Techstrong Gang – March 12, 2024

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Tuesday. You know, what is the role of government in ai?

Does it have a role? Should it have a role? Can we ban TikTok?

What's the SEC doing besides suing CSOs? We're gonna discuss all that more and more today on Textron Gang. Hi everyone.

Welcome back here to Textron Gang. You know, as I said earlier, the couple of disparate, uh, segments on today's show, but they all have a theme in common, and that's the government. And what role should the government play in our digital lives, in our digital adventures?

It's gonna be a good show. We're joined by some great text drunk Gang folks, let me introduce you, first of all, joining us from the, uh, from the sea or the ocean, or maybe it's the Intracoastal, but it's certainly not a bathtub. Our friend, Chris Blast.

Hey, Chris, well welcome. Good to see Alan. Good to see you.

And then joining us as usual from his perch. Hi, atop the Rocky Mountains in, uh, Denver area, Colorado, our CTO and Chief, uh, principal Research Analyst at Techron Research. Mitch Ashley.

Hey, Mitch. Welcome. Hey, happy Tuesday, everybody.

Great. And then joining us here, live in our Booker Ratone, Florida Techstrong headquarters. To my immediate left is our, uh, echo sustainability editor, and, uh, she's a meteorologist and author and a bunch of other things, but she's always with us here and we appreciate it.

Bonnie Schneider. Thanks. Great to be here.

Thanks, Bonnie. And then to my far left, our chief Content officer and, uh, lead off hitter, usually on Textron Gang. You know, bat's left, throws right-handed Mike Ard.

There you go. All right, well, let's just get started and dive right in. Sure.

And I'll, I'll start this thing off as per, for this particular topic. Well, but, but, um, during the State of the Union, the President Biden among about 34 or 36 other things that he was calling for, including a ban on AI voices being used to impersonate people. And I gotta say, I scratched my head and I said, wow.

I mean, it's, it's a significant issue, but let's see, between safety and security and upskilling the workforce, we leapt on that one as the primary issue of the day. And I think that has something to do with how maybe funds are raised for political office, and maybe this is the one that they go, Hey, this affects us directly. Right, right.

Yeah. And that went right to the top of the list. Absolutely, no doubt.

Well, there's a couple things. First of all, I think we've gotta at least acknowledge that AI is the boogeyman, right? Uh, not as much of a whipping boy as TikTok, which we're gonna talk about later.

But AI is certainly the boogeyman that might do everything from end civilization as we know it, to make it easier or harder for various political, uh, candidates to raise money. And, and so that does give it a, I guess, a higher place on the, on the, uh, billing. But forget the things you mentioned.

Look, he's talking about things like war in Ukraine ain't to Gaza, uh, immigration and impersonating AI voices. Yeah. You know, I, uh, I'm all for, I'm, I'm not for impersonation of ai, but if they're doing it as satire, I think it's protected anyway.

But what, what is the rest of our gang feel? I'm, I'm gonna jump in. I think this is the new I was misquoted, or that's, uh, fake news.

Uh, it it, what are you gonna do? You're gonna arrest somebody who's created a fake whatever, an AI voice or AI video. When's that gonna happen?

That's gonna happen months, maybe years after the election. So the fact of, you know, passing some laws really gonna stop that. I have a hard time.

It's gonna make a big difference. I just think we're in for a, a season of I don't know what to trust. I have to go verify if I'm, or I'm just gonna believe what I believe, which is what we're kind of already doing.

And they're also getting better and better. I've, I've seen a lot of these, uh, deepfake ais already for, um, people that, you know, are not doing a commercial for whatever the product is. And there's companies that, that, the AI companies that will take about two minutes of your speech, you just give them a video or two, and within a few minutes, they can create a whole avatar with your likeness and voice.

So, and they are getting better and better. So much so that Sag aftra, the Actors Union in negotiations, is bringing this up because they wanna get paid if they're gonna be using someone's likeness or a previous job to create a new avatar and a new identification of their own voice. So it's scary if it's your voice that's being manipulated without your permission.

You know, that was part of the strike. One of the things that they were demanding in, in the recent, uh, actors and writers strike was, look, you can't hire me as an extra once and then throw me into every film that you do from now on. Mm-Hmm.

Um, but, you know, to me, this is a, we discussed this on a previous gang episode, which is what Right. Do you have to your likeness, right? The Bella Lai case, and that, that's the big case they teach you in law school around that.

Right. Bella LAI's family had a right to his likeness, I think, for the 56 years of copyright or whatever. Um, why should someone's voice be any different than their picture is, is, I guess, a question.

So, Um, Chris, to uh, Mitch's point, we're seeing these things used for cybersecurity attacks as well. The bad guys are generating those things. And last time I checked, they don't really respect what laws we write anyway.

So what's your take on what exactly is gonna be defensible here? Well, you know, we we're, as Alan said, we're gonna talk about government a little bit more in the next section. So maybe I can talk about governance, right.

You know, do we have policies at all? You know, is, you know, we look back at the, you know, early internet, um, when I got it, uh, online in 19 90, 91, something like that. A lot of the idea that, uh, well, everything's gotta be open and free because it's, you know, it's anarchy and li you know, liberty and we're all gonna, you know, have nice pies.

Um, but there have to be some rules, right? And I think as we dig into this, the further we dig into this, in, in every direction, we find there's some fundamentals. You know, the internet works, and it's not just philosophy because of the openness absolutely could not work.

There's no company, no government, no entity can create this thing. So fundamentally, that openness works and sociologically geopolitically democracy and freedom of speech as a French revolution, you know, that continues to be what works. You know, you know, now getting into the things that actually matter to us day to day and year to year, you know, what do we do today?

We're in a very complicated time because we don't have a lot of reason to believe the things we see or consume anyways, we just sort of tacitly do. And those have suddenly become easy to imitate. So we have to go back and say, why, you know, what were we believing in the first place?

Why? And, and again, as all these cycles go, we'll either find ways to do it and we'll sort it out and have new problems, you know, three and five years from now, or it'll be the end of time. And, you know, again, Skynet will steal our kidneys, but I, I think they're the tools laying around that we'll work our way through this stuff.

Yeah. Let me ask you this, which is worse. We've gone through a cycle where it seemed like everybody believed everything they saw on the internet.

Now, we might get to the point with deep fakes that nobody believes anything that they see on the internet. And part of my soul says the latter is better than the former. I, I agree with you.

'cause I, I, see, I don't think we're in a position where it's no one believes anything they see on the internet. I think, unfortunately, we're in a worst case scenario, which is we only believe what reinforces our existing beliefs. Sure.

And, you know, and this plays into that greatly, right? You'll, you'll have a, a, a thing of Biden and stuttering or Trump saying women are bad or something, or, you know, whatever. And, uh, and people who are in either camp are going to flock to that.

It, it's, you know, I wish we'd get to a zero trust for, for, for, uh, you know, social media. I, I think that'd be the best thing that happened to this world. Unfortunately not.

So I believe the Yankees will win the World Series in six. So, you know, am I gonna see a lot of videos for the next five months reinforcing that It might be me doing it. Look, Juan Soto, baby, what a spring This guy's having, I don't know.

We want to get in there. Mike and I could probably talk about it, but I don't know how they're gonna sign him after this year is the problem. But Well, we'll just have a fake guy play next year.

Uh, Mitch, um, How easy Chris is jumping in there. Hey, he's, he's trying to get your attention. Go, Chris.

Let, Let me, yeah. So Alan, you, you brought this up, you know, to, to the point that we, you know, we don't believe anything. I don't think that really happens, right?

Because we continue to function. We all wake up in the morning, we have to believe enough to get through the day. And, but that's an outer boundary.

But I think, and this is important to to note, I think as technology people, 'cause we're the ones that to tool up, you know, solutions in, in theory is how do people function now? And I'm gonna call it a lifelong friend. We lost last year, uh, Jay lot Valla, you know, uh, since we were children, my wife and I both, you know, was one of our very close friends, good old boy, Canadian redneck Tim Horton's, you know, living up north, that kind of guy.

And, you know, Jay was completely full of it. Jay could come up with a lie faster than you, you could believe. And we're hanging out at his place up north in, in, uh, Ontario a couple years ago.

And he had busted his face because he was trying to show off with his Harley. He had dropped it and had to go to the hospital. So we're at his house having a bonfire, and where's Jay?

And he comes back and he has to lie as soon as he gets outta the truck, and everybody in his group, all our biker biker buddies are like, oh yeah, Jay, I could totally see that. 'cause you're not gonna get into it with Jay. Right.

You know, see, we love him. We've known him for 40 years. But, so we have these social mechanisms built in that it's not about what you believe or what group you're in.

None of us really like, you know, being that, you know, full of, you know, full of bs, right? So we don't need, as technical people, we don't need to prove, you know, that this video is real or not. We need to look at mechanisms that allow people to determine whether or not they're being averagely reasonable with information.

You know? And I got to tell Jay this whole story of the J factor that I've been using in the world before he passed. I'm glad I did.

'cause he, you know, we all love to death. But you know, it's Jay talking if you don't wanna be Jay. Yeah.

Mitch, let me ask you something here. How easy is it to create these things? I mean, I was wondering if I, can I impersonate Alan's voice and send out a thing onto the internet that says, Hey, everybody, good to see you.

We're gonna give you free webinars for the next two weeks and charge nothing. Um, I mean, is it down to the point where we can impersonate anybody? Or is it, you know, only you know, the Joe Bidens and people who are famous?

Uh, it truly is. I mean, Bonnie was talking about it with, uh, just sufficient number of minutes of audio from someone's speech talk, blog post, I'm sorry, a, a podcast episode that you can create these. Now, it's not as readily, you know, easy access to it.

I mean, it is, but people don't use it like, as prevalent as chat GPT or something. But it, it can potentially get to that level. I don't think it's gonna be sophisticated at all.

We're already seeing apps on your phone that say, take my picture and make me, uh, presentable. Like I'm in a suit and tie at a, at a press dinner or something, and it'll create that image of you. You do the same thing with voice.

So I think we're, you know, the days of voice authentication, remember the old movies, you know, 0 0 1 0, um, is, is my code. Those days are long gone. I think There's a company, um, that I follow.

And I have to admit, I have tried the product to do the, the, um, AI with voice. So you've, you can give them, you know, the video of your speech. But what's interesting is that you can also create avatars or use an existing model of an avatar.

And one of the newer features is they can have you do two different things. You can have, let's say I gave them two minutes of my speech. All of a sudden I'll speak fluent Spanish if I type in the script, um, and it'll match my mouth.

And you can also have the person sing. You could give them a song, lyrics, music, and the next thing you know, the person that, that you want is singing a song. So, um, it's, I've just been following this myself for the past year or so, so it, it is getting better.

But I think you're right. Like a lot of people don't know these companies exist. Um, they just pop up on, on, on a feed.

But, um, they, they are being used for business to business to be the spokesperson of a business, um, to, to do business, to business videos. That's what I think they're used to. Um, you know, in, in, in a non nefarious way.

Are we, aren't we talking about the wrong end of the equation here? And maybe it's not the fact that I created the thing, it's, but if I distributed for nefarious purposes, we sue those people. Um, yes.

No, maybe, so it had, your laws and regulations here have to exist within our existing framework of, of law, right? So I mentioned earlier the satire thing. If you are doing it of a public figure and you can make a claim that it was satirical, it's protected.

If you, you know, you are gonna have to show nefarious or, you know, a business aspect. And then you talking about, are we talking about civil damages where I recoup, recoup money that I may have lost because of this damage to my reputation? Or are we talking about criminal, uh, type of charges, you know, from criminal type of charges?

It would have to be very nefarious, right? To cross that line chasm. Um, I've said this before.

I learned this when I was in law school in the late or early eighties, late seventies. It, it takes the law three to five to sometimes seven to 10 years to catch up to technology. I don't know, you know, and this is a, this is less than a year old.

We're probably, you know, this is going to be unsettled for the next three to five years. I think we're already there, Alan. I mean, there's a good analog, think about all the memes that go around with statements on 'em, right?

We know they're memes, we think they're funny, but those can be passed off also as somebody saying something. And that's common. And think about all the still gar memes of Timothy Chalamet drinking a mirror of, you know, a, a beer that, oh, that's proof that he's, uh, he said, now that's yet proof again, he's the, he's the guy in Dune.

So we're, we already kind of have that and, and people just ignore it and kind of treat it as whatever. Maybe we're headed towards that of audio and video too. It's just kind of take it for what it is.

I'm not even sure you can sue, because who would you sue? Who created it in what court? Well, you'd have to prove who created it, right?

And Then you, How, who distributed, right? Right. That's, that's, Well, you know, it was distributed on Facebook or X And let's sue that.

Elon Musk, I heard has a couple sheckles in his pocket. Let's go after him. Um, but, you know, again, and that gets into the whole exemption.

I forgot what, what is it? The rule not five 20, whatever the rule is that exempts social media. Two 30, maybe two 30 what?

You know, social media people, you can't, the social media carriers, you can't hold liable. Maybe we do need to hold them liable. All right, well, with that, maybe we're moving on to our next subject.

All right. Well wait. Before we do, let's take a quick break here on Textron Gang.

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And we're back folks. Also kicking around during the State of the Union speech last week was this whole conversation about banning TikTok that's been running around for a little while now. I know there's a, a law running around inside some subcommittee in the house that's kicking this around.

And President Biden allegedly said that he would sign this thing if somebody actually presented it to him as a bipartisan bill. So it feels like there's a lot of noise coming around. TikTok, a lot of it traces back to their parent company is owned by an outfit in China.

And I cannot figure out if this conversation is about, is it undue influence of the kids? Is it a security issue? All of the above.

Bonnie, what do you think? Well, I, I think it's both. And, and I think this is one of the rare instances where you have bipartisan agreement on TikTok, and you have different, uh, part in different, both parties saying that there should be some reform, not everyone agreeing at once, but you'll find, uh, on both sides there, they're talking about the security issues when it comes to China.

Um, and also, um, the, the risk. But then there are people on the other side that are saying, well, what about Facebook? What about Twitter?

What, I'm sorry, x Um, you know, there's lots of different ways that people are being influenced by, um, by TikTok. And even though, as I mentioned, there's, you have legislators on both sides that are saying, we should reign this in. We need to ban it all together.

The, the, um, reaction, I think shocked all lawmakers because you had people from young teens to senior citizens bombarding them with calls and messages saying, I spend my life living on TikTok. You can't cancel it. So I think now we're at a, a situation where I don't think they know exactly what to do.

Look, I hear, I, you know, it's not often you hear me go on the right side versus the left side of things, in all honesty, for those who don't know me. But, um, I, I am very hands off on this. First of all, my, my feeling is if TikTok was not owned by a Chinese company, we wouldn't be hearing 90% of this.

This is all about let's get tough on China and, and, you know, banning kids videos and stuff. I don't know how, you know, there's better ways of getting tough on China. Secondly, the whole TikTok thing, and its insidious evil nature of making people watch more videos or, or so forth.

You, it, it goes hand in hand with some, like, I've seen some local government bills and some have passed that are trying to limit how much screen time a kid's gonna have on. I mean, think about it, when you were little, what would, what would your parents had said, had the government said, you gotta make sure your son's in bed by eight 30. 'cause otherwise he's not gonna do well in school.

And, you know, we gotta make sure he has a good breakfast. You know, stay the hell outta my house. Stay outta my bedroom, stay outta my kid's bedroom.

I'll decide when my kid wants to go to sleep, and I'll police on whether, how much screen time my kid has and, and what he accesses. I'm a parent. It's my job.

When he's in school, you can make school rules. But when he is not in school, I'm the parent here. I, I call these shots.

'cause I think, you know, and let me preface that by saying, because a big part of this is, you know, adults of course are free to make their own mistakes, but it's the poor children who are being, you know, corrupted here by TikTok and everything else. Chris, is TikTok a threat to national security In, in short, yes. I think, uh, TikTok may be a national, uh, threat at the moment, but let's break this down to base principles and build it up from there.

So there's an old saying that the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. And we've enjoyed this as Americans, you know, as, as you know, western world folks, as information gets into repressive control, places like North Korea and Soviet Union, and, you know, modern day Russia and so forth. So we feel a little conflicted about this one, because on one hand, as you're saying, Alan, it's kind of a free speech thing on the other hand that can be used badly.

And the last segment, you know, I, I've touched on governance, right? And again, you know, this idea whether it's so, you know, liberty or internet, you know, freedoms and so forth. You know, we, we get to this, you know, base principle of do we want anarchy with absolute freedom for everybody, or is there going to be any governance at all?

So I don't know exactly how to solve this. I don't know what the policies and rules and technologies are, but what I see happening is a bit of an evolutionary crux, because to this point, and to, to your point, Alan, we may not have been talking about this if it wasn't a Chinese company, maybe American companies have been guilty of the same sort of thing, or have been getting away with it because there's nothing yet to be guilty of. We haven't defined what you're not supposed to do.

So whether this is right or wrong, you know, legislating this, I think it forces us to work through the problem. It seems to me it's a lot about what could happen. And I think it's a easy way to show some action against China when there's much greater threats.

I'm not saying it couldn't be used for nefarious, but has it yet seems to me like it's a, uh, we're using national security as a possibility to basically stop free speech, and they have just as much right, for free speech in the US as Facebook and, and X and everybody else right now, unless we really have evidence that they are doing something that they shouldn't be doing. To Chris's point, whether it's defined legally or it's defined, you know, against, um, US' national security and interest, but that, that's a hard label to define. 'cause we usually don't get into the details of, well, why did, why is that?

I think back to Huawei, right? We went through this whole cycle of we're not, we're gonna ban it, ban all their equipment. We're not gonna ban their equipment, we're gonna ban it.

Kinda went through these cycles to it, but here we have free speech on the line. And I think that changes the game. It's gotta be pretty clear what they did so Well, I Oh, good ahead, Chris.

Yeah, I would like to, I'd like, you know, I'd like to push right into that, you know, you know, lean into your strengths, right? And where I have, you know, because, because, you know, Mitch, I agree with you entirely where I have issues, again, with TikTok, specifically with, you know, controlled, you know, government structures. Like, you know, the current China is transparency.

You know, I don't believe we had the transparency governance or tools in place so that all of us as Americans can see what an American company is doing with our information. It's not about freedom of speech. If you are using information nefariously, um, and we don't know one way or the other.

So it's easy, as you say, Mitch, to say, well, it's this country I don't like, so therefore let's do it. But we need to develop the mechanism so that we can know whether or not organizations are doing bad things with our info. So, but here's the thing.

I don't know if it's necessarily a question of what information they're gathering as the main point. I think the main point, and this again brings it into the realm of politics, pure politics, is that TikTok being owned by a Chinese company, can put in algorithms which favor a negative view of the US government, let's say, or a negative view of Donald Trump, let's say. Or they're anti-conservative, or they're anti-liberal, or they're anti or positive pro or that, and in doing so, a duly influence the sheep, right?

Who, who believe what they hear, right? If you go on TikTok and nine out of every 10 videos you see, say, Joe Biden is about to keel over, and Donald Trump is the picture of vigor. You know what Gobel said, right?

The bigger the lie, the more you say it, the more people believe it. And so all it takes from a TikTok or that matter, a Facebook or a Twitter, even LinkedIn, is to twist that algorithm to favor one particular viewpoint over another and give us more information, you know, reinforcing whatever tribal kind of belief system they want us to believe. And that, that to me is the bigger danger.

You know, that's where I think, I don't know how you combat this, but that's the danger. I mean, I know where the world's radio show scenario, right? Where the population is starting to believe what they're hearing is actually happening, right?

In that case, it's, uh, aliens attacking, but this is more the frog, the in the pot, slowly building up that perception. Bonnie, you went, it's Yeah, Chris, But it, but it's, it's also, you know, normal human history, right? You know, again, look at, you know, any, you know, generations before us, but, you know, particularly 5, 10, 20 generations before us, people believed what they were told.

There wasn't much to be, they were told, and it, and everything was controlled this way, but we're still trying to break out of that box. And I don't know what the exact mean, Yellow journalism, right? The whole yellow journalism thing got us into a war.

But Mike, what were you gonna say? I would love to get Bonnie's opinion on, we both went to journalism school and Boston University. Are the rules need to change here because we're treating Facebook and all these companies.

Like, they're different from a media company, even though they say they're social media companies, right? But in reality, we don't hold them accountable for the content, the way we hold a traditional media company. And Unfortunately for the media companies, we've seen a tremendous amount of consolidation and, uh, layoffs.

And, um, you know, I've been in the, the media business for many years, and there's just so many choices. But the biggest competition for the networks, for the cable news is social media. That's where people are getting their news from.

So, um, you're right. I mean, without, without any sort of, um, you know, monitoring, you, you, you're certainly going to get, whether it's on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, you're going to get the newsfeed curated to whatever your beliefs are. And, um, there's no, um, neutral voice anymore in journalism that we used to, when I think when we went to college that we, we learned about that.

It's not like that anymore. It's all, it's very opinionated on, on both sides. Well, I don't want to get too political, but yet one of the major outlets for a certain political viewpoint in this com in this country comes out and says, they're not a news organization.

They're an entertainment organization. Right? Only when they get sued, only when They, they get sued.

Yeah. And, and so, you know, but the, the fact is, is that public has a hard time. Yeah.

Understanding the difference of when it's news and when it's just entertainment, it's like, is wrestling real? Mm. You know, every little kid.

Oh, what do you mean it's real, it's fake, it's real, of course. But, um, you know, I mentioned it in the previous segment, and I'll say it again. Social media companies have carp launched not to get involved with this, with the section two 20 protections.

And maybe, maybe those do need to be looked into. I'm not saying abolish them, but you know, what? Absence of malice and all of that good stuff that, that regular media companies have to deal with from a libel point of view, uh, maybe it should apply.

And may, the question is, where's the choke point? Where's the throttle? And who has the burden of applying it?

I hate the government being that, Yeah, but if you drop section two 30, it'll all go to the courts, right? It's now un libel and defamation and all, which is not an easy thing to prove either. But it seems like that shifts it back into people taking action.

So that could curb some behavior in a Lot of ways. I would argue that if you're deliberately adjusting an algorithm for an outcome that's malicious intent, Hmm. And that you can prove, and we can also get the code and subpoena the code to examine that.

So I think there's a way to enforce this stuff, but that's just Me. I don't know. Chris, do you know a way to enforce that?

I think we, again, can build it up from base principles in the technology, right? And in the supply chain space and the cybersecurity space, we're getting forced into the corner where we have to say this specific piece of information in real time is gonna be used by somebody else for some critical purpose. And I really need to know what it is really, really, you know, not the way we've been doing it, not the way we do it in big corporations and government today, but really seriously at an engineering level.

I think we have the opportunity to build up on this and get back to, as I said, look at why we believe, what we believe at all. Analyze that. And there are lots of people in the world working on this academically and professionally, understanding how we make decisions, and then looking at the, the media that we're presented with and we present ourselves with and find ways to help people decide how much veracity may or may not be in.

So in something as opposed to sort of binary situation, you know, we're all describing here, whereas I believe it, or I don't, based on nothing. I'd like to take the last word on this. And one pose.

You know, to me, the whole issue around TikTok specifically though, is, you know what? In our generation, not you Bob, but Mike and I, Mitchell, Chris, there used to be a saying, windows ain't done to Lotus, don't run. You remember that?

Mm-Hmm. What does that mean? Nobody knows what Lotus is.

Yeah. Well, so Lotus Notes was the, the killer spreadsheet, right? That Killer three was the spreadsheet.

Actually it was one, not Lotus Notes, that's what I was hosting it, it was Lotus 1 2 3 was the killer spreadsheet, and they were building a whole office app around it. And frankly, Excel was baby stuff compared to it. But, you know, Microsoft owning the operating system, they gave it an inherent advantage.

And they said, windows ain't done to Lotus, don't run TikTok. We won't be talking about TikTok being banned until it's not owned by the Chinese. We're gonna take a break on text Drunk gang.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Textron gang. Well, we have an interesting topic now to discuss.

Uh, just recently, the SEC finalized new climate regulations for public companies. And, um, this has really set off a lot of controversy because some people are saying, we, this is long overdue, and others are saying, Hey, this is too much. Well, the disclosures that are required now, um, really focus on scope one and Scope two.

That's, uh, direct and indirect emissions scope three, not so much that's going to be a little more discriminatory. What is Scope three emissions? That's the indirect from supply chain or value chain emissions that are emerged.

And, uh, while these rules are set to really be enforced, let's say, I think later this spring, it's still touch and go because you have, uh, at least 10 states challenging it. The US Chamber of Commerce cha challenging it as well to say what gives the SEC this authority to put this on companies. But on the flip side, the tech world, which I was taking a closer look at in a piece I wrote for Ecotech Insights, there's a lot of tech companies are saying, okay, well, we have tech that can make this easier for every corporation.

We can tell you your climate risk right now. We can forecast ahead of what your risk will be, and we can give you the information on what you need to do to mitigate risk. Like CoreLogic is doing that now, for example.

So it is a, a adding another dimension for a new business, but it's also, of course, like anything that's coming out of, um, a new ruling, bringing about some controversy. All right. A little cynicism up top.

So who crafted the rules for the SEC works? For what? Lobby firm?

Who works for who? Right? Right.

Because some of this, I feel like, you know, not enough of these folks in Washington know enough about what it is that they're being asked to regulate. And these rules seem rather, um, overly blunt. So maybe there's a, a little more finesse needs to go into these rules before they show up in this way.

And that said, do we want, I don't know, every company that this applies to is just gonna wake up one morning and go, you know, maybe we'll just go private and we don't have to deal with this. That, that's a good point, Mike. Right?

It is. That it's the SCC since when does the SCC charter charter them to, to enforce climate related, uh, disclosure rules? I, I don't, you know, but on the other hand, we're, we're in a, again, a political climate.

I'll say it on the third block too, where our politically appointed judges have taken it upon themselves to neuter and castrate the, the very, uh, the very agencies that the government set up to enforce these kinds of things, right? And so they're saying that the, uh, I keep thinking Fish and wildlife. I don't know why I keep saying that.

EPA A is who you think about. The EPA Environmental Protection Agency doesn't have the ability to enforce some of this stuff. So, you know, we're, we're doing unnatural acts because these things do need to be enforced.

These things do need, you know, climate change is real. The the consequences of this are real, if not the EPA who. And, and that, again, it's a political problem, Is this another example of Congress refusing to act on anything.

So now we try to end run it, but then when we do that, we wind up in the courts and the courts say, go back to Congress. And this just winds up being an infinite loop. Welcome to the US in the 21st century Folks.

Let's see. Mitch, I think I've asked you this before, but to what degree can we just maybe make people more aware of what impact they're having and they might just naturally do the right thing? Because, you know, there's a tool that shows them that this is what impact you're having on the environment.

And how, I guess it's nice to have regulations. 'cause a lot of people will only do the bare minimum, but can we at least make it easier for the people who wanna do the right thing to do the right thing? Almost, um, back to the transparency comment that Chris made earlier, right?

Uh, the, the progress around, uh, sustainability, it, it hasn't been due to regulations, at least in the us It's, it's been pushed greatly from, from the eu, but it's also because it's become important to people, uh, whether you think about it generationally or just for our own personal preferences. And I think the more we make it transparent, but the people who are doing better job of it, that will attract those customers to them. Now, there could also be a backlash.

We've seen that before where, you know, this is a good thing. So now the other, other folks who don't believe in that suddenly are promoting something else. But, you know, short of putting a, uh, how many calories are in this can of soup?

How much, you know, a carbon footprint does this, whatever service that I'm consuming, some kind of reporting requirements that would increase transparency. I think it's, it's, at least for the US it's largely in the hands of the consumer, the buyer. Chris had his hand up.

Well, I think, you know, I, I think, uh, uh, uh, since we're talking about SEC here, let's just look at the regulatory and economic parts of it. I think good intent is a very powerful, powerful force. But in the same way as I, as I frequently say, if you want security, be it to be adopted, find some way that it fits economically, that it's not a cost, it's a savings.

That it's a competitive advantage. You know, what is it you're trying to achieve inside the organization that I want to get to adopt my thing? Now we're talking about, you know, climate change.

And I, I understand the mechanisms. If in fact, you know, there's an economic risk to some stock, I, because they're being responsible and they might be fined through the f FDA for climate, that's a mechanism that may work. Um, and I think, you know, and I, you know, and to be clear, I'm on board with this.

You know, I literally, out here in the environment, I see the loss of sea grass and manatees and everything else, and we need to fix this. Um, and the same sorts of tools that we need to build into cyber systems for technology help with this. The, you know, the attestation ecosystems we look at for supply chain intelligence, but also work for carbon credits.

You know, so you, you know, to the, our agreement, you know, Mitch, as we can put transparency in and say, here's where this thing happens. In this case, you know, something with an environmental impact, then we can weigh that in regulatory or economic terms. This is A good thing.

It's a ratcheting motion. Anyways, Uh, what I wonder is, are we setting up the e the SEC to be the next EPA, but instead of going the EPA route, which has already had, you know, what a lot of politics around it, are you setting the SE up SEC up if it starts implementing kind of social policies? If you wanna think of sustainability that way may be accurate, I don't know.

But instead of business law and thing and, uh, anti anti, uh, uh, co competitive actions, things like that, it, it, I'm worried if we keep pushing it this way, the SEC becomes nobody, nobody trusts it either. And it's just a political, you know, stomping ground. That's definitely been the criticism, um, of it.

And one of the reasons it's being pushed back, um, at least till later this spring to enact. Um, but you know, we also have to look at, and, and, and Mitch, you mentioned the eu, we have to look at this in, in the global, um, perspective as well. We already have regulations being and, um, enforced and looked at and, and accelerated in Europe.

We also have it in the state of California. So, um, many people are saying that it, this is kind of getting us all on the same page and that we're doing it. So I, I guess we'll see how, how, how the pushback will balance with this inauguration of these new rules later this spring.

But, um, there is the question of does the SEC even have this authority? And, um, is this going too far? The compromise of eliminating scope three has, has alleviated some of that, but not all of it.

You Know, this time last year I was having dinner in Dublin with my cousins and a lot of her friends, and she was beating me up pretty hard at the table for, as the, you know, boomer representative who was destroying the planet. And it seems like the kids are pretty, uh, hard about this issue. Even in the US you hear a generational issue who are going, this is a lot more serious than you older folks are taking it.

And so I wonder if there's gonna be more pushback. And it may not be the SEC's not the mechanism. No, I, look, I'm all for doing something about climate change, right?

And I'm a boomer, and I, I, god bless the kids, go do it. We, we need to, it's going to need to be dealt with. I think, and I don't know, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, but I think why does let the market control this, right?

If you're a public company and the majority of the population is gonna reward you for being climate friendly, and you make a big part of your marketing of how climate friendly you are, you're gonna be rewarded in the market, not punished. And companies where we do exposes, you know, Allah, DuPont chemical or something that are harming the climate are gonna be punished in the market. And, you know, we see this with the whole organic food kind of system, right?

Where else are you gonna pay $7 for a dozen eggs? But these are free range chickens who are fed, who are fed grass and, and nice feed and not bio, uh, not antibiotics. And, and they're, you know, they're happy chickens.

They're happy chickens they get sung to at night, you know, and, and in Alabama, well, let's not go there. Um, but so honestly, I, I think the market rules here have to, you know, market dynamics have to be brought into play, create, that's 2 cents. Incentives, not rules, right?

Yep. Create incentives, not rules. Mm-Hmm.

That, that tends to get better behavior. Chris, we are trying that in the land of security. We are trying incentives and maybe less rules.

And yet I feel like the rules continue to get more stringent over time. So do we start with the, the proverbial, um, carrot and then we get to stick later? Oh, I, I have big, big fan of carrots.

You know, they're just easier, right? And, uh, you know, quite often we get used to just the structure we have and keep tinkering with it. You know, the governance structure we have at large, I think is funky.

Right? You know, we need to, we need to look at how we've compiled all these cybersecurity bits and pieces of policy. And there might be a different way to do it entirely.

But yeah, I, I think, yeah, I think this is an incentive less than rules issue, I think. I think this is the kind of thing that can work itself out in the market. Again, as long as there's transparency, you know, and, and 'cause again, whether or not I care about the environment, if I'm an investor, I care about my stocks.

And if you're being sloppy and stupid, I probably don't wanna invest in you. Yeah. I'm, I have a slightly more negative take on this whole thing than you do.

I think we're past the point of being able to conserve our way into solving this problem. So we need some major technological advances to take the carbon out of the system and put it someplace where we can store it or get rid of it some way or another. 'cause the notion that somehow or other we're gonna, you know, cut down a bunch of factories that are spitting up stuff into the atmosphere is gonna make an, an ounce of difference to the outcome.

I think we're well past that. I, I don't disagree with you, but the question is how do you make that happen? Right?

Do you, do you, you know, delist companies from the New York Stock Exchange 'cause their factory's dirty, or do you boycott that factory's products 'cause they're dirty? Or do you do both? Or We pour a boatload of money in a venture capital firms that are funding these new startups?

You covered a lot of this Stuff. I was gonna say that, yeah. I think that, um, there, there has been, uh, especially just in the past five years, a big boom with climate tech solutions, climate tech solutions, venture funding, um, grants, competitions.

There, there was a just announcement not far from where we are, uh, in Miami, do you have a climate solution that will help the Port of Miami enter this challenge, you know, for your startup? So, um, we're seeing much more, as you all had mentioned before, incentive to create climate solutions. You, you do, but yet you have one of the two major parties in this country running on a platform of drill, baby drill Mm-Hmm.

And until that crap goes away, I don't know what the answer is. I think we innovate our way out trouble as we usually do. I hope so.

I hope so. God, God bless America. Um, alright.

Who To God's ears. Uhhuh. I want a good note to leave this sign, huh?

Huh. A positive note. Let's do it on a positive note though.

You know what? The fact is, I, I think, uh, there is a lot going on with climate change, green technologies and green jobs and all of these things, and I, you know, I am optimistic that the market will, especially because of the kids, right? Um, the market will reward these technologies in these companies and, and we'll see how it goes.

Fair, Fair. I, I, I think we're out of other choices anyway. Okay.

Um, so that, that closes out our blocks. I don't anybody else have anything they want to add for the good of the community or goodwill today? Mitchell?

Chris, I think We've bounced this one against the wall pretty hard. Okay. Well that's gonna wrap up.

Text Drunk Gang for Tuesday. Wait, I have one last thing. Go ahead.

What did Ronald Reagan say about the government? And I'm most dangerous words, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. There you go.

Absolutely. Hey, just a shout out to my Pittsburgh Steeler friends out there. The Russell Wilson era has begun Ghost Steelers.

We'll, uh, good Luck with that. Yeah, Well, at least for one year from Denver Mitchell, thank you for Denver's contribution of $38 million for Russ's salary this year. Yeah, you're welcome.

Anyway, we're gonna take a break here. All right. We're not taking a break.

We're gonna wrap up this episode of Text Drunk Gang. We will be back Thursday with some fresh, interesting content, as well as a best stuff for tomorrow. Stay tuned for the rest of Tech Drunk TV today, guys, take care.

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