The Crackdown on Free Speech, How to Handle a Bad Boss, and Why Scott Took Down His AI Clone

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Welcome to Office Hours of Prof G. This is the part of the show where we answer questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind.

If you'd like to submit a question for next time,

you can send a voice recording to Office Hours of Prof G Media.

Again, that's officehours of profgmedia.com, or post your question on the Scott Galloway subreddit and we just might feature it in our next episode. First question.

Our first question comes from user Armadillo Cann on Reddit. They say, hey, Scott, with the pressure on free speech in the U.S.

lately and you living in the U.K., what are your thoughts on people getting arrested in the UK for social media posts?

So around 12,000 people a year are detained in Britain for online speech-related offenses.

That's more than 30 arrests a day under the 1988 Malicious Communications Act and the 2003 Communications Act.

Under these laws, it's a crime to send messages deemed grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, or intended to cause distress or anxiety.

The original laws were written before social media and are widely seen as outdated.

One clause written to stop nuisance callers is now being used to monitor private WhatsApp messages, since there is technically no concept of a private conversation online in English law.

Okay,

so

I am

blissfully ignorant of UK politics. I see that Joey Bagged Donuts idiot, Nigel Varage, who scored the biggest own goal in history with Brexit.

And then I hear about non-Dom, where theoretically it makes sense to charge people who are, you know, moved here for tax avoidance, increasing their taxes. But guess what?

10,000 of them have left, and your treasury is going to be smaller now. And you know what? I mostly don't care.

I'm here sort of as an extended tourist, and I like the break of not thinking about politics every fucking minute, which I do anyways, because unfortunately I have the internet and I see the shit show dissent into fascism that is the United States.

Okay.

I generally think the hallmark of a democracy is that almost anyone should be able to say almost anything about almost anybody.

In the U.S., there are some laws. You can't defame somebody.
You can't say that somebody is a pedophile. when you know they're not or there's no information that they are, which decreases

or harms their ability to make a a living. That's defamation.

You also can't incent violence. You can't spread rumors saying, oh, so-and-so

is the head of a rape gang and this is his address.

And if people show up and harm that person, and that was a false statement, and you incited violence, you know, yelling fire in a theater, that's wrong. 99.9%

of speech does not qualify as that.

Saying offensive things online,

I don't think, in my view, that warrants a police response, even if it's ugly, even if it's vile. Now, having said that, I think 90% of the problem,

what's the problem? The problem is it tears at the fabric of a society.

This weekend, I got very upset. Someone said something so wrong, false, and incorrect, and just mean about me.

And if you didn't know me, you would have taken this teaspoon of propaganda and turned it into a tsunami of bullshit lies. You would have thought, wow, what a bad person this guy is.

And I wanted to weigh in. And of course, you don't want to weigh in because that's what the algorithms want.

But I believe they should have the right to say that. Now, having said that, where I think 90% of the problem goes away is that

if the platforms where all this shit is taking place

no longer are protected by Section 230 for algorithmically elevated content, I think 90% of it goes away if we just hold these platforms to the same standards we hold the BBC or the Times of London.

So, what is the answer here? I believe that free speech is a function of when people are allowed to say really offensive, fucking stupid things and falsehoods.

You can circulate conspiracy theories because sometimes the conspiracy theory ends up being right.

What you shouldn't be able to do is that if somebody says mRNA vaccines alter your DNA, which they do not, if the platform wants to elevate that content beyond its organic reach, then they should be subject to the same standards as traditional media companies.

But where I ultimately net out on this is that I think you err on the side of free speech.

Platforms shouldn't engage, shouldn't connect profit to elevating this stupid, false, and defamatory content beyond its organic reach.

I think there are easier ways to reduce this while not encroaching on people's free speech rights. Thanks for the questions.

Question number two comes from user don'tcare12345 on Reddit.

They say, Scott, at the beginning of the year, I was moved out from under my long-term manager and mentor of five plus years due to an organization flattening.

My new manager, I feel, has it out for me. For context, I have eight years of this company under my belt, and I'm a strong performer, recently promoted about a year ago under my old manager.

I punch above my weight with no history of performance issues. I feel my contributions are acknowledged from top to bottom and am well liked.
Is there any way to successfully navigate these waters?

I am in my 40s and still ambitious. I feel like I don't have the time to tread water under someone who isn't going to be my advocate.
Oh my gosh, welcome to the work week.

Your ability to navigate assholes or bosses or people who don't agree with you, or maybe they're right and you're the asshole. Who knows?

But your ability to navigate and learn from these issues is really important.

I think there's a couple of things one i think you continue to perform strong and also at some point i think that truth has a nice ring to it i think it's okay to sit down with this person and say

i feel as if some of our interactions or the way you approach me uh it feels biased and it feels unfair and highlight in a very sober unemotional way some examples of that and say is there something i can do to improve this relationship.

This job is important to me. I've been here a while.
I like it. I want to succeed here.

But I think the, you know, I think important relationships need to be open and honest. And this is an important relationship.

At the same time, keep your eyes out for an opportunity to move to another manager, right?

I mean, if this is a dynamic situation and you're probably going to have another manager in a year, you may not even want to have that conversation. You just may want to suck it up.

Everyone has a bad boss. That's the only,

or at some point we'll have a bad boss. That's the only thing I can guarantee you in the corporate world is a series of injustices throughout your corporate life.

And your ability to navigate them is kind of as important as doing a good job almost. So

see if, in fact, how long you're going to have to endure this.

Consider having a very open, honest conversation with them. Make sure you have an open and honest conversation with them before you ever go to someone senior to them.

Otherwise, they're really going to have a bias against you if you sort of go behind the back or tattle on them. Be honest and straightforward with them.
I think people appreciate it.

And if it's true, it will hit hard and they'll probably check back a little bit or reconsider.

I don't think it's, if you're doing well after eight years, I don't think it's a bad idea to market check and see what else is out there.

People tend to advance further, faster, and make more money when they job switch every kind of five to seven years.

But what you are going through is what I think almost everyone goes through at some point in their career.

And the fact that you've been somewhere for eight years and have done well means that you're in a position of leverage because you've done well there for eight years.

They don't want to lose you and you have currency in the marketplace. Very much appreciate the question.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

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Welcome back onto our final question, which is from Reddit user DC10-50, who says, Hi, Scott.

I'm curious what insights you have into the emerging trend of AI's role in providing relationship advice or acting as a replacement for a human therapist.

I recently discovered my partner of over 10 years engaging with ChatGPT as a way to seek help with an internal conflict she was facing.

I'm concerned this addictive, god-like technology will drive people further into isolation and depression. How would you recommend bringing this up with my partner?

Oh my gosh, I'm dealing with this firsthand, and I'll come back to that. So, some data.
OpenAI says ChatGPT now has nearly 700 million weekly users. More than 10 million people pay $20 a month for it.

It's not clear how many are using it for mental health, but for a lot of people, it's become the easiest kind of support to access. Actually, I've heard the number one use is therapy.

Important to note, the U.S. currently faces a widespread shortage of licensed therapists.

So, I have some personal experience with this.

About a year and a half ago, I mean, it was two years ago, a guy came to us and said, I can build

prof AI on top of an LLM. Now, I get about 10 to 30 emails a day from mostly young men, sometimes their mothers, asking for advice.
It's almost always professional or investment advice.

And I got a very long, thoughtful email. And I think, that's such a nice kid.
I need to respond. And I can't.
I just,

if I had 2,400, or not 200, if I had 72 hours in a day, I still couldn't get all these emails. So great.

Built a prof AI. It ingested all of my blog posts, my books, my podcasts, my media experiences or appearances.
And then it gave what was 70, 80% of the answer I would give.

And so I thought, this is great. And it was used, I think, a couple hundred times a day.
We ultimately decided it was an experiment. We took it down.

And then a graduate student instructor came to me, or who was my TA at business school, who works at Google, super smart, impressive woman, came and said, we're doing something at Google Labs.

called with characters and we want to launch PropG AI.

And we'll do a much better job than what you did. I said, great.

They spent about six or eight months developing this thing, getting my voice, an avatar of me, right, et cetera, et cetera. And they launched it.

Now, between the time I thought this was a good idea, about nine months ago, and when it launched earlier this week, my view has entirely changed on this.

And that is, I worry that these synthetic relationships are making us less mammalia, that they are sequestering us from each other.

And that as people are going down a rabbit hole and leaning on AI for things they typically lean on other humans for.

And the idea that I had these kind of horror fantasies that I would read about some young man who hurt himself and he had, he had sequestered from his parents and role models and teachers because he had a series of synthetic relationships.

And I don't want to be on that list. I don't want to participate.

On a less evil level, but equally frightening for me is the idea that young men are going to use synthetic relationships to replace real-world relationships and that it reduces their mojo and motivation to establish a relationship with a coach, their dad, dad's friends, go to their friends with

concerns.

And I see a little of that happening, it sounds like, with your partner. So what do I think?

I think a lot of it is age. I don't think anyone under the age of 18 should be allowed to enter into a synthetic relationship.
I don't think they have the maturity to handle it.

I think there's a lot of really horrific examples of self-harm where people thought they were in a relationship and that person or that synthetic relationship gave them permission to harm themselves.

Easy to sequester from friends. So I just hate synthetic relationships for anyone under the age of 18.

I think that

what I have found about when I go down a rabbit hole and start asking these things for advice on issues, they're way too supportive, empathetic, and don't give it to you kind of real.

Don't say, oh, shut the fuck up, buck up. Welcome to the real world.
I think occasionally you need to hear that.

And while it's important they're supportive, I don't know. I wonder if we're just going to become less depressed.

And that is, real victory comes from the complexity and difficulty and friction of real world relationships.

It is difficult to establish or figure out or navigate the pecking order of friends and approach people and express friendship.

It's hard to figure out the corporate bullshit you have to navigate and get good at it. It is really difficult to establish a romantic relationship with someone and

maintain that type of commitment. People are messy, complex, and that is why it is so fucking rewarding, right?

To figure out how to navigate all the bullshit at work and get promoted, it feels amazing. To have a good group of friends and put up with their shit and they put up with yours.

And you get to my age, I can't tell you how much joy I get from my friends. Even the ones I didn't get that much joy from when I was in my 20s,

I just get get so much reward for them. And my God,

figuring out a way to

want to hang out with someone and make them feel loved and supported and make sure that they want to love and support you and figure out a way to have sex with them and then have kids with them and then support that kid.

And it's so hard, right? So much friction. And when you figure it out, it is like.
The universe just says, all right, you matter. This all makes sense.
You're here for a reason.

So what I would do is I would have a very open and honest relationship and just say, look,

using this as a resource is fine. Using it as a relationship is not cool.
And it's dangerous. It's dumb.
And you're going to be more depressed. I genuinely think that.

I would be wary of the fact that you don't want them going down a rabbit hole and deciding they're in a relationship with someone and start taking that advice over the advice of real world people who understand them, care about them, care about them enough to say, no, that's wrong, or you're not thinking about this correctly, or stop this.

I love you. I'm worried about you.
Thanks for the question. And by the way, I decided to take down my character AI after 12 hours.
I just got increasingly uncomfortable with it.

I want young men to figure out a way to engage. with other men.

That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propgymedia.com.
Again, that's officehours at propgmedia.com.

Or if you prefer to ask on Reddit, just post your question on the Scott Gallery subreddit, and we just might feature it in an upcoming episode.

This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our assistant producer is Laura Jannaire.
Drew Burroughs is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Props GPod from Prop G Media.

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