Candace Owens sued by French President; Mehdi Hasan and Jubilee’s fascist “debate;” Trump’s grifty war on “Woke AI” – News Roundup (w⧸ Dope Labs’ Dr. Titi Shodiya)
00:01:41.860is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:48.640I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:54.160Welcome to another episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:56.520This is another rendition of our weekly news roundup where we summarize all the stories on the Internet that you might have missed that you don't have to.
00:02:03.840And I cannot tell you how much of a fan I am of this person that we're great, whose presence we are graced with as this week's co-host, Dr. Chichi Shodhia, scientist, engineer and co-host of the fantastic Dope Labs podcast.
00:02:44.800Mine is in mechanical engineering and material science.
00:02:46.780And we show how science intersects with pop culture.
00:02:49.540So it's a really fun show that is rooted in our friendship because we've known each other since grad school.
00:02:53.920We bonded in the struggle and we just take things that folks are talking about in their group chats, things that are tumbling down your timeline and show that there is a little bit of science behind it all.
00:03:05.960I still remember the very first episode.
00:03:08.020It might have been the episode that the first the first episode I heard.
00:03:10.520It might have been the first one you did about cuffing season.
00:03:13.640I absolutely love that episode. And that was such a great introduction for us to the world because I feel like it just encapsulated everything that we're about.
00:03:23.400You know, the science, the clownery and, you know, talking to strangers and hearing all these really funny, amazing stories and talking about, you know, the ecology behind all of it.
00:03:41.360And I mean, I'm excited that you're here for a million reasons.
00:03:44.080But one of the reasons is that you all just did a your most recent episode was all about how folks should be thinking about AI in their own lives.
00:03:51.940What was what was give us a little bit a little taste of that conversation?
00:03:55.440Yeah, I think the reason why we wanted to talk about AI, this was kind of like our second episode that we talk about AI.
00:04:02.280We talked about the impacts and the cost of AI. And then this most recent one, we kind of talked about how we can engage in AI in ways that make sense, that fit into our lives and we don't have to feel bad about it because AI is coming, whether we like it or not.
00:04:18.240And, you know, there are some things that are really, really bad about AI. I mean, there's things that are really, really bad about a lot of technology, but we just want people to arm themselves with knowledge so that as we move forward, because this is going to move forward with or without us, that we can, you know, step into our workspaces.
00:04:36.860We can step into the rest of the world and know, one, what is out there and make an intelligent decision about whether or not we want to engage for whatever reason, whether it's, oh, I'm not going to upload photos of me and my kids and my family into an AI large language model or, OK, this is how I'm going to engage with it.
00:04:56.320I'm only going to use this for work. I'm going to make sure that I toggle these certain things off so that you can use it in ways that you feel comfortable with and you don't feel like your privacy is being violated.
00:05:04.440And so much of what we do on this show is just sort of, I guess I'll, for lack of a better phrase, arm people with the truth, arm people with the facts.
00:05:12.680And so I talk to people who are really skittish about using AI in any capacity.
00:05:19.220And, you know, I think like for folks who are like, I would never use AI, I would never use TASGPT, I totally get it.
00:05:25.920But I want people to be able to make informed decisions and have a sense of it.
00:05:29.540So not just so don't have a sense that is rooted in AI hype of like it can do all of these things that it absolutely cannot do or it's a good.
00:05:37.300These use cases are great when they're not actually good use cases.
00:05:40.360Right. Similarly, don't fall into this trap of like you need to be afraid of it.
00:05:44.120You can't use it. Right. I mean, because the way that I always talk about AI is AI is a new technology.
00:05:51.340If you think back in the history of this world, every time a new technology came into the forefront, there was always this stage where people were terrified.
00:06:01.860When you think about mathematicians, when the abacus was invented, there was this whole big thing where it was like, you are not truly intelligent if you have to use an abacus.
00:06:11.280Fast forward, when the calculator first came out, everyone was saying, you should not be using a calculator.
00:06:18.660No one's going to know how to use their brains anymore.
00:06:20.680Or then you have, you know, the advanced calculators, TI-89s.
00:06:24.080We have computers and everything like that.
00:06:25.680Then the Internet comes and everybody's like, wow, no, this is not something we should be working with.
00:09:03.780so basically connor and like of course his name is connor proudly proclaims yeah that's right
00:09:11.460i'm a fascist so this interview goes viral and connor he goes on the crowdfunding platform
00:09:18.400give send go and says i lost my job i'm trying to crowdfund twenty thousand dollars we actually
00:09:24.940talked about give send go on our first episode of the season it's kind of become the platform for
00:09:29.760people who have done something bad in public and then want a big payday from it. Our earlier episode
00:09:34.900was about this woman who called a black child a slur on a playground and raised almost a million
00:09:39.900dollars on give, send, go afterward. If you missed that episode, we will put it in the show notes.
00:09:44.240But that woman kind of became a right wing celebrity. And I think Connor from Jubilee is
00:09:49.500also on his way there, too. He already raised quite a bit more than the fifteen thousand dollars
00:09:55.140he was initially asking for and so you know there's a lot to be said about jubilee media and
00:10:01.640like what they're doing but i i mean i just i i wanted to talk about them briefly because
00:10:08.040i don't think this is going to be the last we see of connor right like no it's definitely not
00:10:15.140going to be the last we see of him because you know how they say a watch pot never boils it's0.92
00:10:21.260like a watched fascist never shuts the fuck up you know what I mean and that's the reason why
00:10:27.400t-shirt please it like they will not shut up and I'm just like that's why I refuse to click on0.92
00:10:34.060certain things if I see the clip I scroll past it I don't want to contribute to any of those metrics
00:10:39.600because I feel like it's mostly you know people who are not conservative that are running up the
00:10:46.320numbers because we're so outraged and so they're using outrage as currency and I'm just like no
00:10:51.240I don't want to contribute to this guy's notoriety. I don't want to contribute to, you know, it being pushed more and more onto people's feed. Like we have to stop giving them a microphone. I'm so sick of it. Who else did that? It was what was his name? Otto Acho or whatever, who had that show where he was talking to racists. I was like, this is the dumbest idea ever. Why not use that microphone to talk to somebody who actually has brains in their head and is willing to have smart conversations, not these really
00:11:21.140old, outdated conversations. If we stop giving these folks microphones and turning up the volume
00:11:26.540just so that we can get clicks, they will eventually shut up. And they won't be able to
00:11:31.360give all of these other people out in the world who are looking for, you know, verbiage to use
00:11:37.320in their little racist conversations. They won't have anything to say. They'll have nothing to have
00:11:42.020in their mouths to then regurgitate onto the rest of us. Exactly. And my thing about people like
00:11:47.440connor is that if it wasn't for jubilee media giving him a platform he'd probably just be like
00:11:52.540typing his opinions on a reddit thread honestly he would not be our problem and giving him a
00:11:57.500microphone giving him a platform giving him a way to yes make a little bit of coin for himself for
00:12:02.680the abhorrent views i think really is the problem and you you put it so well i do think you know
00:12:08.680this is we're not in 2016 anymore right there was a time where people wanted to talk about like oh
00:12:13.880defeat the alt-right in the marketplace of ideas just debate them debate them no in 2016 this style
00:12:21.420of debate content is a scam it's not informing anybody yes like and i guess ultimately i strongly
00:12:28.020feel like there is no debating people like how do you debate somebody who with their full chest says
00:12:34.120yes i am a fascist when you don't have a shared reality there is no way to have a debate and i
00:12:39.000think that we should stop acting like this is anything other than a spectacle and right wing
00:12:43.860star maker machine you can't call it a debate because it's you're not talking to somebody
00:12:49.300reasonable you know you have to have reason you have to have something you have to have
00:12:55.820intelligent thought in order to have a debate with someone you can't just say i'm a fascist and
00:13:01.640and cross your arms and say yeah that's what it is that's what it is that's not someone that you
00:13:06.940can debate that is just a that is it's like talking to a brick wall honestly like that's
00:13:12.720not the way they don't have any because they will what they will try and do is make you become the
00:13:17.640intellectual and they you they will you will have to intellectualize their fascism there is no
00:13:23.280intellectual roots to racism and fascism there's nothing intellectual about it but this whole
00:13:30.960conversation that that folks are having around all of this because we keep giving these people
00:13:35.840microphones is intellectualizing something that is at its core not intellectual exactly and the way0.92
00:13:42.880that you put that makes it so clear that like if you say like when like when black lives matter
00:13:47.820in the in the height of the black lives matter movement there was a lot of that debate style
00:13:51.720content and it's like how do i debate somebody who doesn't feel that i deserve right how do i
00:13:56.660debate somebody that doesn't think i'm human like what like what can i say that would be like oh
00:14:00.640you got me we're not having that we're not speaking the same language at a certain point
00:14:05.020Right. And there's no conversation to be had, period.
00:14:08.680Exactly. And I mean, I definitely have gotten offers from not from Jubilee, but from similar platforms that are like, oh, come on.
00:14:16.980And then you can be the sort of like progressive voice or the feminist voice.
00:14:20.120And I just don't think in 2025 any serious person ought to be participating in this.
00:14:25.180Like I already it doesn't matter. I can I can go on those platforms and and make the most well formed argument.
00:14:32.420But I still know, regardless, it's going to be, you know, conservative Republican takes down feminists, like because that's really what they're after. Right. They're not after any kind of like actual moment of clarity or empathy or understanding each other. It's just a rigid debate with a foregone conclusion.0.68
00:14:51.400Right. And even if you go in there and you cut them up to shreds, they're going to clip it up so that it looks like you got tongue tied, like you were stumped. And no, you're not going to let me fall victim to the editing. This is not Love and Hip Hop. OK, this is not Love Island. You're not going to have me looking like a fool just because you wanted to clip me up. And now I'm I'm looking crazy.
00:18:35.220shadow self because I feel that she's almost
00:18:37.320like a fun house mirror version of myself i know that sounds wild but we did an episode about her
00:18:43.700rise that i i see so much of myself in her early days we were both you know people who like to talk
00:18:51.720about politics on the early days of the internet she back in the day when we were both doing this
00:18:55.980at the same time she was actually a progressive voice and she had a very specific switch where0.65
00:19:01.700she went into some of her more like noxious extremist views. So she also is somebody who I
00:19:07.180think is prone to hyper fixation, which I also am. Although her hyper fixations are very different
00:19:13.180than mine. Hers are things like Blake Lively is lying about everything or Harvey Weinstein is
00:19:19.600actually a victim, the victim of Me Too. And one of her most recent hyper fixations has been
00:19:26.900the first lady of france bridget macron the wife of the french president emmanuel macron
00:19:32.180owens has spent months months building out this increasingly elaborate completely unfounded
00:19:41.320conspiracy that the first lady of france is trans she doesn't before you ask she has no proof of
00:19:47.820this this is just something she's like it's like she initially started calling it a gut feeling0.95
00:19:52.900And it's so fucked up because initially she it was like clear, like she basically has never had any proof.0.69
00:19:59.200And she's gone from being like, this is a gut feeling I have to I have the proof of this.0.98
00:20:04.960I have the receipt. And so I have quietly been wondering where this all ends for her for a while.
00:20:11.500And we may have our answer because this week, the French president and his wife filed a defamation lawsuit in the U.S.
00:20:17.920against Owens centered on her claim that the first lady is trans.
00:20:21.720So they filed this complaint in the Delaware Superior Court saying that Owens has waged a lie-filled campaign of global humiliation to promote her podcast and expand her frenzied fan base.
00:20:32.100As somebody who keeps tabs on what she's up to, I wholeheartedly agree with how they're characterizing this because I've honestly seen, I won't call it misreporting, but I've seen it reported like as if Candace Owens just said this at a party or something, that she just casually said this once or twice.
00:20:50.980and that's actually not what's going on in reality she has made multiple podcasts and videos claiming
00:20:58.260to have found smoking guns and claiming to have all this evidence like she's got like a string
00:21:02.720board and she's connecting the dots on on this claim that she's made like very concrete claims
00:21:07.940and she's gotten millions of viewers which translates to cash to her for this lie so it's
00:21:14.820not like she's just like saying this and they're coming after her for saying this like casually
00:21:19.140once or twice as i feel like some of the reporting suggests she has really monetized this unfounded
00:21:26.000lie and built it into a whole conspiracy theory with her millions of viewers yeah i mean that's
00:21:32.620the bread and butter for folks like candace owens because what their base it it fails to
00:21:41.960grasp onto is fact and so then they have to think very very like dark meta yeah you know what I mean
00:21:49.880where it's like no no no y'all are so blinded by fact that you're missing all of this mystery and
00:21:58.280nothing over here and it's like that's how she that's how she makes her money she just makes
00:22:03.460something up and then runs with it and it's like oh but look at this oh why did she cross her legs0.85
00:22:07.720like this instead of like it's ridiculous it's honestly ridiculous and anytime somebody is doing
00:22:14.240something like this I'm always just like this is Olympic level like jumping like you're going from
00:22:22.460one thing you're doing an absolute triple jump you gold medalist in this in this jump that you're
00:22:28.220doing trying to get to whatever conclusion and the other part of it that I'm which is my issue
00:22:35.600with everyone that has issue with transgender folks why do we care like I'm just like and if0.66
00:22:43.800and if she is like why do you care who doing the bending like who cares I'm not worried about what0.91
00:22:52.160Macron is doing with his partner his wife I don't care what they do in their bedroom I care about
00:22:56.760his policy how is that going to affect his people the folks in the United States the world I don't
00:23:02.860Like, I don't even know what his wife looks like.
00:23:05.520Like, the fact that she's putting so much energy into this, I'm like, Candace, girlfriend.
00:23:10.520Now, imagine if you put this same level of intensity into anything else.
00:23:16.680Girl, you would be able to do anything.
00:32:47.740And I think we're doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.
00:32:52.240It's like we've it's like this administration has clocked that uneducated, critical, upwardly mobile citizenry is not it's not going to be conducive to the way that they're trying to do business.
00:33:03.860I think I think all of all of the way that they're moving tells me that that that's what they've deduced.
00:33:08.480Yes, absolutely. That's exactly it. I feel like you hit the nail right on the head.
00:36:29.100When I was seeing woke AI everywhere in all the headlines, I was like, well, certainly
00:36:32.720this is like they're extrapolating or they're using that as a stand-in.
00:36:36.820No, that is actually the name of the executive order.
00:36:39.480the executive order has called the preventing woke ai in the federal government i when i tell
00:36:45.680you that i would pay good money to have trump like sit down and explain to me like what do you when
00:36:52.800you say woke ai what do you mean give me some specifics and he probably couldn't no he probably
00:37:02.340couldn't because i think it's just like anything any ai that would say anything negative about him
00:37:09.280and his administration basically that's basically it yeah and so now we're talking about another hit
00:37:16.720to freedom of speech and and things like that and when people are thinking about ai they're like oh
00:37:22.660ai is not a human it's not ai is not built from nothing it the way that ai works is that it take
00:37:32.040it crawls the entire internet and grabs everything that's out there. Every single corner, every
00:37:39.660single piece of the internet, that is what it's working from. So if he's saying, I don't want AI
00:37:45.480to use, to have anything in it that says these specific things, that's basically putting a
00:37:52.580blackout on parts of the internet when it comes to AI. People think of AI as like this robot that's
00:38:00.200just super fast as at learning and I'm like to learn something things have to exist and so
00:38:08.320like yes there are issues with you know creativity and using people's image and likeness yes I get
00:38:14.060all of that but when we're talking about censoring AI you're he's censoring us he's censoring the
00:38:23.040people and that's what people need to understand it's like oh yeah sure woke AI no woke AI that is
00:38:29.100words, that is images that the AI is learning from that will not be used. So it's the same
00:38:38.740thing as burning down a library or a whole section of a library. It's the same thing as
00:38:43.740taking away access to certain parts of the internet, like they do in China. You know,1.00
00:38:49.960they don't allow them to have things like TikTok and like the way that their internet works is not
00:38:55.840the way our internet works and that's essentially what he's trying to do and we have to really keep
00:39:01.980our eyes open because you can come up with a lot of like fancy white house legal ways legal quote
00:39:09.960unquote to censor whole populations of people i i mean i had never even thought about it that way
00:39:17.260but that is something that's a drum that we beat a lot on the show that ai is people right it's
00:39:22.160Yeah, by people, trained by people. It's not, you know, it's not a computer brain or something.
00:39:27.700Right. And so what you're saying is that this sort of preventing woke A.I. executive order that's like, no, A.I. must not have anything that must not have any kind of ideological agenda.
00:39:40.440That's just another way of censoring the Internet and ultimately censoring us, humans, people, expression.
00:39:45.600Exactly. Because if I'm if I'm using the Internet and I'm creating blog posts that I'm talking about my experience as a black woman in STEM, my experience as a black woman in America, and I'm saying I feel like this certain legislation is not right or that I feel like I'm being disenfranchised and all these things like that.
00:40:07.620the AI models will not be able to pull from my blog in order to answer someone's question
00:40:13.820that might be like, in 2025, what was it like to live in America for a Black woman?
00:40:21.180I'm silenced. It's quiet. Everybody on mute. And that's dangerous because you essentially
00:40:28.300can rewrite history. Imagine if we could go into every single library, take books,
00:40:33.680and just rip out whole sections and say, nope, that didn't happen. That is what is happening.
00:40:39.360That's what the technology is. The internet is something that is boundless, but there is
00:40:45.940absolutely the ability to censor. And we have to really be careful because these are the stories.
00:40:53.220These are the stories that tell what history was, our experiences. People might, you know,
00:40:59.860poo poo doing a blog or you know vlogging your life these are archives that people 100 years
00:41:06.060from now will watch like when we see videos from those old black and white videos that they restore
00:41:11.620and we're like wow look at those people walking around oh my goodness that's so cool are you
00:41:16.040trying to tell me that we will that our whole experience as black women won't be there we won't
00:41:22.180like your podcast won't be my podcast won't be there like images of of us at marches images of
00:41:28.700our family like having like having community won't be there because they might say oh that's
00:41:34.340woke black family reunions is too woke for for the internet we really have to be careful we really
00:41:40.280have to like sit up and take notice of these of these ways that we're also being censored and that
00:41:46.320they're trying to rewrite history and silence us because if they silence us in this technology
00:41:52.460We're in a really dangerous spot for the history being told.
00:41:57.660And as we know, history always repeats itself.
00:42:00.060And especially if that narrative is not there.
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00:47:34.480if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality welcome home
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00:49:41.140And I think one of the most frustrating things about this EO is that it specifically names that it does not want any kind of, quote, DEI in AI, which already it's like, I mean, I hate when Trump kind of makes me think through the logic of the things they put out.
00:50:03.960But in the real world, having more voices at the table, having a diversity of folks educated on AI, working in AI, building models, training models, all of that, that can only help us.
00:50:15.680Like that is that is like one of the ways, one of the tools in our toolbox to combat bias in AI, AI that is harmful, AI that doesn't recognize us for the like multifaceted people that we are, is having a plurality of people and perspectives at the table.
00:50:31.020And this executive order, it says, they say DEI and AI can lead to discriminatory outcomes,
00:50:36.900distort and manipulate AI model outputs in regard to race and sex,
00:50:40.460incorporate concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias,
00:50:45.280intersectionality, and systemic racism. DEI displaces the commitment to truth in favor
00:50:50.460of preferred outcomes. And as recent history illustrates, poses an existential threat
00:50:55.440to reliable AI. And that's what I think kills me is that
00:51:01.020we know ai can be biased can be sexist can be racist all of this stuff like we know that
00:51:07.980because it's trained on us and like humans those are all pitfalls that humans unfortunately
00:51:13.280struggle with and so this idea that oh the way that we make ai good is making sure that there
00:51:21.360there's no even whiff of inclusion around ai i mean it's i shouldn't even try to find any kind
00:51:28.160of logic and the things that they put out but it doesn't it just it just doesn't make any sense
00:51:31.780and i think when we're talking about something as critical as ai that we're all having this
00:51:38.140big conversation about how ai is going to change all of our lives right you know the fact that we
00:51:43.040we're not having like these are not serious people we're not there's a there are serious
00:51:47.380conversations because you're having but like in lieu of that we're putting out nonsense that0.57
00:51:52.080doesn't even make any fucking sense exactly and that i mean that just goes back to what i was
00:51:56.620saying earlier where it's just like they will try and make you intellectualize things that are0.93
00:52:03.020at their core not intellectual at all it's just racist like when you think of the history of
00:52:09.780racism there's this really brilliant uh researcher her name is Angela Saini who does a lot of
00:52:17.520research on on race and the history of racism and I learned so much from her books but racism
00:52:24.480racism is not, like race is a made up thing. We all know that. And racism was a science at one
00:52:33.400point. Like the research that went into trying to prove that there was a more superior race,
00:52:40.220but then all of that research was racist and pious and not true, not rooted in anything that
00:52:45.960was true and so I just feel like the more we don't call this what it is when we see it it makes it
00:52:56.980an intellectual conversation and it's truly not and so then when when people like you and I start
00:53:03.520to try and talk about it it makes it really difficult because and that's why it's hard to
00:53:08.800have conversations with people like that because you just you you don't even know what to say
00:53:13.120because it's just like if someone says I believe in unicorns and you're like have you ever seen one
00:53:19.700no but they're they're real it's like okay but you've seen horses right yes but unicorns are
00:53:28.080the best do you where are they does it matter you tell me where they are what these types of
00:53:36.420conversations just they are fruitless and so it's always just so frustrating there's a quote from
00:53:41.780Maya Angelou that Zakiya says all the time when it comes to like talking to racists and she says
00:53:47.880somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says
00:53:52.860your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is.
00:53:57.320Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms
00:54:01.780and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
00:54:07.480we i i that's a quote that i find a lot of wisdom in and i return to and i guess that's my my main
00:54:16.380point is the distraction of it all and that's the thing it's like from listening to your episode on
00:54:21.240the on ai like ai is um but there there are lots of reasons to be critical of ai and skeptical of
00:54:29.280ai and like absolutely talk about the ways that it's flawed and biased i am right there but when
00:54:34.100we are when the dominant conversation that the president puts out is something that is such a
00:54:41.080distraction it's such a like culture war like just stoking the flames of division when along
00:54:50.880the lines of something that is so important i just really i mean there's not i mean i should
00:54:55.620be used to it from this administration by now but i just think what a myth and it takes me back to
00:55:00.660we did an episode with dr joy bolamwini um who was one of the people who worked on the
00:55:07.280biden administration's executive order on ai right that eo it wasn't perfect but it definitely was
00:55:12.540like let's put a few garbills on this let's get a sense of like how this should be developed
00:55:16.260let's make sure that the voices who are talking about this and thinking about this are a little
00:55:20.580more diverse the fact that we went from that like like certainly not perfect but like someone who0.84
00:55:27.920had some goddamn sense who was talking fucking sense on the issue to this in just a few months
00:55:34.540it really it makes my head spin honestly and I think that that's part of the tactic is to0.98
00:55:39.600make us so tired that we will just basically lie down and just be like enough I like just let
00:55:47.800whatever happen happen and so I think like we recently uh interviewed Chelsea Clinton on the
00:55:54.660show. And that was one of like her parting messages that she left with us. And it was that
00:55:58.880we should not stop because that's like they're trying to disorient us. They're trying to fatigue
00:56:04.500us. They're trying to make us be quiet. And we should keep calling things out. We should keep
00:56:10.300researching and asking questions and asking hard questions and pushing our local lawmakers and
00:56:17.620our state lawmakers and the president and his cabinet and making sure that we don't let these
00:56:23.720like diversion tactics and these tactics that they're using to make us be quiet work because
00:56:30.100the first 30 days of this administration was just everything was just coming so fast and furious
00:56:38.540and I was just like oh my gosh like I was having to like in the morning I would wake up and be like
00:56:45.020maybe I should just not look at my phone for like an hour have a cup of coffee like pretend like
00:56:50.760all is right in the world. But now I'm like, no, I need like I might give myself a little bit of
00:56:56.400time, but I'm getting right back into it because being on shows like this, talking about these
00:57:01.480things and putting more out there is so, so important. And that's why I absolutely love the
00:57:07.840work that you do, Bridget, because you shine a light in so many on so many areas that I feel
00:57:13.400like people, they might not have the words, but they come to you to find the words and you help
00:57:19.200them think through some of a lot of these things that they might be like too tired to do the
00:57:25.300research on their own or like feel like they aren't whatever smart enough to be able to get
00:57:31.820to the facts on their own you create these safe spaces for people to find facts and to you know
00:57:38.600laugh a little bit but also be like okay now I know what I got to do because you come to every
00:57:43.920single episode with this certain energy that makes me be like, turn on my microphone. I'm ready to
00:57:50.420go. You're so inspirational to so many other podcasters out there. I know that's not what
00:57:56.620we're talking about right now, but I just want to say because it came to my mind how important you
00:58:01.040are to this space. You are not nobody. You are somebody to a lot of people. You are somebody to
00:58:07.840me and like you I hope you never ever ever stop like I've been following you for so long and
00:58:15.220it's what you do is amazing I can only aspire. Gigi I'm gonna cry. You're so important you're
00:58:24.700so so important to the culture. I feel the same way about what you do at Dope Labs and I just
00:58:30.160I think it's so important I mean how many people that listen to Dope Labs tell you like oh it's so
00:58:36.560nice to have a show about science that makes me feel like included and seen and welcomed into the
00:58:41.600conversation right that like what you're doing like you do that so well that's like what I want
00:58:47.580to do here on the podcast like that's absolutely what you're doing this you've no idea I mean I'm
00:58:53.200I don't even know what no you're you are perfect like honestly oh my gosh and it's I mean I think
00:59:00.980we i think it just goes to show that we for so long i feel like when it comes to stem whether
00:59:06.580you're doing a show about science or tech like it's just very easy for people to feel unseen and
00:59:13.860left out and then when you feel unseen and left out you're checked out and so when the president
00:59:18.500goes on tv and is talking about something ai related listen there is nobody who is who can
00:59:24.060hear the sound of my voice right now there's nobody who's listening to this podcast who is
00:59:28.280not smarter than trump about it about full stop end of sentence but also specifically when it
00:59:33.940comes to tech and ai if you're listening to this podcast you know more than him end of sentence
00:59:38.020full stop i guarantee you absolutely it's just this very i just hate this culture that can be
00:59:45.200so alienating and can can prompt people to do exactly what you just talked about like just
00:59:50.000check out just be like okay well they're gonna do what they're gonna do i don't need to i'm not
00:59:54.780going to try to I'm not going to try to like arm myself with information I'm not going to I'm not
00:59:59.760going to what difference does it make right you're going to pass executive orders they're going to
01:00:03.580sneak yeah into the privacy policy I'm going to use it anyway like right and I really want folks
01:00:08.640to feel a culture shift around that that's like no you can arm yourself with information you don't
01:00:13.480have to be afraid you don't have to be um you know you don't have to be trepidatious about about
01:00:17.560being part of the conversation because this the science and technology it really does impact all
01:00:22.140of our lives. And it's, it's so true. And it like, that's one of the things that Zakiya and I always
01:00:27.440try and do with the show is just trying to create a space where people don't feel like we're
01:00:31.440preaching to them. Like we're learning, we are always learning with the people who are listening
01:00:35.780to our show. And it's so important for folks to know like the scientific process. And we go through
01:00:42.280the scientific process in every single episode. You do it here on your podcast as well. The amount
01:00:47.260of research that goes into it. That is the scientific method. And you get to a conclusion
01:00:54.340and that is not you just pulling anything, you know, out of your head. You do a lot of research
01:00:59.620to get to the conclusions that you do. That is scientific. You are a scientist. You are a
01:01:03.840cultural scientist. And people need to start feeling empowered to do that, to take the extra
01:01:11.460step to do the research, ask an additional question, like really not just read the headline,
01:01:17.420but read the full article, see what the sources are, see what that study was. Oh, they only talked
01:01:22.700to 10 people. That might not be enough to say, oh, 90% of people do this or do that. You probably
01:01:29.580need a larger sample size. Those are the things that you should be doing. And that's what we're
01:01:33.420trying to teach people. We don't want anybody to feel like, oh, I'm not smart enough or I can't do
01:01:37.960this or that. We want to empower folks to ask those questions and know that there is no such
01:01:44.140thing as a silly question. And, you know, in some instances, like when we were talking about the
01:01:48.880vaccine back in 2020, like we really sounded the alarm on why people are vaccine hesitant,
01:01:57.680why people of color are vaccine hesitant. And it's not because they're stupid. It's because1.00
01:02:01.740is rooted in real history, like medical history, where Black folks were experimented on and
01:02:09.080sterilized and all these things like that. So the distrust of the medical community is not
01:02:13.320baseless. So there's a certain level of care you need to come into those conversations with
01:02:19.540because people of color are not stupid. They're operating within the framework of our history0.99
01:02:27.400in this country. And so when we talk about the vaccine, we say, listen, I get it. But these are
01:02:33.180the things that we know about vaccines. We break the vaccine down. We talk about the different
01:02:37.340elements of it and why they should feel like they can trust it. You know, the creator of one of the
01:02:42.880vaccines is a Black woman and we talk to her. And so these are the things that we just try and arm1.00
01:02:47.740people with. It's like the tools necessary in order to get to what the facts are. And then you
01:02:53.860can decide what you want to do what you do with the facts that's up to you but I just want you to
01:02:57.940know what the facts are you know because what I always say is truth is subjective like your truth
01:03:03.400my truth that person's truth it's all your perspective but fact it's the same no matter
01:03:09.360who's looking at it do you feel that in 2025 I don't know I feel that we've gotten to a place
01:03:17.340where we are so quick to just read the headline
01:03:21.720or go into Google and then read the AI summary.
01:04:59.180I think that, I think that with the way the internet is now, because, like, we're carrying it around with us constantly, it's always right there.
01:05:08.140People are, like, losing their ability to wonder.
01:05:11.980like if i say how tall do you think how tall do you think lebron james is
01:05:21.340somebody's just gonna go siri how tall is lebron james like nobody's gonna say
01:05:28.900did you hear that six feet nine inches siri please i'm recording an episode with0.99
01:05:38.780the Bridget Todd. Thank you. Oh, my God. I didn't even mean to be talking to her. I didn't even
01:05:42.140press the button. I guess she heard her name. But like you won't say, oh, I saw him standing next
01:05:48.020to this thing and that's probably about this height. Nobody wonders anymore. And I think that
01:05:52.300that is part of the part of the problem. And we just go straight to our phones. And then because
01:05:58.700we're not wondering, we're not doing any like we're not creating these pathways in our brain
01:06:05.300that are reinforced. So LeBron James is six foot nine. This just told me I didn't do any work to
01:06:11.140get there. So that piece of information, I'm going to forget it. Now, if I did a lot of research and
01:06:17.940took time and tried to figure out how tall a C exactly and did measurements, I won't forget
01:06:23.500because that's just how our brains are set up. You know, there are some people who are very,
01:06:27.520very intelligent that they only have to see things one time or hear things one time and
01:06:30.840they'll remember forever. But the way that the average brain works is that it needs reinforcement.
01:06:36.600And in order to like information needs reinforcement in order for it to stick. And part of that is the
01:06:43.640wondering and thinking about something for a long time. And that's what helps us to remember and to
01:06:49.200recall. So without the ability to wonder and like have curiosity and trying to get to the facts
01:06:56.420without just doing a google or talking to siri yeah it makes it affects your attention span
01:07:02.120affects your ability to remember things it affects your ability to be able to connect dots um in
01:07:08.160other aspects of your life and you know everything becomes very very difficult like i mean yeah i'm
01:07:14.880i'm guilty of that myself like i'll be like okay i'm gonna go to the grocery store it's like that
01:07:18.760Sesame Street thing. A stick of butter, milk, some bread. And then I get there. I'm not like
01:07:26.680that little black girl. I'm like, you don't get the little flash on top of her head. That's like0.75
01:07:31.440the butter, the milk, the bread. No, I'm like, did I need, I think I need a chicken nugget.
01:07:38.360That's what I came out here for. And then I get back home and I'm like, I did need butter and I
01:07:44.320did not get it like I'm guilty of it too because I use my phone as a crutch for a lot of things but
01:07:49.460exercising your brain and exercising those muscles is so important to like being able to understand
01:07:56.600what we're looking at and not just reading the headlines because when you exercise those muscles
01:08:00.660the headline will never be enough it won't be a thousand percent and when I I mean when I hear
01:08:05.900about young people in college who are really using chat GPT to get them through college on the one
01:08:12.080And I get it because it's like you have a million classes, you have a lot of coursework, but I think back to when I was in college a million years ago.
01:08:19.160And it's like I definitely had nights where if chat GPT existed, I would have totally used chat GPT to help me get through coursework.
01:08:28.380However, I also had nights of discovery where I learned something that that turned something on in my brain or ignited a curiosity in me that I still have today, years later.
01:08:39.300And, you know, I don't think that we should be thinking about all of this as just tasks to be offloaded or automated because that's, I mean, I can't, I mean, I cannot even express to you how many times I would encounter something and it unlocked a lifelong passion or interest or curiosity.
01:09:00.760And we do, in our hyper-connected world where it's so easy to offload things to technology, we do have to make room for, like, our brain getting the tinglys because we read something cool and we want to learn more about it.
01:09:15.180Like, that stuff happens by happenstance.
01:09:17.240And if you are not giving yourself experience, it's almost like we're, like, I worry that people are robbing themselves of the experience of that happenstance, encountering something that, like, turns something on for you or unlocks something for you.
01:09:28.620Yeah, I mean, and I totally agree. And I think that folks can do that in a chat GPT or Claude or whatever, or Gemini or Copilot, whatever your AI model that you want to use is, because those the output is only as good as the input.
01:09:45.400If you're curious and you and you can ask the right questions and follow up questions and like you're learning as the as the AI agent or whoever is giving you this information, you can still discover like chat GPT has deep research.
01:10:05.260And sometimes I'll put in there, it'll spit out like a 20 page thing.
01:10:08.020Now, this is not something I'm copy pasting.
01:10:09.620That is something that I use to research.
01:10:11.980Like I'm reading it and I'm like, oh, my gosh.
01:11:10.320And I'm like, well, you could have also said Bridget Todd is a cultural scientist, a.k.a. a nosy bitch, who loves some drama, loves some tea and just wants to know.1.00
01:11:24.480And, you know, she is talking about current events.1.00
01:11:30.600I would also like to be funny on this show.
01:11:33.180Can you, like, get me up to speed with what's going on in current events that she might be talking about?
01:11:40.280And it will give you all of these different responses and help you understand things more deeply.
01:11:46.860Like, honestly, just like I was saying with the calculator, a calculator is only as good as you are.
01:11:52.660like somebody can give you the most advanced calculator the most advanced software they can
01:11:58.340give you the most advanced coding uh software if you don't know how to use it it's useless like
01:12:04.700you can put stuff in there you'd be like one plus one is two duh I already knew that okay well do
01:12:10.120you know how to do the area under curve do you know how to do can you do differential equations
01:12:14.800like you have like you have to know how to use these things in order for to maximize your
01:12:20.060potential when you're using it and so that's what I always say to people I'm like if you're
01:12:23.660interested in using AI to like advance your life really sit down and spend time like going back
01:12:30.760and forth with it and like try not to be too much of a cynic and see how it can help you because a
01:12:38.960lot of a lot of jobs now so Morgan Devon who's the the owner of Blavity she was she had made a0.95
01:12:46.220post where she said that she was looking for looking through resumes for folks to hire and
01:12:51.160she was like it's a shame because a lot of these folks are not saying that they are proficient in
01:12:57.020like chat gbt in using ai and that is mandatory to work in my company and that's the path we're
01:13:05.000on now and so for folks to be like i will never like know where we're headed before you say i
01:13:12.980will never because you really don't want to be left behind when it comes to knowing how to use
01:13:18.260this technology like you we if you work in corporate america you all we all know like an
01:13:24.400old person who is still struggling with emails and turning their camera on when they're on zoom and
01:13:29.480you're just like if you don't just learn this stuff don't be that person when you still have
01:13:35.820the ability to learn how to use these things at your job and it's interesting that you say this
01:13:40.580Because one of the things I was looking at to prepare for this conversation was this study in Harvard Business Review about how women are a bit slower to adopt AI in their work than men.
01:13:51.120And they actually gave a lot of like interesting explanations for why that might be women caring more than men about some of the ethical considerations of AI.
01:13:59.140Well, that makes sense. But also one of the things they pointed out was women being feeling like they're under more scrutiny for using AI and feel like they might face more judgment than men.
01:14:10.580if they do use ai in their work and i really felt like that was so interesting because yeah it is
01:14:17.020like on the one hand i totally agree but in 2025 if you want to make yourself seem like a competitive
01:14:22.020a competitive candidate you you like you should be able to speak articulately about ai absolutely0.87
01:14:27.420also a wonder like are is is are women who are self-reporting like well i don't want to use it
01:14:33.420too much because i don't want to be looking at me crazy right like what do you say to somebody who
01:14:37.140feels that way i would say uh don't box yourself out in that way because uh the men are using it
01:14:45.480and they're using it proudly honestly and if you are in an industry where you feel like it will
01:14:50.580help you be more efficient you you should use it and you should use it proudly because even in job
01:14:55.900interviews they'll they'll give you a scenario and if you don't say i would use ai for this part
01:15:01.900of it they're like that eat too slow you're gonna be way too slow like oh i would research
01:15:07.940no say i would plug that into chat gbt chat gbt will tell me this and then from there i'll be
01:15:13.760able to pinpoint the right people within the organization to blah blah like you don't want
01:15:19.740to box yourself out don't don't let these don't let these men don't let me know for sure putting
01:15:27.120prompt that they are that they are prompt engineers on their resume because they know
01:15:31.540how to ask Chachi VT a question I have seen it I can confirm it with my own eyes and I remember I
01:15:37.680can't remember what book I read it in but it was like when a man applies for a job if there are
01:15:43.020five qualifications and he only has one he's he's more likely to apply for it than a woman who has
01:15:48.440three or four of those qualifications like she will she will deny herself if she has only four0.93
01:15:53.780of the five qualifications when a man will apply when he just has one
01:15:58.260we need to move with the boldness of uh unqualified white men yes and i've i've said
01:16:09.980this on the show before is that my first ever job in podcasting it was back in like 2012 before
01:16:17.480cereal was a thing before anybody knew what a podcast was i applied i was just somebody who
01:16:22.200listen to podcasts and i applied to work on a podcast and i put on my resume or i think i said
01:16:27.020in the interview that i knew how to do final cut pro in reality i had never i did not know how to0.84
01:16:32.100do final cut pro i just it was just a fucking whole cloth lie and then i got the job and then0.88
01:16:37.740i learned on youtube so have confidence i am an advocate for people lying themselves into the job0.96
01:16:44.200that they want to have why not you know like you can learn it and that's the thing is that in any
01:16:49.420job you can learn you can learn any of the stuff if they if you have enough of the qualifications
01:16:54.260you're a fast learner and you feel like you could pick stuff up just do what you got to do to get
01:16:58.380in there you learn when you get there okay tt i have one last question for you yeah you know in
01:17:04.800your in your episode about ai you really i i will put it in the show notes because people really
01:17:09.740should hear it i am often asked so i i'm i feel similarly to you that people should be testing
01:17:15.520out how AI might fit into their own lives and their own work, people often say, what
01:17:20.300about the like environmental and ethical considerations, which are real?
01:17:24.880I was in a talk recently about the use of AI in podcasting and how it actually does
01:17:29.720show up in some podcasts, even though people don't want to admit it.
01:18:07.300It's, like, from the cow, the slaughter, all the way into your happy meal.
01:18:12.3002,400 liters of water and one chat GPT query is 0.05 liters like there are a lot of things people have talked about almonds and how much water it uses rice and how much water it uses it's like I don't want to discourage people from like taking AI to task and saying hey we need to make sure that as we're developing this technology that we are considering the environment we all got to live here and I don't want
01:18:42.300this earth to burn up i want it to to last for a long time i love you earth and but we also have to
01:18:49.600think about things holistically and the cost for a lot of other things as well like we also need to
01:18:58.160we haven't figured out the whole emissions thing we haven't figured out the fossil fuels thing
01:19:03.800but it's like people aren't talking about it anymore and i'm just like everybody's hyper
01:19:08.980focused on AI and which, you know, when you think about some of the awful things that have been done
01:19:15.400with some of these data centers and people, you know, losing the access to clean air and things
01:19:19.080like that. Yes. But there are so many things where we're just not there yet. And we've kind of lost
01:19:26.800the plot a little bit and we've lost focus. And I think that we have to just continue to beat the
01:19:33.420drum about doing things in a sustainable way and doing things that don't harm our environment,
01:19:40.980but also advancing ourselves. Because AI might be able to get us to a place where we could
01:19:46.960find alternatives to fossil fuels. There are scientists that are actively working to make
01:19:52.100sure that AI is more sustainable. But I'll tell you this right now, the fossil fuel folks,
01:19:57.340I won't say no names I won't be specific they're not trying to do that no they're not trying to do
01:20:05.580that um but I know that the folks that are that are researching and and trying to get us to a
01:20:11.840better spot when it comes to AI and its environmental costs they're they're absolutely
01:20:17.120taking and taking it into consideration and it's going to take some time and it's going to take
01:20:21.760some innovation but uh yeah i think that folks really have to ask themselves other questions as
01:20:28.740well when they're thinking about the impacts i'm like it's not like oh everything is bad so might
01:20:34.540as well just do it it's like yes there are some bad aspects to ai that is bad for the environment
01:20:40.460um let's let's tackle that and let's also not forget about fossil fuels and let's also not
01:20:48.500forget about um fast fashion like let's also not forget about the landfill let's also not forget
01:20:55.980about uh the trash that's floating in the ocean let's also not forget about um vaping hello let's
01:21:03.500also not forget about like there's just I just want us to always like a lot of these things are
01:21:09.720you know taking our attention away I just want us to always let's like remember that there are
01:21:14.680So many things that we have to tackle as a global community.