10/6/26: Sam Altman Says Bad Things Coming From AI, Wemby Blasts Sports Gambling Partnership

This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast. Here's what you missed. People wake up and go, oh, damn, wait and hold up. They changed all of that. Yes. It's real. This is a wholesale attack. It is targeting black people in every federal agency. It's wrong. White folks have never allowed that reckoning to last more than a decade. Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, ready or not, 2024 is here. And we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Well, open AI CEO Sam Altman sat for an interview with Politico yesterday. And you have to listen to what he said about how he sees the way our government, our society should accept everything coming out of his private company and industry, D1. We have always been a big believer that this technology has to be democratized and put in people's hands. I think one of the biggest differences between us and some of the stricter, let's say AI safety people, is we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency. So I disagree, but I understand the perspective of people who are like this technology going to get so powerful, and it's so dangerous that a single lab in San Francisco should have it and make sure nothing bad happens and kind of figure out how to do out the benefits. I think that is a completely unacceptable trade off from a perspective of liberty and human agency and people self-determining the future. But I understand where it comes from. And I do think the lighter touch regulatory stance that we advocate for comes with an accepting of the fact that some bad things are going to happen as society figures out the resilience. So I wouldn't take a trade of saying like, we'll make sure there's no major hacks. There's no kind of misuse of this technology. There's zero scams, there's zero all the other bad things that will happen because I think people will do tremendously orders of mountains should more good stuff than bad stuff. But when it comes to the potential of like a serious loss of control to AI, and this is not a today worry, but it may not be in the distant future, this is where I would say to the accelerationists, like let's be a little thoughtful about lurching into this future. So I would say accept bounded risks, accept risks that we understand in exchange for the benefits and liberty agency all the things I was just talking about, but don't accept like the really catastrophic risk. - So Sagar, what Sam Wilman's saying there is absolutely defensible in theory, we would say this about cars. - Yes. - Right, we would accept a trade off. - You and I think it's about guns, right? - Yeah, exactly. But his cold insistence on being the man to make this cost benefit analysis for all of society as this like utilitarian trade off. Well, he's also speaking in the same breath about democratizing the technology. I think it's what sets people off because it is not democratic when you have CEOs of massively powerful companies, being the ones to outline the contours of what that cost benefit analysis looks like, right? Capturing the government, putting so much they're putting money into the elections now, they've done it before, but there's nothing democratized about the technology when the technology is being driven, top down by CEOs like Sam Altman, who are determining what the cost benefit analysis is going to look like, what the costs should be and what the benefits they think will be. - Yeah, no standards, no regulation, no proven benefit. Like, and that's why I've been having this huge tussle online tail of the rent, who, by the way, I haven't said her name, I think it four years here on the show, I don't even, I don't think about her basically at all. But she got very upset yesterday because I put out this take, we can talk about it now because I think this gets to, this question I said, nobody actually needs a personal AI assistant. The average screen time in the US is seven hours a day, people have plenty of free time, there is no evidence that freeing up more will lead to anything but more TikTok scrolling. - Right, you got anything. - Most daily life will need more offline friction. She was furious about this because she's saying, I'm calling people lazy. No, I'm not. I'm actually making the point, is kind of what you were saying, is that you are captive to an algorithmic dopamine addiction on your phone. The vast majority of people are addicted to slop. The average American watches 53 minutes of short form video per day. Gen Z is spending 16 hours a day, either on their phone or watching television. The vast majority of screen time in the United States is non-work related. Three to five hours of leisure screen time per day, only two and a half hours of that being television. My only point here is that we have come up with different metrics around benefit and productivity. And this is why I wanna separate it out, is that we talk a lot about these models and breakthroughs. I think all of that is true. I think that if you are a Silicon Valley rich guy, who you, you know, you want this world of a personal agent who's, I mean, one guy this morning is booking about a problem that he had with his agent booking him a black line. He thinks that people don't know what that is. I know what that is. That's one of those black car services. But I don't, I only know it because that's what those TV networks send to come and get you. - Yeah. - Oh, whatever you do, that's just so you know. - Not that you've done that. - Never paid for it myself. My point is just that, he's, this guy is posting about booking a black car. And I'm like, is that an experience that most of us need? Is that an experience most people have or want? Some guy, other guy goes, the agent can book a check-in for flight for you. I'm sorry, I fly it, or I used you before I could, I fly a ton, all right? Checking it for a flight takes about five seconds. You just go in the app and you go, check in. That's about it. Even checking a bag, it's not that bad. I mean, which you shouldn't. But check it about, it's not hard, it's not difficult. And then another person goes, well, my agent deleted 40,000 emails. I go, okay, I mean, look, I get that it's mentally kind of annoying to have, I have 88,412 emails. - I have inbox zero, it's not that hard. You don't need a little robot to do it for you, is it? - But it's like, that's not productivity in a certain way. Like it is in a sense, but it's not actually massively enriching your life, right? So I kind of think about it in the way where when you ease friction, like what we did with email, we made it easier than ever before to contact each other. And we said, wow, this is going to unlock all this productivity. - I said, wow, what a beautiful technology. - And so what happens then? Is it connects everybody forever? And you end up working more than ever before? - 400%. - It didn't make you more productive. Well, I guess it made you more productive for the S&P 500 economically. - Yes. - It actually destroyed your life. And ask anybody who works in Fortune 500. If you're on Slack, like, oh my God, these people are glued to the phone. They're slaves, basically, at their bosses, back in calls, to be able to be on call. I mean, if you're compensated well enough for that, that's a trade you should make. But that's not really how it's working. - And everyone's minding your Slack and email data. So you're just becoming more productive, like you said, of the S&P. So you're more valuable to the tech companies that are taking your data because you're spending more time on social media and email. - Bingo. And so there's just, like, all I look at is that we become captive to these Sam Altman's. And you actually are giving up, like a ton of your personal agency and freedom. By allowing it, I mean, even in email, like one of the things that they're trying to push hard is the connection of your email, which, you know, it sounds fine. But what you've also seen is that with OpenAI, is that they use them that email, that data, they're gonna train their model. They're trying to mimic human communication allegedly to help you. But in some cases, potentially, to replace you. And that's what a new MIT economist is warning about in a new interview with 60 minutes, let's take a listen. - Literally all of the top 20 economists in America, they would say the exact same thing, which is that there's gonna be more jobs in 10 years than there are today. Your top economist in America, what say you? - No, no, not on our current trajectory. I don't know how that could happen. What we are living through with AI is unprecedented. The first phase of the industrial revolution lasted for 80 years. Today, it's taking place in one or two years, and it's taking place across many sectors at the same time. Daron Osamoglu is a Nobel Prize-winning professor at MIT, who studies technology's impact on labor. - We were told by a lawyer, also a music producer. There are some things that humans are just so fundamental, humans do them robots can't, do you buy that? - Today, absolutely 100%. He said today, today, in 15 years time, what is going to be capable of doing? - I don't know. - But there's gonna be this huge sector of work training these AI models. So if you're a lost student, you have a hard time finding a job, you can still use your expertise. - Here is one thing I'm not uncertain about, what you just described as BS. (laughing) - What do you say then? - Because the number of people they're employing in these positions is small relative to the number of people who will be replaced. - I mean, that's the whole point of automation. - Osamoglu says we could see unemployment triple in the next decade if we do nothing and continue on our current course. - Unemployment literally triple. I think that's an important point. Actually, you're starting to see some of this pop up New York City. Put D4 up here on the screen. This was from from Mark Levine, he points out AI already may be impacting the job market in New York City, specifically a lot of these creative industries and in customer support. So you can look here at the change in New York City entry level job posting. So in design, media and writing, it is down by 40%. Customer client support down by 35, clerical administrative 30, business management operations 27, finance 23, social analysis planning 12, sales 10, actually makes sense sales people want that it's not doing yet, because that requires calling people up on the phone, which they haven't yet mastered. But I do think that the economist point is pretty important for, look, right now that's the big debate is right now we haven't seen the mass job loss. It could be coming, it could not be. They all warned about it until they stopped warning about it. They don't know. That's the point. They do not know. They do not know. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's just I keep coming back to that, the technology and I go, okay, this friction, and I apologize if I see a obsession with it, assess with this, but you see it in everything. Silicon Valley has this theory, which has been completely wrong. Mark Zuckerberg believed by creating a more interconnected world that people would have better social interactions that, that was 20 years ago. I think he actually did believe that originally. I agree. I think they stopped. A lot of people. They're really wrong. What we have learned is that online social connection does not translate into the real world and directly pulse from it. You and I both remember the Tinder panic where when Tinder came up, people were like, oh my God, pick up and be hooking up all the time. What happened instead? Went down. A social ability, a number of dates and all that have plunged in terms of in-person social interaction. Turns out the swipe alone seems to have hijacked the dopamine system to the point where people, they don't even want to go, talk to anybody more or anything, right? You've seen that replicate in every social interaction, which has had technology supposedly be like something that's going to enhance it has pulled from it. When I look at this agency talk and a lot of this AI use, they go, oh, you're going to be so much more productive so you can have all this extra time on your hands. What they don't tell you is that the majority of their profit, their screen time, et cetera, is centered around being addicted to the phone so that you do nothing else. It's actually a binary problem. The more things that you do outside in the real world, the less time you are on the phone, the less ads that they can serve you. So I need you to be a slave. I think this is actually a really good point that you're making that I haven't heard a lot of other people make, which is that if Zuckerberg wants to make this argument about muse and about the bots, then he should actually also be, if he wants to say this is going to make you so much productive that you can spend more time on a big regular world. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's a fantastic point. But they won't do it because that's what all the money comes from. Right. Exactly. Let's also look at the report out of New York was very interesting where it saw some of the pressures on jobs, but also what it got at is that AI is creating a lot of value in the real state market at an interesting time in New York City. So let's put this New York times tear sheet up on the screen as well. This is D3. High interest rates aren't slowing the AI boom. That's a problem before the Fed. So the Federal Reserve, the Times Reports, has a conundrum on its hands as it tries to tame an elevated inflation. One of the primary drivers of today's growth and the price pressures that it falls in this wake appears nearly immune to the higher interest rates that the central bank has begun to oppose. Impose on the economy, companies seeking to expand their AI abilities have been undeterred by not only US borrowing costs that have recently reached multi decade highs, but also soaring costs for electricity, high bandwidth memory and other inputs that are crucial to continued growth. So how are you supposed to, when all of these companies have a million resources in front, they have the resources to do basically whatever they want, despite the fact that they're still going to strong arm your local city council into giving them all kinds of tax breaks, which they don't need. Right now, they're also going to artificially probably prop up the real estate market and prop up the entire market, prop up the entire economy. It's horrifying, sogar, because if they really, if that intended productivity doesn't materialize, and there's disagreement as we showed for Massimooglu in the other clip, that is very, very frightening. And Sam Altman is trying to shove it down everybody's throat with him as the arbiter of what's a cost and what's a benefit and what exactly that looks like. There's something, you know, I watched the trailer for the Artificial Movie. I saw it yesterday in theaters for so long, it's incredible, I can't wait to go and watch it. But there, I, maybe this is too personal. I look at Sam and the way he talked on my dude, I don't trust you. It's just, and I think the reason why is because I put him in the same paradigm of Dario and Zuck and Sarah Gay Brin and Larry Page, and I have 20 years now where I can look back and they're like, well, this is how it's all going to work, wrong, wrong, wrong, like every single thing that they predicted about social media has had the opposite intended effect. Remember with Twitter, they were like, it will lead to mass democratization. No, it didn't. It was a disaster. Look, it's been beneficial in some ways. Obviously we built our careers here, and there's a lot of plus side to it that we're able to go around these gay keepers and all of that, et cetera. And for the people who watched this, like seriously, thank you, I do, we do our best to make this what I, to not respond to the bad incentive. Yeah. But it's take a look at the top 10 most watched stuff on YouTube. Take a look at the top 10 most watched stuff on Netflix for movies. Take a look at the most popular reels, TikTok creators, and all these are that we're, we're actual, everyday people are spending the vast majority of their time. And then you see the degraded, I mean, Gen Z is literally dumber than millennials on an IQ basis. That first generation in modern history to actually drop points whenever it comes to IQ. Why? Screen time. There's just, it's not even a debate. And then you take a look at, we talked a lot about educational technology here on the show. We had on that great gas who wrote the book, taking down like the edtech cartel. And then after he came on, I don't even know if we've done, we were going to put it in the show, something broke. But there's all this global test data now to show that it's not the pandemic. It literally is just screens across the entire OECD, which is Nukings test scores, same benchmark, same population. I'm talking about different demographics, different educational systems, different cultures, every single developed economy in the world is watching the same precipitous drop in test scores. There's a few outliers, but I mean, you know, we, like all I see is just creating more fake free time, unlocking more fake productivity, just so people, to the extent that they have more free time are, we know where you're going to do. Like, you know, we literally could see it in the consumption data. All of it just continues to go up on the phone and less in the real world. And then depression, anxiety, marijuana, gamble, like all of this, it's a natural outgrowth. I'm Hamza. And I'm Martin. And we're the hosts of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know, there's a lot of them to listen to these days. How are you going to get to us? Well, there's a specific reason why you should listen to us. We are the best podcast in the entire world. I swear. I know. Bold. But why don't we list some of the things we might talk about on a regular episode? So sometimes we'll talk about, I don't know, the Uber driver we just had. And how nice they were, or if we tip them or not, come and find out. Sometimes we'll talk about that weird news story from last week. It's the one you're thinking about. Trust me. You will talk about music and what's happening in the underground or drama music or TV shows or the Med Galan, what the actors wore. What we're saying is we're not afraid to talk about everything under the sun. And if you want to see what that's like, come join us. It's a place where everyone can hang out, anyone, wherever you're from, whatever you're welcome. Listen Out of Character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. And the argument is, do you want to win? If you don't win, you have no power. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complained about the very thing they were seeing. It's raw. I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men. Roland Martin unfiltered. I went off. I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're going to scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same bag. 12 seats. Those are moving south. So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 23, you better be hitting the ground going to heart in the south now. The download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's Quest Love. And on the Quest Love show, I've been sitting down with some really interesting people. And I've got two recent episodes you should check out. I caught up with my good friend, JoJo, to talk about her music, her career, and what she's been up to. Don't invite me to karaoke. I'm going to make it weird. Someone's going to try to sing, leave get out or too little too late or baby too. Oh, no. And I'm going to be like, OK, go up. I also caught up with Wally 267 for a conversation that covered his story, his perspective, and plenty more. I don't even call it cheat day. That's a life day. I'm not doing that. Don't try to be slick and just go Sunday. Go Wednesday. This is what you do. Sleep, please. Make a reservation for the rest of our lives. just chill. Listen to the music you want to listen to. Just enjoy it. It's going to be all right. Nothing's going to have you awake. Wake up Wednesday and go like, ah, and you're going to feel better. And those are just two of the many recent episodes of the Quest Love Show. Listen to the Quest Love Show on the iHeartRadio app, app podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Peace. This is Zuckerberg and Jack are the best examples of people who were trusted authorities on this and had a very strong theory of the case and it turned out to be untrue. And so right now what we're seeing is another generation. I mean, they're the same generation, but another way of a people in the industry who have a theory of the case, that is up in the air, that even experts are saying it's dubious. There's disagreement among experts and strong disagreements among experts on this. Meanwhile, Trump has named a new AI chief. So he actually named the DNI, D5. We can put this up on the screen. I'm curious to get your take on the saga. DNI, J Clayton, is now the new AI's are. So that's Director of National Intelligence, J Clayton. People were thinking it might be somebody from the industry. I heard Jebi's name floated. I heard other tech leaders' names floated. But he went with the DNI. Yes, I mean, it is very odd, right? As to why you pick this person. For some, from what I get, Clayton and Trump, Trump just loves this guy. So a lot of it is personal, as I understand it. With Trump. I remember, you know, for the whole DNI thing. And he's even floating around previously. Like he was the SEC chairman. He was Southern District. Trump, for some reason, he kind of captured Trump's attention back in the day. It just seems to be very enamored with him. But I do think that the DNI issue is important because they look at it purely in terms of, well, we don't want China to be able to take some of the technology. They don't care really at all about regulating the technology itself. In fact, they, they need it. I mean, they literally needed to prop up the S&P 500. I mean, I was looking at it just this morning. Yeah, I mean, we're in a record high today. It's like, yay! I mean, cool! Yeah, if you own stocks, that's cool. But, you know, you've got mortgages at like 7.27.3%. You've got gas at 4.20 a gallon. You've got a record high home price. So, I mean, yeah, if you're rich and you have a bunch of stocks, that's awesome. But if you're not, which what 80, 90% of people aren't, you can see exactly where it's like. They look at that. For them, you know, they don't care about how Nvidia stock prices are doing. Yeah. And that's the other issue I've always made too is, even if you don't care, even if you don't have a stake in it, when it goes down, you may not benefit on the way up. But you're definitely going to get screwed on the way down. Last thing. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, I'm obsessed. Go to the S&P chart. This is a fascinating chart put out by A16Z, so obviously they have their own stake. It makes it even better. Putting this put D6 out up on the screen. They say 98% of US households are not paying for AI yet. Now, a lot of, I think more leftists picked up on this show AI's fake. I will give you the counter, which is included in their own chart. Is there actually something called the 3% consumer adoption threshold, which usually is the paid, the adoption rate for paid technology, which is going to preview a mass adoption boom. So for example, personal computer, personal adoption paid was 3% in 1983, led to the personal PC revolution, paid home internet, 1995, only 3% of Americans paid for home online internet. Wow, that makes me realize how early my dad was. Smartphone 2006 only 3% of US mobile users owned a smartphone in 2006, and paid consumer AI in 2026 is 3% of US consumers. So you could look at it two ways. You could say it's fake. You could say also there were quickly approaching the 3% consumer adoption threshold. A lot of this stuff is at the bleeding edge. So I don't know. How do you look at it? Yeah, it's interesting because compared with some of those other things, I mean, if you use AI without a subscription, you are also paying with your data. Yes, so I think I'm more curious in total use, which my understanding is it's still lower than a lot of the AI people. How do you want 30%, 40%. Yeah, it's still not like, it might be a little bit less than that. But that would be my guess. It would be around like 20 to 30%. But that's, I mean, it's going up month over month. So it's the trajectory, at least according to A16Z, it's funny because it's still only at 2.2%. But yeah, given where it started in April or January 2023, I mean, it's almost at 0%. So three year period, you're going up every single month. That's obviously what they want to see. Although the rise every month isn't huge either. So it's important. It's very important. Another one seems obvious, but we should always make the point. Even if you're not paying for it and you're using it, then you are the product, right? Yeah. And when you are paying for it, which, you know, most people don't need to pay for it. I pay for both Claude and for ChatGPT. I even use some of these personal agents. And it's not because I want to. Do you really use agents? Yeah, I use Muse. I'm an early adopter of technology just because I like to see what I want to be like, what's the bleeding edge? What does it look like? That's one of the reasons why I eventually came to the point around the agents was I was using it and I go, you know, I don't think this is all that useful for a lot of people. So for, you know, Ben Thompson. I think it creates more work sometimes too. I totally agree. They're like, oh, you need to approve this. Oh, you need to do that. Here's your summary of all this. I go, is this really saving me time? I mean, it's easier to just scroll my inbox than it is to get a summary, which is kind of shittily worded and doesn't particularly do a good job. Ben Thompson made a good point about shopping. They're like, Muse can go out and buy something for you. First of all, it's not even true. Amazon shut down recently. They're access, which stops their ability to do it. But second, he goes, you know, people love shopping. This is my screen time thing where do people really want to spend less time shopping? I'm not so sure about that actually. I think people love to shop. I think people, you know, websites, entire billions of dollars have been spent. People like to go to wire cutter and read reviews and all that. It's like, hmm, is that really something they want to outsource to AI? Again, I could be very pessimistic, but I just don't see the evidence. Like, all the use cases that are put out there are like, it'll book a dinner reservation for you. I mean, since I had a child, I've made, I've gone out to dinner, a nice dinner, one time, which required a reservation. I'm like, this is not a problem for me. Shout out to Jillian. Yeah, thank you. Take your out of date. Yeah, thanks. She's the one that booked it for me. Ironic. I'm like, literally a really nice restaurant. What? What's in the last 17 months? I don't know if that's that unique. I feel like that's probably pretty common. Yeah, your baby's little, yeah. No, but I'm saying generally for most people, if you're a parent, like, I mean, how many times you go out to nice, which requires a really hard to get reservation, like twice a year. Most people never. Yeah, but yeah, most people never, maybe twice a year. Let him fix. Special occasion for a big party. Like, maybe your dad's birthday or some Applebee's. You know, I mean, it's just not, like, this is not a problem. Like, or they're talking about checking in for flights. 50% of Americans don't even fly. Period. The other 50, you know, the vast majority of those people, they take a flight like once a year to go to Thanksgiving or Christmas. These, they just, if you like, they're creating solutions to problems, which only exist for the 1%. Yeah. Maybe even a 0.1%. Like, the guy booking a black car. I'm like, okay, man. Cool, dude. Trying to bake my black car. I'll reach out to Hughes. Literally never. Yeah. Puse Research says about half of adults say they ever use chatbots. A quarter use chatbots daily. So the kind of like hardcore AI people, I think, are still in a bubble about how the public is actually adapting. So if you have a quarter using it daily, that's, I think that's actually still a pretty low number. It's up obviously astronomically over time. But it's the way it's talked about in the media. It's like it's already taken over the entire workforce. And it really hasn't quite yet. Yes and no. Right. It's in the background. I think the B2B application is very important. Like enterprise and obviously the research level. So I don't want to take away any of that. But this is a different question. This is like a consumer question. And part of the reason why people so disconnected, only two percent of people are paying for something. 98 percent are like, I don't not so sure about that. Obviously, A16Z, the point they're trying to make, is that everyone will be using it eventually. I still remain skeptical. Or if they do use it, it's not going to be in the way that currently the tech people are selling it. All right. Let's get to gambling. I'm Hamza. And I'm Martin. And we're the host of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know there's a lot of them going around. But why should you listen hours? Well, we're only the best podcast in the entire world. And we talk about pretty much everything under the sun. For example, music we're listening to. Underground music, trending music, drama in music worlds. Yes, sometimes we even talk about just everyday mundane situations in our lives like the cool Uber driver we just had. Or the food we just say that is surprisingly delicious. Or we'll talk about the Med Gala and the looks that they wore. Are they awesome? Are they trendy? Come find out. Because our opinion matters. And so does yours. And this is a place where all of our minds can come together and connect. So what are you waiting for? Come connect with us. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's real. Those are the very people who I always say voted against their own economic interests. And they complained about the very thing they received. It's raw. I went off. Y'all go scream at Chanel. But you don't want to see a black luxury girl. company in the same bag catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the black information network 12 seats those are moving south so if you Democrats you don't wait to 2030 you better be hitting the ground going hard in the south now and download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHot Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey what's up y'all it's Questlove and on the Questlove show up and sitting down with some really interesting people and I've got two recent episodes you should check out I caught up with my good friend Jojo to talk about her music her career what she's been up to. Don't invite me to karaoke I'm gonna make it weird someone's gonna try to sing leave get out her too little too late or baby to you and and I'm gonna be like okay cool. I also caught up with Wallace 267 for a conversation that covered his story his perspective many more. I don't even call it cheat day because of life day I'm not doing that don't try to be slick and just go Sunday go Wednesday this what you do sleep later make a reservation for the rest of our lady just chill listen to the music you want to listen to just enjoy it it's going to be alright nothing's going to have you awake wake up Wednesday go by ah you're gonna feel better and those are just two of the many recent episodes of the Questlove show listen to the Questlove show or the I heart radio at a podcast wherever you get your podcast. Peace. Turning now to gambling so at the very top I'll just admit this I don't know anything about the NBA in fact I can barely pronounce Mr. Wembee's name I do know he plays with him Mr. Wembee so shout out to them now with all that said I do it to very least track some of the cultural backlash amongst some of these athletes against sports betting and what you will notice is that the vast majority of our American homegrown athletes people like Kevin Durant and LeBron James who admittedly in some case you know they come from troubled backgrounds or struggling communities they have no problem chilling for sports betting and encouraging that amongst their fan base but for some reason it's these athletes that come from abroad and specifically I guess with France where you both have Wembee and Killian and Bope who call back to their you know childhood and to their country and are there like we feel shame for to want to promote as something is disgusting as sports gambling so here's Wembee he was asked about it will you ever sign a deal with sports betting company here's what he had to say absolutely knock I will remember the air honestly I pick it so it's very sad to see some players come out at American inmates everybody does whatever they want to win out these how do you make decisions on which companies which brands do you connect with and and connect your names no in the past there was a dimension of money in the past not anymore now is now is a even if I said that I've refused you know plenty much more money that I've made for things that were not to my my values you know and now it's now I want to come out things that have a good impact I've a good influence yeah well I can well with with who I can share messages now and values one thing that's very important for me our biggest strength is not it's not our obviously we're in journalism is this not a bigger strength a bigger strength is inspiring and we can be inspiring the griddle or about it I want to inspire and regret that's the strongest thing I can do nice little standard there that these French athletes are setting remember killing mbappe had said when they asked him why don't you take sports betting money he even refused to participate in a photo shoot for the French national team because they were doing some deal with but he said no I'm not doing that I they're translation is rough but he basically you know when he says suburb because a lot of Americans didn't understand that mbappe was like well a lot of us grew up in the suburbs and like well here the suburbs ago I'm like yeah but they're they're bad you know as you can you turn on the news and France right now but see what's going on but the point remains is that these foreign athletes appear to just have like a moral land in the sand and he even said in there he's like well plenty of money it's not about money you know for a certain amount of them and yet for our athletes it is Kevin Durant Washington DC here native here's what he had to say whenever he was confronted about this considering he just signed a partnership with Fandall that's Wendy I mean he's gonna do what he does I had nothing to do with me I mean I don't really have I really don't think about that question at all I really own my mind as much so but if people do what they want to do that's really what it is what do I do on the day I try to partner with people you kind of lie with my day-to-day page of stuff so you know some people you know some partners are gonna be with for a long time but it's a nature of nature of the business I didn't even think about the morality of promoting this and this is somebody who came again from Washington DC from a difficult childhood difficult background he doesn't care that his fans and others who are dead broke in PG County from where he is from are literally all gonna lose you know on average like a significant part of money which they would be putting into savings I mean that's what I find like so disgusting about this entire thing and it's a perfect contrast with Wendy actually who didn't even think about doing it so it's like the actually the perfect contrast because what you saw with Wendy is just complete and total moral clarity he gets to ask the question he just says absolutely not right and then here you have to ramp being like you know I it's part of the business it's just part of the business and this is to do what we gonna do as if as if as if it is a value-neutral decision yes it's right a value neutral decision of course and the thing that always gets me with these guys you're getting paid hard cash all right to promote you're getting paid these people have worked hundreds of millions dollars what's LeBron worth a billion dollars something like that eight nine hundred dollars all of that put the put the next one up here E3 just just to put it into perspective you know for all of you so LeBron's Polly Market deal is now rated at some 15 million dollars per year so I mean on the one hand for any of us that's that is a life changing some of money for him it's a rounding it's less than 1% of his entire network and yet he has decided to not just promote this company he does weekly picks follow him on parlay he does this ad with Polly Market and Eli Manning and Spike Lee and all of these other figures and you know what's crazy to me is as they even point out here in this athletic story is you know the ethics of this inside the league and with the NBA rules they're you know they're really uncomfortable as they point out the NBA can regulate salary but it can't regulate everything else it gets uncomfortable when the money is coming from these prediction markets which are literally being sued in many of these cases by different states for operating according to them illegal gambling houses remember Yannis one of these other NBA stars I'm a Calchi shareholder for the tune of some 25 million dollars and before the trade deadline 25 million dollars even before he came a shareholder was traded on markets about his next team the current league rules permits them to hold stakes in prediction markets and gambling company companies Adam Silver goes well it's only capped at 1% there's no evidence that they've done anything wrong but I'll give you a great example like this is different this is NFL so Polly Market and Calchi remember they go like look we're not gambling we don't have to regulate gambling like you know it's all trading it's just investing if you lose your money it's fair it's a lot fairer than when you lose your money in the casino okay and well according to them they have the most responsible bets on Polymark and Calchi and all that the NFL has lit has sent them multiple letters and they are actually begging our government who to come in and to say please at the very least the NFL who are the most capitalist scum in the world who are happy to partner with with draft kings and and Fandall and all these other people they are begging how Calchi and Polymark it hey there's certain markets you guys have you need to take these down yeah and the reason why you need to take them down is they're highly manipulatable right is that they're actually very easy to you know have insider trading all these other kinds of problems Calchi and Polymark you know the responses no we're not gonna do it right because they can't because they don't want to yeah because people will gamble on it and so that's my point is look if there's enough of a moral outrage like let's say over injury markets on those things they won't do it because it quote looks bad but there's nothing preventing them from doing it a lot of these trade decisions mention markets numbers of points numbers of yard rebound I mean all kinds of things which are so easily manip like to manipulate to shave to push in one certain direction you don't have to throw a game anymore you can just do one or two things differently and quote hit the under and you can make somebody millions of dollars that's the issue behind this entire thing and I just think the contrast between these four-n-out athletes who appear to just have some sense of moral character and say I am a perinole brun this guy oh boys and girls club and all that what message does it send to the boys and girls club to all of these like, you know, people who are not going to play in the NBA and be like, yeah, I am a proponent, a paid proponent of gambling. What message is that going to send to those people? You know, and that's the thing, you know, for the vast majority of these people, the vast, vast majority of people who gamble, you're not, quote, doing anything wrong because you're not an addict. But you have to remember that the vast majority of the profits come from the three to eight percent of the customers who are no shit gambling addicts, who are, who comprise of almost 60 to 80 percent of the profit. And so the only reason you get to do and have your fun one dollar bet or two dollar bet or whatever is because of those three to eight percent. And that three to eight percent when you take that across every man in America and apparently like 10 percent of women, I've been getting messages lately from moms of, of, of young girls who are apparently in the sports betting. I even know something. Women can do anything. Okay. You're right. Yeah. I can't imagine. I just pray, you know, look at my, I can't imagine the daughter of the 16 years old, she's like, betting it over on women's tennis. I'm like, what do you do it? Anyway. Bet nine K. It was clear. So, yeah, bet on Clayton Clark's number of rebounds. But from what I understand, you know, within is that this three to eight percent, you know, do the math at scale. This is the first year in American history. The gambling is legal nationwide thanks to Donald Trump, the CFTC with all of the East Cal State and Polymarket defense that they've given them. That three to eight percent over hundreds of millions is literally millions of people. Yeah. Millions of people. And check your social media feed in the same way that you have with, we had with fentanyl, right, which swept the nation. And I'm sure you know somebody. I, I, I was checked a couple of people I graduated from high school with. People have a fentanyl story, overdose story, a prison story, something like that, right? Which people you never would have predicted. Well, these types of stories are all going viral on social media, quote, I'll, I'll just read you one. Somebody sent it to me yesterday. I just found out that a couple I've been friends with for years are now getting into boards because the husband lost $300,000 gambling and just lost the house. And what they said is, so he was responding even posted the text exchange. Yeah. They say they had to get a HELOC to cover all their debts and had no equity to sell. And so apparently, you know, they tried to save their marriage, et cetera, while all this, HELOC, they don't have the money to pay back in it. Now they have no equity. It's sell the house. They're coming out of it completely bust. So that's how quick it can all happen. And just if you think that's anecdotal, I have covered day after day after day here on the show about all of these lawsuits. Some cases, wives were posting these types of stories and are being like, look, look what my husband did. Look what's happening here. You know, it, it, it continues to show up in a lot of these lawsuits to the extent where these guys are gambling away millions of dollars. Why? It just should not be acceptable. People say, oh, you're an idiot. I agree. We can, we can keep the personal responsibility. Yeah. You are an idiot. You betrayed your family and you failed them. However, we should not enable you to do so. And that's what gets me about this entire thing. You know, I texted you recently because I've always been with you on this issue, but Wade and I was on Megan show with the Sydney Swini ad, the Novig ad, right? And I texted you that it was such an interesting backlash because it was a pretty like, I guess it was a, the clip must have been going viral or something. And the combination of Sydney, Swini and sports gambling was utterly toxic. But what I found so interesting about it is that having covered men's like the, the sort of undermining of men that has happened across American society in a lot of ways that some of our viewers may disagree with, but like as a conservative, of course, I'm with you. No, I know, but it was interesting because I think some of the backlash is that men feel like they're once again being sort of treated, I don't know, condescendingly by, but by like elite saying like, you can't be trusted to handle X, Y and C. And it's like, it's interesting that that, to me, was the characteristic of the backlash is who are you to tell me what to do? Right, right. And it's interesting because it's like, I'm with you on all of that. These corporations are designing products that are meant to keep you poor. That's all I'm trying to say to them is you think you're making a choice. You're not. You are being. I mean, let's take it seriously. Or many of you are not making it. Many of you lose your capacity to make a choice. We're just like, we all do. We get addicted to alcohol. Exactly. Right. And everybody who knows anything about drug and alcohol. Same thing with social media. I'm sorry. Same thing with social media addiction. Social media. Is it? There's an element of choice. But there's also at a certain point for a lot of these addicts, the concept of choice starts to operate within a system where the confines are 10 drinks or 18, but you're drinking no matter what. Right. Same whenever it fents and all heroin and any of these types of things. At a certain point, the chemical, the actual addiction, the same thing applies to gambling. So like, let's take the Sydney Swinney thing. You think I have the right to do that. So you are watching a multi million dollar corporation used soft core pornography and gambling. So the promise of riches and porn to the things that are basically designed to tickle your dopamine system and take it all the way up as high it can possibly do to trick you into placing bets to lose your money. And you are such a fool. You think that you're in control. And that if anybody else gets completely out of control, that's on them and that you actually have this illusion, right? That's around you. Yes. Which really bothers me. Like it's for example, let's put E4 up here on the screen. Perfect example. It's not gambling. Here's a great NPR report. After bankruptcy, it's profile this guy. They say he was banned from sports betting sites. That need discovers. Kalshi. Oh, how did that happen? Well, you have a guy named Thomas, 35 years old, quote, identified by his middle name, fearing his problem gambling history could affect his career, yeah, you think. But he says sports gambling was different. It really got to me. He never cared much for sports, yet betting on games just seemed like an easy way to make a buck. Here we go. He started placing wagers on football and tennis using parlays. And lo and behold, he come goes completely broke. Working from home in Pennsylvania and the financial services industry, Thomas says that there were a few moments he didn't have one eye on placing a bet as he juggled working emails and bets. When his paychecks arrives, he would quickly squander all of it trying to dig himself out of the gambling hole, only to find himself deeper. This cycle continued for years. He ended up racking up $75,000 in debt from credit cards and personal loans and ended up more than $50,000 in the red from the online sports books filed for bankruptcy in late 2023. He then did, and this is a very important practice, which, by the way, took advocates years to push for, despite what the Casinos will tell you. He banned himself from fandole and draft games, which is great. Just guys, debt-free, declares bankruptcy, and he says, I want to self exclude myself, phenomenal. One day, he says, I then come across an ad. I'm scrolling on Instagram, another addiction, and I come across an ad for Kalshi. I was bored. I thought this could be fun. Thomas on ad offering a $20 cash bonus for the first $10 bet. Now, first of all, do you know when he's stock trading app that's giving you free money and free bet and all that, robinhood or anything, they might give you one free stock. We should try to do that. We should just give people free money. Yeah. Hunter Biden's stock. Yeah, you're right. All right, so he goes betting 10 became a couple hundred. The couple hundred became thousands more. Before long, I was more than $25,000 in the red. Kalshi calls this, quote, a cherry-picked case. If you ask our millions of traders, they would emphatically tell you an exchange model is significantly healthier than a sports book model. Our profits are not tried to trade or losses so we don't have the same predatory incentives. Really, because the more trades this guy makes, the more money you make as an exchange. So they point out, Thomas, who now has to live with his mom and works as a grocery store cashier and apparently his grandma and a childhood home has now been economically struggling for decades. He went from a financial services industry, making good money to bust, bankrupt, addicted, doing no bankruptcy does to your credit, start over again, get re-addicted to this entire thing. And what happens is that Kalshi only recently introduced self-exclusion, not because they're required to, but because they were pressured by advocates, people like me speaking out against this. Kalshi, quote, did eventually bar him from betting, but now he is trying to find his financial footing after frittering her away all of his savings that he was able to get back in this time period. So that's the problem, is the people, Trump administration has legalized all this. You cannot even get Congress to pass something called a national self-exclusion list, which would require Kalshi Polymarket on all of these other exchanges to just abide by that or the other problem is some of these will be statewide. So like, let's say you're an addict in Missouri, so you walk in, you're like, ban me. People are like, okay, you're ban or MGM properties. You could still, you could literally leave the state and you could go to a Caesar's property. Right. They'll, they'll, they'll, they'll love to see you coming, a gambling addict who's banned from one of their competitors, that's a dream. Yeah. And so that's how they make all their dollars. Look, I, I know I covered it, but it's, you have to give people information to counter program. Yeah. I mean, when you watch the NFL, it is literally nonstop. Kalshi, Fandool, Draft Kings. You can't even listen to anything about the games without people telling you about spreads, my five picks, my blazing hot ones, my locks, there's no, there's no such thing. Yeah. Like, you know, and it's just, I don't know, it really makes me despair because people are going broke at such a rapid pace. They just don't appreciate it, especially with the type of bets that they're placing. That NPR article also mentions one of the things that just I feel like is not talked about enough. They mentioned recently, however, CalShi asked federal regulators to allow to introduce a product that would allow traders to bet with borrowed money, insane, known in the financial sector as quote unquote leverage. CalShi said the features aimed at attracting large institutional investors, who the company is also trying to draw in. So that is also now part of their strategy is that you, on your couch, trying to make a buck to pay for the bill when you take your girlfriend out on a date this weekend. You're betting against these institutional investors with massive AI-powered programs behind them. So it's not really just like a David versus, or I'm sorry, it's not like a egalitarian, it's now like a David versus Goliath, but in a way that is designed to be exploitive. Yes, exactly. The people who are taking the other side of your action, the market makers, they're doing it because they're driving, they forget how to pronounce, it's like Susca Hannah or something. Yes, Susca Hannah. You're really driving porches by mansions, they are buying mansions, porches, second homes in Florida, Palm Beach, private jets, off of your money. That's what's happening. And yet people just want to throw it all away. And the last thing I just want to show you is if you think it's just Republicans that are the problem in this entire thing, let's put what is it? The last element guys about Keisha Lance Bottom. So yesterday Keisha Lance Bottom, who is the Atlanta mayor, she's running for governor in the state of Georgia, very likely, not likely entirely, but she's a competitor, she could use the election, is now saying she supports a statewide vote on casino gambling and says legislation or a legalization of casino gambling would be an economic development tool for struggling communities. Okay, an economic development tool for struggling communities. What do you think is going to happen when you put a casino in a struggling community? What's the most likely thing that's going to happen? Oh, I've seen it happen. Yeah, no, I literally go, go take a, there's a casino here in Washington, D.C., or the MGM. In Naviard? No, the MGM. Oh, so they put an MGM sportsbook in Naviard? Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, better. So there's MGM casino. Go on down there and see what happens to struggling communities. And a recent casino conference estimated that one in five people on the casino floor are actually gambling addicts, not just the 3-8%, but the actual physical presence of the people who are on the casino floor are no shit actual addicts who are just, you know, throwing all their money. And those people who are actually on the floor, there's a lot of friction they get from point A to point B as opposed to just checking this up and going. All right. So that's what we've legalized. Thank you, Wendy. I'll buy a jersey. Thank you guys so much for watching. We had a scheduling issue with Todd. We'll try to work it out and get him back here on the show. But Emily and I are going to be on again tomorrow. So we'll see you all then. See you room. Next here's what you missed, people wake up and go, oh, damn, wait and hold up. Yes. It's real. It's wrong. And download Roland Martin unfiltered on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast. This is an iHeart podcast. guaranteed human.