Political Polarization & the AI Threat

0:00Broadcasting live from the annex wealth management studios at the Avenue. It's time for Point Take-In. Here's Kristen Bride, an in for Steve's graffiti. Here's Todd Alba. Todd Alba indeed. Uh, I... Now regret. No, do I regret it? I don't know. You could have been there. I could have been there. You offered me the tickets you had to last night's Burgess Bim and on the, you know, coming back from a camping trip, I was like, I need a night. To just chill. And that's fine. And that was fine. But what a game you got to see live. Heck of a game. Took my friends Bill and Carrie Pink here in Milwaukee and my buddy former, my former personal trainer in Madison were still great friends. He is a wife and his daughter. It was his birthday, 39th birthday. And long story short, his wife said, I know how much you want to go to this game. Mr. Roskies, your favorite, favorite player. So he drove down. So the four of us were there at Ampham last night in what many sports reporters who cover the beat here in Milwaukee every day called the best game of the year. Crew wins four to three

1:05in 10 innings. We would, I didn't watch the whole game, but I did watch the last three innings. So eighth, ninth and 10th. And man, just the fact that we were going into the bottom of the ninth and just cheerio. What a magnet. And it was, and it was, and we're going to play just a couple of quick cuts. As you guys like to say, it's not a sports show. But I believe that the news is the news. And this is something that most people are talking about this morning. And the fact that the brewers are now 190, 90, 90 games. They have a nine game lead now over the dreaded Chicago Cubs, cut the magic number to win the central to seven. It was a pitcher's duel. You know, each, each team got a run in the first. And then nothing. And then the Cubs come back and score a couple of runs. It's, it's three to two. You think, well, whatever. And, and Murphy, Murphy and last night, Pat Murphy, after the game, look, I understand some of the fans were, were, were starting to leave. So we take you to the ninth brewers up two outs,

2:07two strikes, Christian, yellow pinch hits in the ninth gets on base. And then Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jackson, try to left. We did. I guess it was the right, Pat. Jackson, Cheerio, Jeff Lev ring on the call in the ninth year on six twenty WTMJ. He broke his first bat. And then he wouldn't grab the second one, just stepped up. And that was the result. So now the game is tied. And we go into the, the 10th, don't underestimate this Garrett Mitchell catches a fly ball instead of field and then delivers an absolute cannon back into home where, where Hamilton catches the third tags out, Zazuki for, for the Cubs. Now there's two outs. So they, they get a DL hall by the way came in in the ninth, uh, uh, uh, for Trevor McGill

3:07did not have his best night. DL hall, the Georgia boy is leveraging likes to call him. He's from Georgia. I had a great, a great, uh, ninth and into the 10th. And so into the 10th, now you got, now you got runners on base. And the setup is that Luis Laura who did not have a great rest of the game before he goes up to bat, Murph Patum on the chest and says, you got this and he, he kind of laughs it off. It's a serious look. And here's WTMJ 620 lane Grindel for the brewers on the call. We were jumping up and down hugging each other. I mean, it is incredible just to watch him first, first bat, right down exactly where he needed to put it. And he is, and 21 years old, Venezuela and brought up and such a great story. And just to watch the, the team go nuts over him

4:10and like everyone run on the field and we were celebrating with this guy. It was awesome. It was, it was my veins as they say. Absolutely brewers, uh, uh, close it out tonight against the cups for the year unless they meet the postseason tonight. You can hear it right here in 620 WTMJ. All right. Should we talk about some politics when we come back? Sure. Let's do that. Stay with us. He is Todd Alba. I'm Kristen Brie and this is Point A again. And we're getting into October fest season. Actually, speaking of October fest, uh, this Saturday for the brewers, then we'll say, then we're actually going to start talking politics. Um, is October fest night? My husband will be throwing out one of the first pitches and he's going to be doing it in leader, husband to promote Milwaukee October fest, which is in a month, uh, the first week of October. I'll be there. I'll be there. I'll go curtain floor see so I'll take a picture like full try to throw a ball. We're giving it on hacks, right?

5:11All right. Let's actually talk politics now because it is the first day in Dallas for the first ever mid midterms convention. Um, I don't know to expect. I'm sure there's going to be lots of speeches. I'm sure there's going to be lots of coverage. It'll be interesting to see what the the messages are coming out of this, uh, as far as I think the the what I've read was a lot of the people who have tight races are the people who are getting in priority for time on stage. So who does that include from Wisconsin? Derek Van Orden, which is the only person from Wisconsin politicians that I've seen confirmed for sure that he's going to be to speak. I don't know if others are also going who we know is not going as of yesterday is Tom Tiffany. I've been involved with politics since 1980 where I was just a kid volunteering. I don't recall anything like this on either side of the aisle until this time, which is curious. That's just really a bad thing. I guess if you're a Republican, a maga trying trying to get your name out there, but what this really is,

6:16in my opinion, is a fundraiser because tickets for this thing are going from to $20,000 a piece or more. Just to get in. I court. I feel like if you like someone wanted to go. I guess a sponsor. I mean, I don't I can't believe it's an individual necessarily, but according to Wisconsin Public Radio, this morning was $20,000 of tickets are going for a candidate entry. So let's say you're Derek Van Orton, you want to go and do this thing. You got to pay $25,000 to speak that. According to candidates who are that the candidate even go. That's what that's reported. So it's a big fun. And remember last check, Donald Trump and his personal political action committee was sitting on $400 million in his war chest and wasn't spending much of it. Well, I think as of because we talked about this on Friday with Bill and Joe. And I think Bill later that afternoon sends something out now. I don't know if it was just an announcement saying, oh, we're going to start spending. I don't know if anything's actually been deployed yet and spent past tense, but at least it was

7:20an acknowledgement like it's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's a week. So if it's a fundraiser, does the money go to Maga Inc? That's the question. I don't know. Maybe Bill knows all that stuff. You could ask him on Friday. But I think it's very is the money going. What is it? Everything with Donald Trump. It appears to be all about Donald Trump and a fundraiser for him. And then he gets decide who gets that money back, I guess. But to your point, you're right. I think that it is for those who have tight races and need the Maga Republican base to come out. I guess it makes sense to be there. But I don't want to your thoughts on Tom Tiffany skipping it. I think it's smart. So yeah. So as of yesterday, I think we have a little bit of the audio. He was doing the press conference and they were at he was asked whether or not he was going to be there. Maybe we don't have it. And right here in Milwaukee, we're going to be covering the entire state, going Madison, Wasau, Green Bay and all over the state of Wisconsin. We got meetings going on

8:22everywhere. So unfortunately, I'll not be able to attend because my mission here is to meet as many voters in Wisconsin as possible. We've only got eight weeks before the election. And I got a whole lot of voters to be able to meet until then because the the future of our state is at state. I mean, we're voters in Wisconsin are going to make a choice here. Are we going to be among the Wokenbroke like Minnesota and Illinois? Are we going to be one of the great states of America? And the vision. There's a lot of different things. So his first line was like, I'm busy this week, which is fair, right? I actually think one because I think that a lot of this is set up for congressional seats because that is obviously the priority for some for President Trump as far as trying to hold on to as many seats as possible, unless so gubernatorial races. And so I'm not sure there's the same money that's going to be coming in for Tom Tiffany, whether he goes or not. And I think it's smart. I think for a statewide race, stay in Wisconsin. Meet as many people as you

9:24can talk to as many people as you can. And there's nothing about this that I feel like is. I don't think he's missing out on anything by not going. Okay. Well, as a former Republican who left the party in 2011, if you're, I mean, Tommy Thompson would start every speech when he was governor with isn't great to be a Republican, ladies and gentlemen. He did. Asplication. And so if you're a Republican and you're and you went to DC who said in 2019, when you launch your congressional race, you're going there to help Donald Trump. Why aren't you going to this? Are you a barist? You should go if you're if you're if you're a Republican and try to Republican. Why isn't Tom Tiffany going? I think it is smart. Like I think it's like you're damned if you do you damned if you don't, right? But I think it's unlike the wager of what causes less the least amount of harm to my campaign. I think you don't go wrong by staying in Wisconsin. But if I'm a true Republican, I'm going, but I played a little bit of devil's advocate here. We have something called the Marquette

10:26Law School poll that came out. Wasn't 50 correct me from 56% of independence in the last poll were with Crowley and not Tom Tiffany. Yeah. So he's I mean, so he has got a lot of work to do as far as meeting, like he said, all those different Wisconsinites as many Wisconsinites as he can in the next eight weeks. I did raise this point and then we're going to go break and come back as far whether or not one debate is enough because I would love to ask Tom Tiffany if I were hosting the debate because he mentioned, you know, Wokenbroke from Minnesota in Illinois. Yeah. But what is the at what do you think the aspirational states are? Like if you're a Republican, what state are you looking at in comparison to Wisconsin and say we need to be more like them? If only we were like Florida and Texas. I don't know. That's a cruel question. So if you if you listen to me right now and then we're going to break 855616620, what state do you wish we were more like? I'll be back with Todd Alba and Kristen Bragg after this.

11:32What state is the most aspirational state? We're going to stay on this for a second, but because in his speech press conference yesterday, Tom Tiffany was staying that Wisconsinites. This is the state. Our future depends on this election as far as the gubernatorial race and through Minnesota and Illinois under the bus as far as go Wokenbroke and we want to be like the other great states, but I didn't know which states he meant. And so I asked the the text line, we got Todd said not Todd Alba but different Todd says Florida, Texas are way lower whether it's better from the 90 zero Texas from the 4014 states that have legalized marijuana like the three states that surround us. We got another Texas. Someone said I wish we could attract businesses like Tennessee. And then the better question is this is from Matt. The better question is what ideas or solutions would

12:32you like to take from other states? But my answer would be Massachusetts. The top of the educational markers for years, which is also true. I guess that's always a question as far as like what is important to you as an economic growth? Is it education outcomes? Is it wealth inequality? Like what is the like the indicators of a strong state? So we're past where did it in the week of a Labor Day? It's serious now political. The sprint to the finish line from midterm elections. We did the Republicans, Tom Tiffany is out there. But what about David Crowley and the Democrats, Christopher Bryant? Because you and Steve talked about this. I think it was a pecky and macaque last week. It seems very quiet. It seems very quiet. I'm like, and I can't tell if there's just more things happening in the background. Like I have to imagine that they're running the campaign and doing stuff. But as far as it coming, making any noise whatsoever or running the campaign where it feels like they are getting people excited about someone who on paper you would think is an

13:33exciting candidate. Like this is if elected, I'm assuming he might be our youngest governor ever at 40. Can you remember any of a government who's younger than 40? And obviously also the first black governor in Wisconsin history. And so like and he is a dynamic young guy that is easy to talk to. Like it's like all of these markers of someone who would be a candidate you want out there talking to people and making noise and doing all the media. And like he hasn't been back on this show since he won the race. I see more things on social media for Rebecca Cook and Fred Clark. Two districts that I do not live in see way more of their social media than I see anything for David Crowley. I talked to multiple people who have like done cross state trips as of green beta was Madison to Milwaukee and said they haven't seen a single David Crowley yard sign.

14:35I was driving around Wisconsin this weekend as were you. Southwest Wisconsin to Steven's point to Green Bay to Sean O back to Madison. I did not see a one Crowley farm sign. I don't know how to Madison. I saw David Crowley yard sign. Yeah. And like granted signs don't vote. Right. But they signal something. The seeing them signal something. There are a lot of Tiffany ones. Like I obviously over in Casville. I saw a fair amount of Tom Tiffany things. And I also saw some Rebecca Cook. But I saw zero David Crowley. And so I don't like I don't know what they're doing. And it's I kind of feel like I'm taking crazy pills a little bit as far as like why is this so quiet. This is not in the bag at all. Don't like look at polling. And so where are you and why are you not out there making some noise and getting people excited. I think that the Democrats got a

15:36like a false sense of security in the primary thinking. Oh David Crowley and Tony Evers won that primary. No, they did not. Fran Hall and fumbled it at the five in her campaign imploded. And they did a terrible job of mitigating it. And that's Fran Hall lost the Democratic primary. David Crowley did not win the Democratic primary. Yes, he won. Quoted quote, but it's not because he ran this great fantastic campaign. No, I totally agree. So like I don't know where I'm hoping that we'd start to see stuff. I don't know, bubble up or start to actually feel like we're having conversations around like like Tom Tiffany said, like what are our choices between these two and understanding the policy conversation between the two of them because we know as of yesterday, there's only going to be one debate free advice that David Crowley's campaign. If you actually quote, quote, quote, did stuff, tell us what you did. Don't just say I did stuff. And yes, you're right. There should be more than one campaign and shame on Tom Tiffin or debate and she won Tom Tiffany for saying no. All right, we got into the news. Welcome back to Point Taken. I am Kristen Brie along with Todd

16:42Alba who is in for Steve's graffiti today and tomorrow's Steve will be back on Friday. And Todd, one of the things I feel like we don't talk about when you fill in, you obviously do a great job when you're here. You also have another job. And so you are working for a group called United Wisconsin, which I feel like I know what I know about the organization is basically just because we're friends. And so I know that it's a big on like fusion voting. But in general, it's kind of in the civility depolarization space. That be fair. Wait a minute. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it just for a second. What makes it unique, I think, is that in today's world, we just got done talking for half an hour about polarization and two different parties, what's kind of not working. And my former boss Republican state center Dale Schultz, along with Democratic former Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney, our co-chairs of this group that are bringing people together from from all parties, a multi party organization, say, let's focus on things like conservation, public education, a rule of law and a small business, including agriculture,

17:46find the common ground. And how do we get there through fusion voting? And one of the great members of this great statewide board and one of the people on the board is this guy, Russ Barcelona, who joins us in studio here watching on the live stream today. And Russ is a co-founder and licensed business psychologist with ascend talent strategies. And for over 25 years, he's been doing business conflict resolution. And so we're doing this digital series. Look, I'm no Christian broad. No, no, no, it was it was corporate. And so we're doing this digital series. Russ, we interviewed Russ here a couple of weeks ago. And Russ, first of all, welcome to point taking a WTMJ. Thanks, Todd and Kristen. I appreciate the opportunity. Well, it's great to have you here. Tell folks, give us just a minute or so on your background. The Kristen's point, what type of things did you do with the corporate world before you got into this? So as part of being a business psychologist, you do a lot of leadership assessment, development, coaching, team building,

18:49and things and conflict management type of work. And it's interesting because conflicts exist on different issues, but often the sources of conflict are tied to people's emotions and and also kind of the dynamics of the situation. So it has a great opportunity to be applicable to politics, voting and those type of things. So go ahead. No, no, I was going to say, applying this to politics a little bit. And and and Stephen Kristen talked about this a lot on Friday, especially with Joe and Bill. We've seen it around the state. A mile show we did it for three years around the state. And one of the big questions is people say, how did we get here? You know, especially people, Kristen's age and younger, 40s and younger, they never seem government work by and large. I think that's part of what drove the DSA movement in the Holland campaign, this another kettle of fish. But in terms of what is driving this this this zero sub politics? What's the psychology behind that? Sure. Although everyone in this studio doesn't

19:51look a day over 29. Oh, you're too hot there. You're too kind. Let's start there. But I think when you when you look at that question, it's a question that I've asked a lot of my friends about the United States. It's like, when did the dynamics change? Where it became that way? And every time I've asked that question of a friend or someone who, you know, I became acquainted with, I got different answers. You know, some people say it was the Reagan era. Some people say it was when New Gindridge got his opportunity on CNN. You know, a lot of people say when, you know, there was different kind of cultural changes and movements. And that had a great deal of division on our country and our culture and then what's reflected in politics. So I'd love to be able to answer that question. My my concern is just how the train has gone off the rails. And it's it's to the point now where it's breaking up families and it's you know, it's breaking up, you know, how people even act with civility with each other. I mean, even how they drive for

20:56God's sake in Milwaukee. Well, it is interesting, especially as as we're in the 25th anniversary this week for 9.11. I think a lot of people point back to the days, weeks, months, post 9.11. As the last time we were more united. Yeah. Um, granted there was, you know, there was pushback as far as there were a lot of people who were angry about the the Patriot Act and as we, you know, entered two wars and everything. But as far as for at least there was a snapshot in time where things felt more united. And then it's only feel like it's getting worse and worse and worse in my adult during my adult life, right? It's like, I feel like it wasn't at for me personally. I feel like in my 20s, I don't remember losing like friends and family. And I still don't have really lost friends and family. But like that occurrence has felt more in the last 10 years. But it feels like it was probably brewing underneath the surface even before that. Yeah. It's just only enough. The dynamic with with 9.11 was a shared threat. It didn't matter what political

21:57party, what ethnic group. But if that was a attack on all of America. And so you could see where people would interpret that and it would increase the size of the tribe. Because, you know, tribalism is a big dynamic that exists that that breaks people apart. You know, it was something that we have kind of hardwired into our, you know, chromagnon brain, right? Where it's like two for survival. You know, if it's part of my tribe, it's good. It's part of another tribe. You know, I don't know it. So I fear it. And so and that's a threat to me. Well, we had an external threat. And those things can be things that stir people to to pull together more than to pull apart. Is that maybe an argument of why polarization wasn't as bad during the decades of the Cold War? Because there was a constant external threat to a degree. I think that's true. But I think that I think that that

22:58was a threat that was a little bit more kind of a theory in a way. Whereas 9.11 was an experience threat, you know, a direct threat to, you know, kind of our way of living, especially because it happened in, you know, New York and, you know, New York is kind of a big, you know, flagship of the US, of our cities go. So I think with the with the Cold War, it might have been different because everybody probably thought there might be different approaches to it, you know. All right, let's do this really quickly. We're talking to Russ Barcelona, who is a doctor, Russ Barcelona, who is a co-founder and licensed business psychologist. We're talking about how his experience in business psychology, how he interprets politics and polarization using his background. And so there was a part of your guys' conversation that I want to get to as far as a very old study on, it's not path laws dog, though, but it's at, it's like that as far as how it trains us to become apathetic. And so I want to talk about how we get that way and also how we get out of that. So stay with us on Point

24:00Taken. Welcome back to Point Taken. I am Kristen Brigh here with Todd Alba, who is in for Steve today and tomorrow. Steve will be back on Friday. We are talking to Dr. Russell Barcelona, who is a co-founder and licensed business psychologist and also sits on the board of United Wisconsin, which is how you two met. And tell us a little bit more about this conversation because this is what I wanted to have you on as far as through your psychology background, trying to talk through why are we, because I'm fascinated in this because so for context, I'm doing documentary on how polarization is impacted Gen Z. So generation younger than me, who literally this is all they've done, right? Let's like, if the, even the oldest Gen Z was born 1997, so they were four when 9-11 happened, like mostly what all they know. So this is what I, where my brain's been for a lot of this year. And like, it's interesting to me as far as we can talk about polarization in the abstract. And yet we still partake in it when it actually comes to like our day-to-day life. Even though we

25:05know that we're, we're doing it, we can't get out of it. How do you explain that? Most of the, most of it's explainable actually through emotion. It's interesting because there's like, it's kind of like motivated reasoning, right? It's like, when, you know, I hear the same exact news, Kristen, and I interpret it one way and you interpret it another way. Well, now we've got an issue, right? And it's the same exact news. Either one of us has to cross the vine and say, maybe I need to listen to Kristen a little bit closer to see if there's anything that's, you know, kind of relevant or are thoughtful about how she interpret it? Really, rough to do because as human beings, we want closure and we don't want to be wrong. We just don't want to be wrong. That's one of the hardest things to do. And so then what do we do? We hear something that, you know, doesn't register with us. It doesn't make us feel like we're part of our tribe,

26:07whether someone has misbehaved or maybe someone gets incarcerated that we thought was someone who is honest and all that. Now what do we do with that information? We have to kind of figure that out. And you know, oftentimes we go, well, the system was rigged, you know, that the news is biased. All these things start to come into our mindset to help us, you know, justify, you know, maybe where we're wrong and actually kind of block us from admitting, hey, you know, I didn't see that the right way the first time. That's probably the biggest dynamic because I've lived a long life almost 66 years and that is so you see that it's like that is the hardest thing to do. It's like apologizing. It's like saying, I was wrong. We just need national apology day. It is my new idea where and I was talking a tad about this about two weeks ago where if we thought something wrong

27:08or we followed something that didn't make any sense now to us, we could just have a day where we all go, okay, you know, it's like a free like the opposite of the purge. No, but you know, it's the opposite of the purge, but the same is that day in the library where you just return your books and you don't have to pay the fine. We're talking about Barcelona. Tell us about we hear these big psychological terms, cognitive dissidents. Put it down there where the chickens can get at it as they say. Okay, ignore these two words, cognitive dissidents, okay, because it's so simple to explain and it's similar to what I just kind of mentioned. It's when, you know, you have a thought about this is my tribe and we are good or this is my, these are the things that I hold to be true or or you know, this is my ethnic group or my religion or my political party, party beliefs and all of a sudden you get a data point that doesn't fit that. It's so uncomfortable. It's like, though, there's two different kinds of people who watch movies, okay, my wife is in the camp of

28:11she wants closure. How come this movie didn't end on a high note? What happens to so-and-so? And I don't need that. It's not something that's important to me that I'll ask Van Buey to and it's so hard for people to not get a good closure and kind of feel good about themselves and maybe what they thought in the past. And so, kind of dissidents really kind of helps if you stay open and you think about what questions do I need to ask of the other party to refute my belief so maybe I can understand that. I listen to a super cool Ted talk and I'm sorry but I don't have the authorship and all that but- Well here, what I'm going to do this because we have to take a break quickly. Figure out what the Ted talk was. We'll come back and we'll finish with Dr. Raspar Solona. Stay with us and point taken. Welcome back to point taken along with the lovely intelligence and Chris DeBry and Todd all of all of them for a vacationing. Steve Scafiti, he's back on Friday. Our guest is Dr. Raspar Solona, a licensed business psychologist with a

29:12send talent strategies. Also part of United Wisconsin. Check him out at UnitedWasconson.org. Time always goes too fast. Russ, only a couple of minutes left here before the top of the hour. Want to get to this because one of the big things that Chris and I talk about is people tell us we just don't want to listen to the news anymore because what could I do about it? There's too much information. I've just kind of given up. What's the psychology behind that and how do we get out of it? Jump to that. It's called the Learned Helplessness. Learned Helplessness. All right. And so many years ago, they threw a dog lover. Please cover your ears but they gave dogs mild shocks. They were in a pen that they couldn't get out of and after a certain amount of time, the dog just laid down on the mat and got shocked and didn't move because it earned that everything. Anything you try to do to escape, it didn't work. When you think about the types of things people talk about, how they say politics is rigged. It's run by big money. My vote doesn't matter. These are all ways people are basically stating their feeling of Learned Helplessness.

30:18And from that, they withdraw. We get a song from Dave Matthews waiting for the world to change. Or you get rage against the machines killing in the name of, which I have like what? I really kind of is the difference between, you know, helplessness but a can turn into extremism too. It's not really thought of that much. It's where people, they start to get out of apathy and say, I'm going to fight. And so they say things like we need to overhaul the whole system, you know, anarchy. And some of those kind of thought process really come from a period of time when someone's probably felt like nothing they did mattered. And it probably explains, you know, when people have writing and looting and things in relationship to that because nothing else has kind of worked for them. Give us, give us what the quickly we could do to make progress on this with our friends and neighbors. Yeah. I think the big part of it is is I'd like to put people in a room who've disagree with each other from different polls and don't ask them anything about politics.

31:22Just ask them, what's important to you? And that's why our country I think has gotten off the rail sun. And we don't talk about educating people, feeding people, finding jobs for people, getting homes for people. I mean, if we just went to the basics and we all have family members who for lack of a better way of saying it have kind of messed up in life and need a hand or some support or something in relationship to that. And, you know, we all have a lot of shared experiences. That's nothing to do with religion or politics or ethnicity or anything that people will, you know, find the time to fight about. Talk to, talk to your strangers, talk to people you don't think you disagree, you think you disagree with Dr. Russ Barcelona. Thank you so much for being here today. We'll be back after the news. Welcome back. Another hour on this Wednesday edition of Point Taken. And you've probably, if you were listening to the morning news, I know the guys this morning covered this. It's definitely been all over my social media for the last 24 hours.

32:28But, and Thropic Insiders now. So, and Thropic being one of the major AI companies. Basically, well, this was yesterday that he posted it, right? There was a tweet and a tweet thread from a guy named Jacob Coxon. And it basically said, I am resigning today from, from and Thropic. I think he also worked at OpenAI at some point. And basically just said like, there is a chance that AI will kill humans. Like the human, humans will go extinct by the end of the decade. It is this like, and so the thing is, it has like 10 million views as of last night. I think he himself has, it's up to 87 million views, just this tweet alone. And I've been seeing it get shared and shared again. And this is concerning in the conversation around like how many people are warning that like we can't slow down because of the arms race of AI like us versus

33:31other countries. But also this thing might kill us. And what I don't understand, because Steven, I've talked about this a lot as far as the AI concerns. It's never, I feel like there's never more detail in like, okay, but how? Like how would they, how would the AI cause humans to go extinct? And is there not a way for us to just like not do that? How do you understand this? Well, first of all, this is no surprise to me because I good friend Kurt and I, we go back, he has a unfounded in my opinion fear of monkeys. And I have, I think a founded fear of, I believe I will be killed by an AI dog, a robotic AI dog. It's just going to go crazy. And because you can't, you put, you put these AI minds in robots, Kristen. Why do you think that's more rational than being afraid of monkeys? Because monkeys are cute. There's like documented cases of chimpanzees killing humans. And like, there's an entire like, memeification, like online debate that happened two

34:35years ago about a gorilla versus hundreds of men. So I think the rational fear of monkeys is way more valid than the AI dog that doesn't exist, Todd. I did not an unprovoked attack over monkeys. Come on. Just saying to claim that your fear of rational is a stretch. I don't think so. Go ahead. So you're afraid of this AI dog that's going to attack you. Yes. More than like a real dog. Are you, are you more afraid of AI dogs than real dogs? Because it's because these AI dogs robots, they're, they're super strong. And you can't, you just get them off you. I know this is a serious subject. But my point is, my point you say, well, how can it happen? The AI world just tells these robots at some point. Have you ever seen a Star Wars? You know, a return of what is it? What's the, the new trilogy, the drone or the clone wars? I mean, that's, that's, you know, it's basically that that you have robots or clones that get AI

35:37brains. And they just start thinking for themselves. And it's all over. Or perhaps a more serious topic. We've seen already foreign countries tap into our grid. And you just in Arizona, you don't have air condition. Guess what? A lot of people were going to die. So it's not, it's not necessarily a dog or a robot. It's the AI that's controlling everything that we do or all the heating, cooling, ventilation, electricity. It just shuts it down. Well, the reason, all right. So the reason why I'm kind of looking at this. Because it became such a big deal, right? Like, I feel like headline news everywhere this morning was this tweet thread from this guy Jacob Coxon. But there's also parts of this that feel weird. As far as like, all right, if you're a whistleblower and you're saying you're coming down saying there's all these like talk about whoever, you know, who's all these people who are involved in the development of this AI have concerns. It's like, why is there like a lack of what the concerns actually are? Like they're asking for regulation. But

36:40like what I feel like there's like the, it's an incomplete sentence. As far as this like, I don't want to say fear mongering, but language that makes most of us very, very concerned. Sure. And yet not a lot of detail on like what could happen? What could play out? But then on top of that, this tweet that has 87 million views. It has been like 533,000 times. It has been reshared 129,000 times. And this is within 24 hours, right? That's the ninth. No, he posted it last night. He posted it last night at 7 p.m. This guy has only ever made one post on Twitter. This Jacob Coxon. You put him in LinkedIn. Nothing comes up. So my thing is it's like, this also feels like a sion. As far as this person who can just claim that they worked for OpenAI or work for Anthropic and

37:43come on and make this viral tweet. No one has ever heard of this person again yet. I've yet to see anything else as far as like confirming who this person is, verifying that he actually worked at these companies. And so it also thinks they know. But it also feels like another contribution to what is real. Oh, I think there's two possibilities, right? And you raised a great point. Tees those possibilities. And then we'll come back and talk about what those possibilities could be on the other side of this. All right, welcome back to Point A good. I am Chris DeBriatat Alba's with me. Steve is in Vegas. He'll be back on Friday. But I am not. So back up first, I mean. We're talking about this viral tweet that came out last night from an engineer named Jacob Coxen, presumably. And that has gone viral, right? As far as this conversation around how there is concern around

38:45how fast AI is getting developed, like in the speed of which it's going so quickly that there is concern of the people who are involved in creating it that we will get to the point sooner than expected where it is improving upon itself without human interaction. And then like, and then what? I think that is my understanding of the unknown of when this becomes autonomous and not being able to control it. Again, can we just unplug things? That's what I also don't know. But I also want to focus on the fact that who this person is or should I say, what do you even know about this person? What was the story? Who was the, who was the, is it Notre Dame? The story that's like 15 years old about the poor college student who had a fake girlfriend and he didn't know that she was fake. Yes. Thank you. That story. And it's like, this feels like that again or it could be that as far as until we have some kind of, but like what's crazy to me is Wall Street Journal. Like every

39:48major publication is running stories about this. And yet I can't find any information about who this person actually is. And I said before the break, I think there's two possibilities. Either a, the guy is real and he just decided to be a whistleblower. And this is how he decided to do it or b, the post itself is AI or fake or a Russian bot or something just trying to so discourse and discontent or trying to like win a bet on Kelsey. Sure. Or win a bet on Kelsey. I mean, it's until it's your earlier point before the break. If the guy's real, step forward, I mean, it's kind of like this Mitch McConnell's alive doing interview. I mean, you're either a real thing or you're alive or you're not. This guy is the Mitch McConnell of AI world. So yeah, I don't really know what to make of this. Like it's, but it's just, we were just talking about like learned helplessness, right? And I feel less learned helplessness when it comes to our

40:52politics. Like that, I still feel like you got to go out and vote. Like there's ebbs and flows of how politics goes, but like there's, you always fight to live it and like see another day to try to continue to create the world you want to live in or you want your children to live in. I will admit, when it comes to the AI stuff, I think what I'm getting there a lot faster as far as the learned helplessness of like what I don't know, like this seems like a bad idea. And yet I have no control over how fast this is going. And I don't trust anyone in our political system to be the people who are smart enough to know how to regulate it. Let me put this in a real serious and real context here as a guy who only has God's sons. I love them very much, but I get it. They're not my biological children. You have a daughter, you and your husband as I do for those that might not be listening. I was curious. Like as a parent, it would scare the hell out of me to have a two or three year old and think about the world that they could potentially be living in with all this

41:52stuff right now going on. And you hear of data centers. We hear this 75 line and oh, you have to have energy because you have to have data centers and clouds. There's a real part of me that if I could afford it and just go live in Montana in a log cabin and unplug, I'd be very happy because there are a lot of times when I share your, I feel overwhelmed as a single guy with technology, where is all this headed? How does it feel for a mom? Or do you not think about it? I try not to think about it. I think when you think about it too much, it's easy to get focused on all the things that are terrible. And then instead in the moments of like going camping this weekend with my husband's like cousins and siblings and watching Frankie P. Freely as a naked toddler running in the in nature. I was like, oh, this is wonderful, right? Like there's so much offline that is still beautiful and wonderful and like worth living. And I always think about this as far as like there was much darker times that we as a species of live through and kept

42:57procreating. So the idea that we should stop procreating because of the world they're inheriting is like, I don't know, like 98% of the population used to live in like dire poverty and they kept having kids, right? And like that looked pretty bleak. And so I don't really buy into that we shouldn't procreate because things look dark or that we're inheriting like they're inheriting the world. Like I think it's going to be different. And so certain ways it'll be better and certain ways it'll be worse. Does the future of AI scare you or inspire you? Give us a text of the citing unlimited WTMJ talk text line 855 616 1616 161620. That's the way I was supposed to say it. I'm only a pitch hitter 855 616 1620. Does AI scare you or inspire you? I'd like to know. All right. Talking about the AI threats that lose the world. Like we're on the view of hot topics here.

43:58That's 10 of text as far as we have one person who said neither neither scares them nor inspires them. Then we have someone who said both. Someone said I fall somewhere in the middle. I'm trepidacious. Good word. I don't want to fear it, but I want to have respect for it. I guess I'm keeping an open mind. I do think we need regulation on this. I mean, but it also is like there's a lot of motivators. I feel like to play up how powerful it is. Right. I just want to keep that as an option as far as the PR campaigns that can now be deployed in all of these different ways, whether it's bot farms or fake accounts or like there's entire industry now that is dispersed in comment sections around social media platforms to sway public opinion, whether that's on politics, whether that's a manufactured outrage like cracker barrel or Sydney Swini's gene ad or why everyone is so excited about this yesterday or book and then

45:02they actually read it and they're like, wasn't that good? Was this hype real or was this like did we get got? Is there like that is like watching this? Is there something behind pretending that this is so big and dangerous so that there's continues to be money funneled into it versus the reality is like maybe it's not as powerful as we think it is. But maybe it's powerful enough to turn us against ourselves. This is a question of how is AI going to quote unquote kill us. Maybe it's not an AI or robot or a robotic dog so much as putting out disinformation in which it turns us against a dog for your birthday. Stop it. But we've seen this right. I mean already there are laws. We're going to talk about that. So I think tomorrow AI in campaign ads in Wisconsin, you have to disclose that. But you can use it. But you can use it. And so it makes us believe things that aren't true. And you think, well, that I'm not voting for that person because they said this. Maybe they never did it or sent it or

46:02whatever. And you vote someone in who does not have our best interest at heart. Wasn't that it? Wasn't it confirmed for the Tom for Thomas Massey's re-election that they were space they ran and this is this is actually true. They ran some ads that Thomas Massey was in like a thrupal with a OC and Ilhan Omar. I'm pretty sure was she was the second. And there's people who actually believed it. Oh my god. As far as voters who voted in that in his re-election and obviously he lost. But there was like that's the thing right there are some people who do fall for this stuff. And right. And it's concerning. But like you said as far as like, should there not be regulations like you can't even use it in campaigns. Like it's one thing to acknowledge that it's been used. But having a trusting that people are going to read in between the lines and actually listen to paid for by and this is not real. Is that asking a little too much? I've tried for a 30 second story or no. You do you have a minute. Speaking of nine in Wisconsin, talking leader ethics, a great

47:05group out of the cross, Lee Rosh heads up had the heads of University of Wisconsin lacrosse, Verteboe, which deals in nursing and tech school and Western tech school college. They invited in their top employers that hire their graduates and said, what can we do better to prepare graduates to be in your workforce? Number one answer. Teach people how to talk to one another. They said, we have people that you send us that will sit in a cubicle three feet apart. I would rather text or email one another rather than turning around and say and asking a question verbally. And that comes from this reliance on AI, whether it's writing or or or other stuff that Lord, how to be a human. Talk to one another. Have conversations. You'll feel better. All right. After this, we have more. Welcome back to Pointake and I am Kristen Fry. Hot albus here for the rest of today. It was a fun show. I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure anybody else, but I've been very entertained by

48:09this show. You know, I had more opinions and I think it's sometimes I feel when Steve's gone, I get a little bit more opinionated. And I love that because when he's here, it's like maneuvering around his opinions. And I love his too. It wasn't a slide on Steve, but yeah, it's great. I love it when it comes out. It takes up a lot of space. Sometimes when he's gone, I get to stretch my legs a little bit and be a little bit more sassy. Okay. So if the AI is not going to kill you, your groceries might. So I actually did this as my grab bag with Bill and Joe a couple of weeks ago. There was a great there was a tweet that just like listed off all of the things that have been recalled as of late, like 2026 alone. And again, as we're talking about, Syop is feeling like it's too strong of a word, but perception, right? It does feel like there has been a lot of recalls this year for food. I guess in reality, it is not out of sync for where we usually are in any given year. Like we're a little bit up from where we were in 2025,

49:11but we're also down from where we were in 2024. But you put every time there is some kind of you know, psychospora or botulism or all these different things that have been in anything from jalapenos to baby formula. While it's super expensive, you start thinking like what are we allowed to eat? Well, can we not eat? And also you look back at the fact that the federal government has cut jobs when it comes to food safety. And like you and I were talking about this as far as just this assumption that we have, I guess as Americans, probably in most of our peer countries, also have this assumption that like the food you eat is safe. But like if someone wanted to actually cause great damage, our food supplies actually not that well monitored. And you told me a story about this that it kind of made me a little nervous. I was like, oh, here's another thing we have to worry about. Well, first of all, I agree that we are not in a great place of food safety.

50:17And I'm very concerned as a former Republican left the party in 2011 that the current iteration of the Maghari Republican Party again, it's just not being consistent. These are things that were bipartisan or nonpartisan in the past like we're not going to argue over safety of food and health. Yeah. And now under the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy, you know, it's kind of gone off the rails in my opinion. Tommy Thompson is in my opinion, the greatest governor Wisconsin ever had. Wow. Elected four times. Of course, Bill McConson who comes on the show every week was his chief of staff youngest one ever was his secretary of commerce. And Steve was mayor. And Steve was mayor. Go ahead. But wow. Kristen, Kristen Brian spicy to nail, ladies and gentlemen. Go ahead. But and look, I people say and I'll just say as a personal aside, I personally am disappointed in the current iteration of Tommy Thompson. I think he has this lust to be relevant.

51:18And I kind of think that's why he's hitched his wagon to the Trump folks. I like to separate. He's the only person who's done that though. No, but I like to separate that out from the Tommy Thompson that was governor, which I think who was transformational. And after he was chosen by George W. Bush in 2000, 2001, to go be the secretary of health and human services. I went in in 2002 with my former boss Dale Schultz, another former Republican state center, Alan Lese from the door County area. And we paid him a visit. He put some people in the show. We'll remember Bob Wood was this chief of staff out there. So we go and visit secretary Thompson at the time and he gives us a tour. And there's this big room of, I mean, it's a huge room. And it used to be the lunch room conference room for the secretary. And Tommy says, you know, I don't need a big room now luncheon. And he goes, I wanted to put it to better use. Let me show you what we did. And so we get this to we open it up. And it's like sealed doors, double doors

52:20open. And there's a, I think it was a military person that was like got a stands up and salutes secretary Thompson. And it was this, it looked like a mini NASA control room. Big screens, the walls and and banks of monitors and people. And he said, look what we're doing here. And he said, they put together this technology. He said, let's just choose a random city. I don't know. Elroy Wisconsin. And he said, of course, his hometown. And he said, all right, let's say there's a trained derailment here. And inside a container, there's anthrax or something else. And then they can monitor. They use all the satellite of the weather and whatnot where this plume of toxic stuff is going. And then they cross match that with all the rural first responders, large municipality, fire department, ambulances and and Wisconsin emergency management and letting people know to evacuate first, put a responders in place before this toxic stuff moves into the community. And they were doing that for the entire United States of America. And Tommy said, it was so

53:23successful that President George W. Bush sent Don Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense over to learn from them because what they were doing at DHS was ahead of the technology for this type of stuff and Department of Defense. And I don't know that that story has ever been told. I know. When you told it to me, I never heard it before. And this is the type of leadership that Tommy Thompson had while he was at the federal level. And he said, you know, we don't talk about our food safety enough. This 2002. And he said, you know, it might scare some people, but he said things. Food comes in on big containers into ports. And then he's put a railroad. And only a fraction of this is ever actually inspected in these containers. So he said, we need to do a better job of monitoring food coming in from other countries, first and foremost. But in general, because this is a Achilles heel for the safety of the United States of America. And I don't know

54:25that this has been greatly improved on, of course, Secretary Thompson left after the first George W. Bush term. I don't know if anybody picked up that ball. I don't know if that continued under Obama. I don't know if it continued on Trump one Biden or Trump two. My guess is no, because you don't hear Secretary Kennedy talking about this anymore. And why we, and why we talk about ballrooms and, and, and maps and, and Lake America and Ontario. This is the kind of, yeah, whatever. This is the kind of thousand. America. This is the kind of serious stuff that is not being talked about. And it's unfortunate that we don't have real leaders like Tommy Thompson at the federal level. Tommy Thompson asked McCotion this on Friday. Our friend Trigg the Olson said this, who worked for for a while too, that, that governor Thompson had a, it likes to say, there are two kinds of politicians, those that want to be at those that want to do. And Tommy Thompson was a kind of person that wanted to do. He didn't care about necessarily his name on stuff, right? He wanted to get stuff done.

55:31And it's unfortunate that my former party has now become the party of wanting to be. Scott Walker wanted to be Donald Trump wanted to be be better break. Welcome back to point taken. I am Kristen Brie. Steve's out. Betad Alba is in and trying to figure out what, you know, where we want to go. I think we might as well just go with the dystopian, everything that's going to kill us topics today instead of changing gears too much. And as Mike Lucas, so the great reporter for that, the Capitol Times is fond of saying timely, timely indeed, as we approach Friday when Steve will be back to talk about and have remembrances of the 20th anniversary of 9-11. Well, and we knew that we were going to say, I think Bill and Joe are going to be here for two hours on Friday and we're going to dedicate the whole show to kind of different aspects of talking about 9-11. And I was not expecting to have kind of a, I don't know if you call this a news dump, but it certainly was a dump of

56:34documents that I did not know existed. But New York City released over 170,000 pages of documents revealing that officials repeatedly misled residents about the toxic air quality levels after 9-11. And I think everyone, because people have obviously, there's a lot of people who have died since 9-11 because of cancer and because of different sicknesses that I think was largely attributed to the environment that they were working in. I guess the news here, though, is how much the city actually knew. Yeah, and quick shout out to the guys in the morning. By the way, we both commented on these interviews that was Vincent Dunnett or Eric, sorry, Eric had done it sometime back, but they replayed it. It's so powerful this morning driving in and listening to that. And they were tied. I think, if I get the number wrong, keep me honest. I think to your point, Kristen, it's over 12,000 New York City firefighters and first responders who now have gotten other

57:38health conditions that were traceable back to their service of 9-11. And think about this, you know, Rudy Giuliani for so long after 9-11, they got all this praise as you'll America's mayor. And I don't know, maybe he did do some things well at the moment, but he certainly knew about this. You had other Democratic, he was Republican, of course, he had Democratic mayor's like Bill Diplosio who didn't release this. So good on on on Madame for for for saying, you know what, we're going to release everything. So apparently, so this is why I released the records now. This is according to CNN. So the documents were among 68 boxes that were stored in a city government office that were discovered last year. Wow. But you can't tell me that nobody knew. I don't know. I mean, this is just like, this is an interesting turn of events as far as is it a cover up? Like, how do you frame this? And also, what is there to be done besides acknowledging it? Like, is there going to be lawsuits after this as far as families being able to sue the city? Because like, what had this been more available information? What other

58:43decisions would have been made? There are other John Stewart's been talking about this. We can come back and play a little bit of that. All right. Perfect. Stay with us. Point taken. We have a couple more minutes before we sign off for the day. I have been with Todd Alba all day. He'll be back tomorrow. But just finishing up or at least continuing the conversation around the news from yesterday that New York City has finally released about 170,000 documents. They put it in an online portal that is searchable that shows how much the city actually knew about how toxic the air was and basically that there was a spestus everywhere. And that knowledge was not in real time given. Nor has it been for 25 years released until now. And so along with the release of these records, because we were talking about lawsuits and like, what's to be done now is that the cities also announced that they're settling in two different lawsuits brought by the advocacy group, 911 Health Watch, which is who sued the city to force publications of these records. And so

59:48we were going to say that John Stewart, who's been like an advocate for this for a long time, he's testified in front of Congress, largely asking for more healthcare for the people who cleaned up this mess and literally put their lives on the line, not knowing that their lives would be taken years later, not on the day itself. And so let's play a little bit from John Stewart's speech yesterday. They only buried that information for 25 years. I want to be fair to the city. They didn't find out, they didn't recognize that the air that everyone was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001. There was poison in the air and on the ground and in the window sills and in your air conditioners and covering your pets and your clothes and it's stayed there for months. Everyone knew. And now it's very clear that the city knew as well.

1:00:50And rather than take the steps to ameliorate the damage that that would cause to its citizens and to the people that were down there, they instead covered it up to get back to business as usual. But unfortunately, after 9-11 business will never be usual again. John Stewart. John Stewart, ladies and gentlemen. So yeah, it's things like that to send an assamer now to when you're like, oh, this is why people don't trust the government. But good, I'll say positive. Good on John Stewart. For it, so often we see an entertainment, music, whatnot. It's all about me. And I think John Stewart's a guy, love him or hate him as a comedian or entertainer. He's used his platform to do something for others and to speak out and to get Congress to come together in some of the rare bipartisan times to approve some money, not enough, but some for all of these American heroes who ran toward the

1:01:51buildings on 9-11 to help their friends and neighbors, many of whom they did not know. Absolutely. Alright, maybe we'll have more fun tomorrow. I mean, we had fun today. We had fun. We had some pretty somber topics. A good mix. But we have Jeremy Janine will be here for an hour tomorrow, so we can talk about all things Milwaukee. I'm talking about scooters. Stay tuned to that for that. I had a scooter experience last night and I've got a bone to pick with Janine, so we'll talk about that tomorrow. Alright, that's quite the tease. News is next and then midday.