December 18, 2025 • 33 mins
President Trump escalates tensions with Venezuela by ordering a partial oil blockade and asserting U.S. claims over foreign assets, sparking global concern and market jitters. The administration also reclassifies illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, reframing the opioid crisis as a national security threat. Plus, Wall Street’s AI boom draws uncomfortable comparisons to the dot-com bubble, while communities across the Southwest push back against massive data-center developments, questioning whether Big Tech’s promises still carry weight.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Chris Merril caf AM six forty more stimulating talk and
on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. When you're on
that app, you can always hit the talk back button
and tell Mark how much you love him.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Mark love your laugh.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I have been wanting to tell you this for probably
the last year.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I love to hear you laugh. Man brings joy to
my heart.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Mary, Christmas to you guys, and Hey, do you think
Trump has a plan for that healthcare no? Or do
you think he's just waiting.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
For it to come up?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah? Good question. No, I don't. I don't think there's
a plan so much as because one thing about Trump
is that he loves to be the counterpuntry. He loves
to be reactionary. So no, I don't think he has
a plan. I think I think he's got the plan
for the Republicans to do a healthcare bill. But if
it backfires, it and it and the subsid he's run
out and all that other stuff. No, I don't. I
think he'll just he'll just try to counter I don't
(00:55):
think he I don't think he has a strategy going in.
Good question. Though apart from that, that was lovely call.
Thank you he likes your laugh.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Well, now I'm all self conscious, but that was nice week.
We need some nice stuff. It's it's it's been a
stressful week.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, fush next time, Mark lasts, Well, you just isolated
so we can just mock it, merciless leaves, don't. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
In fact, I think it's time for you to go
on another medical leaves. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I was reading about this Venezuela stuff, which the President
did address the country earlier than I did, about a
twenty minute speech, and I thought, I thought, is this
where we've all been through it before, where something is
going on and the president does a speech and and
they go they basically take it to the country. Right.
I remember George H. W. Bush saying it's on in Iraq. Right,
(01:47):
I remember George W. Bush saying it's on in Iraq
and Afghanistan, uh, with with other presidents saying this is
what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Presidents do, they'll do these addresses if there's military action
going on somewhere. And so the President said, I gotta
do this. I'm going to do this address, and I thought,
I'm going to say there's about a ten percent chance
that he's going to talk about taking action against Venezuela.
But he didn't really do that. He didn't really do that.
This was I think this was more of a he
did more of this in the first term, didn't he
where it was almost like a campaign speech. He just says,
(02:20):
I'm going to address the nation, and it kind of
is a here's what I'm doing, Here's where I'm going,
sort of a sort of a mini state of the Union,
so to speak. Well, maybe it was damage control.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
That uh interview with Susie Wiles is still rippling across
all of news media, and the polls are what is he.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's like approval. Yeah, so maybe that's what it is.
Side note on the Susie Wiles thing. Did you see
the photographs from Vanity Fair? I did, Oh my gosh.
So for those unfamiliar, Susie Wiles is the chief of
staff and she did this interview and she was she
was speaking very candidly and her quotes were not real flattering. However,
(03:06):
to the credit of the White House, they kind of
rallied and they said, no, no, this is the lamestream media.
Who's making who's twisting her words, and it's a hit piece.
Although nobody ever denied what she said. It's recorded, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but they said, oh, they framed this, this is a
hit piece. And and of course we all say, well,
if you don't trust the lamestream media, then why do
you why do you allow them to do the interviews?
(03:26):
I mean, you ban people from from covering the Pentagon,
you ban certain places from being an air force one.
You know, don't don't do these, don't do these long
interviews these there's things where you allow reporters to follow
me a wrong. But they did whatever eleven of them, yeah,
which I thought was really weird. But anyway, the Vanity
Fair did it. And Vanity Fair did these photographs that
(03:49):
were they were black and white, and they were I
think supposed to be somewhat artistic, but they ended up
just kind of turning out creepy. They were extreme close ups.
I mean, like, look, here's our pores. And in one case,
(04:10):
I'm looking at the one from Caroline Levitt and it
is so close up you can see the you can
see the injection points on her lips from where she
got botox, and I thought that is really not flattering,
are you at.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
All, daring to suggest that she had work done. How
dare you say, I don't think it's a suggestion. I
think the evidence is right there, you see it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But then I was surprised to see that the same
thing happened with Susie Wiles, and she really doesn't have look,
it's just how she is. She doesn't have much in
the way of lips, and she's got the same markings
on her lips too, but also hers her photograph looks
like looks like she just walked in on her teenage
(05:00):
boy in an awkward moment.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Well, we need a chief of staff to have full,
pillowy lips. That was my chief complaint with John Kelly
yep affair. Yeah, I totally get that. Yeah, he really
he could have used a little, a little injection.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The other thought of of Susie Wiles is that, I mean,
it's like it's like her eyes are like pasted open,
almost like almost like she went into shock when she
was six years old and has been raised in an
institution and has never spoken a word, and then they
just put a camera right up on her face and
they're like, what does she look like later? Yeah, it
(05:34):
was weird. It was weird.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
You know, I worked with Fair for years when I
was in my newspaper career. Career one point zero. Yeah,
And I'm not sure how much control Susie Wiles and
the rest of the people had over that. But they
can always say no. They can always say I'm not
comfortable with this, or I'm not posing this way or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Uh. I don't know if.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
People really have much insight into how that works behind
the scenes. But photographers will get right the hell up
into your face unless you stop them. So somebody should
have Yeah, they could have said no, it's not a
good look. It's not a good look. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So anyway, so that's what's going on there. In the meantime,
I'm looking at the LA Times and uh, President Trump
has ordered this partial blockade of oil tankers going to
and from Venezuela, and now he's claiming that Caracas stole oil,
land and other assets from the United States and that
we're going to get excuse me, the United States will
(06:32):
be getting and I'm quoting them, getting land, oil, getting land,
oil rights, and whatever we had. We want it back.
He said. He did not elaborate any further. Hmm, is
it did we occupy Venezuela at some point, and that
I'm unaware. Was I not taught that in my history class. Look,
(06:55):
I went to I went to American public school, so
I know that my history was my history teachings were
a bit in that. But I don't recall anything about
land in Venezuela my alone on that. Maybe you've been
reading all that woke history, I guess, so maybe that's
what it is. It's a little bizarre that we're making
(07:15):
a claim to it, though, hmm, yeah, I'm not so
sure about that. I did see that the Venezuelan navy
has begun escorting oil tankers, so that's sort of an
escalation because in the past we had, you know, the
Trump said as the largest armada ever assembled in that
part of the Caribbean. And now you've got Venezuela saying,
(07:38):
oh okay, well we've got a navy too, and we're
going to escort these ships out so that you can't
you can't take them. So I feel like I feel
like we're we're pushing some buttons here and I don't
know what the I don't know what the end goal is.
Because we've heard a few different stories. We heard oil
(07:59):
and say, and a number of the ships that are
in and out of there have been sanctioned by the
United States, and uh and and we can't look there's
there's legitimacy to saying those ships were sanctioned. They're not
supposed to be taking oil and uh and what they're
doing is illegal. Right, So I kind of understand that logic.
But the rest of it is Maduro stole the election,
(08:20):
and we're stopping. We're stopping fentanyl. Ventanyl doesn't come from venezuela.
That is correct, right, which is a bit bizarre. It's
also a bit bizarre that we're going to continue on
the fentanyl path. And I don't know if these two
things are going to diverge into two different topics, or
if we're going to continue to to create an amalgamation
of drugs equals ventanyl equals venezuela. That doesn't make a
(08:44):
whole lot of sense to me. But we did just
step that whole argument up a notch. I'll find it.
You'll find out what the president's saying about fentanyl now,
which I think we're supposed to associate with venezuela.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I guess you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And we got a few talkbacks. People didn't like what
I thought. That's fine, great with that, love it. Appreciate
the input as always. Also, if you miss something on
tonight's program, you can always catch the podcast. It'll be
on the featured podcast section of Cafe am six forty
dot com. The President has signed an executive order now
(09:23):
that says that we have found weapons of mass destruction
and it's on the streets, but.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Formerly classifying fantola is a weapon of mass destruction.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
We knocked out ninety six percent of the drugs coming
in by water, and now we're starting by land, and
by land is a lot easier, and that's going to
start happening.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
President Donald Trump, whoa, we're stopping it by land? Does
he us just means across the border? Are we going
to start a land whar someone no need to talk
about the border? Right? President Donald Trumps high firm KJO.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You find an executive order classifying ventional as a weapon
of mass destruction he signed in the Oval Office on Monday.
Trump said his administration is formula classifying the drug as
a weapon of man destruction and added, no body.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I feel like this reporter is talking too quickly, so
much so that he said.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Listen signed in the Oval office on Monday, Trump said
his administration is formally classifying the drug as a weapon
of mat destruction.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, he was bumbling for it was he drug. He's
rushing through it, for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Said his administration is formuda classifying the drug as a
weapon of man destruction.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Something that was in the editing.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Something's going on with we didn't even saying mass It
was like weapon of man destruction is formulately committing.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And added, no bomb does what this is doing. The
term weapon of mass destruction has a very specific history
in US policy. It is typically referred to nuclear, biological, chemical,
or other kinetic threats capable of causing overwhelming and lasting
damage to people, infrastructure, or the environment. Right now, it's
not immediately clear how this new designation will affect administration
(10:58):
policy or with illegal implications could be for people impacted
by fentyl use or drug traffickers.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I have another concern. I'll tell you what it is.
Minute and behind these numbers are real people fighting for
their lives every day.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We also have reporting from Ohio that shows what this
looks like on the ground. Oh in Lucas County specifically,
officials and investigators have tracked overdose deaths and a drop
in fentanyl related deaths, but they also stress there's more
work left to do good. The focus for first responders
and public health teams is keeping people alive long enough
to get help.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Our job is to keep them living long enough for
them to make those appropriate decisions. Okay, so this is
that's how they're dealing with things locally. But so here's
my concern. I kind of understand. I understand the logic
in the same way that in the eighties we declared
a war on drugs. Right, Drugs are killing our kids,
Drugs are killing people in the streets. Drugs have to stop.
(11:51):
And we've declared war on random things in the past,
war on poverty, war on I don't know politics, We'll say,
you let people on the left that will say, though
the Republicans have declared a war on women, this kind
of thing, like they love to use this high rhetoric.
But this is this is an actual executive order that
declares fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and based
(12:13):
on what based on the harm that it does to society. Okay,
I don't know if the president is using this And
time will tell as this plays out. Is the president
using this as an impetus to take action in Colombia
and which is more cocaine than fentanyl, but Mexico, fentanyl
(12:36):
is being the chemicals are coming in from Jina into
Mexico being mixed there, brought across the border. Right, So
is this are we saying, oh, you are facilitating drug cartels.
We've called drug cartels terrorist organizations, and now we're gonna
call fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction? Okay, So is
(12:56):
this a very clever way to sort of give yourself
the authority to take military action? You heard at the
very beginning he said We've done it by sea, now
we're gonna do it by land. So does that mean
we're putting boots on the ground somewhere? And again, we'll
have to see how this plays up. But here's my
concern with it. As you as you shift the definition,
(13:22):
what does that do for future administrations? Suppose that you
have a president AOC who suddenly decides that carbon tailpipe
emissions are weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that you have
(13:43):
President Newsome who declares that automatic weapons are weapons of
mass destruction or semi aut excuse me, semi automatic or
or what they call weapons of war? Right, what if
you just what if they decide that those are weapons
of man destruction? So as we loosen our definition, we
(14:04):
are giving more latitude to future administrations. And that's why
I worry about these things, and I think so often
when it comes to politics and policy, we either agree
or disagree based solely on the moment. We rarely have
the foresight. This is why so many people applaud the
(14:26):
work of the Founding fathers. They look back in history,
not just their immediate history. Obviously, there's some provisions in
the Constitution specific to that time, like the Third Amendment
that nobody ever remembers or or uses in court, which
is no quarter for foreign soldiers. But they took a
(14:47):
look back at history and then went, Okay, what are
some other mistakes that have been made throughout humanity that
we can guarantee we won't do, and we'll put it
in our constitution. So what happens then when you have
this sort of precedent being set where we go, oh,
fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction. That's now we've
decided that's a problem. And so now we're gonna use
(15:10):
that we're going to issue an executive order. And if
that executive order stands, does that then allow for future
presidents to declare whatever it is that they're after, whether
noble or not, to be a weapon of mass destruction.
I don't think any of us would argue that, no,
fentanyl's a great thing to have in the streets. None
of us are going to argue that. Now, you might
argue that fentanyl is something that is useful in a
(15:30):
hospital setting, in a clinical setting, with UH, with the
licensed physicians who are administering, that that that drug on
a necessary basis great. I think that's one we can
probably agree on. However, I think we also all agree
on fentanyl industry is bad and deadly cool. But what
(15:51):
happens when the next president comes in and they go, Oh,
whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't matter, because climate
change is happening, and climate change is destroying civilizations. It
is the greatest weapon of mass destruction. No single thing
in the history of mankind, aside from an asteroid that
wiped out the dinosaurs, has been so destructive to Earth.
(16:14):
There is no bigger mass destruction than climate change that
has to be classified as a weapon of mass destruction,
and now we can take action against it. What happens
when President AOC decides that. So just be cautious that
we're not falling into this trap of I like or
dislike what this president is doing, Because for some of you,
you might be thinking, hey, merrily, you're making a lot
(16:36):
of sense. If we had a president AOC who said
climate change is a weapon of mass destruction, she'd be right.
You might be saying that. But then are you cool
when the next Republican president comes in and decides that
classic literature is a weapon of mass destruction. I don't know,
whatever it is. You get my point, right, Just be careful,
(17:00):
careful on the slippery slope. Hey, your told artificial intelligence
is the future. You're told that this bubble is different.
That is exactly what investors were told before the dot
com bubble popped. Why the AI hype is starting to
look early familiar as next.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You know it's a it's crazy. I uh so, I
section the show off and I always I dedicate a
certain portion of the show that I'll talk about whatever
the latest big national thing is. If it's politics. And
my rule in politics is this, I don't talk about
politics unless there's something to talk about. There are a
few things the President spoke tonight. I thought that was interesting,
and I think also that what we see going on
(17:44):
in the Caribbean is worth talking about. But I'm not
going to spend a whole show on it unless, of course,
we have something really significant happening. But boy, oh boy,
we get the most, is it fair to say? Mark?
The most reaction? Of course is when it comes to politics.
It just goes to show how quickly divide did we
are and how much people react. Whenever you just mentioned politicians,
(18:07):
avoid can we can just talk about guild Gerard all night?
And then that would probably be sad. That's a great idea. Yeah,
what a great idea. Let's do Let's do a complete
recap of all the Twilight movies. Let's do that.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm team Werewolf. That figures, I said, Jacob,
I can see that.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, I'm team Werewolf. Who were they? Jacob? Was that?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Jacob and Jacob and Edward alarmed? Foosh that you know this?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Rely on him because you you're the expert on these
sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Up.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, because I had an ex who like was obsessed
with the movies. And have you considered dating somebody that
wasn't in middle school? Ah?
Speaker 7 (18:55):
They got creepy fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah they didn't. By
the way, for.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
The record, For the record, that's cool. I thought you
were going to say you had like a niece or
something that was really into it, and you're like, I
dated somebody. Well, I mean I didn't.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Even know about Like, I didn't know because some girl
that I worked with she told me about it and
it was just like the book at the time, and
I'm like, oh, and then they came out it was
this worldwide phenomenon and she was that was the book
I was reading, and that was like a year two
years before so, but then obviously, you know, blew up
into what it was.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Honestly, I've not watched any of those, and I don't
know how I avoided it because I had I had
kids right there. They're all adults now, but they were
kind of in that time period. The other one is
I've only seen one Hunger Games, the very first one,
and that was that was okay.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I always thought the first one too. Yeah, well, they're
not for you or for me. Not everything is.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Kids though, right I had I had teenagers at the
time that these tween movies were coming out.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
But so did they read the Book of Hunger Games
or did they just don't know? Oh I don't pay
attention the kids even read anymore. They just wait for
the movie to come out. Well that's what I do. Yeah,
that's smart anyway.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Good deal of feedback positive, negative, You like what I say,
you hate what I say, whatever it is. I appreciate that.
Guys that did read all of the all of the
different talkbacks, so everybody that dropped the note, I appreciate that,
including one guy who said he's worked working for UPS
at a fourteen hour day and he appreciates listening. So
thanks man, I appreciate that. I appreciate all hard work
that you're putting in right now. I know it's a
tough time of year. Mark. I know how big a
(20:27):
fan you are of AI. So if you need to
put on earmuffs because I'm going to say something that
might not be so friendly about it, I'll just grin
and baron. Okay, all right, I try to deal with
this if you would. Are we at the precipice of
an AI bubble. A lot of money being poured into
AI and it feels very much like the dot com
(20:47):
in the nineteen nineties. In the nineties, for those of
you that are young, in the nineties, everyone was doing
a dot com. It didn't matter what they had, they'd do,
they'd get the the url, throw a dot com and
then they were advertising come join us. And it was
you know, pets dot com, and and uh and it
was uh car parts dot com and uh fingernails dot
(21:08):
com and I'm just thinking random thing. It was like, uh,
you know, uh man dot com, woman dot com, TV
dot com, camera dot com, people dot com. Don't think
too hard on that one. It was a deep cut.
But uh, eventually we all went, Okay, the dot coms
are not turning money right now, even the ones that
were successful. Probably Amazon is the biggest success story there.
(21:34):
Didn't Amazon take what was it eighteen years before it
finally turned a profit. But for the longest time, people went,
it's going to, it's going to, it's going to, it's
going to And then obviously it did and it turned
a massive profit. But in the early days you had
I think eBay turn to profit early. I want to
say that there were Amazon was just selling books at
(21:56):
the time, and I think that's part of the reason
they weren't turning a profit because they had, you know,
limited inventory. But there were a few that survived the
dot com bubble and it became massive, but most of
them got washed out. So are we seeing the same
thing when it comes to AI, Because if you'll notice,
every company out there is claiming that they are using
(22:17):
AI in their product, robot vacuum using AI. Are you
is that AI? Are you just using an algorithm to
map a room? Oh? It's AI. The concept of artificial
intelligence is so nebulous that even the creators can't even
tell you exactly how it works. They made the dumb thing.
(22:38):
They don't even know exactly how it works. It's kind
of like the human brain, Like we know a lot
about the human brain, but it's also the least understood
organ in the human body. Like we got an idea,
we just don't know exactly why. Okay, same thing with
artificial intelligence. And so everyone's saying AI AI AI. Oh,
this washing machine has AI. What Oh my iron uses AI? Huh,
(23:07):
everything's got an AI attached to it now. And then
the weird thing about AI is how much money is
being poured from one AI company into the next AI company. So,
for instance, and I don't know the exact numbers on this,
and I'm just gonna throw out a for instance, you'll
have a company like Microsoft that says we are going
to invest a billion dollars into open ai that's Chat GPT,
(23:30):
and Chat GPT says great, we've got to seed money. Oh,
you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna give money
to Nvidia so that Nvidia can help us develop more
chips to make our stuff work better. And then video
goes cool, this is great. And then video says, you
know what, We're gonna invest money into Microsoft so that
Microsoft can help us with our chip development and uh.
And then Microsoft goes cool. Now that we're making more money,
(23:51):
we're gonna invest more money into open Ai, and Opening
Eye says great, we're gonna invest more money into in video,
and then video says we're gonna invest and see how
this works. Well, at some point you gotta show a profit,
and unless that profit's coming in, that tap is going
to run dry. And this is why people were worried
last week when Oracle took a big hit from writers.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Shares of Oracle slumped as much as sixteen and a
half percent Thursday morning, as fresh worries over the company's
hefty spending on artificial intelligence sparked fears of an AI bubble.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, now, you got a lot of money wrapped up
into it, and have you figured out how to monetize
this yet?
Speaker 6 (24:33):
If the losses hold, Oracle would shed more than ninety
billion dollars in market value.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
The tech giant a day earlier forecast sales and profit
that mist Wall Street estimates. It also warned that it
would likely spend fifteen billion dollars more than planned in
order to attract AI cloud computing customers. Investors saw it
as a sign that the massive amounts of money Oracle
is pouring into its AI efforts is not turning into
(25:01):
profit as fast as Wall Street had hoped.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, now this is a big issue. This is a
big problem for a couple of reasons. One Oracle, California company.
That's Larry Ellison, right, Larry Ellison is funding a lot
of David Ellison's stuff that's going on too with the
paramount sky Dance. And maybe most importantly, isn't it Larry
Larry Ellison's girlfriend. That's the fan of University of Michigan
(25:25):
that convinced him to give a bunch of money to
the quarterback to get the best quarterback there. Yeah, now
that's a major concern to me. I can't have that
nil money dry up just because AI isn't working out.
I hope I have my celebrities correct on that, otherwise
I'm gonna feel foolish. But at some point we're going
to see some billionaires lose about everything. Look at how
(25:49):
much Elon Musk has put into Grock. Now he's diversified,
so if Grock doesn't work out X, I don't think
is ever going to turn him a profit. But he's
still got SpaceX and Tesla and things like that. But
for a number of others, they are putting all of
their eggs in the AI basket, and that is going
to be a problem. Back to Reuter's.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Oracles, warnings come amid investor fears of a broader AI bubble,
stoked by sky high valuations, limited real world productivity gains,
and complex circular investments, even as companies raise billions in
debt to build AI infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The circular investments is what I was talking about earlier
complex circular investments. That's one way to put it. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I'm not going to say
that it's not like money laundering, but if you're a cynic,
you might say that it's unscrupulous business practices. You might
do that. And I don't know if you've noticed this.
(26:48):
I find this really interesting. You've got tech bros that
are pouring billions into anything that is AI and the
companies that are creating this tech, and then they're also
pouring a bunch of money into all the cloud computing
companies and the information storage companies on all this other stuff.
And they're racing now to build these massive data centers.
And you might you might even be coming to a
neighborhood near you, and communities are starting to fight back.
(27:11):
Why can't these super rich modern companies convince people the
developments are good things. You're gonna find out why.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Next you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
There is a battle royale going on with some of
the big dollars, the big dollars in Hollywood, and you'll
find out what the latest is that after Mark's at
nine o'clock, is it almost nine o'clock already, baby, almost
getting there? Who time flies when you're drinking tequila? Jealous?
(27:46):
So ronn Or I know you. You had to struggle
there to keep quiet because I know how much you
like the AI and you didn't like me talking bad
about your your favorite tech.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
No, no, you're in the driver's seat. I always try
to follow your lead and defer to you and crap
like that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know why you here a complete pro? You're a
complete pro. So now that we find out that we
have complicated circular investments going on which are giving some
people the hebgb's going into the new year, are we
at the point of seeing a bubble and a collapse? Well,
if we take a look back at the dot com bubble,
(28:22):
it took a few more years than what we're seeing
with the AI bubble. The AI bubble seems to be
only about two maybe three years old, whereas the dot
com bubble felt like it was sort of festering for
about five or six years. However, you can also argue
that everything moves faster nowadays, Everything goes faster. One of
(28:43):
the things that I think is really fascinating to see,
and I think this is going to be indicative of
sort of consumer sentiment when it comes to AI AI adoption.
What it means to us is how much we're starting
to get communities that are pushing back and they're saying,
not in my backyard. Because when it comes to AI,
when it comes to data centers, when it comes to
(29:04):
cloud computing, all of these places require huge footprints, massive
uh server farms, and the server farms require a great
deal of energy and a great deal of water to cool.
And so depending on where you are and there are
there are these these data centers that are being built
(29:25):
all over the country, including here. Northern Virginia has got
a huge concentration of these data centers. Chicago's got a
big concentration of data centers today, Dallas, Texas big concentration,
Phoenix big concentration, and of course the Bay Area, but
we have some here too. Oh and also central Washington
(29:46):
State where isn't that where they're getting all the flooding
right now too? The mark that's in the west, well
this is sort of centralized like like near the mountainous area. Okay, yeah, right, anyway,
so that that's all happening. Oh, and Reno, Nevada has
a bunch so all of these different places. Some of
these places are flushed with water. Water's not an issue.
(30:07):
You know, if you're in Montana where they've got a
few data centers, not an issue. Obviously, Washington dealing with
some flooding right now. Water's not an issue. Portland, Water's
not really an issue. Power prices though, are an issue.
And for some places Dallas, Texas, Texas has got some
water issues, Phoenix has got some water issues. That's going
to be a concern. And so when you have these
(30:27):
big companies that are coming forward and they're saying, we'd
like to build here, we'd like to put it in
a data center, and they start saying it's going to
create so many jobs, the truth is it does. It
creates a lot of jobs for a very short period
of time. The data centers come in and they create
a massive number of construction jobs because these warehouses are huge.
(30:49):
I mean huge. They're like the size of four or
five walmarts stacked on top of each other or side
by side. They're massive. But once they're up and running,
it takes very few people to operate them. So there
are a lot of people that are saying, wait a minute,
you're using our resources. You're sucking up all the power,
(31:10):
you're taking the water, especially in the places that need water,
and what do we get out of it. You're not
really doing much for our economy. And so places are
pushing back against this. And so the supersized data centers
may transform America. That's if they can get them built.
Jim Kramer was talking about it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Wall Street has concluded that companies involved in artificial intelligence
are paying too much money to build out the data centers.
The hundreds of billions of dollars that they're all spending
has turned off money matters and driven them for other
companies or even other growth companies from different sectors, including industrials, drugs,
(31:49):
anything that has nothing to do with data.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So what does that mean if we're talking about a bubble, right,
if you've got investors that are going the return is
not there, it's just you know what, I'd rather put
my money somewhere else. I'm gonna go put my money
into Eli Lilly. They've got a new weight loss drug.
I'm gonna go do that rather than investing in data centers,
because where's when am I get my money back on that?
(32:14):
And not only that, but you've You've got a number
of politicians, including Bertie Bernie Sanders who put out a
statement and said this moratorium talking about a moratorium on
the construction of data centers. This moratorium will give democracy
a chance to catch up with the transformative changes that
we all witnessing and make sure that the benefits of
these technologies worked for us, not just the wealthiest people
(32:38):
on earth. Honestly, his accent is one of the easier
ones to do. You've been working on that one for
a while. Yeah, Yeah, when he was running for president
and I used to pretend I had him in the
studio and I did a bit called Yo Bernie Raps
where Bernie would come in and try to connect with
the younger demographic and just sing rap songs. You are
a modern phil Henry. It was so bad. That's what
(33:02):
you have to understand about my impersonations. They're so bad.
That's why they're humorous. Like, no one's gonna believe that
it's so terrible. All right, here we go, uh, hostile letters,
billionaire trust funds, pull outs, and a tungue of war
making for far more entertainment than anything that you're streaming.
But the board just told investors which team they don't
want to bet on. Why this is gonna affect Hollywood?
(33:23):
Is next? Chris Merril k I am six forty. We
live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1 (33:28):
KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Chris Merril caf AM six forty more stimulating talk and
on demand anytime in the iHeartRadio app. When you're on
that app, you can always hit the talk back button
and tell Mark how much you love him.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Mark love your laugh.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
I have been wanting to tell you this for probably
the last year.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I love to hear you laugh. Man brings joy to
my heart.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Mary, Christmas to you guys, and Hey, do you think
Trump has a plan for that healthcare no? Or do
you think he's just waiting.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
For it to come up?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah? Good question. No, I don't. I don't think there's
a plan so much as because one thing about Trump
is that he loves to be the counterpuntry. He loves
to be reactionary. So no, I don't think he has
a plan. I think I think he's got the plan
for the Republicans to do a healthcare bill. But if
it backfires, it and it and the subsid he's run
out and all that other stuff. No, I don't. I
think he'll just he'll just try to counter I don't
(00:55):
think he I don't think he has a strategy going in.
Good question. Though apart from that, that was lovely call.
Thank you he likes your laugh.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Well, now I'm all self conscious, but that was nice week.
We need some nice stuff. It's it's it's been a
stressful week.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, fush next time, Mark lasts, Well, you just isolated
so we can just mock it, merciless leaves, don't. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
In fact, I think it's time for you to go
on another medical leaves. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I was reading about this Venezuela stuff, which the President
did address the country earlier than I did, about a
twenty minute speech, and I thought, I thought, is this
where we've all been through it before, where something is
going on and the president does a speech and and
they go they basically take it to the country. Right.
I remember George H. W. Bush saying it's on in Iraq. Right,
(01:47):
I remember George W. Bush saying it's on in Iraq
and Afghanistan, uh, with with other presidents saying this is
what's happening.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Presidents do, they'll do these addresses if there's military action
going on somewhere. And so the President said, I gotta
do this. I'm going to do this address, and I thought,
I'm going to say there's about a ten percent chance
that he's going to talk about taking action against Venezuela.
But he didn't really do that. He didn't really do that.
This was I think this was more of a he
did more of this in the first term, didn't he
where it was almost like a campaign speech. He just says,
(02:20):
I'm going to address the nation, and it kind of
is a here's what I'm doing, Here's where I'm going,
sort of a sort of a mini state of the Union,
so to speak. Well, maybe it was damage control.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
That uh interview with Susie Wiles is still rippling across
all of news media, and the polls are what is he.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's like approval. Yeah, so maybe that's what it is.
Side note on the Susie Wiles thing. Did you see
the photographs from Vanity Fair? I did, Oh my gosh.
So for those unfamiliar, Susie Wiles is the chief of
staff and she did this interview and she was she
was speaking very candidly and her quotes were not real flattering. However,
(03:06):
to the credit of the White House, they kind of
rallied and they said, no, no, this is the lamestream media.
Who's making who's twisting her words, and it's a hit piece.
Although nobody ever denied what she said. It's recorded, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but they said, oh, they framed this, this is a
hit piece. And and of course we all say, well,
if you don't trust the lamestream media, then why do
you why do you allow them to do the interviews?
(03:26):
I mean, you ban people from from covering the Pentagon,
you ban certain places from being an air force one.
You know, don't don't do these, don't do these long
interviews these there's things where you allow reporters to follow
me a wrong. But they did whatever eleven of them, yeah,
which I thought was really weird. But anyway, the Vanity
Fair did it. And Vanity Fair did these photographs that
(03:49):
were they were black and white, and they were I
think supposed to be somewhat artistic, but they ended up
just kind of turning out creepy. They were extreme close ups.
I mean, like, look, here's our pores. And in one case,
(04:10):
I'm looking at the one from Caroline Levitt and it
is so close up you can see the you can
see the injection points on her lips from where she
got botox, and I thought that is really not flattering,
are you at.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
All, daring to suggest that she had work done. How
dare you say, I don't think it's a suggestion. I
think the evidence is right there, you see it.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
But then I was surprised to see that the same
thing happened with Susie Wiles, and she really doesn't have look,
it's just how she is. She doesn't have much in
the way of lips, and she's got the same markings
on her lips too, but also hers her photograph looks
like looks like she just walked in on her teenage
(05:00):
boy in an awkward moment.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
Well, we need a chief of staff to have full,
pillowy lips. That was my chief complaint with John Kelly
yep affair. Yeah, I totally get that. Yeah, he really
he could have used a little, a little injection.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The other thought of of Susie Wiles is that, I mean,
it's like it's like her eyes are like pasted open,
almost like almost like she went into shock when she
was six years old and has been raised in an
institution and has never spoken a word, and then they
just put a camera right up on her face and
they're like, what does she look like later? Yeah, it
(05:34):
was weird. It was weird.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
You know, I worked with Fair for years when I
was in my newspaper career. Career one point zero. Yeah,
And I'm not sure how much control Susie Wiles and
the rest of the people had over that. But they
can always say no. They can always say I'm not
comfortable with this, or I'm not posing this way or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Uh. I don't know if.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
People really have much insight into how that works behind
the scenes. But photographers will get right the hell up
into your face unless you stop them. So somebody should
have Yeah, they could have said no, it's not a
good look. It's not a good look. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So anyway, so that's what's going on there. In the meantime,
I'm looking at the LA Times and uh, President Trump
has ordered this partial blockade of oil tankers going to
and from Venezuela, and now he's claiming that Caracas stole oil,
land and other assets from the United States and that
we're going to get excuse me, the United States will
(06:32):
be getting and I'm quoting them, getting land, oil, getting land,
oil rights, and whatever we had. We want it back.
He said. He did not elaborate any further. Hmm, is
it did we occupy Venezuela at some point, and that
I'm unaware. Was I not taught that in my history class. Look,
(06:55):
I went to I went to American public school, so
I know that my history was my history teachings were
a bit in that. But I don't recall anything about
land in Venezuela my alone on that. Maybe you've been
reading all that woke history, I guess, so maybe that's
what it is. It's a little bizarre that we're making
(07:15):
a claim to it, though, hmm, yeah, I'm not so
sure about that. I did see that the Venezuelan navy
has begun escorting oil tankers, so that's sort of an
escalation because in the past we had, you know, the
Trump said as the largest armada ever assembled in that
part of the Caribbean. And now you've got Venezuela saying,
(07:38):
oh okay, well we've got a navy too, and we're
going to escort these ships out so that you can't
you can't take them. So I feel like I feel
like we're we're pushing some buttons here and I don't
know what the I don't know what the end goal is.
Because we've heard a few different stories. We heard oil
(07:59):
and say, and a number of the ships that are
in and out of there have been sanctioned by the
United States, and uh and and we can't look there's
there's legitimacy to saying those ships were sanctioned. They're not
supposed to be taking oil and uh and what they're
doing is illegal. Right, So I kind of understand that logic.
But the rest of it is Maduro stole the election,
(08:20):
and we're stopping. We're stopping fentanyl. Ventanyl doesn't come from venezuela.
That is correct, right, which is a bit bizarre. It's
also a bit bizarre that we're going to continue on
the fentanyl path. And I don't know if these two
things are going to diverge into two different topics, or
if we're going to continue to to create an amalgamation
of drugs equals ventanyl equals venezuela. That doesn't make a
(08:44):
whole lot of sense to me. But we did just
step that whole argument up a notch. I'll find it.
You'll find out what the president's saying about fentanyl now,
which I think we're supposed to associate with venezuela.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I guess you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And we got a few talkbacks. People didn't like what
I thought. That's fine, great with that, love it. Appreciate
the input as always. Also, if you miss something on
tonight's program, you can always catch the podcast. It'll be
on the featured podcast section of Cafe am six forty
dot com. The President has signed an executive order now
(09:23):
that says that we have found weapons of mass destruction
and it's on the streets, but.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Formerly classifying fantola is a weapon of mass destruction.
Speaker 6 (09:35):
We knocked out ninety six percent of the drugs coming
in by water, and now we're starting by land, and
by land is a lot easier, and that's going to
start happening.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
President Donald Trump, whoa, we're stopping it by land? Does
he us just means across the border? Are we going
to start a land whar someone no need to talk
about the border? Right? President Donald Trumps high firm KJO.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You find an executive order classifying ventional as a weapon
of mass destruction he signed in the Oval Office on Monday.
Trump said his administration is formula classifying the drug as
a weapon of man destruction and added, no body.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
I feel like this reporter is talking too quickly, so
much so that he said.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Listen signed in the Oval office on Monday, Trump said
his administration is formally classifying the drug as a weapon
of mat destruction.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, he was bumbling for it was he drug. He's
rushing through it, for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Said his administration is formuda classifying the drug as a
weapon of man destruction.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Something that was in the editing.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
Something's going on with we didn't even saying mass It
was like weapon of man destruction is formulately committing.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And added, no bomb does what this is doing. The
term weapon of mass destruction has a very specific history
in US policy. It is typically referred to nuclear, biological, chemical,
or other kinetic threats capable of causing overwhelming and lasting
damage to people, infrastructure, or the environment. Right now, it's
not immediately clear how this new designation will affect administration
(10:58):
policy or with illegal implications could be for people impacted
by fentyl use or drug traffickers.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I have another concern. I'll tell you what it is.
Minute and behind these numbers are real people fighting for
their lives every day.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We also have reporting from Ohio that shows what this
looks like on the ground. Oh in Lucas County specifically,
officials and investigators have tracked overdose deaths and a drop
in fentanyl related deaths, but they also stress there's more
work left to do good. The focus for first responders
and public health teams is keeping people alive long enough
to get help.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Our job is to keep them living long enough for
them to make those appropriate decisions. Okay, so this is
that's how they're dealing with things locally. But so here's
my concern. I kind of understand. I understand the logic
in the same way that in the eighties we declared
a war on drugs. Right, Drugs are killing our kids,
Drugs are killing people in the streets. Drugs have to stop.
(11:51):
And we've declared war on random things in the past,
war on poverty, war on I don't know politics, We'll say,
you let people on the left that will say, though
the Republicans have declared a war on women, this kind
of thing, like they love to use this high rhetoric.
But this is this is an actual executive order that
declares fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction and based
(12:13):
on what based on the harm that it does to society. Okay,
I don't know if the president is using this And
time will tell as this plays out. Is the president
using this as an impetus to take action in Colombia
and which is more cocaine than fentanyl, but Mexico, fentanyl
(12:36):
is being the chemicals are coming in from Jina into
Mexico being mixed there, brought across the border. Right, So
is this are we saying, oh, you are facilitating drug cartels.
We've called drug cartels terrorist organizations, and now we're gonna
call fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction? Okay, So is
(12:56):
this a very clever way to sort of give yourself
the authority to take military action? You heard at the
very beginning he said We've done it by sea, now
we're gonna do it by land. So does that mean
we're putting boots on the ground somewhere? And again, we'll
have to see how this plays up. But here's my
concern with it. As you as you shift the definition,
(13:22):
what does that do for future administrations? Suppose that you
have a president AOC who suddenly decides that carbon tailpipe
emissions are weapons of mass destruction. Suppose that you have
(13:43):
President Newsome who declares that automatic weapons are weapons of
mass destruction or semi aut excuse me, semi automatic or
or what they call weapons of war? Right, what if
you just what if they decide that those are weapons
of man destruction? So as we loosen our definition, we
(14:04):
are giving more latitude to future administrations. And that's why
I worry about these things, and I think so often
when it comes to politics and policy, we either agree
or disagree based solely on the moment. We rarely have
the foresight. This is why so many people applaud the
(14:26):
work of the Founding fathers. They look back in history,
not just their immediate history. Obviously, there's some provisions in
the Constitution specific to that time, like the Third Amendment
that nobody ever remembers or or uses in court, which
is no quarter for foreign soldiers. But they took a
(14:47):
look back at history and then went, Okay, what are
some other mistakes that have been made throughout humanity that
we can guarantee we won't do, and we'll put it
in our constitution. So what happens then when you have
this sort of precedent being set where we go, oh,
fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction. That's now we've
decided that's a problem. And so now we're gonna use
(15:10):
that we're going to issue an executive order. And if
that executive order stands, does that then allow for future
presidents to declare whatever it is that they're after, whether
noble or not, to be a weapon of mass destruction.
I don't think any of us would argue that, no,
fentanyl's a great thing to have in the streets. None
of us are going to argue that. Now, you might
argue that fentanyl is something that is useful in a
(15:30):
hospital setting, in a clinical setting, with UH, with the
licensed physicians who are administering, that that that drug on
a necessary basis great. I think that's one we can
probably agree on. However, I think we also all agree
on fentanyl industry is bad and deadly cool. But what
(15:51):
happens when the next president comes in and they go, Oh,
whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't matter, because climate
change is happening, and climate change is destroying civilizations. It
is the greatest weapon of mass destruction. No single thing
in the history of mankind, aside from an asteroid that
wiped out the dinosaurs, has been so destructive to Earth.
(16:14):
There is no bigger mass destruction than climate change that
has to be classified as a weapon of mass destruction,
and now we can take action against it. What happens
when President AOC decides that. So just be cautious that
we're not falling into this trap of I like or
dislike what this president is doing, Because for some of you,
you might be thinking, hey, merrily, you're making a lot
(16:36):
of sense. If we had a president AOC who said
climate change is a weapon of mass destruction, she'd be right.
You might be saying that. But then are you cool
when the next Republican president comes in and decides that
classic literature is a weapon of mass destruction. I don't know,
whatever it is. You get my point, right, Just be careful,
(17:00):
careful on the slippery slope. Hey, your told artificial intelligence
is the future. You're told that this bubble is different.
That is exactly what investors were told before the dot
com bubble popped. Why the AI hype is starting to
look early familiar as next.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
You know it's a it's crazy. I uh so, I
section the show off and I always I dedicate a
certain portion of the show that I'll talk about whatever
the latest big national thing is. If it's politics. And
my rule in politics is this, I don't talk about
politics unless there's something to talk about. There are a
few things the President spoke tonight. I thought that was interesting,
and I think also that what we see going on
(17:44):
in the Caribbean is worth talking about. But I'm not
going to spend a whole show on it unless, of course,
we have something really significant happening. But boy, oh boy,
we get the most, is it fair to say? Mark?
The most reaction? Of course is when it comes to politics.
It just goes to show how quickly divide did we
are and how much people react. Whenever you just mentioned politicians,
(18:07):
avoid can we can just talk about guild Gerard all night?
And then that would probably be sad. That's a great idea. Yeah,
what a great idea. Let's do Let's do a complete
recap of all the Twilight movies. Let's do that.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm team Werewolf. That figures, I said, Jacob,
I can see that.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Yeah, I'm team Werewolf. Who were they? Jacob? Was that?
Speaker 5 (18:34):
Jacob and Jacob and Edward alarmed? Foosh that you know this?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Rely on him because you you're the expert on these
sorts of things.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Up.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, because I had an ex who like was obsessed
with the movies. And have you considered dating somebody that
wasn't in middle school? Ah?
Speaker 7 (18:55):
They got creepy fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah they didn't. By
the way, for.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
The record, For the record, that's cool. I thought you
were going to say you had like a niece or
something that was really into it, and you're like, I
dated somebody. Well, I mean I didn't.
Speaker 7 (19:10):
Even know about Like, I didn't know because some girl
that I worked with she told me about it and
it was just like the book at the time, and
I'm like, oh, and then they came out it was
this worldwide phenomenon and she was that was the book
I was reading, and that was like a year two
years before so, but then obviously, you know, blew up
into what it was.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Honestly, I've not watched any of those, and I don't
know how I avoided it because I had I had
kids right there. They're all adults now, but they were
kind of in that time period. The other one is
I've only seen one Hunger Games, the very first one,
and that was that was okay.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
I always thought the first one too. Yeah, well, they're
not for you or for me. Not everything is.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Kids though, right I had I had teenagers at the
time that these tween movies were coming out.
Speaker 7 (19:55):
But so did they read the Book of Hunger Games
or did they just don't know? Oh I don't pay
attention the kids even read anymore. They just wait for
the movie to come out. Well that's what I do. Yeah,
that's smart anyway.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Good deal of feedback positive, negative, You like what I say,
you hate what I say, whatever it is. I appreciate that.
Guys that did read all of the all of the
different talkbacks, so everybody that dropped the note, I appreciate that,
including one guy who said he's worked working for UPS
at a fourteen hour day and he appreciates listening. So
thanks man, I appreciate that. I appreciate all hard work
that you're putting in right now. I know it's a
tough time of year. Mark. I know how big a
(20:27):
fan you are of AI. So if you need to
put on earmuffs because I'm going to say something that
might not be so friendly about it, I'll just grin
and baron. Okay, all right, I try to deal with
this if you would. Are we at the precipice of
an AI bubble. A lot of money being poured into
AI and it feels very much like the dot com
(20:47):
in the nineteen nineties. In the nineties, for those of
you that are young, in the nineties, everyone was doing
a dot com. It didn't matter what they had, they'd do,
they'd get the the url, throw a dot com and
then they were advertising come join us. And it was
you know, pets dot com, and and uh and it
was uh car parts dot com and uh fingernails dot
(21:08):
com and I'm just thinking random thing. It was like, uh,
you know, uh man dot com, woman dot com, TV
dot com, camera dot com, people dot com. Don't think
too hard on that one. It was a deep cut.
But uh, eventually we all went, Okay, the dot coms
are not turning money right now, even the ones that
were successful. Probably Amazon is the biggest success story there.
(21:34):
Didn't Amazon take what was it eighteen years before it
finally turned a profit. But for the longest time, people went,
it's going to, it's going to, it's going to, it's
going to And then obviously it did and it turned
a massive profit. But in the early days you had
I think eBay turn to profit early. I want to
say that there were Amazon was just selling books at
(21:56):
the time, and I think that's part of the reason
they weren't turning a profit because they had, you know,
limited inventory. But there were a few that survived the
dot com bubble and it became massive, but most of
them got washed out. So are we seeing the same
thing when it comes to AI, Because if you'll notice,
every company out there is claiming that they are using
(22:17):
AI in their product, robot vacuum using AI. Are you
is that AI? Are you just using an algorithm to
map a room? Oh? It's AI. The concept of artificial
intelligence is so nebulous that even the creators can't even
tell you exactly how it works. They made the dumb thing.
(22:38):
They don't even know exactly how it works. It's kind
of like the human brain, Like we know a lot
about the human brain, but it's also the least understood
organ in the human body. Like we got an idea,
we just don't know exactly why. Okay, same thing with
artificial intelligence. And so everyone's saying AI AI AI. Oh,
this washing machine has AI. What Oh my iron uses AI? Huh,
(23:07):
everything's got an AI attached to it now. And then
the weird thing about AI is how much money is
being poured from one AI company into the next AI company. So,
for instance, and I don't know the exact numbers on this,
and I'm just gonna throw out a for instance, you'll
have a company like Microsoft that says we are going
to invest a billion dollars into open ai that's Chat GPT,
(23:30):
and Chat GPT says great, we've got to seed money. Oh,
you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna give money
to Nvidia so that Nvidia can help us develop more
chips to make our stuff work better. And then video
goes cool, this is great. And then video says, you
know what, We're gonna invest money into Microsoft so that
Microsoft can help us with our chip development and uh.
And then Microsoft goes cool. Now that we're making more money,
(23:51):
we're gonna invest more money into open Ai, and Opening
Eye says great, we're gonna invest more money into in video,
and then video says we're gonna invest and see how
this works. Well, at some point you gotta show a profit,
and unless that profit's coming in, that tap is going
to run dry. And this is why people were worried
last week when Oracle took a big hit from writers.
Speaker 6 (24:15):
Shares of Oracle slumped as much as sixteen and a
half percent Thursday morning, as fresh worries over the company's
hefty spending on artificial intelligence sparked fears of an AI bubble.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, now, you got a lot of money wrapped up
into it, and have you figured out how to monetize
this yet?
Speaker 6 (24:33):
If the losses hold, Oracle would shed more than ninety
billion dollars in market value.
Speaker 7 (24:38):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
The tech giant a day earlier forecast sales and profit
that mist Wall Street estimates. It also warned that it
would likely spend fifteen billion dollars more than planned in
order to attract AI cloud computing customers. Investors saw it
as a sign that the massive amounts of money Oracle
is pouring into its AI efforts is not turning into
(25:01):
profit as fast as Wall Street had hoped.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, now this is a big issue. This is a
big problem for a couple of reasons. One Oracle, California company.
That's Larry Ellison, right, Larry Ellison is funding a lot
of David Ellison's stuff that's going on too with the
paramount sky Dance. And maybe most importantly, isn't it Larry
Larry Ellison's girlfriend. That's the fan of University of Michigan
(25:25):
that convinced him to give a bunch of money to
the quarterback to get the best quarterback there. Yeah, now
that's a major concern to me. I can't have that
nil money dry up just because AI isn't working out.
I hope I have my celebrities correct on that, otherwise
I'm gonna feel foolish. But at some point we're going
to see some billionaires lose about everything. Look at how
(25:49):
much Elon Musk has put into Grock. Now he's diversified,
so if Grock doesn't work out X, I don't think
is ever going to turn him a profit. But he's
still got SpaceX and Tesla and things like that. But
for a number of others, they are putting all of
their eggs in the AI basket, and that is going
to be a problem. Back to Reuter's.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
Oracles, warnings come amid investor fears of a broader AI bubble,
stoked by sky high valuations, limited real world productivity gains,
and complex circular investments, even as companies raise billions in
debt to build AI infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The circular investments is what I was talking about earlier
complex circular investments. That's one way to put it. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know. I'm not going to say
that it's not like money laundering, but if you're a cynic,
you might say that it's unscrupulous business practices. You might
do that. And I don't know if you've noticed this.
(26:48):
I find this really interesting. You've got tech bros that
are pouring billions into anything that is AI and the
companies that are creating this tech, and then they're also
pouring a bunch of money into all the cloud computing
companies and the information storage companies on all this other stuff.
And they're racing now to build these massive data centers.
And you might you might even be coming to a
neighborhood near you, and communities are starting to fight back.
(27:11):
Why can't these super rich modern companies convince people the
developments are good things. You're gonna find out why.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Next you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
There is a battle royale going on with some of
the big dollars, the big dollars in Hollywood, and you'll
find out what the latest is that after Mark's at
nine o'clock, is it almost nine o'clock already, baby, almost
getting there? Who time flies when you're drinking tequila? Jealous?
(27:46):
So ronn Or I know you. You had to struggle
there to keep quiet because I know how much you
like the AI and you didn't like me talking bad
about your your favorite tech.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
No, no, you're in the driver's seat. I always try
to follow your lead and defer to you and crap
like that.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You know why you here a complete pro? You're a
complete pro. So now that we find out that we
have complicated circular investments going on which are giving some
people the hebgb's going into the new year, are we
at the point of seeing a bubble and a collapse? Well,
if we take a look back at the dot com bubble,
(28:22):
it took a few more years than what we're seeing
with the AI bubble. The AI bubble seems to be
only about two maybe three years old, whereas the dot
com bubble felt like it was sort of festering for
about five or six years. However, you can also argue
that everything moves faster nowadays, Everything goes faster. One of
(28:43):
the things that I think is really fascinating to see,
and I think this is going to be indicative of
sort of consumer sentiment when it comes to AI AI adoption.
What it means to us is how much we're starting
to get communities that are pushing back and they're saying,
not in my backyard. Because when it comes to AI,
when it comes to data centers, when it comes to
(29:04):
cloud computing, all of these places require huge footprints, massive
uh server farms, and the server farms require a great
deal of energy and a great deal of water to cool.
And so depending on where you are and there are
there are these these data centers that are being built
(29:25):
all over the country, including here. Northern Virginia has got
a huge concentration of these data centers. Chicago's got a
big concentration of data centers today, Dallas, Texas big concentration,
Phoenix big concentration, and of course the Bay Area, but
we have some here too. Oh and also central Washington
(29:46):
State where isn't that where they're getting all the flooding
right now too? The mark that's in the west, well
this is sort of centralized like like near the mountainous area. Okay, yeah, right, anyway,
so that that's all happening. Oh, and Reno, Nevada has
a bunch so all of these different places. Some of
these places are flushed with water. Water's not an issue.
(30:07):
You know, if you're in Montana where they've got a
few data centers, not an issue. Obviously, Washington dealing with
some flooding right now. Water's not an issue. Portland, Water's
not really an issue. Power prices though, are an issue.
And for some places Dallas, Texas, Texas has got some
water issues, Phoenix has got some water issues. That's going
to be a concern. And so when you have these
(30:27):
big companies that are coming forward and they're saying, we'd
like to build here, we'd like to put it in
a data center, and they start saying it's going to
create so many jobs, the truth is it does. It
creates a lot of jobs for a very short period
of time. The data centers come in and they create
a massive number of construction jobs because these warehouses are huge.
(30:49):
I mean huge. They're like the size of four or
five walmarts stacked on top of each other or side
by side. They're massive. But once they're up and running,
it takes very few people to operate them. So there
are a lot of people that are saying, wait a minute,
you're using our resources. You're sucking up all the power,
(31:10):
you're taking the water, especially in the places that need water,
and what do we get out of it. You're not
really doing much for our economy. And so places are
pushing back against this. And so the supersized data centers
may transform America. That's if they can get them built.
Jim Kramer was talking about it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Wall Street has concluded that companies involved in artificial intelligence
are paying too much money to build out the data centers.
The hundreds of billions of dollars that they're all spending
has turned off money matters and driven them for other
companies or even other growth companies from different sectors, including industrials, drugs,
(31:49):
anything that has nothing to do with data.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
So what does that mean if we're talking about a bubble, right,
if you've got investors that are going the return is
not there, it's just you know what, I'd rather put
my money somewhere else. I'm gonna go put my money
into Eli Lilly. They've got a new weight loss drug.
I'm gonna go do that rather than investing in data centers,
because where's when am I get my money back on that?
(32:14):
And not only that, but you've You've got a number
of politicians, including Bertie Bernie Sanders who put out a
statement and said this moratorium talking about a moratorium on
the construction of data centers. This moratorium will give democracy
a chance to catch up with the transformative changes that
we all witnessing and make sure that the benefits of
these technologies worked for us, not just the wealthiest people
(32:38):
on earth. Honestly, his accent is one of the easier
ones to do. You've been working on that one for
a while. Yeah, Yeah, when he was running for president
and I used to pretend I had him in the
studio and I did a bit called Yo Bernie Raps
where Bernie would come in and try to connect with
the younger demographic and just sing rap songs. You are
a modern phil Henry. It was so bad. That's what
(33:02):
you have to understand about my impersonations. They're so bad.
That's why they're humorous. Like, no one's gonna believe that
it's so terrible. All right, here we go, uh, hostile letters,
billionaire trust funds, pull outs, and a tungue of war
making for far more entertainment than anything that you're streaming.
But the board just told investors which team they don't
want to bet on. Why this is gonna affect Hollywood?
(33:23):
Is next? Chris Merril k I am six forty. We
live everywhere in the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1 (33:28):
KFI AM six forty on demand
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