YouSaid · the spoken record

Alondra Nelson

lines on the record: 77
first: 2024-07-15
most recent: 2024-07-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We're back with OSTP director Arthur Pubaker to discuss the role of private sector RD and how big tech approaches federal regulation. Might describe that feeling, and I felt it too is patriotism. You look at the monuments in DC and you feel something. One thing that I've been paying attention to a lot recently is the back and forth between the federal government spending on research, private companies spending on research. There's a pretty enormous delta between the sums. And then I see the tech companies, particularly in AI, holding themselves out as national champions. Or you see a VC firm like Anderson Horowitz, which did not used to care about the government at all, saying that its policy is America's policy. These are things that they are saying now. Is that part of your remit to balance out how much these companies are saying? Look, we are the national champions of AI or ship manufacturing or whatever it might be, and we can plug into a policy.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Passion for serving the country. That's why they're all here. But we talk, you know, this a live conversation in our hallways about what we feel when we walk outside the White House gates. And we see people from around the country and around the world looking at the White House and the sense that we share that we're there to serve them. These are things that I think that's why people are here, but making that a live part of the culture, I think it's important for making it a rich and meaningful experience for people. And that's when they bring their best. So that's, I feel like we've really been able to do that here.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Between the time my predecessor left and the time I arrived, many months had passed, and what was so fortunate for OSTP in the White House and for me is that Alonda Nelson stepped in during that time. And she just poured love on this organization. And so by the time I showed up, it was already, it had become, again, I would tell you a very healthy organization. She gave me the great gift of a huge number of really smart, committed people who were coming to work with real passion about what they were doing. And then from there, we were able to build. You know, we can talk about technology all day long, but what I think about when I think about the most meaningful work I've ever done in my professional life, it's always about doing big things that change the future and improve people's lives. But the satisfaction comes from working with great people to do that. And so I think for me, that is about infusing people with this.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm going to ask a lot of AI questions. They're coming, but I just want to get a sense of the office because you talk about coming in in 2022 when you came in. That office was in a little bit of turmoil, right? Trump had underfunded it. It had gone without any leadership for a minute. The person who preceded you left because there was a toxic workplace issue. You had a chance to reset it, to reboot it, right? I mean, the way it was was not the way anybody wanted it to be and not for some time. How did you think about making change to the organization at that moment in time?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“that continues although it was much more intense I would say last year but while that was going on I think we continued with my great team we continue to make good progress on all the other things that we really care about”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In this role, I'll tell you what happened. As I showed up in October of 2022 for this job, ChatGPT showed up in November of 2022. So not surprisingly, I would say largely my first year got hijacked by AI, but in the best possible way first because I think it's an important moment for society to contend with all the implications of AI. And secondly, because as I've been doing this work, it just, I think a lot of the reason AI is such an important technology in our lives today is because of its breadth. And part of what that means is that it's actually, it is definitely a disruptor for every other major national ambition that we have. And if we get it right, I think it can be a huge accelerator for better health outcomes for meeting the climate crisis, for everything that we really have to get done. And so in that sense, even though a lot of my personal focus was on AI matters and still is.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“meet the future effectively. That's what drives the prioritization. And then within that, I mean, you know, it's like any other job where you're leading people to try to get big hard things done, not surprisingly every year. I make a list of the things we want to get done. And through the year, we work to see what kind of progress we're making. Overall, I think we're making huge progress, and that's why I'm still running to work.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First question is what does the country need and what does the president care about? Again, a lot of the reason I was so excited to have this opportunity, by the time I came in, the president was well underway. I had my interview with him almost exactly two years ago, so the summer of 2022. And by then, it was already really clear, number one, that he really values science and technology because he's all about how we build the future of this country. He understands that science and technology is a key ingredient to doing big things. Number two, he was really changing infrastructure, clean energy, meeting the climate crisis, dealing with semiconductor manufacturing. That was so exciting to see after so many decades that I've been waiting to see those things happen. It really gave me a lot of hope. And across the line, I just saw, you know, his priorities really reflected what I deeply and passionately thought was so important for our country.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're about 140 people, almost all of our team is people who are here on detail from other parts of government, sometimes from nonprofits outside of government or universities. The organization was designed that way because, again, it's integrative. You have to have all of these different perspectives to be able to do this work effectively.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way policies get implemented can be everything from agencies taking action within the laws that they live under within their existing resources. It can be an executive order where a president says this is an urgent matter. We need to take action. And again, it's under existing law, but it's the chief executive of the president saying we need to take action. Policy can be advanced through legislative proposals where we work with Congress to make something move forward. So it's just a matter of, you know, what does it take to get what we really need? And often we start with actions within the executive branch and then it expands from there.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are you making direct policy recommendations? So the environment team is saying, all right, every company in the country has promised a million trees. That's great. We should incentivize some other behavior as well. And then here's a plan to do that, or is it broader than that?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just as you would expect. And each of those is a policy team. So in each one of those, the leader of that organization is typically they're extremely experienced people who have often have worked inside and outside of government. They know how government works, but they also really understand what it is the country's trying to achieve and they're knitting together all the pieces. And then again, where there are gaps, where there are new policies that need to be advanced. That's the work that our teams do.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Policy teams and their organized specifically around these great aspirations that are the purpose for R&D and innovation. So we have a team focused on health outcomes, among other things that runs the president's cancer moonshot. We have a team called Industrial Innovation. That is about the fact that we now have with this president a very powerful industrial strategy that is revitalizing manufacturing in the United States, building our clean energy technologies and systems that's bringing leading edge semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. So that's an office that focuses on the R&D and all of that big picture of industrial revitalization that's going on. We have another team that focuses on climate and the environment. That one is about things like making sure we can measure greenhouse gases appropriately. How do we use nature to fight climate change? And then we have a team that's focused on national security.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would call it integrative. We're very lucky to have great technologists who are building and using technology inside a government. That's something we want to support and make sure is happening just as an example. One of our responsibilities for the AI work has been an AI talent surge to get the right kind of AI talents into government, which is now happening. Super exciting to see. But our day job is not that. It's actually making sure that the innovation enterprise is robust and doing what it really needs to do.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I want to draw a line here because I think most people think about the people working on tech in the government as actually affecting the functions of the government itself, like how the government might use technology. Your role seems a little more external, right? This is actually the policy of how technology we developed and deployed across private industry or government over time externally.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Means keeping an eye out on where shifts are happening that need to inform how we do research, research security is a challenge today that because of geopolitics and some of the issues with countries of concern is going to have an impact on how universities conduct research. That's something that we will take on working with all the agencies who work with universities. So it's those kinds of cross-cutting issues. And then when there are strategic imperatives, whether it's wrangling AI to make sure we get it right for the American people or whether it's figuring out if we're doing the work we need to decarbonize the economy fast enough to meet the climate crisis? Or are we doing the things across everything it takes to cut the cancer death rate in half as fast as the president is pounding the table for its cancer?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I ran DARPA or when I ran this over in the commerce department, I ran an agency. And so I had a line position. I had a budget, I had a bunch of responsibilities, and I had a blast working with great people and getting great things done. This is a different job. This is a staff job to the president, first and foremost. And so this is a job about looking across the entire system. We actually have a very tiny budget, but we worry about the entire picture. So what does that actually mean? It means, for example, helping the president find great people to lead federal R&D organizations across the world.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My view, the purpose of RD is to help create options so that we can choose the future that we really want and to make that possible. So I think that has to be the ultimate objective. The work gets done today and it gets done in the context of what's happening today. It's in the context of today's geopolitics. It's in the context of today's powerful technologies, AI among them.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is that the lens innovation forward thinking? We need to make some science and technology policy. All that policy should be directed at what's to come? Or do you think about what's happening right now?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What it means to create opportunity in every part of the country is different today. And we have challenges like climate change that people weren't focused on last century, even though we now wish that they had been. And so how do you aim innovation at the great aspirations of today? That's the organizing principle. And that's how we set priorities for where we focus our attention and where we work to get innovation aimed in the right direction and then cranking.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll tell you how I think about it. The reason I was so excited when the president asked if I would do this job a couple of years ago is because my personal experience has been working in R&D and in technology and in innovation from lots of different vantage points. I ran two very different parts of federal R&D in between. I spent 15 years in Silicon Valley, a couple of companies, but most of that was early stage venture capital. I started a nonprofit. And what I learned from all of that is that we do huge things in this country, but it takes all of us doing them together, the huge advances that we've made in the information revolution and in now fighting climate change and advancing American health. We know how amazing R&D was for everything that we did in the last century. But this century's got some different challenges, right? So even what national security looks like is different today because the geopolitics is different.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a big remit. When people think about policy making right now, I think there's a lot of focus on Congress or maybe state level legislatures. Which piece of the policy puzzle do you have? What are you able to most directly affect?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“White House office with two roles. One is whatever the president needs advice or help on that relates to science and technology, which is in everything. That's part one. And part two is thinking about working on nurturing the entire innovation system in the country, especially the federal component, which is the R&D that's done across literally dozens of federal agencies. Some of it's for public missions, a lot of it forms the foundation for everything else in the innovation ecology across this country. That's a huge part of our daily work. And as we do that, of course, what we're working on is how do we solve the big problems of our time? How do we make sure we're using technology in ways that build our values?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am really excited to talk to you. There's a lot of science and technology policy to talk about right now. We're also entering what promises to be a very contentious election season where I think some of these ideas are going to be up for grabs. So I want to talk about what is politicized, what is not political, where we might be going. But just let's start at the start for the listener, the basics, what is the office of science and technology policy?”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when she arrived on the job in 2022, President Biden had just signed the Chips Act. So I wanted to know whether the $52 billion in government subsidies to help bring ship manufacturing back to America is starting to show any results, and Arthur had a lot to say on the strength of this kind of legislation. One note before we start, I sat down with Arthur last month just a couple days before the first presidential debate and the aftermath that has now swallowed the entire news cycle. So you're going to hear us talk a lot about President Biden's agenda and the White House's policy record on AI and other topics, but you're not going to hear anything about President Biden, his age, or the presidential campaign. Okay, director of the White House Office in Science and Technology Policy, Arthur Prabakar. Here we go.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Around big picture projects like Biden's Cancer Moonshot and Combating Climate Change. You'll hear Arthur and I talk about that pendulum swing between public and private sector R&D, how that affects what gets funded and what doesn't, and how she manages the tension between the hypercapitalistic needs of the industry and the public interest of the federal government. Of course, Arthur and I also talked about AI. She was notably the first person to demo chat GPT to President Biden, and she has a funny story about how they had it write song lyrics in the silo of Rue Springsteen. But the OSTP is now also helping guide the White House's approach to AI safety and regulation, including the President's executive order which came out last fall. Arthur and I talked at length about how she personally assesses the risks posed by AI in particular around deepfakes, and what effect big tech's often self serving relationship to regulation might have on the landscape. In addition to all of that, Arthur has a PhD in applied physics and wrote her thesis on semiconductor materials.”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And welcome to Doder. I'm Neil I Patel, Editor in Chief of the Verge. And Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking with Arthi Probakar, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That's a cabinet-level position where she works as the chief science and tech officer to President Biden. She's also the first woman to hold that position, which she took on in 2022. Arthur has a long history of working in government before that. She was the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and she headed up DARPA for five years during the Obama administration. In between, she spent more than a decade working at several Silicon Valley companies and as a venture capitalist, so she has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. Now, Arthur and her team have about 140 people at the OSTP are responsible for advising the president on not only big developments in science, but also about major innovations in tech, many of which come from the private sector. That means guiding regulatory efforts, government investment, and setting priorities”
2024-07-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Biden’s top tech advisor on why AI safety is a “today problem” · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT