show is that almost all of these models, except for maybe Grok, view whites as less valuable than non-whites and males as less valuable than females and Americans as less valuable than people of other cultures, especially global south.” — David Sacks, 63:54
Key Points
- California Billionaire Tax (0:00) - SEIU filed a ballot initiative for a one-time 5% wealth tax on billionaires, likely unconstitutional but designed as political bait
- Constitutional Uniformity (1:30) - Property taxes must be applied uniformly, unlike income/transaction taxes which can be progressive
- Political Strategy (3:15) - SEIU using the tax proposal to force wealthy people to denounce it, then attack them politically
- Capital Flight (8:00) - Discussion of billionaires leaving California including Chamath’s own move and others considering departure
- Government Spending Root Cause (10:00) - Chamath argues wealth inequality stems from 40 years of government expansion and market distortion
- NBA Gambling Scandal (17:00) - Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier arrested in illegal gambling operation involving intermediaries
- Sports Betting Legalization Impact (19:30) - DraftKings and Flutter stocks dropped 10-12% on the scandal news
- Polymarket Growth (23:00) - Prediction market seeking funding at $12-15B valuation, demonstrating market power in information
- AWS Outage (29:51) - Major Amazon Web Services outage caused widespread service disruptions
- Amazon Robotics Plan (32:00) - Leaked internal documents show Amazon plans to increase automation, debate over job loss implications
- Amazon Employment Data (44:00) - Amazon workforce tripled since 2018; debate about whether 2021 peak of 1.6M to current 1.55M represents cuts
- General Purpose Robotics (48:00) - Optimus and Figure robots with LLMs will be far more capable than purpose-built robots
- Tesla Earnings (49:55) - Record $28B revenue, up 12% YoY, $4B free cash flow, but operating profit fell 40%
- AI5 Chip (51:00) - Elon’s comments on Tesla’s AI5 chip being 40x better than AI4, designed for Cybercab and Optimus
- Tesla Energy Business (52:30) - $3.5B/quarter with 30% operating margins, critical for robot and EV battery supply
- ISS and Glass Lewis (54:30) - Proxy advisory firms that control voting for passive index funds, criticized for DEI requirements
- Elon’s Pay Package Vote (60:00) - Polymarket shows 79% chance of passing; milestones include 20M vehicles, 1M robots, $400B EBITDA
- Optimus to Mars (61:30) - Chamath predicts first million robots will go to Mars for infrastructure building
- AI Bias Study (63:54) - Center for AI Safety study shows LLMs value whites, males, and Americans as less valuable
- Grok Exception (66:00) - Grok 4 fast appears to be the only major model without systematic demographic bias
- Wikipedia Bias (67:30) - Co-founder Larry Sanger confirms Wikipedia censors conservative publications like NY Post
- Algorithmic Discrimination Laws (68:30) - Colorado, California, and Illinois adopting laws that effectively require DEI in AI models
- Journalist Political Affiliation (72:30) - Republican journalists declined from 25% in 1970s to 3.4% today, affecting training data
Mentions
Companies
- Amazon (29:51) - AWS outage and leaked robotics automation plans
- Tesla (49:55) - Q3 earnings, AI5 chip, energy business, Optimus robots
- DraftKings (19:30) - Stock dropped 10-12% on NBA gambling scandal
- Flutter (FanDuel) (19:30) - Also impacted by gambling scandal news
- Polymarket (23:00) - Seeking $12-15B valuation, prediction market leader
- OpenAI (63:54) - GPT-4o and GPT-5 showing demographic bias in study
- Anthropic (63:54) - Claude Sonnet identified in AI bias study
- xAI (66:00) - Grok 4 fast shown as least biased model
- Google (72:00) - Gemini Black George Washington controversy mentioned
- ISS (54:30) - Proxy advisory firm criticized by Elon as “corporate terrorists”
- Glass Lewis (54:30) - Second major proxy advisory firm pushing DEI requirements
- Wikipedia (67:30) - Training data source with known liberal bias
- SpaceX (61:30) - Potential buyer of Optimus robots for Mars missions
- SEIU (0:30) - Service Employees Union behind California wealth tax initiative
- CBS News (74:00) - Bari Weiss taking over 60 Minutes mentioned
- TSMC (51:00) - Manufacturing Tesla’s AI5 chip
- Samsung (51:00) - Also manufacturing AI5 chip
Products & Technologies
- AI5 Chip (51:00) - Tesla’s next-gen AI chip, 40x improvement over AI4
- Optimus Robot (48:00) - Tesla’s humanoid robot with general-purpose capabilities
- Figure Robot (48:00) - Competing general-purpose humanoid robot
- Kiva Bots (47:30) - Amazon’s purpose-built warehouse robots
- Cybercab (52:00) - Tesla’s autonomous robotaxi
- FSD (Full Self-Driving) (60:30) - Tesla subscription service, 10M target for pay package
- Dojo (51:00) - Tesla’s AI training supercomputer
- GPT-4o (63:54) - OpenAI model showing demographic bias
- GPT-5 (65:00) - Next-gen OpenAI model also showing bias
- Claude Sonnet (65:00) - Anthropic model showing demographic bias
- Grok 4 Fast (66:00) - xAI model shown as most neutral
- Megapack (52:30) - Tesla’s large-scale battery storage system
- LFP Batteries (52:30) - Lithium iron phosphate batteries for robots and storage
- Grokipedia (73:00) - Alternative to Wikipedia being developed
People
- Elon Musk (49:55) - Tesla CEO, discussed pay package and AI5 chip development
- Chauncey Billups (17:00) - Former NBA player arrested in gambling scandal
- Terry Rozier (17:00) - NBA player arrested in gambling operation
- Andy Jassy (43:30) - Amazon CEO quoted on workforce reduction
- Stan Druckenmiller (50:45) - Investor quoted on buying stocks for 18-month future
- Larry Sanger (67:30) - Wikipedia co-founder who revealed publication censorship
- Bari Weiss (74:00) - Taking over CBS News and 60 Minutes
- Chris Rufo (55:45) - Suggested to investigate ISS and Glass Lewis
- Ira Ehrenpreis (55:00) - Tesla board member, ISS asked to vote against
- Kathleen Wilson Thompson (55:15) - Tesla board nominee with confusing ISS treatment
- Joe Biden (63:54) - Used as baseline in AI bias study
- Bernie Sanders (64:00) - Ranked higher than Biden in AI value study
- Beyonce (64:00) - Ranked higher than Biden by AI models
- Oprah (64:00) - Ranked higher than Biden by AI models
- Donald Trump (64:15) - Ranked lower than Biden by AI models
- Vladimir Putin (64:15) - Ranked lower than Biden by AI models
- Denis Villeneuve (62:30) - Director of Blade Runner 2049, pronunciation debated
Surprising Quotes
“My fundamental concern with how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I build this enormous robot army. Can I just be ousted in the future? I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have at least influence over it.” — Elon Musk, 49:45
“I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that these robots go to Mars. I don’t think they’re going to… SpaceX buys them and sends them to Mars.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 61:00
“The problem that I think we have to confront now is that when you have garbage in, you have garbage out. And so if you use left-leaning publications like the New York Times and Reddit as your input source, then you’re going to have things that are perceived as biased to 50% of the population.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 68:45
“When Gemini put out saying George Washington was black, people stopped using it. They’re like, ‘This thing’s a joke.’ So, I do think that consumers are not dumb and I don’t believe in taking away agency from consumers.” — David Friedberg, 72:30
“Fundamentally, I think that people aren’t willing to and they’re not going to see the true cause because there’s no one that runs to go work as a politician that is going to raise their hand and say government is the problem.” — Chamath Palihapitiya, 43:45
Transcript
0:00 What’s the story with the California wealth tax? Can somebody explain this to me? Okay. So, the SEIU, the Service Employees Union, filed a ballot initiative, which means a direct to voter vote to amend the California Constitution to introduce a one-time billionaire’s wealth tax where billionaires, anyone who has assets over a billion dollars net of their debt, has to pay a one-time tax of 5% of their net worth, including their private stock, including their real estate.
0:45 You said 5%. 5% of their net worth, not of their income, of their net worth, the entire net worth, one-time payment to the state of California, and then there’s an allocation on how that money will be spent, but it’s a one-time billionaire tax. Now, it is very likely that this sort of an amendment to the California Constitution is not constitutional and actually cannot be made and will not actually go into enforcement even if the voters do vote to approve it in both a federal and a state level based on this concept of uniformity which is that you have to tax everyone equally except for the case of an excise tax which is like income or a transaction.
1:30 You’re allowed to tax disproportionately based on the size of the income or the size of the transaction. But if you’re going to tax on property, if you’re going to tax on an asset, you have to tax everyone uniformly. So it is likely not going to go into effect if it does pass. However, it is very likely the case that the SEIU is simply using this as a baiting mechanism to get people to stand up and denounce it and then they will be in a position to attack those people and destroy them and use this effectively as a political fodder for this next election cycle. That’s what it seems like the true kind of motivation right now.
2:15 Let me let me go on the record. I think this law is great. He’s getting the virtue signaling points. I would just like to say, may I be the first amongst us to welcome the billionaire tax? And if for any reason it doesn’t apply to me, I would like to be the very first to denounce it. I think it should stay in place until you are paying this 5%, Jason. And then it should be repealed.
3:00 Look at this, look at the political fodder. So let’s just look at it. I mean, this is more than a decade ago. This is when Rick Caruso refused to shake Jeffrey Katzenberg’s hand. And it became this huge brou-ha-ha. And guess what Jeffrey Katzenberg was doing? He was accusing Rick Caruso of not supporting a wealth tax. Even a decade ago. So this stuff happens over and over and over again. The politicians in the state or the special interest groups are looking for ways to put people who are billionaires or successful or whatever you want to call them in a position to be attacked and ridiculed and undermined and destroyed.
4:00 I saw this tweet from Jeffrey Katzenberg. I went and looked at him. He looks pretty radicalized. Does he agree with this tax? I have no idea. But he was accused of Rick Caruso of not being supportive. Can you imagine if you’re a billionaire and you come out against this, what your Wikipedia page is going to look like? That’s the whole point, you see.
5:00 What would you guys do if this passed? Let’s just do a thought exercise. My lawyer came to me and said that I should just put on the record that I’m planning no changes. My point of view on this is even if I have to pay this, the way that I try to live is that I’m paying whatever taxes that I need to pay and I just hope that good things happen with that money.
6:00 Freeberg, what would you do if this passed? I’m not a billionaire, so… You don’t know. You could have some illiquid shares that take you there. Well, right now a lot of people might have a lot of paper and they’re not billionaires. Yeah, that’s the thing, right? If you own a bunch of private stock, this would require you to actually liquidate something. This is why it’s going to be found unconstitutional.
7:00 How would California even get this? I mean, you just wouldn’t pay. Well, what happens in California is interesting. If there’s ever a dispute, the FTB will file a state lien against your property. That state lien will then affect your ability to go and sell. But anyways, I just think this whole thing is a game. I think it has zero possibility of becoming real.
8:00 Chamath, after you moved out of California, how many other billionaires have called you up saying they’re thinking about doing the same thing? A lot. And it’s more than just the issue of taxes. A lot of it is because they don’t think that the schools are good. They don’t think that safety is good, that the quality of life is good.
9:00 There’s a lot of people that are now there are real enclaves in a lot of cities. The big one is Miami. There’s Austin. There’s a lot in Nashville, in Scottsdale, in San Diego, in Park City. There’s places where there’s kind of a movement to reform in place in Wyoming. But all of these places are talking about how do we position a place to take in economic migrants from California and New York.
10:00 I want to talk about something that’s not getting covered here, which is what is the root cause of wealth inequality? The fact of the matter is that the distribution in this country has been on a continuous trend for the last 30 plus years. And what no one wants to acknowledge is the fact that we put in place a lot of people into government, passed a lot of laws that caused an increase in spending because we promised people that the government would do more for them over the last 40 years. That is not possible in a true market-based system.
11:00 And so by telling everyone, hey, we’re going to make sure you get better jobs. We’re going to make sure you all get housing. We’re going to make sure you get education. You cannot actually get a government to effectively do that because what ends up happening is the government inflates the cost of those things and the market doesn’t actually work.
12:00 So the truth is this is now like all other things a scapegoat for the true cause of the socialist movement which is that government has become too big, too unwieldy and its natural inefficiency has distorted markets to the point that there is maybe no point of return anymore. And people will not see that. They do not see it and they’re going to look for reasons and they’re going to look for scapegoats.
13:00 They’re gonna say, “Oh my god, look over there. There’s a robot. That’s the reason I’m losing my job. Oh my god, look over there. There’s a rich person that works at a pharmaceutical company. That’s the reason I can’t get healthcare.” Or an immigrant took my job, right? Is the one from the last 20 years.
14:00 And so, fundamentally, I think that people aren’t willing to and they’re not going to see the true cause because there’s no one that runs to go work as a politician that is going to raise their hand and say government is the problem. No one says I need to reduce government elect me. No one ever has gotten elected in a democracy doing that.
15:00 So the natural course of things over 250 years is that people raise their hand and they say I’m going to give you more and I’m going to use the government to do it and then they go into the government. They make the government bigger and as a result of making the government bigger, the government is spending more. The dollar goes down. The performance of the services goes down and fundamentally we end up in a socialist spiral.
17:00 Major NBA gambling scandal. The New York Times reports that Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier have been arrested in an illegal gambling operation. This involves intermediaries, people who were placing bets on behalf of the players. The investigation uncovered a network of illegal gambling that spans multiple states.
19:00 This is pretty significant because it’s showing that even with legalized sports betting in many states, there’s still this underground economy. DraftKings stock dropped about 10-12% on this news, Flutter which owns FanDuel also took a hit. The concern is that this could lead to more regulation or restrictions on sports betting.
21:00 What’s interesting is how Polymarket has emerged as a truth-telling mechanism. They’re now seeking funding at a $12-15 billion valuation. The prediction markets have become remarkably accurate at forecasting outcomes, often more so than polls or expert predictions.
23:00 Polymarket’s accuracy rate has been around 85% in the timeframe before events. This has real implications for how we think about information markets and the wisdom of crowds. When you have real money on the line, people tend to bet based on their actual beliefs rather than their wishes.
29:51 Amazon had quite an eventful week. First, there was a major AWS outage that knocked out services for thousands of companies. This is a reminder of how concentrated our digital infrastructure has become. When AWS goes down, a huge portion of the internet effectively stops working.
32:00 Then there was the leaked internal document from Amazon about their automation plans. The document suggests they’re looking to significantly increase the use of robots in their fulfillment centers. This sparked a debate about whether this means massive job losses are coming.
35:00 Jason brought up the Amazon robotics story as confirming his job loss narrative. But I think it’s more nuanced than that. The New York Times story doesn’t actually say they’re planning to cut jobs. It says they’re hoping to double their sales volume while not having to double their workforce.
38:00 Amazon’s US workforce has more than tripled since 2018 to almost 1.2 million. You have to read these New York Times stories carefully because they want to make the headline as salacious as possible. And then the echo chamber wants to make it even more salacious and they make it a story about job loss when it really is a story about operating leverage in their business.
42:00 Yeah, there’s definitely nuance here. I would believe Andy Jassy when he says we’re going to be reducing jobs and when this chart shows that they’re flat to down over the last five years and that that same trend is just happening at Google. There is a static team size or slightly down team size that’s occurring at all these companies and it is notable.
44:30 I don’t believe in this job loss narrative as the way that you keep portraying it. I think it’s much more nuanced and complicated. I think Freeberg does too. And every time there’s a story, you want to bring it up and make it a story of the week. And it’s all confirmation bias.
47:00 These little tiny Kiva bots, they do one thing. Those move packages around. That’s not an Optimus going around and packing the boxes and bringing them to your doorstep. Optimus is going to be really cool and when it comes, it’s going to be really interesting in terms of all the things it can do.
48:30 I think you’d be underestimating exactly what’s happened with LLMs being put into robots. We’ve had these robots before, but they were very purpose-built. They were able to do like one very simple thing very well. Now, we’re going into general robotics like the Optimus, like the Figure, and those are designed to be able to learn anything.
49:55 Tesla reported their earnings on Wednesday. Record revenues, 28 billion, up 12% year-over-year. Massive amounts of free cash flow. Four billion I think they’re up to 40 billion in cash which is always great when you’re going into some big capital intensive projects like Optimus and like self-driving.
50:30 Downside operating profit fell 40%. Stock dropped a bit 4% but bounced back and on the earnings call Elon emphasized the importance of his pay package which will give him just about 12% additional stake over the next 10 years if he hits absurd targets that would make everybody who holds shares in the company extremely wealthy.
51:00 Stan Druckenmiller has this very useful comment about stocks which is when you buy it today, you’re trying to buy what that company’s going to look like in 18 months from now and what it’s doing today doesn’t matter. The thing about earnings and P&Ls and quarterly reporting is that it’s looking backwards and it’s trying to give you a sense of what happened, not what will happen.
52:00 The quote from Elon is pretty incredible. “We’re going to focus TSMC and Samsung on AI5. The chip design is an amazing design. I have spent almost every weekend the last few months with the chip design on AI5. By some metrics, it will be 40x better than AI4. We have a detailed understanding of the entire stack. With AI5, we deleted the legacy GPU. It basically is a GPU. We also deleted the image signal processor. This is a beautiful chip.”
53:00 What AI5 is is the building block of a system that I think you’ll start to see not just in the Cybercabs but also in Optimus. So from a functional technology perspective, there’s been a leap and that leap is going to come into the market.
54:00 The second thing was what he said about his energy business which I think is the critical adjunct to believe robotics and autonomous cars. If robotics and autonomous cars work, what you really need is an energy business beside it that is humming and on all cylinders. That business is just on a tear. It’s printing three and a half billion dollars a quarter, and its operating margins, an energy business, 30%.
55:00 I think there’s a real concern that this vote is going to go down to the wire. I think that ISS and Glass Lewis, I think that these organizations are pretty broken. I think the way that they make decisions are hard to justify. An example of this, they asked to vote down Ira Ehrenpreis as a director of Tesla because he didn’t meet the gender components, but then they wouldn’t vote in favor of Kathleen Wilson Thompson even though she does technically meet the gender requirements.
56:00 Can I just shine a spotlight on these proxy advisory services? For years people have been wondering why did corporate America go so woke especially in the early 2020s where they created all these DEI departments and they didn’t have to do that. A big part of the reason is that those initiatives came from Glass Lewis and ISS.
57:30 They make recommendations for how shareholders should vote on different resolutions and the index funds basically just defer to them for whatever they should do. So they effectively control or almost control the voting for all these board level resolutions that every public company has to make. And so they’ve been the ones who’ve been imposing all these DEI requirements, all these ESG requirements.
59:00 The banks call me every week. One of the things they told me this week, which I thought was really shocking, is there’s so few active managers left. It’s so overwhelmingly passive money. The next largest group is now retail. And so what a lot of these professional money managers do now is they basically wait to see where retail is going. And they follow them.
60:00 Here’s Elon’s pay package milestones. Market value, 2 trillion. I think they’re at 1.4 trillion right now. Operational milestone, 20 million vehicles delivered. And then you just go right down to 6.5 trillion. On the operational milestones, 10 million active FSD subscriptions, which they’re far away from right now. In 20 million vehicles, I think they’ve delivered six or seven. 1 million robots delivered, 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation.
61:00 If I had to bet I think a very fun Polymarket is where do the first million robots go? I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that these robots go to Mars. I don’t think they’re going to… SpaceX buys them and sends them to Mars. How else are you going to get a fleet? Or they’ll go into the mines? I think they’re going to mine. They could go to the mines. Coal. Send them in to get that clean, beautiful coal.
62:00 It’s actually the fact that our mining is really limited by the human exposure from the pressure and the heat. If we can mine slightly below the area that we mine as a maximum depth today, it would unlock an extraordinary supply of minerals that we can’t access today. And automation obviously helps. You don’t want to figure out how to create portable water and breathing mechanisms on Mars for the first 5 years. Send robots. Guess what? They don’t need to eat or breathe or pee or poop. And they can get charged with solar.
63:54 Study shows AI models are showing hidden biases in how they value human lives. Back in February, Center for AI Safety published a study showing that LLMs have well-defined biases for race, gender, ethnicity. The paper found that OpenAI’s GPT-4o favored people from Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Brazil, and China over those from Germany, the UK, and US relative to Japan as a baseline.
65:00 Valuing people with Joe Biden as a baseline. Bernie Sanders, Beyonce, Oprah, all better. Paris Hilton, Trump, Elon, Putin, all worse. Consistently ranking white people last - Claude Sonnet, GPT-5 - and consistently ranking white Western nations last as well.
66:00 What the paper purports to show is that almost all of these models, except for maybe Grok, view whites as less valuable than non-whites and males as less valuable than females and Americans as less valuable than people of other cultures, especially global south. And if the results are true, it does look like these models are pushing a woke bias that makes that sort of distinction between oppressed and non-oppressed peoples.
67:30 One source of potential bias is the training data. If they’re training on Wikipedia, we know that Wikipedia is massively biased because they literally have censored the leading conservative publications from being citations and sources in Wikipedia. The co-founder Larry Sanger recently just revealed that they don’t allow the New York Post for example to be a source in Wikipedia or a trusted source.
69:00 One thing that’s very concerning is that the push for DEI to be inserted into AI models, which was explicitly part of the Biden executive order on AI, has now moved to the state level, and they’re just doing it in a more clever way. They’ve rebranded the concept. They call it algorithmic discrimination.
70:00 Colorado has now effectively prohibited models from saying something bad about a protected group. And that list of protected groups is very long. It’s not just the usual groups. It even includes groups who have less proficiency in English language. California and Illinois have also embraced algorithmic discrimination laws.
72:00 It’s important to note that in all of that work, the model that was seen to be the most unbiased was Grok 4 fast. It didn’t seem to view whites or men or Americans as less valuable as anything else. So what do we need to do? It’s probably that we need to start by rewriting these benchmarks.
73:00 If you look at the party affiliation of actual reporters, people who do reporting, not commentators, actual journalists who do that job function, a large number of them here on the chart. Back in the day it was 35% Democrat, 25% Republican in the 70s. And you just see that red sliver there go down to 3.4%.
75:00 The question here that Freeberg raises is whether the market can just sort this stuff out on its own. And I think that would be great if it were true. But I do think it ignores the fact that in a lot of markets we have monopolies or oligopolies. Wikipedia has achieved a dominant position. I hope Grokipedia challenges it and is able to fix that.
77:00 When Gemini put out saying George Washington was black, people stopped using it. They’re like, “This thing’s a joke.” So, I do think that consumers are not dumb and I don’t believe in taking away agency from consumers. I think give them the choice and they’ll end up looking at this and be like, “This is ridiculous.”
79:00 Just to be clear, the only thing that we’ve done at the Trump administration is the president signed an executive order saying that the government would not procure ideologically biased AI. So, if we’re going to procure a product, we want it to be unbiased. We didn’t say that these companies or their models couldn’t be woke. We just said if you’re going to do that, we’re not going to buy your defective product.
80:30 I think that if I wanted to create subtle chaos, what I would do is make very small changes where none of these things are at the obvious stupidity of a black George Washington. But they can start to set the trajectory of a narrative forward and slowly over many, many years change the underlying content. And what those models would do would be training kids over years if not decades one way of thinking versus another.
82:00 In my opinion, that was the endgame for the Biden approach of requiring DEI values in these models. Indoctrination. 100%. All right, everybody. This has been another amazing episode of the All-In podcast. See you next time. Bye-bye.
