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00:01:33.520As America marks its 250th anniversary, we're looking back at two and a half centuries of rebellion and liberty through the eyes of the heroes who defended it.
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00:02:03.580Welcome, it is Vertical Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:02:07.240It's really nice to have you with us as we've got a lot to discuss on today's show,
00:02:35.880You look at the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses.
00:02:39.080Those were funded, I believe, by Qatar, by Iran, and by China.
00:02:43.380Well, a bombshell new report came out that links how a Chinese Marxist nonprofit headed
00:02:50.340by a billionaire who hates America, is spending millions and millions of dollars trying to
00:02:56.220convince Americans to hate AI, to be scared of AI, to stop developing AI.0.64
00:03:02.460Obviously, if America slows down AI here, the winner of that is communist China.0.69
00:03:07.560We're going to break that down in detail right now.0.60
00:03:11.280Yeah, it's a really amazing story, and we're going to have that for you in a moment.
00:03:14.160I also want to talk to you about how you can have a massive impact right now with protecting
00:03:18.940the lives of unborn children all over the country and you're proud to stand up for the rights of
00:03:24.400unborn children then you need to know about an organization called americans united for life now
00:03:30.240they are a non-profit law firm an advocacy group they were founded in 1971 that was two years before
00:03:37.060roe established the constitutional right to an abortion before fetal viability they have been
00:03:43.060fighting ever since to protect the lives of unborn babies. Now, this pro-life group shapes
00:03:49.460laws nationwide. That's why I want you to know about them. They are a major player in creating
00:03:54.580pro-life legislation, and that's how we win. Americans United for Life, they offer states
00:04:00.260model bills that can adapt and be adopted in full in their state, depending on what their laws are,
00:04:07.920because every state is different for over 50 years americans united for life has filed more
00:04:13.680than 200 legal briefs and helped create at least 400 pro-life bills in over 40 states by writing
00:04:20.720this model legislation they also consult with state legislators about what they can do and how
00:04:26.780to defend their own laws and other pro-life statutes in court and that is where your help
00:04:32.600is needed right now because of roe v wade coming down it's a state's rights issue meaning every
00:04:39.880state is different and every state is having different laws that are needing to be done to
00:04:44.760protect life that is where you come in and we're asking for your help you've got an opportunity to
00:04:50.700overturn pro-abortion laws and advance pro-life legislation that attack the most vulnerable in
00:04:57.100our society and together we can shape the future of our nation through life affirming legislation
00:05:03.480in every state so what am i asking you to do give a gift of just 25 that helps hold abortion
00:05:10.340providers accountable and also helps protect women and unborn children across the country
00:05:15.880and now through a match your 25 gift is doubled so if you want to help save lives all over the
00:05:22.940Do it now. Donate at aul.org slash verdict. That's aul.org slash verdict. Sponsored by
00:05:34.460Americans United for Life. So Senator, let's talk about AI and explain AI in general and the
00:05:41.860technology and the infrastructure needed for AI. AI has become and is just taking over in different
00:05:49.320ways it's changing the way you study it's changing the way that schools are being run it's changing
00:05:54.360the way business is being done it's changing the way law is being done almost everybody i know in
00:06:00.160every sector is now depending on ai significantly as a tool and if you are a foreign government
00:06:07.380this is a powerful tool to then get in the minds and the hearts of people not just in the u.s but
00:06:14.060around the world with propaganda because if you ask ai a question and then it comes back a little
00:06:19.380bit skewed anti x y or z whatever you want it to be against you can then change people's minds0.97
00:06:26.160through ai that is part of the reason why this this race with ai with china is so vitally important0.95
00:06:32.260well ai is changing how all of us live our lives it is making human beings much much more productive0.92
00:06:39.680in their jobs. It is enabling you to carry out tasks in a fraction of the time they would have
00:06:45.380taken you previously. Now, there's a lot of understandable and quite reasonable fear about
00:06:51.340AI, about the massive change that AI will produce. People have concerns about their jobs. Will their
00:06:57.440jobs still be there? Will they still be needed? Or are they going to be replaced by an AI?
00:07:02.000Right now, we've seen a lot of instances of AI making people more efficient and more productive.
00:07:07.360In some instances, companies are hiring more workers because with AI, the productivity is so
00:07:13.040great that they end up needing more people to handle that additional productivity. But it is
00:07:20.140still rapidly changing. It is rapidly evolving, and it is unknown. And fear of the unknown is a
00:07:27.440very natural, reasonable response. We are also facing, and we've talked about this on the pod
00:07:34.020before. In my judgment, the single most important economic question facing the United States today
00:07:40.400is who wins the race for AI? Does America win it or does China win it? Somebody's going to win it.
00:07:48.100There is going to be an answer. In five, 10 years, we will know the answer to that.
00:07:53.200Right now, America is ahead. We are ahead probably about six months. I ask tech leaders all the time.
00:08:00.920the answer varies. It varies anywhere from three months ahead to as much as a year ahead. But I'd
00:08:07.180say that the most typical answer I get from a tech leader is that we're about six months ahead,
00:08:12.340but six months is meaningful. And by the way, what does that mean when you say we're ahead?
00:08:15.420Explain, is that logistics? Is that building sites? Is that towns that are allowing for the
00:08:20.460AI computers? What does that exactly mean? We are developing faster chips than the Chinese have.
00:08:25.700We also have export controls in place so they don't get our fastest chips.1.00
00:08:30.800We're building data centers, and then we are also writing programs, the various AI programs that use those chips to reason.
00:08:38.680We're building compute, and then they're doing inference.
00:08:42.200They're doing reason and learning, and we're teaching these models.
00:08:45.600All of those processes are iterative, and we are ahead of them, ahead of them with faster chips, with data centers, with compute, and with inference.
00:11:48.860Betamax was Sony, was the one that came up with Betamax.
00:11:52.580And most of the techies said Betamax was a better technology.
00:11:57.420Yeah, in fact, TV channels, they did almost everything on beta.
00:12:00.700They were like the lone user and movies like companies did everything and they recorded on beta because it was better, higher quality.
00:12:07.680But VHS won the war. And that was the standard. You couldn't go and run a movie and beta and VHS at Blockbuster.
00:12:14.080They were all VHS. They won. And he described he said he said, I am so worried about China, as he described it, being the VHS and America being beta, because once you are pushed out, you're not going to get back in.
00:12:26.700And so we better, as he described it, win now, because then, as you mentioned, it's not just winning, it's then the control you have after you win, which is the most powerful thing for China and propaganda.0.61
00:12:38.560But by the way, we see this in a very real illustration and the difference between, let's say, Twitter or X and TikTok.
00:12:47.320TikTok, when it was owned and controlled by the Chinese government, its output was markedly different.
00:12:52.820TikTok was pushing propaganda. It was pushing anti-American propaganda. It was pushing communist propaganda. It was pushing anti-capitalist propaganda. It was pushing anti-Israel propaganda and pro-Palestinian propaganda. And you looked at the numbers. It was, I don't have the data right in front of me on this, but it was something like 100x more likely that you would get anti-Israel or anti-America propaganda on TikTok than you would on another social media platform.
00:13:21.280That's the same sort of thing, except with an AI, it's someone using it to write a paper,
00:13:26.540learn about a topic, and having China be able to control what we are learning and really what
00:13:32.940reality is, what we understand as reality is profoundly dangerous. Yeah, it is. So when you0.94
00:13:39.960look at this moving forward, what is it that Americans need to understand and what do they
00:13:44.780need to be advocating for? There's also infrastructure here, which has become a
00:13:49.440really intense local issue as well, because with this technology, with this computing, there is
00:13:55.400a strain on the grid. It needs to be built differently in these areas. We need to be
00:13:59.580advocating for that and not be afraid of it as well. Well, look, one thing that folks ought to
00:14:05.500be aware, and one of the great things, listeners of Verdict, you guys are informed and engaged
00:14:11.660citizens. You take seriously learning issues. You don't listen to a show like Verdict unless you
00:14:17.100want to know what's really going on. Now, I am going to guess that our listeners, probably 60 to
00:14:23.36070 percent of you, have very serious concerns about AI. Why am I guessing that? Because almost
00:14:29.100every single poll done in America shows that Americans, about 60 to 70 percent, have very
00:14:34.620serious concerns about AI. Those concerns are not irrational, or many of them are not. I have
00:14:40.480concerns about AI. That's perfectly rational. What you should be aware is that there is a
00:14:46.820concerted effort to convince you to have those concerns, and the Chinese communists are putting
00:14:53.380real money, their objective is for that 60 to 70 percent to become 80 to 90 percent, and for the
00:15:00.520concerns to drive you to want to shut down AI. That's their objective. Let me talk about this
00:15:05.180report that just was released. This is from the Free Beacon. Notorious China-based American mogul
00:15:11.600is running shadowy influence campaign to undermine USAI efforts, give communist China an edge in0.60
00:15:18.980technology arms race. A Shanghai-based American expatriate who works hand in glove with the0.78
00:15:24.680Chinese Communist Party is using a network of American nonprofits to foment and amplify American
00:15:32.500opposition to artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it in a bid to propel
00:15:38.340China past the U.S. in the technological arms race. A report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute
00:15:45.620reveals that for the past five years, non-profit organizations funded by the tech mogul Neville
00:15:52.700Roy Singham are churning out papers opposing export controls on advanced semiconductors to
00:15:59.540China, newsletters that quote CCP officials lambasting America's approach to the technological
00:16:05.900arms race, and articles characterizing U.S. data centers as fronts in the quote new cold war on
00:16:14.120China. Several lawmakers cited a report when calling on the administration to investigate,
00:16:20.120including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, who sent a letter to acting Attorney
00:16:25.100General Todd Blanche, asking for an investigation into, quote, foreign influence efforts targeting
00:16:31.940the build-out of American AI infrastructure. Quote, Neville Singham has ties to the Chinese
00:16:40.220Communist Party, so it's no surprise he's pushing anti-American policies through fake non-profits,
00:16:45.620Cotton told the Free Beacon. The Department of Justice should launch a full investigation into
00:16:50.140this attempt to undermine America's prosperity. I very much agree DOJ should investigate this and
00:16:57.320fully do everything possible to stop this foreign influence operation. A sprawling 2023 New York
00:17:06.040Times investigation identified Singham, who sold his technology consulting company ThoughtWorks in
00:17:13.5802017 for $785 million as the source of, quote, a global web of Chinese propaganda. This Singham
00:17:27.080is spending hundreds of millions of dollars using technology, trying to influence you,
00:17:34.740trying to influence you to oppose AI, to oppose data centers. By the way, we're seeing the far
00:17:42.040left. So both Bernie Sanders and AOC have introduced legislation that would ban new data centers in
00:17:49.440America. That's where the far left is. And what was their logic behind that for people that maybe
00:17:53.340weren't watching this? Because it is really shocking. I understand where they're getting
00:17:57.020bought off from. It's China and Chinese influence. But what was the logic of why we should ban them1.00
00:18:01.600in the whole country? All right, let's talk data centers for a minute, which is different people
00:18:07.760have different views on data centers. And the two main complaints that are raised about data centers
00:18:12.100are power usage and water usage. And I hear those a lot. On the power side, I have advised almost
00:18:19.360every single tech CEO, if you're building a data center, you need to operate from a rule of thumb
00:18:25.380that you are net negative power usage. What do I mean by that? If you're going to build a data
00:18:30.540center, build power production facilities so that you are generating more power than you are using.
00:18:38.240What that means is when a data center goes into a community, the effect on the people's
00:18:42.980electricity bills is not going to be that they go up. But instead, if the companies are doing this
00:18:49.460right, their electricity bills should go down because the data center will be adding more power
00:18:55.320to the grid rather than taking power from the grid. It's not 100% that the data centers are
00:19:00.200doing this, but many, if not most of them, are doing this now. They're following through on it.
00:19:04.500President Trump likewise signed an executive order, called for this in a State of the Union
00:19:09.260address. That addresses one of the biggest concerns. The other big concern, Ben, that people
00:19:15.440raise is water. Actually, just this week was at a political gathering, and a woman, a conservative,
00:19:21.940came up to me, and she said, I'm really, really worried about all of the water usage from these
00:19:26.900data centers this is hurting us and and i responded to her and i tried to respond gently but i said
00:19:32.240i i said look i understand that concern and i'm certainly concerned about water water matters in
00:19:37.020texas it's needed obviously for for farmers and ag and and cities and develop development oil and gas
00:19:42.860we need water um i said you should know that virtually every data center that is being built
00:19:50.460today is built using what's called closed loop cooling. And that means you have some water and
00:19:57.500you just recirculate the same water over and over and over again, which means the data center uses
00:20:03.100almost no water. I think in today's data center, I believe it is the case that they use more water
00:20:09.720in their toilets for their employees just using the bathroom than they actually use for their
00:20:14.460cooling system because it's all a closed loop system. It used to be. It's literally like my
00:20:18.660computer. I have a fast, fast computer. They put in the water cooling system. I don't ever have to
00:20:24.040have water to it. It just keeps cycling through over and over again. And by the way, the first
00:20:29.660generation of data centers, this was right. The first generation, they used an open loop cooling
00:20:35.320system where they were putting fresh water into it over and over. So the early data centers were
00:20:40.180consuming a lot of water. That being said, part of the propaganda that China is pushing is going
00:20:46.880into a community and trying to convince them, oh, if there's a data center, your power is going to
00:20:52.020go through the roof and you're not going to have the water you need. And that is based on deliberate
00:20:56.960false information. But the thing about Chinese communists, they lie. Yeah. By the way, do you0.97
00:21:05.140know who Singham's wife is? Who is that? Singham's wife is the head of Code Pink, the left-wing
00:21:13.900protest organization and that's all you need to know the ones who wore the pink hats during
00:21:18.140during yeah during the the me too movement and and went after anyone they didn't like politically
00:21:22.800they are and they're they're on capitol hill all the time they they come uh attack his wife's name
00:21:31.060is jody evans uh and and she's the head of code pink and and they push actively through these
00:21:39.020american non-profits uh anti-america propaganda and anti-capitalist propaganda and they're also
00:21:46.720putting hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to convince you to be afraid of ai here
00:21:53.900i'm going to give you give you an interesting stat in 2023 69 percent of virginians supported
00:22:00.920construction of new data centers then april of this year what do you think the number fell to