>> Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.

Tim Wildmon So there's a new, big time boxing match scheduled. Yeah, think it's tomorrow in Washington, D.C. you know, Wednesday.

Steve Jordahl Wednesday.

Tim Wildmon Wednesday. You know, President Trump just had the MMA fighters there. Well, they're moving down the street to the Capitol. yeah, it's going to be Anthony, Fauci, coming in five, three five, 335 pounds. He's gonna be taking on Rand Paul from Kentucky, who's I think 5, 8, 100 and what, 80, 100? I don't think he's that much. Yeah, I think he's slimmed down. So, anyway, that's Anthony Fauci's five, seven. What'd I say he was? Five, three.

Ed Vitagliano Five three.

Tim Wildmon Yeah. He's not that short. He's. He's a five, seven dude. What? by the way, welcome, Steve Jordan.

Steve Jordahl Thank you.

Tim Wildmon Paisley Jordan.

Steve Jordahl Glad to be here.

Anthony Fauci and Rand Paul face off in open committee on Wednesday

Tim Wildmon So, Ed Patek. Now tell me how, what's, what's the size of Anthony, Fauci and Rand Paul, who's gonna win that? I mean, who has the size advantage?

Ed Vitagliano well, that. I just told you.

Tim Wildmon Anthony took Rand Paul's height.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, because that is a thing when you, when you're talking about,

Tim Wildmon Yeah, because they got better.

Ed Vitagliano More reach boxing. Yeah, because they have reached. So rand Paul is 5, 6. He's an inch shorter, although he publicly claims to be 5 8. Okay, what about the ages?

Steve Jordahl That should count for something too.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, Rand Paul's not quite. Although, Rand Paul's probably in his. What is Rand Paul in his 50s?

Ed Vitagliano He's 63.

Tim Wildmon He's my age. Okay, so. So who would win. Who's going to win that, that, boxing match? Oh, they're not actually going to.

Ed Vitagliano Fauci's 85. That's quite a different 22. Different 22 years.

Tim Wildmon Not a fair fight right there. But anyway, Steve, what are the.

Steve Jordahl What this is what's going to happen? The left is going to place. You're going to see on the social media, Rand, Anthony Fauci decimates Rand Paul in open committee and embarrasses him. And the right is going to say Rand Paul gets the best Anthony Fauci and puts him in his place. So it just depends on which side you're on. They're gonna.

Tim Wildmon Why is Anthony Fauci even testifying anymore? Hadn't he been long since retired?

Ed Vitagliano He's retired.

Tim Wildmon What is he. What does he do? What's the purpose of this hearing.

Steve Jordahl The house is going back over, some of the Cove and mismanagement. They're looking at, the weaponization of government.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Steve Jordahl And so, and in the interesting thing, one of the sidebars of the cage, match you're talking about on Wednesday is Rand Paul has gotten a hold of and released to the public some of Anthony Fauci's diaries. And in those diaries, apparently he talks about how much he was being paid, and sometimes by pharmaceutical companies.

Tim Wildmon Wait a minute, wait a minute. His diaries that are not public?

Steve Jordahl Well, no, see, he wrote he kept a journal on government computers. So it is.

Tim Wildmon Oh, okay.

Steve Jordahl now I. He might have one private that isn't accessible, but Rand Paul did find the ones that are on public computers, and he's, fixated on his own fame.

Elon Musk it.

Steve Jordahl I haven't really looked at it extensively, but it's not good looking for Rand

Tim Wildmon Paul, for Anthony Fauci to be such a. To be intelligent man, obviously to rise to his position in the world of science. What kind of person puts a diary on a company computer?

Ed Vitagliano Oh, can you guys excuse me for a second? I need to go run to my office. No, I don't have a diary. Listen, I think it's girly for a guy to keep a diary anyway. At least call it a journal.

Tim Wildmon Call it a journal.

Steve Jordahl They might call it a journal.

Tim Wildmon Memoirs. Memoirs. If you're a guy, you can't call it a diary.

Ed Vitagliano You can't call it a diary.

Tim Wildmon Nobody has Prince diaries, you know, like Princess Diaries. Nobody.

Ed Vitagliano That's right. Right. For the Princess Diaries, you'll see a

Tim Wildmon movie called Prince Diaries.

Ed Vitagliano My. In fact, I was always trying to, sneak a look at my sister's diaries.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Because they would, you know, put it with the. Who they like, and they would keep it under lock and key. I. I would get in big trouble if I broke into there, but I would never keep a diary myself. I mean, that's, that's a blurring of gender lines.

Tim Wildmon Yeah.

Rand Paul is going to ask Anthony Fauci about his diary

So, anyway, so Imran Paul is going to ask Anthony Fauci on Wednesday about some of the contents of his diary. I say that right?

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. And I think this shows how personal this is between Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci. They've had some major tangles, in hearings before, even under Joe Biden, when Biden was still president. M. So the fact that Fauci's being called before this, this Senate hearing in Rand Paul, I think it's. He's the chairman, and he wants to talk to him about his diary. And, and I. Apparently there is some kind of embarrassing stuff in there because Fauci Apparen went on and on about how famous he was becoming and, you know, he had, you know, met, you know, maybe Barbara Streisand or something. That, that's.

Tim Wildmon What does that have to do with.

Steve Jordahl He was probably writing a book and taking notes, I think.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I guess what I'm saying is Rand Paul's just trying to embarrass Anthony Fauci, and Fauci should kind of be embarrassed, some of this stuff, but it doesn't really seem to have any real meat here. I'm not sure I, I will say this.

Tim Wildmon Well, we don't know yet.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, I will. This. Some of the stuff that may be asked about, and this is meaty, is I've been reading articles about the persistent accusation that Anthony Fauci directed, federal tax dollars to fund research centers and laboratories outside the United States to conduct gain of function research, which is illegal in this country. So if that's true, that's a very serious accusation. I don't know if it necessitates, you know, criminal charges. But he was obviously, if he did it, Fauci was obviously trying to circumvent the law to perform experiments that may very well have ultimately led to the escape of COVID from a lab in China. So that, to me is meaty, not the contents of Fauci's diary.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, but which one do you think the. What, you know, the. The press is going to be talking about? I think he wants.

Ed Vitagliano Depends how embarrassing it is. The stuff is indeed next story.

Steve Schneier covers artificial intelligence for American Family News

Steve Jordahl All right, One of the topics I cover for American Family News is artificial intelligence. And when I get a new source of, somebody I want to talk to. One of the questions I asked early up front is what is your vision of the future of, this country of AI do you have a Star Trek future or do you have a,

Ed Vitagliano Terminator.

Steve Jordahl Terminator future? Do you think the, the, you know, start. If you remember the, The TV show Star Trek, they had gotten past their love of money and politics and it was Kumbaya on Earth and everything. And,

Ed Vitagliano AI help.

Steve Jordahl Yes. Elon Musk has a definite Star Trek view of the future. Given what AI, he thinks AI is going to be like. And I want to let you listen to this. This is kind of love.

Elon Musk I think we are seeing the most disruptive force in history here, where we have. For the first time, we will have the first time something that is smarter than the smartest human, and that it's hard to say exactly what that moment is. But there will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to have a job for sort of personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything. So I don't know if that makes people comfortable or uncomfortable. That's why I say if you wish for a magic genie that gives you any wishes you want and there's no limit, you don't have those three limits. Three wish limit nonsense. you just have as many wishes as you want. it's both good and bad. one of the challenges in the future will be how do we find meaning in life? If you have a magic genie that can do everything you want, and we won't have universal basic income, we'll have universal high income. So in some sense it'll be somewhat of a leveler, or an equalizer, because really, I think everyone will have access to this magic genie. But there will be no shortage of goods and services will be an age of abundance.

Tim Wildmon Wow. What do you think about that? Was Elon Musk talking about the future of AI in the next. What did he say, five years or.

Ed Vitagliano He said probably in the next five years the, AI would become smarter than the smartest human being. isn't that. I think I got that right, Steve. listen, I, I find it hard to. I understand. And maybe the, you know, Steve, by the way, is that your saying the difference. You have a Star Trek AI future or a Terminator? Terminator is the robots take over and try to kill all the human beings.

Steve Jordahl That was mine.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah, that, that's excellent. I like that. I think maybe it might be something in, in between. you know, I always go back to the scriptures for an understanding of the future, and I don't see anything in there that changes, basic humanity to the point or culture or civilization to the point where there are no jobs. I mean, now maybe the future is cloudy enough in scripture to where it does not address that kind of thing. But it seems to me, and this is off the top of my head, it seems to me that the future does have work, it does have farmers, it does, you know, all those kind of things. I, I tend to think that AI will be like every other technological innovation, kind of a mixed blessing. It will be disruptive, people will lose their jobs. we might still have, we will still have farmers, but maybe they'll be using machines, to pick and to Harvest that are AI smart. I, think we might, if, if Jesus Terries, as Krish, Woodward says, we might. There may be a time when a lot of people will have robots in their house to clean. but I have a hard time believing that you're not going to need, you know, plumbers and you're not going to need people in the. Human beings in the hospitals doing something. I think there will be a desire for human, ah, created art. I think you may have AI art and then people who can afford it will say this is made by a human being and that will have a cachet all of its own. So I'm not an AI expert, but that's just some.

Tim Wildmon Well, you spent three minutes.

Ed Vitagliano Well, I'm just saying I do read stuff, but there may be experts who will say no, you got it all wrong. And who might argue.

Steve Jordahl One of the things I thought was interesting about what he says is if you believe in capitalism, then, and if everybody has a high income, then nobody has a high income.

Tim Wildmon What? Elon Musk.

Steve Jordahl What? Elon, Musk, just said.

Tim Wildmon He said that or you said that he said that.

Steve Jordahl He just now said that. He said we're not going to have a basic income. We're going to have a high basic income.

Ed Vitagliano Then, then why. Maybe this is his point. Why have money at all?

Steve Jordahl Well, that's the Star Trek.

Tim Wildmon No, he said there's no need to save for the future.

Ed Vitagliano He did say that. Not in this clip, but he said that a few weeks ago. He said if you're saving for the future, he said you're loony.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, well, what if he's wrong?

Ed Vitagliano I'm not betting that he's right.

Tim Wildmon Right.

Ed Vitagliano I'm saving, and if there's nothing for me to spend it on, well, great, you know, if it's all, you

Tim Wildmon know what, what, what worries me. it doesn't worry me.

Elon Musk Yeah.

Tim Wildmon In the sense that I sit around and go, oh my goodness. But what was concerning unto me is the possibility of AI doing something, doing things very destructive to our world. not all the good things that can happen. But like the other day we talked about the story where this AI had, had been got out of its sandbox.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Now is that like a, like a computer virus? True? no, it's not the same.

Ed Vitagliano It's not, not the same as a virus. The sandbox refers to the programmers restrictions for the AI program that they're testing.

Tim Wildmon Okay.

Ed Vitagliano Just to see. One of the things they were testing to see was whether that AI could Would, I say consciously?

An AI program in China reportedly hacked into banks and passed a hacking test

Yeah, I don't want to say consciously because that's. It hadn't reached that stage yet. But would the AI seek ways to get around the restrictions and go outside the box? Because that's what, that's what developers don't want.

Steve Jordahl They were running a hacking test.

Ed Vitagliano Yes.

Tim Wildmon And that's what I'm saying is I, just, it's, you know, in this world of cyber criminal activity then, and you read about this happening today in a smaller scale, what do you had an AI generated? Okay, I won't call it a virus, but a, computer program that's able to hack into banks?

Steve Jordahl Well, that's what they're saying.

Tim Wildmon That is something that rob everybody's money.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Well, what happens then? You know.

Ed Vitagliano No, and, or shuts down all our water supply or our power grids, you know, there's all kinds of stuff.

Tim Wildmon That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I know that sounds like science fiction, but I mean, we're about there and if the wrong people. What is he showing you there?

Steve Jordahl I have an article up at AFN about this.

Tim Wildmon okay, go ahead, tell us where to find it, what it's about.

Steve Jordahl If you go to afn.net, the article is titled AI continues to challenge Anyone who Wants to Put Controls in Place. And it just talks about this test, and what was going on. And the guy I talked to, his name is Jason Baker, and he's a, a technology guy at Regent University. And he said it wasn't exactly a disaster. You read that it was because they're testing around the edges. They're testing what happens with malicious software. And if you're gonna test it, you have to risk. I mean, you have to test around the edges is what he says. China's not gonna have any kind of qualms about this. So. But what happened was AI, without being told anything, went in and hacked the environment that it was in, found a way out, went to a whole separate company, and went and found hacking tools from that company, imported it back into the testing environment, and that's how it passed the test. It was far more, ingenious than they thought it would be. And the way that Dr. Baker, Jason Baker's talking about it, he says both, both companies now learn things and, China's not going to have any qualms about putting fences around this if they want to unleash this on the United States.

Ed Vitagliano Well, look, part of the problem here's a couple of things extra to consider. One thing is that, people who work in technology, generally speaking, they go home at 5 and they eat dinner and they watch, they play with the kids, they go to ball games. They come back the next morning at 8. All right? AI doesn't do that. AI 247 can be thinking of ways to get around what that human being tried to use as a restriction. And the second thing I would say is that one of these things that Elon Musk was talking about is everyone will be have access to everything. Well, you know what? Somebody or some company or something has to make these products. And then what happens if the people in charge decide, no, you can't have it? We don't like your attitude. We don't like what you're saying on radio, or we don't like what you're saying in private. Guess what? Now you don't have access to it. And because you don't have money of your own, we're going to flip the switch and now you're going to comply. Those are the kind of things I think about, too, as well as what you're talking about, Tim.

There's a story in the news today about Iranian, uh, cyber hackers

The, you know, the cyber attack. Things that could destroy us too.

Tim Wildmon There's a story in the news today about, Iranian, cyber hackers. That's what you want to call them. Is that a word or did I just make that up?

Ed Vitagliano No, that's just for you.

Tim Wildmon Cyber hackers.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon Like slobber knockers, kind of.

Ed Vitagliano Well, that part I don't know what.

Tim Wildmon You ever heard that one?

Ed Vitagliano I have not. Yeah, that sounds disgusting.

Tim Wildmon It is. It's like. I think it's like a food fight or something.

Ed Vitagliano Okay, but, anyway, so you're talking about.

Tim Wildmon I digress.

Ed Vitagliano Those hackers in this country.

Tim Wildmon yeah, I'm talking about people on behalf of the Iranians either in Iran, who knows where they are. You don't have to be any physical location in the world, I guess. M. Well, I don't know. Maybe you do. Certain laws regulate and they can catch you and find you easier in some countries than others when you do seminal, criminal cyber activity. But they were talking about the threats that the Iranians were making against the United States water supply and what? Some something.

Ed Vitagliano And the power grid.

Tim Wildmon And the power grid. And this was a warning. Now, this hasn't happened on a massive scale at least yet, but this was a warning put out by the FBI and I think some other agencies. Right. That these are reputable, you know, agencies. This isn't a wacko, friends group. Morning, this might happen.

Ed Vitagliano Right.

Tim Wildmon You know, your, your uncle that's a prepper, you know, so this isn't, this is. So that kind of thing. That's what I'm talking about. You create an AI program, that would be able to penetrate, security. so the security for the computers, have to stay ahead of the, you know, the viruses are.

Ed Vitagliano And the hackers. And we're going to wind up having to use AI to help protect us against the criminals who use AI.

Tim Wildmon Yeah, it's a scary world out there in that respect.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon You know, in that respect. You can't sit around and worry about it all the time. But, I mean, that is a reality that the Internet now, you know, basically is controlling everything.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah.

Tim Wildmon around the world. everything's interconnected, everything's susceptible to attacks, cyber attacks and so forth and so on.

Ed Vitagliano By the way, do you, Steve, have other articles on AI?

Steve Jordahl The only one I've ever written.

Speaker E No.

Steve Jordahl Yeah.

Ed Vitagliano This is kind of your beat.

Steve Jordahl One of your beats.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. So, folks, if you go to afn.net and search for AI stevejordal, you can find some of the stuff that Steve has written.

Tim Wildmon AFN.net, steve Jordal. Go ahead, Steve next door.

Elon Musk has concerns about what's going on with regard to immigration

Steve Jordahl Well, one of the things, before we get to Elon Musk's utopia, Elon Musk has concerns about what's going on with regard to immigration. And he was talking. He did an interview with the Economist, their editor in chief, Zanny Minton Bettis or Beddoes. And it got a little personal. she went a little bit personal, with this. But I want you to hear, what that sounded like. Cut 10.

Speaker E You support not just the populist right, but the far right. In fact, very fringe parties in some countries.

Elon Musk No, I support the normal people. What do you call the far right falsely?

Speaker E People say that you're a racist. What is the motivation for doing that? Are you fermenting?

Elon Musk My partner? she's half Indian. so I would say I'm not racist.

Speaker E Are you anti Muslim?

Elon Musk If people are coming to a country with antithetical views, I am against that. I'm against rape and murder. I'm against imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in the West. They will try to implement their views, and those who oppose it will oppose it. And that's what you call civil war.

Speaker E People loathe you.

Elon Musk Maybe some people do loathe me.

Steve Jordahl I.

Elon Musk And that's. And that's probably true. I don't care.

Steve Jordahl Not a fan. I'm getting.

Ed Vitagliano Who. Who was this? That. That was more than just direct questioning. She was baiting him.

Steve Jordahl Yeah, yeah.

Ed Vitagliano Who is this Zanny?

Steve Jordahl Minton Beddoes. She's the editor in chief of the Economist.

Ed Vitagliano Well, Zany might be better for her name. Did you guys see what I did there?

Steve Jordahl I did.

Ed Vitagliano That was, I'm not sure why. The Economist is a well known magazine. It's certainly, I think, on the left. I don't know why Elon Musk thought he would get anything different than that.

Tim Wildmon Well, he pushed back to her.

Ed Vitagliano yeah, maybe he likes confrontation. I'm okay with that.

Steve Jordahl He's not afraid of it.

Ed Vitagliano He's not afraid of it. He's a bold guy. Listen, guy's genius. I think he probably figures I can handle a race. baiting hard left.

Steve Jordahl One of the things he's talking about, though, is a civil war between the west and the Muslims. You think that's on the way?

Tim Wildmon Well, it's not happening in Europe. They're pretty much surrendering.

Ed Vitagliano Yeah. The thing is, if you have a group that's Muslim as an example, that grows large enough and makes demands that in his words, Elon Musk's words are antithetical to Western ideals and principles, then something has to give. Either you surrender to that and submit, which is. What is the word Islam means? or you fight back. And when you fight back, you can consider that civil war.

Tim Wildmon Well, it's going to be interesting to see over the next 10 years or so in Europe. There's so many Muslims that have immigrated there from North Africa and from the Middle East. Are they coming to Europe to escape the oppression of Islamic fundamentalism?

Ed Vitagliano No, I don't think it's.

Tim Wildmon How do you know that for a fact?

Steve Jordahl Because they're practical, practicing Islamic, fundamentalism. When they get to Europe and the

Ed Vitagliano United States, I think most of them, at least what they say, and I don't see why this is not true, are trying to leave the poor conditions of their Muslim fundamentalist country and are arriving in a free and more prosperous West. And then kind of like people socialists leaving California and moving to Texas.

Tim Wildmon You're running out of time.

Ed Vitagliano We want to promote the ideals that made us leave.

Tim Wildmon Bye.