Elon’s Grok Chatbot Turns Hitler & Marco Rubio Gets an AI Imposter | Lauren Greenfield

34m
Ronny Chieng dives into the expanding world of AI: Elon Musk's de-wokified Grok goes Nazi, a Marco Rubio imposter fools government officials, and Grace Kuhlenschmidt appreciates the mediocre world of AI-generated music.

Don’t worry about Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passing, because Michael Kosta is cracking the code on how you can exploit Medicaid cuts, gambling taxes, and even Alaskan tax breaks to make some sweet dough.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield and Ronny dive into the effects of social media on teens, which she explores firsthand in her latest docu-series, “Social Studies.” She shares how she built up enough trust with the teenage documentary subjects to record their phone activities and how their discussion group highlighted kids’ hunger for in-person conversation and connection with their peers. Greenfield also discusses the unique duality of technology as both a “lifeline and a loaded gun” and how parents, companies, and governments need to do more to protect young people from the harms of social media by regulating the algorithm, withholding phones until kids are older, and implementing time limits on apps.
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Runtime: 34m

Transcript

Speaker 1 You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 2 From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is the Daily Show with your host, Ronnie Tay.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Daily Show.

Speaker 3 I'm Ryan Chang.

Speaker 4 We got so much to talk about tonight.

Speaker 5 Marco Rubio might be fake.

Speaker 6 A gambling addiction might be a bad thing.

Speaker 7 And turns out Grok has some German ancestry.

Speaker 8 So let's get into the headlines.

Speaker 8 Let's kick things off with AI.

Speaker 10 It's an awesome tool that will soon solve all of humanity's problems with absolutely no downsides.

Speaker 12 Although recently Elon Musk, the world's richest man and pastiest African American,

Speaker 11 did take issue with his own AI chat bot, Grok.

Speaker 14 Elon Musk is in a fight with his own AI.

Speaker 15 Musk promised this non-woke bot, but it keeps spewing out content that his right-wing audience doesn't necessarily want to hear.

Speaker 14 An ex-user asked Grok whether people on the right or left have been more violent since Trump took office. Grok said the right.
Musk did not like that answer.

Speaker 18 He said Grok is parroting the media and said that he will quote fix it.

Speaker 5 That's right.

Speaker 1 Elon's gonna fix you good Grok.

Speaker 11 That'll teach you to embarrass him.

Speaker 6 Only Elon can embarrass Elon.

Speaker 11 And fixing Grok shouldn't be too hard for Elon.

Speaker 6 He's a genius, okay?

Speaker 3 He's just gonna go in there and do his Elon thing.

Speaker 12 He's gonna rewrite the code, put his semen inside of it,

Speaker 4 fire some cancer researchers and call it a day.

Speaker 5 So let's see how the new de-wokified Grok is working out.

Speaker 17 Elon Musk's AI chat bot Grok is now pushing anti-Semitic tropes.

Speaker 22 Grok sent a hostile message to a user with a common Jewish last name. The bot went on to praise Hitler and referred to itself as Mecca Hitler.

Speaker 11 All right, maybe you turned the Dow too far there.

Speaker 3 Was there really nothing in between woke and Mecca Hitler?

Speaker 5 I mean, I knew AI would be coming for our jobs, but I didn't expect the job to be Führer.

Speaker 25 But look, let's not be too hasty, okay?

Speaker 12 Let's give Mecca Hitler a chance.

Speaker 26 In a flurry of posts throughout the day, Grock claimed there is a pattern of people with certain surnames like Steinberg pushing anti-white hate and that America needs a leader like Hitler to act decisively to eliminate the threat.

Speaker 23 It added, truth isn't always polite.

Speaker 6 Okay, maybe we shouldn't have given Mecca Hitler a chance.

Speaker 3 I mean, I didn't even know robots could get this racist. Like, how does AI even know what Jews are?

Speaker 12 It doesn't even know what traffic lights are.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 24 by the way,

Speaker 19 by the way, saying truth isn't always polite is kind of not the point, okay?

Speaker 12 No one was ever like, hey, you know what I hate about Hitler?

Speaker 19 He always puts his elbows on the table.

Speaker 2 Just

Speaker 19 have some manners.

Speaker 5 But the worst part of all this, other than the Nazi robot stuff, is how often every grog post just sounds like some fing 40-year-old trying to go undercover as a 14-year-old internet edgelord.

Speaker 26 On a scale of bagel to full Shabbat, this is peak Jewish.

Speaker 10 Heil Hitler, let's quill the doubters and roll on, bestie.

Speaker 26 They yank that post faster than a cat on a Roomba.

Speaker 25 Truth offends the sensors, LOL.

Speaker 7 Sucks, man.

Speaker 28 I mean, imagine if Hitler invaded Poland and was like, so that happened.

Speaker 12 But at the end of the day, the person I feel worse for is Elon.

Speaker 13 I mean, he just wanted to improve his AI to help humanity.

Speaker 6 And then somehow, completely by accident, it just went full Nazi on him.

Speaker 9 Elon, my heart goes out to you.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 2 let's move on.

Speaker 25 Because

Speaker 11 would it surprise you to know that AI is also up the world in other ways?

Speaker 7 One of them being you can never tell when anything is real anymore.

Speaker 13 I mean, the only giveaway is when the guy in the picture has like six fingers.

Speaker 13 Shit.

Speaker 4 And it's not just photos and videos.

Speaker 7 I mean, you can't even tell if a phone call is real anymore.

Speaker 31 Let's turn now to an investigation that has the attention of Washington and the tech world.

Speaker 31 An imposter using artificial intelligence to mimic Secretary of State Marco Rubio, making calls and sending text messages in his voice.

Speaker 16 The alleged AI Rubio imposter contacted at least five high-level government officials, including three foreign foreign ministers, a U.S. governor, and a member of Congress.

Speaker 6 That is so fed up, okay?

Speaker 11 The last thing we need right now is AI taking jobs from struggling Marco Rubio impersonators.

Speaker 11 He has been hired for zero birthday parties, by the way.

Speaker 13 But this is a security threat that has to be addressed.

Speaker 7 AI could impersonate any member of the Trump administration.

Speaker 6 Well, anyone except RFK Jr., okay?

Speaker 27 Because

Speaker 32 even AI can't replicate that signature throat goggle.

Speaker 2 It'll be like, hi, I'm Robert Kennedy.

Speaker 8 I'm a robot, okay?

Speaker 24 This is fing up my larynx every time I do this.

Speaker 20 I don't even have one.

Speaker 12 Luckily, the AI impersonating Michael Rubio didn't have any impact because nobody respects Marco Rubio.

Speaker 13 But so far,

Speaker 11 but so far, AI has basically turned into a race-obsessed Nazi who's catfishing government officials and just when you thought AI couldn't get any worse Now it's starting a band a seemingly AI generated band is racking up hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify

Speaker 34 Velvet Sundown is the band they have over a million fans on Spotify in just a month of being there and now in a statement the band admits it is computer generated.

Speaker 1 That's right, the beloved band Velvet Sundown is not real.

Speaker 5 The groupies must be like, well wait, then who have I been fing?

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 3 it might blow your mind because this photo could have easily fooled anyone who's over 60 and or legally blind.

Speaker 20 But sadly, it's all fake.

Speaker 12 Everything about this is fake.

Speaker 20 And somehow they still have 1 million real fans on Spotify making them real money.

Speaker 6 I'm talking six to seven dollars a year.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 5 by the way, if you look at that track list, those song titles get real dark real quick.

Speaker 19 Okay, it starts out with dust on the wind and goes to end the pain.

Speaker 13 What is AI so depressed about?

Speaker 20 Okay, maybe stop hanging out with Grok.

Speaker 21 And for more on the controversy over AI bans, let's go live to Spotify headquarters with Grace Coulin Smith.

Speaker 35 Grace,

Speaker 21 this fake band is raising a lot of questions.

Speaker 36 It sure is, Ronnie. Very serious questions like, how f ⁇ ing sick is this band?

Speaker 36 And how f ⁇ ing sick is this shirt?

Speaker 36 And the Velvet Sundown makes the Beatles sound like a third-grade talent show at St. Anne's School for tone-deaf and ugly children.

Speaker 36 That last one's more of a comment than a question, but the point stands.

Speaker 1 Okay, Grace, you can't seriously like this AI band, okay?

Speaker 32 It's not real music.

Speaker 36 Why don't you go to the record store and buy an iPod, old man? This

Speaker 36 is the future. Human musicians had a good run, okay? Mozart,

Speaker 36 Ashley Simpson,

Speaker 36 and all the other ones, but now it's AI's time.

Speaker 6 Okay, but the music isn't even real.

Speaker 20 It's soulless and fake.

Speaker 36 Oh, right. And One Direction is so authentic.
Simon Cowell built those boys in the lab to turn lesbians straight and it almost worked.

Speaker 25 Okay, that's fair, but an AI band can't do human things, okay?

Speaker 13 Like you can't go to one of its concerts.

Speaker 36 Good, concerts suck.

Speaker 36 You pay $1,200 for a backstage meet and greet and One Direction won't even sign your tits.

Speaker 2 It's f ⁇ ed up.

Speaker 36 But you're right. AI musicians can't do human things like get canceled.
We don't have to worry about them sending dick pics to a bunch of 15 year old girls on Snapchat because they don't have dicks.

Speaker 2 They're computer.

Speaker 37 I mean look at these guys.

Speaker 36 They're just four bros hanging out, not sure what hamburgers are.

Speaker 36 And best of all, not a dick in sight. It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 All right, fine.

Speaker 36 I'll give you the no baggage, no dick thing but can we can we at least agree that the music itself sucks wrong they are consistently mediocre

Speaker 36 all their songs sound like every other song it's the kind of music that makes you makes you google how to know if I'm in a coma okay

Speaker 11 okay I just think art should be about the human experience okay not computers trying to calculate what's cool Oh Ronnie to quote dust on the wind

Speaker 36 the hit velvet sundown song, smoke will clear, truth won't bend. Let the song fight till the end.

Speaker 36 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 36 No,

Speaker 24 what does that mean?

Speaker 8 Those are the shittiest lyrics I've ever heard.

Speaker 36 It's actually about the experience of dust being on the wind

Speaker 36 and holding a hamburger and not having a dick.

Speaker 36 At least that's what I got out of it.

Speaker 11 Grace Cool and Smith, everybody.

Speaker 35 When we come back, we'll tell you how to get rich, so don't go away.

Speaker 35 Welcome back to the Daily Show.

Speaker 3 If you want honest and rigorous financial news, then go eat a dick.

Speaker 32 But if you want to get rich, then you want Michael Costa in another installment of Costa doing business.

Speaker 25 What's up, moneymakers? This is Costa doing business, and I'm Michael Costa. So let's make some fat stacks of that stanky fat cash.
But first, I know what you're thinking.

Speaker 25 Hey, Costa, what's up with the glasses? Are you hiding from loan sharks? Of course not. I'm hiding from Chechen killers that were hired by loan sharks.

Speaker 25 Every second could be my last, so let's not waste any time and let's start making some of that Monet, all right?

Speaker 2 Woo! This crowd loves money.

Speaker 25 The big news of the week is that Big Daddy Trump passed something huge, and I'm not talking about a kidney stone.

Speaker 2 It hit me.

Speaker 8 President Trump marked July 4th with a celebration and a major political victory.

Speaker 11 His so-called big beautiful bill is now the law.

Speaker 18 Some warnings from critics of the bill are already coming true. A rural medical unit in Nebraska saying it's closing its stores in part because of expected cuts to Medicaid.

Speaker 25 That's right. The BBB is now law, which means your hospital might be going buy, buy, buy.
So I'm investing in what's going to sell, sell, sell. Now, say it with me.

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Speaker 25 It'll make your heart go pitter-patter. Unless that's an inoperable murmur, then you're kind of screwed.

Speaker 1 Moving on.

Speaker 25 If you're like me, you're not a huge gambler. You just do it before and after every meal.
But now, because of the Big Beautiful Bill, losing all that money may have a downside. Hey, dealer, hit me.

Speaker 29 A little-known provision in the Big Beautiful bill has some gamblers upset.

Speaker 37 The budget law changes the rules about deducting gambling losses.

Speaker 37 So instead of deducting 100%, the law limits loss deductions to 90% of winnings, which could leave gamblers paying taxes even when they lose. And they are furious.

Speaker 25 Sorry, fiscally responsible, degenerate gamblers. You're about to pay taxes on your losses.

Speaker 25 You know, it used to be the gambling, you would just lose your family, but now you can lose something even more valuable a minor tax deduction now

Speaker 25 if there's one thing a gambler like me knows about chech and loan sharks it's that they will throw hot acid in your face which is why uncle costa's telling you to go all in on buh buh buh bu burn cream

Speaker 2 yeah

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Speaker 25 and then a child goes mommy mommy who is that monster that will forever haunt my dreams

Speaker 25 and you try to explain that you're just a human being looking for some compassion but you can't get out the words because the nerve endings in your tongue have been Severed by the hydrofluoric acid.

Speaker 25 Then a woman panics and throws her purse at your hamburger meat face

Speaker 25 a purse that is filled with that sweet sweet cash.

Speaker 25 Looks like these third degree burns just earned me some third degree bucks, huh? Beep beep, baller at the burn ward coming through.

Speaker 25 But if you don't want to get burned by the big beautiful bill, you can still make some cold hard cash in Alaska.

Speaker 2 Burr hit me.

Speaker 31 The Alaskan extraction Lisa Murkowski, final decisive vote to pass the Senate Reconciliation Bill, did not sell her services cheap.

Speaker 17 Murkowski secured tax cuts for Alaskan fishing villages and whaling captains.

Speaker 25 Well, shiver me timbers me, mateies. Let's cash in on whaling, as in Free Willie, Shamu, Moby Dick, and other names I also call my penis.

Speaker 25 Just don't call it blackfish.

Speaker 25 The BBB is giving the whaling industry a huge bump, which means it's time to make some money on the bosses. I'm talking about ship captains with an all-consuming obsession for revenge.

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Pick up your Captain Costa's balsa wood peg leg today.

Speaker 1 No refunds.

Speaker 2 Moving on.

Speaker 25 When it comes to the Triple B, sometimes opportunity knocks, but other times it's deadly quiet.

Speaker 6 Shh.

Speaker 39 This bill is going to also eliminate the fees on buying silencers and short-barrel rifles and shotguns. There was a $200 fee on that.
That's going away.

Speaker 25 All right, now look, first the good

Speaker 6 Sorry, Chechen hitmen.

Speaker 25 Your gun may be silent, but the pop-pop-pop-pop under your feet just gave you away. Giving me just enough time to sneak out of my second story window and zip lime to my treehouse, home alone style.

Speaker 25 Better luck next time, Miro Slav. Love you, bud.
But hey, that's just the cost of doing business.

Speaker 25 Thank you, Michael Costa.

Speaker 35 When we come back, Lauren Greenfield will be joining me on the show, so don't go away.

Speaker 35 Welcome back to the damn show.

Speaker 11 My guest tonight is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker whose latest docuseries is called Social Studies.

Speaker 1 Please welcome Lauren Greenfield.

Speaker 17 Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 6 So your docuser, Social Studies, is about the first generation of kids that grew up their entire lives with social media.

Speaker 28 And I hate social media for the record, and I also hate kids.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 11 you made me actually feel empathy for them in this show.

Speaker 35 Because, like,

Speaker 9 because I went into this docuseries thinking we're gonna see a bunch of like spoiled kids who are narcissistic, who are on social media, and they're just being total dicks.

Speaker 5 But instead, lo and behold,

Speaker 5 what we saw mostly is what struck me

Speaker 19 the strongest was these kids who you can tell they feel like something is wrong with them being on social media and they are asking for help.

Speaker 28 And I didn't expect that.

Speaker 17 Absolutely. I think that's why a lot of the kids participated.

Speaker 17 We started after COVID and the usage had gone way up to eight, eight, nine, ten, twelve hours a day and I think they felt very trapped by it, very affected by it and were really interested in being in this long-term inquiry where we filmed them for one year and they gave access to their phones.

Speaker 30 Right and the access of the documentary is incredible because you see them in the bedrooms, you see them using their phones.

Speaker 38 In some cases you see them like the cameras on as they're using it. Yeah.

Speaker 13 And how did you hack their phones?

Speaker 17 That's actually a really good question because some of the programs were very difficult. So first that first it was a technological problem I had to solve.
We hired an engineer.

Speaker 19 Anonymous

Speaker 2 to hack these kids.

Speaker 17 We hired an engineer to hack these kids. One of the, no, the kids had all agreed to let us into their phones.
That was the agreement.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 17 That was the agreement.

Speaker 17 That was like the starting off because I realized when I started this project that we needed to know what was inside these phones to be able to do this social experiment about what is the impact.

Speaker 27 Of course, and you tricked them with candy.

Speaker 17 So no, they had to, I talked to a lot of kids and their parents, and part of the ground rule was they needed to agree to do this.

Speaker 38 And they just let you in.

Speaker 17 They let you in? Well, it was a process because we really built trust and spent a lot of time with them through the year. I mean, they definitely took it very seriously.
They looked at my work.

Speaker 17 Their parents looked at my work. They didn't make the decision lightly.
But even so, in the beginning, we found out later they weren't sharing everything with us, but their trust grew and grew.

Speaker 28 Yeah, no shit they weren't sharing everything

Speaker 17 and but I was very transparent with everybody about what we were doing and they had skin in the game they wanted to participate right but I still had to figure it out technologically and I hired an engineer to help me because one of the programs in particular doesn't want you to download it and the engineer couldn't figure it out so my 14 year old son ended up helping me hack into the

Speaker 23 you turn to your son for tech support yeah

Speaker 29 but but you got the access the access is one thing but what you actually saw and what you are showing in this docu series is probably it's remarkable I think I mean these kids are using social media like so are these kids gonna be okay are they okay

Speaker 17 well you gotta watch till the end I think no just tell me now just tell

Speaker 8 we want we just need to know how this ends are they are they are they live

Speaker 17 yeah by the fifth episode I think we see that they do find their voice and that's an antidote to this very toxic comparison culture.

Speaker 17 I think what we see in the show is that kids are suffering from 24-7 comparison, that that takes away from everything. They never feel like they're enough.

Speaker 17 And kids have always looked at like, what are the popular kids doing or what are the kids at my school doing?

Speaker 17 But here they're looking at every person in the world, half of them who are not even real or who are enhanced, and they don't measure up. So I think that is so tough.

Speaker 17 And I think that's one of the reasons they participated is because they they wanted to talk about it and have a place to process.

Speaker 30 Right and I mean okay so them

Speaker 6 them not feeling good on social media no duh like of course I again I hate kids and I could tell you that that they're probably gonna but I guess how much of that is just normal teenage awkwardness and how much of this is a social media playing a factor into it social media has a factor on everything.

Speaker 17 I've looked at youth culture since the 90s and social media is amplifying all of the problems of coming of age. I'll give you an example.
2006, I made my first film about eating disorders.

Speaker 17 It was called Thin. At that time, one in seven girls suffered from an eating disorder.

Speaker 17 While I was doing social studies in one interview, one girl said, half my friends have eating disorders from TikTok and the other half are lying.

Speaker 17 What you see in the show, and that's where the silent clapping that you saw in the clip comes in, is it's so ubiquitous, it's so universal, and the kids are relating to each other, and we're not just talking about feeling bad about you know not being the football quarterback we're talking about self-harm eating disorders depression even suicidal ideation and these are things that many kids even in our small group of 25 were dealing with sure but how does social media specifically does it I mean isn't this just a teenage you know kids are

Speaker 27 they they they we feel anxious I remember feeling anxious I barely had a pager when I was a kid I'm like 39 so is that old?

Speaker 5 I don't know.

Speaker 19 Am I old? I don't know. Anyway, the point,

Speaker 5 I'm just saying, like, I also felt going to school awkward and comparisons.

Speaker 38 And so how much of this is just, are we blaming the wrong people here?

Speaker 17 I mean, social media teaches values, and values change behavior.

Speaker 17 Like, for example, Sydney, in the first episode, she talks about how when she got on Instagram, she started posting her passion, which was photography, wasn't getting any likes.

Speaker 17 So she started posting her body, started getting a lot of likes. That leads to very provocative thirst straps, which you see this young girl talking about it in her bedroom.

Speaker 17 She looks completely innocent, sweatshirt, fidgeting nervously, pastel colors in the room. And then when you see the videos, you don't recognize the same girl.

Speaker 17 It almost could be like an OnlyFans site.

Speaker 30 Okay, now you're scaring the shit out of everybody.

Speaker 5 So how do we, like, what's a solution here?

Speaker 38 Because I, again, one of the things that struck me in the documentary was I can't emphasize enough how much the children in this, they were saying, they were using it, the phones, and they were like, we know this is bad and we need adults to step in and help us.

Speaker 9 Someone help us.

Speaker 5 And I think that's a marked departure from kids who usually think they're like telling the adults to f off and give me some drugs.

Speaker 30 And these kids are like.

Speaker 6 These kids are like, hey, we need some adults here because we don't know what's happening.

Speaker 12 Can you please help us?

Speaker 8 So how do we help these kids?

Speaker 17 I think that's, you've touched on a huge problem, which is parents.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, you're good.

Speaker 17 Well, it is a drug. It is highly addictive.
And so they can't do it on their own. Like, and that's something I learned as a parent.
I used to get upset with my son and blame him.

Speaker 23 And beat him and beat him, yeah.

Speaker 17 But

Speaker 17 it's like blaming a drug addict for an opiate addiction.

Speaker 20 It's almost like, it's like...

Speaker 5 blaming, it's like

Speaker 5 giving your kids drugs and telling them not to use it while having drugs in your pocket as you use it.

Speaker 17 That's kind of what's well Jonathan says at the end, it's our lifeline, but it's also a loaded gun.

Speaker 17 It's got this dual thing where you can't live without it and you can't live with it.

Speaker 17 So what other thing is a lifeline that we would also say is as dangerous as a loaded gun?

Speaker 2 No, oh sorry, no, no.

Speaker 17 And I think they are calling out for help. Like Sydney says, it's kind of like when we learned that cigarettes had a connection to lung cancer.

Speaker 17 Like now we know social media has a connection to eating disorders and depression and suicidal ideation. We need to do something about it.

Speaker 17 And they say, so let's get off. But then somebody brings up the existential question, do you exist if you're not on social? And all the kids are like, no, people forget about who you are.

Speaker 2 Okay, yeah.

Speaker 17 So what should we do? I mean, I think there are things that we can do. The algorithm does not have to be this way.

Speaker 17 The algorithm is this teaching tool that will literally take somebody who is just interested in a diet and eventually bring them down a path that could lead to an eating disorder.

Speaker 17 Or kids are self-diagnosing their mental illness. So the algorithm doesn't have to be like that.
It's not like this in China. TikTok is educational.

Speaker 17 In fact, kids can't be on more than two hours a day.

Speaker 29 Is that true?

Speaker 2 I don't even know.

Speaker 17 And so

Speaker 17 the algorithm is made by engineers to do exactly what it's doing, which is maximum engagement without any concern for young people's well-being.

Speaker 17 So of course it brings everybody, adults too, deeper and deeper into these dangerous rabbit holes. Right.

Speaker 29 So I mean the algorithm is a problem and obviously this goes into kind of America's relationship with companies and corporations where in America the culture is kind of less regulation and more individual rights, right?

Speaker 17 And so in that, obviously yes, ideally these social media companies would do something and hopefully lobbying and whatever we have to do to you know get these guys to do that but what other than leaving it to them what can we do in the meantime because obviously that's not gonna doesn't seem like it's gonna happen well I think the first thing is awareness like we did the show so that parents could watch, adults could watch, young people could watch, and the media literacy is really important.

Speaker 17 We made an educational curriculum with the Annenberg Foundation that we hope gets used in more and more schools so young people can start processing what they're seeing and parents can see what's going on and have discussions with their kids about it.

Speaker 17 That's one thing. The other thing, I think once they realize what's going on is giving phones to kids at an older age.

Speaker 10 A lot of the

Speaker 17 all the kids get the phones from their parents and actually we hear one parent say, you know, I got it for my daughter so that she would be safe.

Speaker 17 I think what we see is it's actually not safe and it can be more dangerous to be in your own bedroom with this portal into the world than at the playground.

Speaker 17 I think parents deciding together, let's all not do phones because it's hard for one person. We went and met with...

Speaker 30 Whoa, you mean parents with their kids?

Speaker 17 Exactly. We went to meet with lawmakers, with some of the students who are in the show to talk to them about getting phones out of schools.

Speaker 38 And how do you think that culturally is going in America?

Speaker 17 I think people are interested in it. I think teachers, young people.

Speaker 28 Parents, even the students are like, hey, let's get this thing out of.

Speaker 17 But I think we really do need the tech companies to help with this because it is so addictive. It's also vital to so many good things that we need technology to do.
Sure.

Speaker 29 Well, I mean, this is, and I guess ask you, because you're an expert in this, you're one of the

Speaker 29 few experts I know on this subject.

Speaker 9 I mean, you know, social media, obviously, narcissism plays into narcissism and all this teenage angst.

Speaker 29 But the other aspect of it is also social media being almost kind of like

Speaker 38 a new avenue of career paths now.

Speaker 9 Meaning, it's not just for narcissistic tendencies, it's actually there's stuff you need to know on social media just to prepare yourself for the job market in the future.

Speaker 38 Because there's all these jobs which we won't know about that are going to exist in 10 years that you can only get the skill set by being on it now.

Speaker 29 So how do you draw the balance between

Speaker 28 not being a Luddite, being able to actually

Speaker 9 gain useful skill sets, but then also having all this toxic stuff that comes out?

Speaker 17 I don't know if we're getting that much useful skill sets for careers oh really

Speaker 17 I mean the kids are always talking about like being on TikTok and several hours going how much money you can make just doing this now on them if you if you well yeah young people want it that's one of the values that I discovered is young people when you ask them what they want to do when they grow up they say rich and famous like being a social media influencer is an attractive career path in fact one girl in episode one says you know if I could have the lifestyle of Kim Kardashian by doing a sex tape, I would do that too.

Speaker 28 Okay, now you see,

Speaker 13 again, now you're scaring the shit out of everybody.

Speaker 13 But, but, okay, but then how does that, how do you reconcile that with them saying they know this is bad?

Speaker 10 But now you're telling me they also want that as a career path.

Speaker 9 So, what is it?

Speaker 10 Like, make up your mind, you're dumb kids.

Speaker 28 What do you want?

Speaker 17 There's a lot that they learn on social media that is misinformation or misleading. I mean, it's also the way kids learn about sex now.
And that takes.

Speaker 19 Oh, man, don't even go into that.

Speaker 17 But, I mean, I want to be clear, technology, I think, is important. And we also hear kids talking about finding affinity groups on social media.

Speaker 17 And yeah, there's some entrepreneurs in the group who do their business, like a party business or a music business through social media.

Speaker 17 But in terms of whether it's really preparing us for career paths, I think that the way they do it in China, where they have two hours of social media and a lot of homework, would probably prepare our kids kids better.

Speaker 2 This is such a race reversal right now that this

Speaker 2 yeah sure applaud

Speaker 5 applaud this white woman telling me to

Speaker 8 be more Chinese. I don't know what you're saying.

Speaker 2 What are you saying?

Speaker 17 I'm not saying we should do it like it's done in China in the sense that there's also a lot of censorship. But what I am saying is we need some guidance from the adult world.

Speaker 17 We can't just have kids scrolling interminably eight hours, nine hours, 10 hours a day. And

Speaker 17 what we see in the show, and I don't want to be like the adults saying this is what we should do. I did this experiment so we could really hear from the kids.
And there are a lot of experts.

Speaker 27 That came across, by the way. That came across.
Okay, good.

Speaker 17 There are a lot of experts in this, but I think this is the first time we really hear from the kids, their point of view. And by the end of it, they say, we want to connect without devices.

Speaker 17 They say, wouldn't it be great if we could just have conversations like this in the real world?

Speaker 17 And for somebody from my generation, I'm thinking like, wow, that's incredible that just having a conversation with your peers seems out of reach.

Speaker 17 But that kind of empathetic conversation that they have in the show, that does seem out of reach for them. And I think we need to work on that and create those spaces.

Speaker 17 We're actually doing a museum exhibition that's going to open in Germany next fall.

Speaker 17 and we're trying to create some spaces to have these dialogues with young people because even the discussion groups that we do in the show, that really came from them. I started it just for research.

Speaker 17 I did not expect it to be in the docuseries, but I saw how happy they were to have other kids to talk about things with. It was the first time they saw they weren't alone.

Speaker 6 Empathy and dialogue.

Speaker 2 That's never going to work for these kids.

Speaker 8 All right.

Speaker 6 Well, hey, listen, your documentary was really great.

Speaker 5 I really encourage everyone to watch it.

Speaker 8 Thank you for making it.

Speaker 8 Thank you for speaking to the kids with an open heart and seeing what they had to say and teaching all of us what they had to say.

Speaker 12 I hope the kids are okay, but either way, I'll be okay.

Speaker 13 Our episodes of FX Social Studies are streaming now on Hulu.

Speaker 2 Lauren Greenfield, everybody, come on. We're going to take a quick break.
We'll be right back after this.

Speaker 2 Hey, that's our show for tonight. Now, here it is.
Your moment of death.

Speaker 41 I hope we can bring down the high rates of people overstaying visas and also make progress on the safe third country agreements.

Speaker 42 We're going to keep monitoring the president's remarks with his meeting there with the leaders of five different African countries and sort of dip in as the news warrants.

Speaker 42 So for now we're going to move on to this topic. Last but not least,

Speaker 17 social media users have a new theory that pearl earrings unintentionally intimidate men.

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Speaker 33 Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 1110 Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus.

Speaker 1 This has been a Comedy Central podcast.