AI Regulation Can Wait—But Education Reform Can’t - State Senator Julian Bradley - The TechEd Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Matt Kirchner (00:00):
Matt, welcome into The TechEd Podcast. I am

(00:10):
your host. Matt Kirchner, I hadthe honor, and I mean it
sincerely, the honor last yearof serving in my home state of
Wisconsin on the jointlegislative Study Committee on
the regulation of artificialintelligence. We're going to get
into that and many other thingswith today's guest. He is an
iconic politician and figurehere in the state of Wisconsin

(00:32):
and beyond. We're going to learnnot just about what he's doing
politically, but how he got towhere he is. Fascinating. Back
Story has Senator Julian Bradleyfrom the great state of
Wisconsin Senator. Such an honorto have you here. Thanks for
coming into the studio. Hey,thank you so much for having me
excited to do the podcast. Yeah,super, super excited. You're a
high energy guy. You've gotgreat stories, you've got a
great background, and I knowwe're going to have an

(00:53):
absolutely great time. So as Isuggested in the intro, really
interesting background. Whatinspires a guy like Julian
Bradley to get into politics inthe first place. Yeah.

Julian Bradley (01:03):
So growing up, my mom was very involved, and
one of the things that she wouldfrequently do is take me along
for for, like, door knocking andinvolved politically. You're
saying they're very involved inpolitics and in policy making
and influencing. So we would goaround and we would have, they
would do house parties, youknow, back in like, the early
and mid 80s, okay, there wouldfrequently be house parties

(01:25):
where you go around and you'resupporting whichever candidate.
My mom was a staunch Democrat. I

went to house parties back then, but they had
nothing to do with politics, and

so that's what they would do. And my mom took
me along for the ride, andreally started to pique my
interest. She was very involved,very community minded, engaged,
and she always told me that itwas my responsibility to do the
same. Yeah, awesome. As I grewup and I got older, I got more
involved in my own journeytowards politics, different
political party than my mother,for sure, that happens, that

(01:56):
does happen, and I was glad tobe able to do that. But one of
the things that really led me togoing from being like a
volunteer and an advocate forcandidates to jumping in to the
ring, if you will, literacy,okay? First and foremost, yeah.
I mean, I grew up living wellbelow the poverty line, okay.
And I think where the boats, bythe way, geographic. So I was
born in Baltimore, okay? Andthen I spent the first 11 years

(02:18):
of life in Lexington Park, whichis in Southern Maryland. So got
it. Then we moved here to thegreat state of Wisconsin, over
in the La Crosse area when youwere still young, yeah. Okay,
yep, at the end of fifth grade.
Okay, got it. And so for me, thebiggest difference between where
I am today and where some of thepeople that I grew up with where
they are, and some of them mychildhood best friends no longer

(02:38):
alive. Sorry, thank you. It'sthe fact that my mom focused on
making sure I could read. Wegrew up again, well below the
poverty line. I hate to use theword poor, but I hear you.
That's why I repeat that line.
But sure, it was such a big dealto be able to read and not just
look at a word and recognize it,right, but comprehend its
meaning, yep. And to know thatthrough comprehension, my

(03:03):
current circumstance is not whatmy future circumstance has to be
interesting, and that's whatreally kind of like, woke my
mind up, and my mom reminded meconstantly that, yes, we're not
doing too well right now, butdoesn't have to be that way
awesome. You know, you can fightthrough that. You can work
through it and things like that.
And as I got older and Irealized, I believe that message
wasn't getting to everybody. Noteverybody had a mom like that,

(03:23):
pushing, yeah, right, right. Andso that's what drew me in. And
so we need to make some realchanges. And I want to be
involved in this, because ifwe're going to seriously address
poverty, if we're going toseriously address crime, then we
have to seriously addressliteracy. Absolutely. You grow
up in poverty, your wholeworld's like a 12 block radius,
right? I've read to kids down inthe City of Milwaukee that don't

(03:46):
know there's a body of wateranywhere near right? Isn't that
crazy? You just can't imaginethat because their whole world
is such a small area. But assoon as you open up the mind, as
soon as you get intocomprehension, and you realize
that maybe the path your parentstook, or your friends are
taking, or other family membersare taking, towards crime, isn't
what you have to do. There is awhole nother world, and it's

(04:07):
available to you. Yep, thatchanges outcomes. We can't get
to everybody right, becausethere's always there's choice,
right, for sure, but we can openup minds and give people more
choices, and that's what broughtme in. It's literacy first and
foremost. Yeah, that's how wecan attack crime, that's how we
can attack poverty, and that'swhy I do what I do.

Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I grew up in suburbanMilwaukee, WAU Tosa, an upper
middle class family, fair tosay, but spent a ton of time.
The church that we went to wason 48th and Nash, and also life
guarded on Ninth and brown herein the City of Milwaukee. And so
the exposure that I got early inmy life, to your point, really,
in a lot of cases, people thathad their whole life ahead of
them, but didn't recognizenecessarily what was possible. I

(04:45):
was blessed with two parentsthat set a great example for me
through my entire life. He setexpectations, you know, and I
didn't always meet them, and Igot the you know, I felt the
result of that when I didn'tmeet them. But you take for
granted sometimes, if you have amother like you did, maybe. You
didn't take it for granted, butI certainly did. You have a
mother like you did, that wassetting these expectations. That
was saying, all right, this isthe opportunity. And yeah, we

(05:05):
might not be in the perfectplace now, but that doesn't mean
that you can't figure out a wayto get to where that perfect
place could be. Not that we everget to the perfect place, but
you're making tremendousprogress, and a lot of that was
through I'll be honest with you,Senator, we've had other
senators on the podcast, bothfederally and at the state
level. You're the firstprofessional wrestler, I think
that we've had join us on TheTechEd Podcast. So tell us a
little bit about that, thiswhole decision you made about

(05:27):
how you could support yourfamily and create a lifestyle
and a future for yourself that'sobviously led you to the
position of a senator here inthe great state of Wisconsin.
Talk about that journey a

bit. Yeah, happy to I'm shocked. I'm the first
pro wrestler. I thought it wasnatural to be the last, I
promise, not always like, youknow, grow up, graduate high
school, become a pro wrestler,run for Senate. I thought that
was involved in the tech sector,what have you. Exactly No. So,
you know, I was always a fan ofwrestling, always a huge fan of
wrestling. And, you know, Igraduated high school in 99 in

(05:57):
the mid 90s, student loans andthe availability weren't what
they are today. Certainly, yep.
And I knew I wanted to go tocollege. I knew that for sure I
was going to be the first to dothat in my family. I wanted to
do that. But around like 9596 Istarted looking and thinking,
Okay, I'm gonna have to get ajob, and I'm gonna have to pay
for things, right, right? AndI'm a big dude. And I started

(06:18):
thinking, Man, I wonder if Icould do this. Wrestling was
getting super popular, yeah. Andso I started making calls back
to the east coast to wrestlingschools. And I found one that
said, Yeah, graduate high schooland come on

out. So there are wrestling schools. There are
Yes. Okay, yeah, absolutely,yeah. And

so the biggest school that I went to, the name
that everybody reallyrecognizes, was run by the ANA,
why he family, which is therocks family, okay, AFI. Ana,
why he who passed away lastyear, okay, ran WX, W, wild smo,
and Training Center, I wasbroken in by a guy named Captain
Rick Adams. He kind of gave memy start, yeah, then, obviously,
after the wild snow, and kind ofpolished me up and got me ready,

(06:53):
put me on TV. And do you justget in, or do you have to apply?
Or how does that processthere's, there's a whole
process, right? Like, it's veryphysical and physically
demanding. So there's an entiretraining regimen. They give you
a little try out, and then theysay, Okay, let's see what you
can do. Okay? And you have toearn back. Then you had to earn
the right to even step foot inthe ring. So you pay a bunch of
dues and, and I don't just meanfinancially, I mean, you know,
you're carrying people's bags.
You're putting a ring up byyourself. You're tearing it down

(07:15):
by yourself, carrying it up anddown the stairs. There's a lot
that goes into before you get achance to actually wrestle. And
I had a blast. But, you know, Ihad an absolute blast. I
wouldn't say I was able tosupport my family. That was the
goal. Okay? So the whole goalwas, I'm gonna go be a pro
wrestler, I'm gonna make amillion dollars, right? And buy
my mom a house. I have a wholeplan. Didn't really work out
that way, but I had a lot offun, and I learned a lot of

(07:36):
lessons, and I prepared me forpolitics, right? Because in
wrestling, just like inpolitics, sometimes people view
you as a good guy or bad. Yeah,right. So it makes it kind of an
easier transition, but it's alot of fun,

very, very cool.
So then, when I was in youroffice a month or so ago, and
you've got this gigantic belt,right, hanging on the wall, tell
me what that I want. I meant toask you what that is when we
were together. What is that?

So that was the first title that I ever won,
okay, 20 years old, I won myfirst Heavyweight Championship.
I won the belt twice, and afterit got retired, I reached out
and I said, Can I have it? And Isaid, No, so can I buy it? Yeah.
And so I was able to buy thebelt and and now it's displayed.
It's just a cool reminder that II did something cool as a kid.
You know, I had a passion. Iknew I liked it. I was able to

(08:18):
to accomplish it. It was a lotof fun, and I, ultimately, I got
inducted into the WxW wrestlingHall of Fame, wow, which was
pretty cool thing. I didn't getto the WrestleMania to perform,
but I still was able to achievesome level of success, and I
just made a lot of great friendsand great relationships, had a
lot of fun and provided a wholelot of entertainment to people,
yeah, to portray a bad guy. Andthat was, that was pretty fun,

(08:39):
yeah, for sure. And yourwrestling name was. Before I
give you the answer of what thename was, let's set the stage.
Because everybody goes, where'dthat come from? All right? So
Chris Farley, right? Everybodyknows Chris Farley, especially
here in Wisconsin. So he did theSNL sketch with Patrick Swayze,
where they were at Chippendale,right, yeah. And so everybody
that character was hilarious,right? Well, I saw that one day,
and I go, I want to do thatcharacter. That's awesome. So

(09:00):
that was my wrestling character.
And I even took the name Chris,but I spelled it differently,
guys. So my wrestling name washot chocolate, Chris, crude. Oh,
cool, Chris. And crude with Ks,because there was an old school
wrestler, ravishing. Rick, rude.
Okay, so I took the rude, addeda K to that, and I took the
Chris from Chris Farley, who wasmy inspiration. Yeah, awesome.
And just created a hilariouscharacter. He was technically

(09:21):
the bad guy, but it was comicrelief. That was my role. I

had no idea that that was the inspiration for the
name. So that's and it'sinteresting. We had Eric Newman.
He's a executive producer inHollywood on Netflix. He did
zero day with Robert De Niro.
Just came out painkiller withMatthew Broderick. He did
Griselda. He did Narcos. And wetalked all about his experience
in Hollywood, and one of thefirst movies, one of the first
films that he did as a producer,was with David Spade and Chris

(09:44):
Farley. And actually talked onthe podcast about what a sweet
guy Chris was, and obviouslygone way too soon. And by total
coincidence, last night, I had aChris Farley conversation. I was
at Marquette University in myalma mater, and we were talking
Chris, of course. Went toMarquette for several years, and
so we were talking about thecrossover that some of the folks
had with Chris Farley.

(10:05):
Interestingly enough, the topicof the conversation last night,
I sat on a panel aboutartificial intelligence, in that
case, in business and humanresources. And you and I have
had all these conversationsabout AI, our audience should
know that I was honored, as Imentioned in the introduction,
to serve on the jointlegislative Study Committee on
the regulation of artificialintelligence. You were the chair
of that committee, and thank youfirst of all for nominating me.

(10:27):
It was such a great opportunity,and we learned so much. Talk a
little bit about the work ofthat committee before we get
into some of the details on AI.
And by the way, I'm going totake right now the greatest
credit in the history ofbroadcasting for segwaying from
professional wrestling toartificial intelligence, right?
So we got there and tell usabout the study committee. Yeah,
well

done. So the study committee, the
conversation started happeningaround the Capitol that we
wanted to have one, and younailed the title. It was
regarding the regulation ofartificial intelligence. And as
soon as I heard that, I gotnervous, because I said, Well,
look at what the 3c states aredoing, right? You look at
California, Colorado andConnecticut, they've already
there's a lot of issues going onwith the laws that they were

(11:07):
passing. And so we reached outand said, I would really like to
chair this committee, okay? Andthe reason I wanted to chair it
is because I knew I wasn't goingto pass any laws out of it. So
frequently, these StudyCommittee, these study
committees, come together andthey pump out a bunch of bills,
right? And I was afraid thatwould happen with this one,
right? And so that was my planfrom day one. It was to make

(11:28):
sure we don't follow in theirsteps. Let's learn from what
they've done. And we did thatwas the goal. So that's why I
did it. That's why it was a longsummer. It was a very busy
summer. Was we got to travel thewhole state, right? We brought
in stakeholders from everywhere,all across our state. Rather
than just positioning ourselvesin the Capitol and having people
come to us, we went to them.
Healthcare, public safety,education, absolutely, because
we had to learn if we're goingto actually be active learners.

(11:51):
We can't just do it. When peoplecan drive to Madison Exactly, we
have to go to where they are.
And that was my goal with thecommittee, to open it up and to
build a foundation so thatfuture legislatures can look at
this information and go, ah, wedid hear about that. They did
study that, right? Here's whythey didn't take action, or
here's some areas they thoughtwe could take action in the

(12:12):
future, right? That was my goal,and I think Mission
accomplished, yeah, well,there's

no question about it. I actually, I joined you
when you reported out to thelegislative committee and talked
a little bit about the resultsof the study and the fact that
we all that we ultimately didnot recommend any regulation.
Why even going into it? Is it soimportant that we are really
careful about the guard railsthat we create around AI and
both ways, right? I mean,because there's concerns. I
mean, you could get there's allthese dystopian theories and

(12:36):
these scary stories that youhear about what could happen,
right? So we're certainly notsaying that there isn't some
risk there. Why was it soimportant at a state level to
you that we not regulate

it? We need artificial intelligence. We have
a population problem. And thatpopulation problem is we don't
have enough people, right? Thereare job shortages in every
industry. I've literally metwith daycare providers and
funeral home directors, yeah,from cradle to Yeah, literally,
and they are short everywhere inbetween as well. We need
artificial intelligence to helpmake up for where we don't have

(13:09):
people. And in order to get thatto happen, we have to make sure
that we're not over regulating,right? Because once a law gets
passed and we start overregulating, it is really
difficult to undo that, right?
So let's take our time. Let'smake sure we know what we're
doing. There are other statesthat have rushed a little too
far ahead. We don't want tostifle innovation, right? We
want to be the cradle ofinnovation. So let's let people

(13:30):
come in here and then take careof some of the issues that you
talked about, that we talkedabout as a committee as well,
right? Consumer Protection,data, privacy, all of those
things are vitally important,but we can take care of them one
at a time without sweepingblanket regulation that stops
everything from happening. Solet's

look at the other side of the spectrum. You
mentioned the 3c states, andsome of the most poignant
testimony that I rememberhearing was when the folks from
Colorado joined us and talkedabout the legislation that had
been passed, the regulationsthat they do have. What are some
of the challenges that we saw inindividual states that had
decided to regulate AI, and inthe process of talking about
that, I think it'll becomeapparent to the audience why

(14:08):
it's so important that we'rereally careful about what we do
there. Yeah,

so I think one of the biggest pieces,
especially when it comes tostate regulation, is the fact
that you're asking companies tohave a different plan for each
state, right? A lot of thosethings really should be
addressed at the federal level.
For sure. If I had to pick onebig thing, that's it, yeah. I
mean, even from Colorado alone,it was. Now we can't do things
here in Colorado, so we'll havea 49 state plan and then a one
state specific. They're notgoing to do it that way.

(14:33):
Instead, they're just not goingto do Colorado, yep, right? And
so they're going to leave thosestates in the dust. They're
going to fall behind, andthey're not going to be ready
for their workforce, they're notgoing to be ready for their
constituency, and they're goingto fall behind. And nobody wants
to be able to do that. Nobodywants to be have to do that,
right? We've got to avoid that,and that was our goal,

absolutely and so, and I think you make the
perfect point. You think about acompany that's thinking about
doing business in a specificstate, and if you've got all
these different rules every.
State has a different rule, thenyou probably have to comply with
every all 50 states. Right? Youthink about sales taxes in a
business, right? If I'm, if I'mdoing business in a state and
I've got nexus with that state,I've got to have 50 different
rules for my 50 differentstates. But if there's one or

(15:11):
two states that are doing it,the easy solution for a company
is to just say, All right, well,we don't need that state. We'll
concentrate on the other 48 or48 or 49 and the folks that end
up suffering are the people inthat state that would have
otherwise benefited from thepresence of that company there.
So along the way, and weultimately didn't recommend any
legislation, but we learned aton of really cool stuff, right?
I mean, I remember conversationsabout public safety and and

(15:34):
preventing things like schoolshootings, the hearing on health
care, in particular, Dr BrianKay, who's a former guest on the
podcast from Rogers behavioralhealth, came in and gave some
great testimony about AI andmental health. What were some of
the things that you heard overthe course of those hearings?
And they were, these were hourslong hearings, right? We would
sit sometimes for three or fourhours and hear testimony. Are
there a few things Senator, thatstand out to you that's like,

(15:56):
wow, I didn't realize that, orthat's a really interesting
understanding that came out ofthe work that

we did. Yeah, so you nailed the first in public
safety, and some of the thingsthat are tied to public safety
or thing I never thought of,yeah, I never thought of what
could be done. And I know it'sbeing piloted right now. Right
walkshaw Tech College is goingthrough and piloting the school
shooting stuff and that, I mean,that could be a game changer.
That's awesome,

and I didn't realize that so rich Brian
house, who's also been a gueston the podcast, his institution
is piloting that technology,yes, huh, that's

they're leading on this. And so just learning
about that and learning otherways that public safety and law
enforcement are impacted byartificial intelligence, right?
That was a big eye opener.
Healthcare, yep, and the waythat we can become more
efficient, and the fears thatpeople had to alleviating those
fears, because I was one ofthose people as well that would
go, Well, how do I know when I'mactually talking to a person

(16:45):
versus a bot? Yeah, we havedoctors because we need that
personal touch. A doctor looksat you and and knows, oh, that
doesn't look right, right? Asyou know, artificial
intelligence might say, oh,that's fine. And hearing the
fail safes that they've built into make sure those things don't
happen was great. It was good tohear that there's still a lot of
work that needs to be done toensure that it stays that way,
right, but learning all of thedifferent ways that healthcare

(17:09):
can be impacted, because mostlypeople think about manufacturing
and automation and things likethat, and those are huge. But I
was familiar with those comingin right into the hearings,
learning public safety andhealthcare. Those are the two
biggest that I they just blew meaway. Yeah,

absolutely. And those were my two big takeaways
as well. I participated in theeducation one, virtually, and in
that part of it, obviously,given the work that we do is
really, really near and dear tous, and so so many applications
in education as well. But yourleadership on that committee was
absolutely phenomenal. I know Itook a tremendous amount of your
time. We learned a lot. Welearned a lot about things we
need to be concerned about, butalso reasons for optimism. As

(17:46):
you look to the future senatorand you think about whether it's
government, whether you thinkit's about the businesses that
are in your district or yourconstituents, what gives you the
most reason for optimism, andwhat are some of those exciting
things that are happening in theworld of AI, yeah,

I am not a scientist, and I'm not a
computer scientist, so I can'taccurately predict a lot of
those things, but as a policymaker, yeah, and as somebody
that's always looking to thefuture, you know, the Wisconsin
motto is forward, right? Andthat's what I'm always looking
to and I don't think you canlook forward without including
AI for sure, again, we have apopulation shortage problem, and

(18:19):
artificial intelligence is goingto help us continue to provide
the services that people expectwithout an additional in
hopefully increased price as wecontinue to swap people, because
that's what's happening.
Companies are losing people asthey're bouncing around. For
sure, that's normal, that's partof a market, but we're seeing
less services, and we're seeinghigher prices. AI can help
backfill that and maybe evenmake it better, right? I think

(18:40):
there's a lot of optimism forthat as we begin to move
forward. We haven't evenscratched the surface of what we
can do yet, and I think that'ssuper exciting. I don't think we
have to worry as much about theTerminator and all of the things
that everybody seems to like totalk about when they think of
AI. There are certainlyconcerns. But I think we have
the best and the brightestpeople making sure those

(19:01):
concerns are adequatelyaddressed, because they're in it
for the right reasons, for sure,right they're trying to solve a
problem. And as long as wecontinue to focus on solving and
addressing problems and andusing this as the tool that it's
meant to be, there's nowhere butup to go. And that's super
exciting for now, absolutely. So

you mentioned data security earlier, is one of
the concerns that we need to atleast be concerned about, maybe
the Terminator world, notsomething we need to worry
about. But when you think aboutconcerns related to AI, are
there other things that are onyour radar where we say, you
know, we need to be at leastcognizant of this potential risk
so that we can avoid it if wesee it coming? Yeah, it's

the human touch aspect, making sure that in law
enforcement and in healthcare,things that are very, very
personalized and that havehumongous life or death impacts,
that we have somebody that's atleast looking over the reports
and looking over the feedbackthat they get. And we talked
about those in both of thosehearings too, because again, I
had a lot of questions andconcerns, and it was great to
hear that as they're pilotingand trying things to see how.

(20:00):
How it works, right? Nothinggoes forward without human eyes
getting in there, touching itand reviewing it. And I said,
Okay, that's great. So that'sreassuring. Sure. That's very,
very comforting,

absolutely. And so we were together in the
hearing when you, when you didyour report out and share the
recommendations of thecommittee. What are some of the
things have you heard anythingprivately from members of the
legislature in terms of, hey, wereally appreciate the direction
you took on this, or maybe youcould have done things a little
bit differently. What kind offeedback have you gotten behind
the scenes?

It's been a little bit of a mixed bag. A lot
of people are very happy wedidn't rush into anything. But
there were certainly people thatsaid, Well, why wouldn't we?
Right? That's, isn't that ourjob? We're lawmakers. Should we
be making laws around this? AndI said, Well, this is a study
committee, right? Our job is tostudy first, right, and
determine whether or not weneeded to make the law. We
determined we didn't, sure. It'sbeen a mixed bag. I think

(20:49):
people, I think there are moreoutside people that were
surprised we didn't, and peoplemore traditionalists, because
again, these committees usuallypump out quite a few bills and
quite a few pieces oflegislation, right? So I think
there was a lot of just surprisethat we didn't do that, sure,
but I stand on that. I'm proudof the fact that we didn't. I
had conversations with everymember of the committee, one on
one, and shared this is myvision, and if it changes during

(21:12):
the process,

right? Happy to have hearings. Right? That's the
goal, to learn, to learn. Yougot it. If there

had been something that the committee
agreed that we should havepumped out, we would have
insurance. That's something I'msuper proud of, is that we did
have ongoing conversations, andat no point did a majority of
the committee come together andsay, Actually, we should do this
bill. In fact, we had some Billideas come up, right? But
nothing even to date, has comeforward, because it's not time
yet. It's not ready yet. We'restill studying, sure, and that's

(21:39):
the goal. We actuallyaccomplished the goal of a study
committee, right? He studied,yeah,

and studied, and the tremendous amounts of
findings, right? So in as muchas there wasn't a recommendation
to regulate, we gathered a tonof information. All the hearings
were public, of course, and somefolks can go online and actually
watch the hearings as they takeplace. I think those are all
still out there. So they are sovery transparent process, of
course, as it should be at thestate level. I think another
example of how Wisconsin isleading on artificial

(22:04):
intelligence. You know, we talkabout a lot of the things
happening here at Microsoft withtheir huge investment just
southeast of your district andin Mount Pleasant Wisconsin,
$3.3 billion data center. Marysnap, who is the Vice President
of Strategy for Microsoft,joined us on the podcast to talk
about that huge investment,bunches of things flowing out of
that. We've got the AI coInnovation Lab at the University

(22:25):
of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, somegreat things going on at the
University of Wisconsin, stout,where we held one of our
hearings. As a matter of fact,we had Jill Enos from Titletown
tech partnership betweenMicrosoft and the Green Bay
Packers on not long ago, talkingabout the great things happening
in AI here in the state ofWisconsin. And I feel like
another way in which we'releading and we actually got
credit from some of these otherstates was thank goodness that

(22:47):
you're taking the time to reallybe thoughtful about this, in
fact. And going back to theconversation with the folks in
Colorado, they were like, theystarted out with credit to the
state of Wisconsin for actuallystudying this and thinking about
it before they just asked theirstate legislature to come up
with some regulation aroundartificial intelligence. So we
really are in many ways leadinghere in the state of Wisconsin,
because of that, because of theadvancement of AI, because of

(23:09):
things like data centers. We'vegot challenges we've got to face
too. I mean, in the world of AI,consumes tremendous amount of
energy. I'm a huge fan of midjourney, which is an AI platform
that can create an image ofanything that you dream of,
right? You just tell it, this iswhat I want to look at, and
it'll give you four images ofsomething that nobody on earth
has ever seen before, just usingAI and coming up with a
depiction of what it is that youimagined in your head and

(23:31):
managed to put into words. Butfolks don't realize every single
AI generated image requires thesame amount of power as it does
to charge your smartphone fromzero to 100% right? I mean, the
tremendous amount of energy justfor that. And then you think
about how much energy is thesame to train one LLM is the
same amount of energy that wouldbe consumed by 133 homes here in

(23:54):
the United States. And sotremendous amounts of energy, I
know that is driving, and thisis a key interest for you,
thoughts about how do we createand how do we generate the
energy that we need to generate,and do it in a clean,
environmentally responsible way,and so on. And certainly,
outside looking in, for me,nuclear is a huge opportunity,
right? So let's get into that.
And I know this is a fascinationfor you. It is a little bit

(24:16):
about nuclear, how you gotinterested in it, what aspects
of it, because there's a lot ofthings happening, from fission
to fusion to small modularreactors and so on. Talk about
that a little bit. Yeah,

so I appreciate you bringing that up. I chair
the utilities technology andTourism Committee, and it's
time. That's an

interesting combination. It's a very
interesting technology andtourism, right? That's a natural
as

chaired by a former professional wrestler. It
all got together very well, butnuclear it's time. It's beyond
time, right? There's a lot ofwork that needs to be done,
regulatory work at the federallevel, so that states can begin
moving forward. We're trying totake some steps here in
Wisconsin, myself andRepresentative Dave Steffen just
passed a resolution passed outof the Senate already with
overwhelmingly bipartisansupport. Awesome, stating.

(25:00):
Wisconsin is ready to moveforward with nuclear energy.
Awesome, right? We're so farbehind. And where we could be
Wisconsin. We are net importersof energy, yeah. So if we want
to get our rates under control,if we want to be able to power
these data centers and be a hub,which we do, we want everybody
to come to Wisconsin, right,then we've got to get our energy
consumption and our generationunder control, right? We've got

(25:22):
to figure out how to hitconsumption. We've got to
generate enough to be able to doso, and that's where nuclear
comes in. I like to joke, and Iam a scientist because I have a
political science degree, butI'm not a scientist on some of
these other things, right? Butas I've continued to learn, I
know SMRs are very exciting.
We're open to everything rightnow the state of Wisconsin.
We've got to get to that point.

(25:42):
We're trying to pass a billright now about a siting study.
Okay, coming up. We're trying toget a summit here. What is the
citing study? So getting in anddetermining what we can do,
where we can do it, how we canbring nuclear and get some stuff
up and running. Okay? So we'retrying to get that figured out
now, as well as having a summit.
So getting people to cometogether. What is it going to
take? What barriers can thestate remove so that when the

(26:03):
Feds open things up, or when theopportunity arises, we can jump?
We don't want to wait, we don'twant to wait for everybody else
to do it. Let's be as proactiveas humanly possible, because
that's how we're going tocontinue to attract business.
That's how we're going to beable to lower rates, and that's
how we're going to be able to beas responsible as we need to be
when it comes to energy, sure.

So let me ask a couple follow up questions. The
first one that occurs to me is,so as you mentioned that the
resolution that you, that youbrought to the states and I
passed with the, you know,overwhelming bipartisan support,
you didn't say unanimous. Sothat means that there's my liars
there. Yeah, the people that areconcerned about that, what are
they saying? Somebody that wouldvote against a resolution like
that? What would be the reason?
Yeah, only

one person spoke against. So there were five, we
have 33 members. There were fiveno votes, if I'm remembering
correctly, and only one personspoke against, okay? And he just
said, it just still not safe, Ithink was his concern. And
there's a lot of that to stillovercome, sure, right? There's a
lot of stigma, there's a lot ofperception right around nuclear
but overall, in general, if you10 years ago, I don't think you

(27:02):
would have gotten a bipartisanresolution. For sure. Today, we
think the governor, who's aDemocrat, is willing to work
with us on, how can we openWisconsin up? Because I think
everybody recognizes two thingsabout energy here. One, as net
importers, we have to be all ofthe above, right? We need
everything. It gets really coldhere in the winter. It's cold
here today, right? Exactly. Itgets really cold here in the

(27:24):
winter, and it gets really hotin the summer. So we've got to
be able to have energy thatmakes sure that all of our
citizens are safe Absolutely. Sowe need all of the above, which
includes nuclear number two,it's environmentally you know,
it's clean, right? Exactly, itchecks that box for sure. The
reactor that we have right nowis providing energy for over a
million homes at Point Beach oryeah, that's all we have right

(27:46):
now in the state of Wisconsin.
Imagine, right? Imagine if we'reable to grow that portfolio a
little bit more, for sure, whatadditional energy we can
provide. And again, if we'retrying to attract more data
centers, right, we're trying toattract more business, people
are going to go, okay, butwhat's it going to look like?
Because I need to turn thelights on for

sure. So this resolution goes through the
sentence, then go to the to theother half of the legislatures
that

Yes, yep, the assembly on it at some point,
and I anticipated it's going tobe wildly bipartisan as well.
Okay, it's a statement, yeah,and that's what the resolution
is. It's just a statement, sothat everybody knows sure that
not only are we talking about itinternally, but we're serious?
Yeah, we want to send up the batsignal, if you will, yeah, to
everybody out there that saysWisconsin is serious about

(28:29):
nuclear. Sure help us along theway, because we need to hear
from the experts, just like Iwas able to attract you and many
other experts to come in andhelp us with. Ai, right? We need
that help on nuclear. BecauseI'm not an expert by any stretch
of the imagination, but I amsomebody that can help the
experts, sure, as we try toadvance policy that'll open it
up.

So for those of us, and I'm a little bit older
than you are, but maybe morethan a little bit, but live
through Three Mile Island, orremember Chernobyl, right? And
that's immediately what youthink about like, right? I mean,
those areas, Chernobyl stillhasn't recovered, right? And
it's certainly way better thanit was. You know, shortly after
the after the event, what do yousay to those folks, has the
technology changed? Are therereasons to be more optimistic

(29:07):
about the safety of nuclear thanmaybe we had in the past?

Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's the
technology has just changed somuch, and we've learned from
those right, those accidents,those horrible situations,
right? Have led to a lot ofchanges and a lot of learning
the tsunami and people having tomake changes after what happened
in Japan. I just was had aconversation about this and how
it's impacted how the nuclearplants are built and and the

(29:30):
redundancies, even if they'renowhere near a body of water,
they all still have to comply tocertain things, because this is
serious stuff, sure, right? Andso we're taking the opportunity
to learn to adapt and to try toavoid something like that in the
future. So I think it's timethat we give it a shot. We hear
to go that's been myconversation. Is anything fully
safe? No, right? We've learnedthat. But it is the job of the

(29:54):
experts to make it as safe ashumanly possible, and for us to
make sure that we provide enoughregulation at a state. Level to
ensure the safety of ourcitizens,

absolutely. So as you look at those technologies
and the advancements oftechnology, obviously, nuclear
now is fission technology. Haveyou looked at Fusion at all?
Yeah, I've

had some conversations. Again, it's quite
a bit outside my scope, but I'vehad conversations. Everybody's
excited on both sides, right?
And I'm just excited to getnuclear here in the state of
Wisconsin?

Sure, absolutely.
And excited for the future ofreally, all of our commerce
here. And to your point, if wecan get to the point where we're
not even a net exporter, but wecan where we can generate our
own energy needs right here inthe state that just continues to
fuel growth, that's going tocontinue to fuel advancements in
technology, and to do it in aclean way. So to your earlier
point, it is the cleanest way wereally have right now of

(30:43):
generating energy, the worstversion of it, and still a
significant part of the yearstill burns wood to heat their
homes and to prepare their food.
That's about the leastefficient. And then you can move
on, move up through whether it'soil and fossil fuels or natural
gas or alternative energy. And Imean, of all those nuclear is
the one when done safely, thathas the least environmental

(31:03):
impact, and everybody should beable to agree on so super, super
excited about what the futureholds in the world of nuclear.
Excited about what the futureholds in the state of Wisconsin.
From an education standpoint,Senator, I know this is a key
interest of yours as well. Ispend all of my time now in the
technical and STEM educationspace. We say we're securing the
American Dream for the nextgeneration of STEM and
workforce, 10. Workforce talent.
I've yet to have a guest on thepodcast or meet anybody else,

(31:24):
for that matter, in the in theUnited States that says, you
know, that's a really bad idea.
Let's not secure the AmericanDream for the next generation.
Everybody agrees on that. But todo that, we really have to focus
on our education sector. And westarted earlier in our
discussion, talking about howthe environment in which you
grow up, and the example, thenthe expectations and

(31:44):
opportunities that your parentscreate for you huge, huge impact
on what your opportunities are.
I'm a big believer, having grownup in an environment where I've
had blessings in my life that alot of young people didn't have,
that we've got this obligationto try and create those
opportunities for as manyAmericans, and in this case, as
many Wisconsinites as possible.
Talk a little bit about yourthoughts on education. How are

(32:05):
we doing here in the state ofWisconsin? What do we need to do
better?

Yeah, we need to do a lot of things better,
literacy and math in a majorway. We're too far behind. The
gap for black students is thelowest. It's the worst.

Yeah, schools, yeah. I mean, this is so
undeniable. The data is there.
Yeah, our outcomes are

just unacceptable, period. And
there's no level of successthat's even in being talked
about. It's like, well, we canget to 50% 50% is not enough.
Yeah, that's nowhere nearenough. We have to do better,
and we have to commit to it.
Look, I'm a super fiscalconservative. Sure, I want to
spend not a penny more than itcosts to run our government
right, but I also don't want tospend a penny less than it costs
to actively, effectively andefficiently run our government?

(32:42):
Sure. So that means we have tocontinue to invest in education.
That doesn't just mean throwingeverything into public schools,
right? We have to diversify howwe're doing that. If private
schools are doing well, then weneed to continue to fund that.
We I'm a big supporter of schoolchoice, sure. I believe school
choice continues to help people.
When you have a student that'sstuck in a failing school.
Giving that parent and thatstudent a lifeline is a

(33:04):
responsible thing to do forsure. School choice was born
here in Wisconsin. It was,indeed, it was bipartisan. Yeah,
exactly. I think we have toremember that, and today it's
bipartisan. Again, we saw thatafter the pandemic. We owe it to
the students in schools today, Idid. You mentioned it earlier.
As I got older, I realized I didtake my mom for granted as she
was preparing me for the future.
Because I had no idea. I hadnothing to compare it to, right?

(33:25):
I thought every house in myblock was having the same
conversations, and they werejust making different choices.
But as you get older, yourealize that there are parents
that maybe don't know where togo or what to do. They maybe did
not have a life where they sawthe rest of the world, which is
why the cycle continues. That'swhy schools are so important,
right? To have somebody elsethat can help the parents,

(33:47):
right? When you think ofeducation, it's got to be a
partnership parents andeducators and students. For
sure, everybody has to be partof this, and the community has
to be invested. We lived onpublic assistance off and on
throughout my childhood, and atone point, you know, I asked my
mom, why not? Why were we onpublic assistance? But why is
the government giving us money?

(34:10):
Because, you know, as a kid, youstart to have some awareness of
your situation versus otherpeople. Absolutely and naturally
being inquisitive, I just Icouldn't understand what's the
incentive. And my mom put it ina way that has stuck with me
forever. And she said, Honey,the community is investing in
you. They're not investing in meanymore. They're investing in
you. So it's your job to finishschool, get an education, and

(34:33):
then pay it back with interest.
Fascinating. And

I've what a wise thing for her to say, that's
beautiful. Yeah, it wasincredible,

and it's impacted. It's why I'm where I
am today. I still don't like topay taxes, but it's why I do it
right, right? And we need thatto be the message that continues
to spread through education.
That's why literacy is soimportant. That's why
comprehension is so important,and that's why it's got to be a
top priority, if not the toppriority. Sure, if. We want to
make sure that we have goodcitizens, regardless of what

(35:02):
industry they go into, and whatthey do for work, in the
workforce, and all of thosethings will come later, right?
Just good citizens. Yep, then wehave to have great education. No
question. I believe that's thebeginning for us. We've got to
do better. 31% some, you know,there are schools in Milwaukee
that are single digit percentthat are proficient, right, in
reading and math, those studentsare all being set up for

(35:22):
failure, right? It'sunacceptable, it is so we've got
to continue to change. It'sunethical. It is unethical, and
we've changed. We passed a bigliteracy bill last year, right?
That's changing how reading isbeing taught. That's a great
first step, but we have a lotmore to do. So let's

talk about MPs, right? So, I mean, you mentioned
the the results, and we've gotother challenges in the state of
Wisconsin and but I grew up inand around the city, had a lot
of friends that went to MPsschools growing up, still no
kids that are in that in thatprogram. And there's and there's
certainly some shining examplesof students that are doing well
in MPs, and shining examplesMilwaukee Public Schools, and
shining examples of schools thatare doing really, really well. I

(35:59):
had somebody asked me, we wereactually on vacation with five
couples from the state ofWisconsin three or four weeks
ago, and they said, if you weregiven free reign over that
school district and could doanything that you wanted, what
would you do to improve outcomesin Milwaukee Public Schools? I'm
gonna ask you the same question,Senator, if somebody put you in
there and they said, you can do,you know, whatever constraints

(36:21):
you're concerned about, whateveryou know, bargaining units,
whatever union, whateveradministration, whatever student
challenges. Knowing that we're,you know, we're pulling into
that district a group ofstudents that probably don't
have the same opportunitiescoming into school that maybe
you get in other parts of thestate. What are a couple things
you would do in MPs if you couldchange anything? Yeah,

so I'd introduce competition in any way possible.
And by introducing competition,I don't just mean, you know,
school choice, but I mean in theclassroom, right? Teachers
competing to get the best gradesfor their students, sure,
qualifying for better wages.
Yep, right. Like it is in theprivate sector, sure, if you if
you do well at your job, youmake more money. Yep, right.

(37:00):
Sure, we would get and becomeway more outcome driven. That's
something that I think ismissing right now. Students
aren't being held back right ona regular basis, so they're
failing forward. If you can'tread by third grade, right?
You're in a whole lot of troubleup to third grade, he learned to
read from third grade, fromfourth grade, beyond, you're
reading to learn, right?

And that's interesting, and we're put that
on your I didn't. Okay, that'sgood. We're passing

students out of third grade that can't read.
Well, how can they possiblysucceed? So we've got to put
more incentives on not justtesting. All testing does is
show us it's a reflection ofwhere we are today, right? It's
like any other survey. Okay, sohere's where we are. Got it. How
do we improve that? Sure, andwe've got to do more. We've got
to raise standards, not lowerall. We've got to set clear

(37:48):
expectations, and we have to beserious about it. We have to
stick to it. We can't just say,well, it's taking too long, or
I'm not seeing instant results.
So maybe we should changesomething. Right? Let's create a
plan. We can be adaptable, wecan be flexible, but we've got
to create a real plan, and sothat would be the first thing I
would do. They have so manyproblems in MPs, it's nearly
impossible to address it all,but there are so many great,

(38:11):
dedicated teachers, too. And Idon't want to just call out all
the issues, because there arereal, awesome professionals,
100% who are doing this for allthe right reasons, and they're
just running into roadblocks.
They get lumped in witheverybody else too, and I don't
want them to think that they'rethe problem, because they're
definitely not. There are otherresources that are necessary,

(38:31):
and I want to be part ofproviding those so I get to do
whatever I want. We'reintroducing competition. We're
introducing incentives, becausewe've got to do it's what we
would do if we had, we're tryingto attract business. Yep, right.
We introduce incentives, taxbreaks, etc. So let's introduce
competition. Let's open upschool choice so that you can
take your child the money'sfollowing your kid everywhere
you want to go, and in thepublic schools if you're one of

(38:53):
those great teachers thatcontinues to do awesome, let's,
let's recognize you Sure. Let'smake you qualify for a bump in
pay so that other teachers go,You know what? I really want to
try to do that andunderstanding. And you mentioned
it, and I talked about it alittle bit as well, and every
student has the home environmentright to help facilitate growth

(39:14):
in education. So how can weovercome that? Would become the
next piece. I've been to someprivate schools where they bring
parents in and they say you haveto be part of this in order for
your child to attend the school.
It's difficult to require thatin public schools, for sure, but
that doesn't mean we can'tencourage it. 100% doesn't mean
we can't create the programsthat make that happen and put
pressure on parents to be moreengaged in their child's

(39:36):
education. So those are just afew of the things I would do.
And, you know, if we can saveone extra kid right by just
doing those things, and it wassuccessful,

absolutely, you know. And I'm glad you mentioned
parents. Huge role for parents.
Glad you mentioned teachers. AndI agree 100% and as much as in
some cases, in discussions likethis, we lump all the teachers
together, you know, just someshining examples of the way that
that educator. Are Changingstudents lives outside of MPs
and inside of MPs. And I thinksometimes we don't necessarily
appreciate the challenges that ateacher has, especially in this

(40:07):
day and age. You know, we I'mworking really closely with the
school district in westernWisconsin. I was talking to the
district administrator, thesuperintendent of that district,
and he said this a couple weeksago, and it just blew me away.
He said, anymore, if we look atlike a freshman class in high
school, and you walk into atypical classroom that is
teaching freshman level, youfill in the blank math, you

(40:28):
know, English, history, whateverhe said, the comprehension and
the reading and academic abilityof the students in that
individual classroom will spanfrom second grade. So some of
them will be reading at a secondgrade level, and others will be
reading at a freshman in collegelevel, in exactly the same
classroom. And you think aboutbeing a teacher and walking in

(40:49):
and simultaneously having tochallenge that high flyer that's
doing work that at a collegiatelevel, and also provide support
and nurture for that studentthat is for whatever reason. And
some of them through no VA tothe students, probably many of
them, yeah, you know, at acompletely different level. And
it really opened my eyes to me.
I can't imagine being a teacherand having to work in that

(41:10):
environment, which I thinkspeaks to when we get the ones
that shine, when we get the onesthat have the capability of
inspiring students for thesecrazy outcomes and bringing them
from one level to another. Andthere's so many teachers that do
that, do that, let's reward thatwork absolutely.

And to your point, I mean, I hear that from
teachers all the time, fromsecond grade all the way up to
collegiate level. How I think wehave to change. It's time to
adapt and change what the schoollooks like, right, right? If you
have kids that are performing atour at a high level, let's get
them in classes that do that,calling everything, first grade,
second grade, third grade, fifthgrade. We need to re examine

(41:46):
that. It's okay to do thatright? We created that system.
We can create a new one thatfits where we are today.
Technology has changed educationExactly. Kids have cell phones
all the time. They're constantlyreading. They're constantly
learning. We need to tap intothat more and utilize those
tools. And I think there's a lotof ways to do it. We just have
to be brave enough and willingtotally to break out of the norm

(42:10):
and say, This isn't workingright. Let's try something, and
then as soon as we we nail it,yep, let's scale it. So I'm so
glad to hear

you say that. You know, I was on this panel last
night at Marquette University,and one of the questions that
was posed to me is, what is thatis, what is education going to
look like in the future? And Isaid a couple things. The first
thing, and this isn't originalto me. I heard it somewhere
else, but it's so true. You walkinto the average elementary
school now, middle school, and Idid. I had the opportunity a few
years back to walk through mychildhood. Elementary school

(42:38):
hadn't been there over 40 years.
Went back. It was so it wasawesome. You know, smelled
exactly the same. You know, allthe drinking fountains were in
ex I walked into my kindergartenroom, and it's like, everything
was the same. The cubbies werein the same spot, the, you know,
the little carpet. And then itwas really cool. And then it
occurred to me, it's like, oh mygoodness, the whole world has
changed. And the school that Iwent to elementary school 40

(42:59):
plus years ago looks exactly thesame. And, oh, by the way, looks
exactly the same as it did likepost World War Two. That
building was built in the 19,think, the late 1920s and so it
really gives you a sense for howmuch the world has changed and
how much maybe, in some cases,education hasn't. And what I
told the students, these wereall human resources students
last night and kind of talkingabout, how are they going to

(43:20):
recruit people into theirorganizations in the future? And
I said, What's going to happenin education is that, in the old
days, and even now, we go toschool to learn, right, sage on
the stage, brilliant person thatstands up in front of us and
lectures for 50 minutes, writeson a board whatever, does
demonstrations, and then we gohome to practice, right? That's
the model. Now. We come toschool to learn, and we go home

(43:41):
to practice, and when we saypractice, we call it homework. I
mean we literally put the namehome right in what we're doing,
and we study for exams at home,and then we come back, and then
we, you know, prove competencywhen we come back to do our
exam, and I said, what's gonnahappen is that's gonna flip, and
home is gonna be the place wherewe go to learn. There's a reason
I can blow 45 minutes on ticktock or YouTube shorts, because
it's fun, right? And you just aslong. And I flipped through it,

(44:03):
and as soon as it loses myinterest, boom, I'm on to the
next thing that I think is whateducation looks like. We're
going to learn at home that way.
You know, as soon as I Okay, Igot it, I've got that concept
onto the next one, or I need alittle bit more time. Let's
watch that again. Yeah. And thenwe're going to come to school of
practice, and we're going to doour hands on skills, and we're
going to do our interactive youknow, let's talk about what we

(44:23):
learn. Let's show what we'recapable of doing. Let's talk
about the meaning of what wejust read. And so I think that's
the future of education, which,to me, is really, really
exciting, but requires a wholedifferent view of education. It

does. It's super exciting. And it's what's next.
Yep, exactly right. It's what'snext. We were talking about this
during the study committee, butwe know that right now, as AI
continues to expand, we'retrying to get workers in to get
caught up and be able to go andthen we've got to teach it in
college and then get it into thehigh schools. Right, right?

(44:54):
Eventually, we're going to beteaching kids in elementary
school, because it's a loteasier to learn and at school.
To be so so much a part of theirdaily lives, right? So why
aren't we thinking about thattoday? Exactly? That should be
how we're planning this for thefuture. Because they're playing
with it at home, just as yousaid, exactly. So let's make
sure they can utilize the skillsthey're learning and then teach

(45:15):
them the ones they're missing,right? Schools, especially when
we get into high schools, Ithink high school needs to

be completely revamped, yeah, blow it up
figuratively. Yeah, start over.
I think it

needs to be completely revamped to get kids
ready for whatever is next intheir lives. It needs to do a
better job of not just passingyou out. You're an adult now,
you're 18. Best of luck. Sorry,we didn't teach you how to
balance a checkbook, right?
Which, that's a whole nothertopic. Economic literacy, yeah,
for sure is a real issue, but Ithink we need to do if you know
that you're gonna go into anyindustry, any vocation, any if

(45:46):
you know that already, right? Weshould be specializing, for
sure. We should haverelationships that say, okay,
you know what you're ready togo. We're gonna put you on this
path. Yep, and you could stillchange your mind, right, right?
Because a lot of kids don't knowin high school totally, but
we've got to introduce them towhat's available to them and to
what's out there, and that's agreat way to do it. You know,
you take your gen eds, maybe inthe morning, and your whole

(46:08):
afternoon is practical, right?
You're out, you're trying,you're you're an apprentice,
you're interning. It's morehands on, and I think that is
how you're going to create abetter workforce and a better
citizen, somebody that's readyto make that decision when the
time comes goes. You know what?
I interned here. I was anapprentice. Maybe this isn't for
me. Maybe I'll try somethingelse. But now I know who to

(46:29):
call. Yep, now I know who totalk to. Totally. Yeah, I
graduated. I didn't know who tocall or talk to for a lot of
these things. And there was theinternet was in its infancy,
still right? That's available,so let's, let's encourage that
and really show people what someof these jobs can do for them,
what these careers can have.
These aren't just tasks. Theseare careers and those people

want to help. I mean, that's the thing is, I
tell people all the time.
They're like, well, you know,sometimes I'm a little bit
skittish or a little bitcheapish, I should say, about
reaching out to some CEO of acompany, or a head of HR, or
the, you know, this chiefengineer, or whatever it's like,
if you can get to those people,they want to help you. Right? I
never say no to a student. No toa student who says, Can I have
15 minutes? Not once. Happy,always, always happy to do it.
You know, there's this effortthat I've been involved with,

(47:08):
again, in western Wisconsin, youand I've talked about it. It's
all around self paced, studentcentered learning, right? What
they're doing is they've got acourse, there's a 16 hour course
that a student goes throughabout applied artificial
intelligence. So they'relearning some of the terminology
of AI. They're starting withtheir smartphone and recognizing
that, yes, your smartphone istracking everything you're

(47:29):
doing, sending that informationup to, for example, Spotify,
which is why Spotify is able toat any moment, play exactly the
song you want to hear at thatmoment, without you having any
idea why, because it knowseverything about you, starting
with that and then saying, Okay,here's how artificial
intelligence manifests itself inautonomous vehicles or
autonomous mobile robots, orindustrial robotics or unmanned
aerial vehicles drones, orprogramming, or coding and so

(47:52):
on. And putting the studentsthrough these experience on a
self paced schedule. So astudent needs a little more
time, they get to spend a littlemore time if they want to go
faster, they go faster. 45 hourseach, 12 experiences all
together and creating whatthey're calling a competency
portfolio for that student. So,yeah, it's awesome to have a
transcript in a diploma forleaving high school. What do you

(48:13):
really know how to do? Right?
What are your interests? How canI take the area where you're
naturally gifted, and that tendsto be the areas where we really
enjoy the work that we're doing,and if we're enjoying the work,
that tends to be where we excel.
How do we figure out what thatis? Help you figure that out as
a student, and put you on thatcareer pathway that's perfect
for you. That's going to berewarding. So you don't have to
look back over your shoulderwhen you're 40 years old and

(48:34):
say, I wish I would have done aB or C.

I read you talked about how I got into
wrestling, right? How I decidedI wanted to go do that to try to
make some money. There was aquote I heard, and that's
literally what led me towrestling. It's, what do you
love to do? Find something youlove and get paid to go do it.
Yes, right? And I was right. Ilove wrestling. Wrestling's
paying a lot of money right now,right? But we have to help.
There's a lot of kids that don'tthink like that, right, right? I
try to mentor my nephews andnieces constantly as they were

(48:59):
coming through school. What doyou like to do? Just what is it
that you like to do? Forget theexpectations. What do you like
to do? Because this is yourlife, right? You get one crack
at this thing. So what is it youwant to do? What makes you wake
up and go, All right, let's godo this thing. And that's what
I've tried to preach, and that'swhat I try to do, right, right?
Like I knew I wanted to giveback. But I also, you know, I

(49:19):
worked in broadband for a longtime. I worked for CenturyLink
century tell lumen, a lot ofname changes now, but I worked
there for a long time as I triedto figure that out. But I got
valuable experience in workingin the corporate world, which
was something I wanted, forsure, and I had the opportunity
to make very good money, but Iknew I wanted to be in service.
I wanted to give back. I felt acalling to do it and a need to

(49:39):
do it. And that's why I'm doingthis now, and I want other
people to know that. I wantother people to realize that you
can change things as you goalong, you can adapt, you can
you can do those things. But ifyou find the thing you love,
stick with it exactly, do it.
And we've got to do a betterjob. You nailed it in high
school. You get a diploma and atranscript. Fantastic.
Congratulations, right? But whatif we prepare. You for exactly.
And I don't think we'repreparing kids well today. We've

(50:01):
got to prepare them for whatit's going to look like when
they're 19. Yep, not just whenthey're 18.

There's no question. There's examples of
schools that are doing itrelatively well. But so so far
to so much, so much around tocover. And speaking of ground to
cover, I feel like we couldspend another hour covering
ground, right? And sadly, we'rekind of rolling into the the end
of our time together, Senator,what a fascinating conversation
we've had. I do want to post onelast question to you before we
we wrap up here, and I thinkit's a perfect segue from what

(50:29):
we just talked about, which isyour career journey where you
ended up following yourpassions, finding these creative
ways to advance your career, todo good, to find yourself in an
area where you're performingincredible service to your
constituents, to the state ofWisconsin and so on. But we all
have things that we maybe wishwe learned a little bit earlier,
and so we love asking andfinishing our podcast with this

(50:51):
last question, and it's goingall the way back in time, before
you're a senator, before you'rein broadband, before you're in
professional wrestling, andyou're 15 year old, you don't
have the senator name in frontof you. You're Julian Bradley.
You've got your whole life infront of you. If you could go
back and give that young man onepiece of advice, what would it
be

that's always a great question, aside from
trying to slip him some lotterynumbers, always, that's always
the fun by Apple, right? Right?
Any number of exactly cryptoright? One word, I would tell
them, to be confident inwhatever it is that you want to
do. Just remain confident,because perseverance is the most

(51:28):
valuable lesson I've learned.
It's probably one of my favoritewords. So I would just,
especially at 15, that's a realgood time. Just hang in there.
Persevere and be confident.

Perseverance and confidence you've exuded both of
those certainly throughout yourcareer, Senator and your time
today with us on The TechEdPodcast, I'm confident, by the
way, that our audience got a tonout of this episode, talking
about education, talking aboutnuclear, talking about AI,
talking about professionalwrestling, we covered a
tremendous amount of ground withstate senator Julian Bradley
from my home state of Wisconsin,So happy that he was able to

(52:02):
join us on this episode of TheTechEd Podcast. While you are
wrapping your time up with us,be sure to check out our show
notes. We have the best shownotes in the business, and so
some of the references that wemade over the course of this
discussion, we'll be sure tolink those up in the show notes,
check them out and be sure toengage with us on social media,
whether that's Facebook, whetherit's Instagram, whether it is

(52:24):
LinkedIn, Tiktok, wherever youconsume your social media, we
would love to see you reach out,let us know you're out there. By
the way, those show notes thatwe mentioned, the show notes for
the episode, can be found atTechEd podcast.com/bradley that
is TechEd podcast.com/b R, A, D,L, E, y, see them there, and we
will see you next week on TheTechEd Podcast. Thanks for

(52:44):
joining us. You.

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AI Regulation Can Wait—But Education Reform Can’t - State Senator Julian Bradley

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}AI Regulation Can Wait—But Education Reform Can’t - State Senator Julian Bradley