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CNN Tonight

FAA Is Under Fire After Recent Close Calls Between Planes; It Is Easy To Use A.I. To Fake Someone's Voice; Oklahoma Voters Reject Legalizing Recreational Marijuana; Baby Boom Is U.S. May Be Due To Millions Working At Home; "Sushi Terrorism" Hits Conveyor-Belt Restaurants In Japan. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 08, 2023 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[23:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: We've also seen more incidents of severe turbulence. All of this on top of outages, power shortages, and overworked staffers. The head of the Allied Pilots Association had a simple message to the FAA: Do your job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENNIS TAJER, SPOKESMAN, ALLIED PILOTS ASSOCIATION: Well, we're seeing a system that is under stress. Pilots across the nation have well over a year been talking about this. We got airlines scheduling us to the maximums. They're reducing pilot training. They're basically running along a barbed wire fence right up to the maximums, and we shouldn't be surprised when we see these safety seals start to leak. So, this has got (INAUDIBLE). What we need is for the airlines, the FAA to do their job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay, I have my panel standing by. But first, I want to bring in our experts. We have Jeff Davis, who follows transportation spending for the Eno Center for Transportation, and instructor pilot Ryan Antoon. He is the commissioner for the Los Angeles County Aviation Commission. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here.

Ryan, I want to start with you as a pilot and as someone who trains pilots because I'm -- I'm actually most concerned about the severe turbulence incidents because that's very freaky to me, how many of these we have seen recently. And it's clear sky turbulence, Ryan.

So, you're flying along, it looks like a beautiful day, and then the plane suddenly plunges a thousand feet, 2,000 feet, 3,000 feet. I mean, that one that was heading from Austin on a Lufthansa flight to Germany that Matthew McConaughey's wife, Camila, was on, she took a video of it. She said it plunged 4,000 feet. So, is that happening more often, Ryan?

RYAN ANTOON, INSTRUCTOR PILOT: I don't know if we can say it's happening more often. I know there's a study out of the U.K. that says there -- there could be some of that in the future, a little bit more frequency. But right now, the clear turbulence that we see really is the same as it has been for the last 30, 40, 50 years.

You know, as long as I've been flying commercially, the seatbelt sign goes off. The first thing the pilot or the flight attendant says is, please keep your seatbelt fasten while you're in your seat.

These things happen. They happen not uncommonly. Usually, it's relatively mild. But when you see accidents, when you see -- I'm sorry, injuries, it's usually a result of people not being restrained properly.

And I think the reason we're seeing more of it now is more because of social media and access. And people, without their phones, just like you're describing. It's scary, just like you're describing.

So, the first thing you're going to do is want to record it, you're to want -- you're going to want to understand what happened. And what used to be a story that you tell your friends a couple months later, now, it is -- it is all over social media and it's -- it's on the news later that day.

CAMEROTA: Ryan, do -- have you had this experience? What does a pilot do when that happens? I mean, when the -- because in these cases, what we've heard is that the pilot had no warning. So, often, a pilot will say, folks, put your seatbelts on, we've had warning from a plane ahead of us, we're going to approach turbulence. But these are no warnings. So, what do you do when that happens?

ANTOON: Well, the NTSB said, I believe it was 2009, 2019 or 2018, they said almost 30% of these were unpredictable. But that's 10 years ago. Technology is catching up. We do have better and better resources available in the cockpit to predict it, to see it, and to get out of it. And I think that as time goes on, hopefully, technology will catch up to any predicted increase in clear turbulence incidents.

CAMEROTA: One thing that you just mentioned was that study out of the U.K. in 2019 that talked about whether climate change was enhancing this, I should say exacerbating it.

And here's a little clip from that. Climate change has made turbulent flights more likely in much the same way that has made heat waves more likely as well. Climate change is strengthening clear air turbulence at all flight levels in all seasons everywhere around the world where there's a jet stream.

That is worrisome, of course. Is that your experience, too? Do you think that it is a minute you said, we're just capturing it more, but do you think that it is likely going to happen even more?

ANTOON: It's hard to say. In my personal experience, my anecdotal experience, I encounter turbulence every day. I fly most days out of the week. Sometimes, you encounter it around storms. Sometimes, you're sailing along clear skies and you get knocked around pretty badly.

But, you know, whether or not it is becoming more frequent right now, I think the study that we're talking about was looking not just right now but also 2030 to 2080 is sort of the timeframe where we are looking at sort of a more dramatic increase.

And the hope is that, again, technology will keep up with that. The tools that I have at my disposal when I'm flying, I can look at turbulence available and clear air turbulence predictions available at all altitudes.

[23:04:57]

So, yeah, we're seeing -- according to that study, there could be more out there. I also have the ability to detect more of it. So, that 30 detectable rate that the NTSB is talking about from the last 15 years, that hopefully will change over the next 15 years.

CAMEROTA: Okay, that's comforting. All right, Jeff Davis, I want to turn to you now. So, from the FAA perspective, at the same that we've heard more of this turbulence, there are also more near-misses happening. So, I have a graphic here of just some of the incidents that reported on through January and February. So, what is that about, in your opinion?

JEFF DAVIS, SENIOR FELLOW, ENO CENTER FOR TRANSPORTATION: It's hard to tell. But it's not about more planes being out there because (INAUDIBLE) before COVID. Most of the passengers that we had in the (INAUDIBLE) peaked in 2019, pre-COVID. But the number of planes in the U.S. air space where you had air traffic control peaked back in 2000. You had a long slide as planes got more crowded, and then airlines switched from -- to slight larger planes.

So that enabled the FAA to deal with the huge bulk of air traffic controller retirements in the 2000s and try to get back on a better control. So, it's not overcrowding, necessarily. Maybe (INAUDIBLE). But we're starting to figure out if the January and February number of near misses was just statistical noise as it were or if it's a real trend.

CAMEROTA: And Jeff, what about the shortage of workers? So, we've heard about pilot shortages. And then I was also reading that the FAA cut new air traffic controller hires in half, from 1,000 to 500. Why? They seem vitally important. And then there also seems to be a problem with the demands -- you were spelling out in your notes -- for copilots, that they've increased the number of hours needed, and so that is making it harder to find them.

DAVIS: There's a lot of workplace issues involved. On the controller side, they're trying to build back up after all -- remember, Ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers in 1981. So, you had this atypical workforce, people who are all going to retire after 30, 35 years end. That happened in the mid-2000s. We are reconstructing the workforce now.

The problem is that you can't do that remotely during COVID. They had to cut (INAUDIBLE) 2021, I believe, for COVID. And they're trying to increase -- right now, they're aiming for about 1,000 new controllers in the academy a year. That's a two-year apprenticeship and work after that. One thing that's going to be a problem, we're probably going to have another government shutdown this year because the Republicans and Democrats are so far apart in the budget. And that has a ruinous effect on the air traffic control academy in Oklahoma.

A two-week shutdown means they closed the entire academy, sent everybody home, canceled all the contracts with the instructors, and then two weeks later, new contracts. You lose half a year-worth of control trainees every time a government shuts down. So, that is something else to watch out for this year.

On the pilot side --

CAMEROTA: Jeff, thank you. Yeah, go ahead.

DAVIS: On the pilot side, the U.S. years ago moved the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65 for airline pilots and the rest of the world matched us. After the disaster in 2009 in Buffalo, we also raised the number of hours you have to have behind the stick from 250 to 1500 to be a copilot. The rest of the world has not matched us.

So, that's an issue that you are having disagreements within the pilots' unions and the airlines as to whether we should revisit 1500, magic number, to that target.

CAMEROTA: So, those are -- that's all really important context. I appreciate you telling us all of that. Before I bring in the panel, Jeff, do passengers have reason to be concerned right now and worried?

DAVIS: It's still the safest system in the world. The reason I mentioned the crash from Buffalo in 2009 is because that's the last significant air crash we had in the United States. It's an amazingly safe system. And that still the number one priority of everybody, DOT and the FAA, to try to maintain that system.

What we have to do is figure out, you and I, are we willing to trade a system that's 1% less safe for one 10% more convenient? Everyone has a different little danger metric in their head. We have to express that to our politicians, where our safety versus convenience and economy are.

CAMEROTA: Really important. Thank you both. I feel strangely better at the moment. Jeff Davis and Ryan Antoon, thanks so much for being here. I'm sure we will call on your expertise again.

I want to bring in our panel now. We have legal eagle Joey Jackson, radio host Mike Broomhead, "The L.A. Times" LZ Granderson, and "Axios" Jennifer Kingson. Thanks so much for being here, guys.

So, that was really helpful, to hear all that. But when I hear how complicated it is, it just keeps -- it just continues to worry me, Mike.

(LAUGHTER)

MIKE BROOMHEAD, HOST, "THE MIKE BROOMHEAD SHOW" ON KTAR: Well, let's -- let's quote George Carlin. It's not a near miss, it's a near hit. And so -- I'm flying tomorrow.

[23:10:00]

I want to take a bus. I'm a little --

(LAUGHTER)

BROOMHEAD: I'm a little nervous.

CAMEROTA: Bus to Arizona?

BROOMHEAD: Yes, I do. And I love to fly. But that turbulence, that's the one thing that shakes me a little. No pun intended. It scares me a little bit. You can't control it. You don't know what it is. When it gets bad --

CAMEROTA: You don't see it coming.

BROOMHEAD: And when it gets bad, it's scary.

JENNIFER KINGSON, REPORTER, AXIOS: Even a minute, 30 seconds of turbulence, feels like an eternity to most of us passengers. And the FAA knows it has a problem. It has been without a permanent director for about a year. And the acting director has called a safety summit for a week from today where they will discuss some of these issues. But it can't come soon enough for a lot of us.

At "Axios" today, we reported that new software has been installed at 43 airports around the country to detect planes that are trying to land on the taxiway instead of the runway.

CAMEROTA: That's good.

(LAUGHTER)

KINGSON: There are steps being taken, yes. Let us all hope it works.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. But that -- that -- that development about climate change possibly affecting severe turbulence, it's hard to see how it wouldn't.

KINGSON: Right. Right.

LZ GRANDERSON, OP-ED COLUMNIST, LOS ANGELES TIMES: That makes me nervous because I just wonder, okay, if you're plunging, are you flying in someone else's space? That makes me a little bit nervous. I'm with you. I flew in today, and, you know --

BROOMHEAD: You got me worried about one more thing.

GRANDERSON: You know, personally, once you grow up in Detroit --

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE).

GRANDERSON: You know, you just kind of -- I want to, you know, be literal. You know, the concerns that you have being in space. But once you've been in like a real, real danger, being a little frightened, you (INAUDIBLE).

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE).

KINGSON: I had also --

CAMEROTA: Yeah.

KINGSON: I had also read that, about clear air turbulence being linked to climate change and pilots being unable to predict it and to say, fasten your seatbelts now. That is really scary. (INAUDIBLE) really is.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Because as you're flying, you're contributing to climate change.

(LAUGHTER)

GRANDERSON: It's true.

CAMEROTA: The consequence is slapping your plane in the face. Go ahead, Joey.

JACKSON: Three things. Safety, safety, and safety. Right? There shouldn't be any tradeoff. And in the day and age of technology, we are in 2023, we have technology for everything. So, where is the technology and why is it not keeping up with what is happening here? Right?

If -- we don't want you on a bus, especially to Arizona, okay? We want you to fly safely across the country. And I think if anybody had to think about the issue of convenience and think about what it would represent, I think people do all they can to know, they get from point A to point B in one piece, their families are happy --

CAMEROTA: But you know how frustrated people are at the airport. What do you mean my flights delayed? People get very frustrated.

JACKSON: But does that mean that we start landing times on top of each other? Does that mean that we start having near hits, misses, whatever it is? Right? I think something needs to give. I just don't get in this day and age why we should be dressing this.

GRANDERSON: We have technology for a whole bunch of other things. We are not a proactive country. You know, the technology (INAUDIBLE) place our bridges. What are we doing? Yeah, we wait to see what happens. I mean, we have technology that gives us warning on our personal health. What do we do? We wait to see what happens. We put it off. In a moment, it is a culture.

BROOMHEAD: But isn't the scarier part of this is the fact that the pilots are being stressed, more staff are being stressed, more -- they're flying more hours? That's a mistake. That concerns me more than the technology. That was stressing the people that are flying us to where we need to go.

CAMEROTA: Me, too. I'm confident to hear that they're having a safety summit coming up. I hope that there is something that comes out of that that helps all of us. Thank you all very much for the conversation. Sorry to make you more anxious.

BROOMHEAD: I'm all right.

CAMEROTA: All right, good. All right, we've talked a lot about artificial intelligence and all the things it can do. Next, we will show you just how easy it is to use A.I. to fake someone's voice and, of course, what that means if someone has malintent. And I think they're also going to fake my voice. Stick around for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: I don't -- I can't even tell the difference anymore.

(LAUGHTER)

The A.I. explosion touching everything from letter writing to art to text chats, even creating fake voices. A.I. can impersonate people. As you'll see in this next piece, CNN's Donnie O'Sullivan uses A.I. to impersonate himself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOREEN O'SULLIVAN, MOTHER OF DONIE O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hello?

A.I. DONIE O'SULLIVAN: Hi, mom.

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hi, Donie. How are you?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Does my voice sound different to you?

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Yeah, I just said that to Sinead. I said Donie sounds so American.

(LAUGHTER)

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: This is not actually me. This is a voice made by computer.

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Oh, my God. Are you serious?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, sorry.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There has been an explosion and fake audio and voices being generated through artificial intelligence technology.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is an A.I. clone version of Walter White's voice.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is an A.I. clone version of Leonardo de Caprio's voice.

O'SULLIVAN: All you need is a couple minutes recording of anyone's voice and you can make it seem like they have said just about anything, even --

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Anderson Cooper. We've come here to U.C. Berkeley today to talk to Hany Farid, a digital forensic expert, about just how easy it is to put words into other people's mouths.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): It's a lot of fun.

HANY FARID, DIGITAL FORENSIC EXPERT: Sure.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): But it's also really scary.

FARID: I think once you put aside that Jewish (ph) factor, I don't think it takes a long time to look at the risks.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is Wolf Blitzer. Hany Farid, you're in the situation room.

FARID: That's great.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): That sounds real.

(Voice-over): By uploading just a few minutes of me and so my colleagues' voices to an A.I. audio service, I was able to create some convincing fakes, including this one of Anderson Cooper.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Donie O'Sullivan is a real piece of (bleep).

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): That's A.I.

FARID: That's good.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Anderson is really good. Anderson doesn't have a stupid Irish accent.

(Voice-over): The technology did struggle with my Irish accent, but we decided to put it to the ultimate test with my parents.

(On camera): I'm about to try call my mom back in Ireland and see if I can trick her with this voice.

[23:20:04]

FARID: Yeah.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Let's see if we are going to be successful.

FARID: I'm nervous. My hands are.

(LAUGHTER)

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): All right.

(RINGING)

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hello?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Hi, mom.

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hi, Donie. How are you?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Just finished shooting our story here. I'm going to the airport in a while.

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): There seems to be a delay in the phone, Donie.

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Can I say a quick hello to dad?

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Yep.

DONAL O'SULLIVAN, FATHER OF DONIE O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Hi, Donie.

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Hi, dad.

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): How are you doing?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: How are you?

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Good, yourself?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Just finished shooting our story here. I am going to the airport in a while.

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Oh, you're going back to New York?

A.I. O'SULLIVAN: Are Kerry playing this weekend?

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They're playing Tyrone Sunday.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): My dad went on to have a conversation with the A.I. Donie about how Kerry, our home football team, had a game that weekend. Eventually, I had to come clean.

(On camera): Dad, I will give you a call better later on. Can you just put me back to mom for a second?

(Voice-over): My parents knew something was off, but ultimately, they still fell for it.

N. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Oh, yeah, some of it don't be bad, but it was like -- it was like your voice was a little tone lower and it sounded like very serious like you had something serious to say. Because I went, oh, jeez, my heart was hopping first.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Sorry.

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): I thought the voice was very funny. Thought the voice was very funny, yeah.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): I'll call you later, dad.

D. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Okay, bye.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Bye.

FARID: This is not classic. The mom is like, something is wrong with my son. The dad is like, everything is fine.

(LAUGHTER)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): I'd like to close out today's ceremony with a question. If you are given a choice, would you choose to have unlimited bacon but no more video games?

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): With fake Biden and Trump recordings going viral online, Farid says this could be something to be wary of going into the 2024 election.

FARID: When we enter this world where anything can be fake, any image, any audio, any video, any piece of text, nothing has to be real, we have what's called a liars' dividend, which is that anybody can deny reality.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): With a flood of new A.I. tools releasing online, he says companies developing this powerful technology need to think of its potential negative effects.

FARID: There is no online and offline world. There is one world. And it is fully integrated. When things happen on the internet, they have real implications for individuals, for communities, for societies, for democracies. I don't think we as a field have fully come to grips with our responsibility here.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In the meantime, I will continue annoying my colleagues.

(On camera): Hear this thing Anderson said.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): I have been doing this a long time. I have to say, Donie O'Sullivan is probably the best in the business.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Incredible.

FARID: Very good.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): That's very kind of him to say that as well.

FARID: You should be honored, really.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joins us now. My panel is back with me also. This is all fun and games until some evil genius takes over the world. Sounds like it could happen now.

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah, look, we took a lighthearted look at it there, but obviously, you know, it does not take a massive imagination to figure out what could go wrong here. Everything from scams to people breaking into your bank accounts, some services of voice recognition technology.

Of course, the 2024 election, you think about things like the Access Hollywood tape, how critical tapes played in election campaigns down to through the years.

KINGSON: It's not a theoretical threat. It's already a very real threat and companies have lost millions of dollars to it. There's a cybersecurity company called Semantic that has reported, without using the names of the companies, that there is a big scam that has gone on repeatedly in which criminals take the voice of the CEO recorded on earnings call, YouTube video, a TED talk.

And they use it to call the controller or someone with the power of the purse, and say you need to immediately transfer money to this account. Companies have lost a lot of money and not only in the business world but in the political world, as you pointed out in your piece. This is a big danger and something that can be used to entertain, but also to do very -- a lot of damage.

GRANDERSON: You know, I hear what you are saying, the money scares me, the relationships scare me more. Can you imagine, if you think your man is cheating on you --

CAMEROTA: Yes.

GRANDERSON: -- what you could do with a fake voice.

CAMEROTA: All the relationships.

GRANDERSON: All the relationships. Oh, my gosh. I am like, yes, the money is bad, but, my God, America, get your affairs in order.

O'SULLIVAN: To make a voice like that, you only need about a minute of anybody.

GRANDERSON: Oh!

CAMEROTA: Okay, that's funny that you say that because the team tells me that they've done my voice in A.I. They will have fake Alisyn ask you a question now. Let's hear --

O'SULLIVAN: Okay.

CAMEROTA: -- how lifelike it is, go.

A.I. CAMEROTA (voice-over): All right, Donie, we just heard A.I. Anderson calling you a piece of you know what. How are we going to know if what we are seeing and hearing are real or not?

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: That seems real.

BROOMHEAD: Oh, yes, it does.

[23:24:59]

GRANDERSON: It sounds like you, but the delivery is not you.

O'SULLIVAN: The pace of it.

GRANDERSON: Yeah.

CAMEROTA: And it's a little higher. It does sound like a robot. It is like I'm talking like this.

O'SULLIVAN: Yeah. So, there is -- that is, you know, the experts we spoke to, they are the kind of clues that you can look out for at the moment. But look --

CAMEROTA: What are the clues?

O'SULLIVAN: Things like exactly what you kind of described there. The pacing, it can sound a little tinny, little robotic-y. I think we have another one.

CAMEROTA: Okay, let's hear. I'm going to ask you another -- fake Alisyn is going to ask you another question. Okay, go ahead.

A.I. CAMEROTA (voice-over): You mentioned people are worried about this technology being used for misinformation potentially in the 2024 election. What are people doing to prepare for that?

O'SULLIVAN: So, that sounds quite of -- bit more feelings, especially (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE). But I didn't (INAUDIBLE).

KINGSON: This is already being used on a personal level as scam against the elderly because fraudsters are recording the voice, say, of your grandson or your granddaughter, calling up grandma to say I'm injured, I need some money, I'm in trouble, please send me money. And older people who may have hearing troubles are falling for this. This is a very real danger.

CAMEROTA: It is. We need to nip this in the bud right now. As with all things with technology, I don't think we're going to, but this does seem very frightening. They say that they one more question for you, Donie, from fake Alisyn.

O'SULLIVAN: It's an important question.

CAMEROTA: Okay.

A.I. CAMEROTA (voice-over): It has been pretty stressful for real Alisyn to work five nights a week. So, I'm really wondering, when will this technology be good enough for the real me to take a night off?

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: That didn't sound like me.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: What is the answer?

O'SULLIVAN: We laugh about it. But what we have seen with the ChatGPT app and things like that, with the tech side of things, some news organizations are trying to put in place A.I. tools to write articles instead of real journalists. But I think you're safe for now.

CAMEROTA: I don't know, Donie. I don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Just hearing that and watching what you do with your friends, I don't think any of us are safe.

O'SULLIVAN: My parents are never going to believe. When I call them again, they're going to be like, is this really you?

CAMEROTA: They're adorable. Donie, thanks for bringing that to our attention. Thanks for telling us all about it. It is -- I think it is nerve-racking. Thank you all very much.

Meanwhile, voters in Oklahoma rejecting the legalization of recreational marijuana in a special election yesterday. Polls show majority of Americans believe pot should be legal. So, why are Oklahomans disagreeing? We will have that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Marijuana approval is at an all-time high in the U.S. All- time high, hmm. But voters in Oklahoma last night rejected a proposal to allow recreational marijuana in their state with more than 60% of the voters.

I'm back with our panel. Okay, raise your hands, who likes the idea of legalizing pot? One person on the panel likes legalizing it for recreational and medicinal use. Make your case. Why is it good for recreational use?

GRANDERSON: Well, one, with this case in particular, the bill would have also expunged the records of the individuals who are caught with something minor. Right? So, I know that the headline is, no recreational pot, but also, oh, by the way, poor people are still being punished for something that rich people are doing now.

So, I'm for legalizing it for that, one. And then two, we all know this is a ruse.

CAMEROTA: Is it ruse? GRANDERSON: Because if medical marijuana is legal, then you just need to have a physician say, yeah, your back is awfully, take this Tylenol or I can give you a prescription for medical marijuana.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Jennifer?

KINGSON: Ten percent of people in Oklahoma already have prescriptions for it. I guess they just didn't want to be known as Toclahoma (ph).

(LAUGHTER)

States that have legalized marijuana are (INAUDIBLE) huge tax windfalls. Colorado was the first to legalize it for recreational purposes. Since 2013, they have pulled in 4.3 billion in tax revenue that they used to build schools, mental health social services.

CAMEROTA: So then why they oppose it? That sounds great.

KINGSON: Right. We downside, we hear stories about children and dogs getting into their parents' stuff. So, potential problems but some of the dire warnings that were issued before Colorado took this grand experiment a decade ago have not come through. It remains to be seen how the nation is going to go on this.

CAMEROTA: Mike, I read your notes. You said you have never even tried marijuana.

BROOMHEAD: Never. I'm pretty boring.

CAMEROTA: Wow.

BROOMHEAD: Never have. Never done it. I have a lot of friends that did. Don't worry, I'm not going to say your names. But I have friends who did in school, so it wasn't anything that freaked me out. I thought it was really dangerous. It is just was never my thing. I've never smoked a cigarette because the idea of putting any smoke in my lungs is never appealing to me.

CAMEROTA: Good for you. I'm from New Jersey. I didn't know it was allowed not to.

(LAUGHTER)

BROOMHEAD: I mean, I'll have a drink. It's not like I'm a prude.

CAMEROTA: You're fun. I'm not saying -- I'm (INAUDIBLE).

BROOMHEAD: It (INAUDIBLE) that said we don't smoke marijuana (INAUDIBLE) hippies in San Francisco do. We knew this was coming. (INAUDIBLE) in the 60s.

CAMEROTA: That's funny. Forget the personal note. In terms of the state, you heard what Jennifer said. It really benefits the state.

BROOMHEAD: They're legalized in Arizona. First, it was legalized medically, and then it was legalized. We did it by a ballot proposition, which I'm not a big fan of because it alters our Constitution.

[23:35:00]

But this is one of those issues that has no bearing on my life. So, I'm very neutral on this because it is not going to hurt me if someone else smokes it. It is just not something I've ever done.

CAMEROTA: But are you in favor of a state legalizing recreational marijuana?

BROOMHEAD: I don't -- I'll be honest. I don't care. If Arizona benefits from it, if we are getting money, like you said in the tax coffers, I have no problem with it. It's not a moral decision for me. I don't see it as a gateway drug. I know other people do. But it's not something that I'd champion for. It's not something I would lobby against.

JACKSON: So, I tried marijuana, but I didn't inhale. Just kidding.

(LAUGHTER)

JACKSON: We've heard that before.

CAMEROTA: We have.

JACKSON: Yes, we have. Listen, I'm tired enough, at all times. I can't have anything make me more tired than I am now.

CAMEROTA: It's hard to believe that you're tired, Joey. I see you as a bundle of energy.

JACKSON: I sit on the couch, I'm done. Anything else would just be too much. But the only thing is, I feel like every time I walk out of my building, I get high. I mean, I'm like, it's unbelievable. It's all over.

GRANDERSON: Where is your building?

JACKSON: Two blocks away.

(LAUGHTER)

GRANDERSON: Two blocks away.

(LAUGHTER)

JACKSON: But you know what, LZ? You make a very good point in terms of the ballot proposition and how it would take it off your record. But I think we can take those two things and separate them. We shouldn't conflate one thing with the other. People can do what they do, how they do, none of my business.

CAMEROTA: But if it's -- only if it's legal, is it none of your business?

JACKSON: Yes, but it is medically -- Oklahoma, I think, in 2018, they said, okay, for medicinal purposes, we are all good, right, from a doctor's perspective.

GRANDERSON: I think we also need to take in to account that Oklahoma, one, instead of having the election in November, they did it in March, right? So, numbers were going to be suppressed anyway. Two, they had horrific murder last year where four Chinese nationals were murdered at some illegal pot farm in Oklahoma. That freaked people out, and they should have.

And then three, this is most important, the government screwed up, surprise, surprise. They issued too many licenses right up the gate. There was saturation of dispensaries. I read that they have ten times amount that California has in terms of licenses that have been issued. So, they didn't execute it right. They had the horror. They got opioid crisis. I can understand why it didn't pass.

JACKSON: It wasn't even close, though, right? The ballot proposition was so lopsided. Where was it? Seventy?

CAMEROTA: Sixty-one but that's all really interesting context. That makes sense.

KINGSON: I agree with you that the social justice issue is an important argument for legalization. One problem, though, when states try to pass these laws, piecemeal is the dissonance with the federal ban on marijuana.

It's still illegal on a national level which means that marijuana- related businesses can't do their banking. Banks won't touch that money, so they're largely cash businesses. That feeds the perception or perhaps reality that there's fraud involved and there's something underhanded about it.

JACKSON: Do you need a ballot proposition to take away someone's conviction or something for marijuana? Do you need a ballot proposition or do you just convene the state legislature and say, look, the values are changing, if you got a conviction for marijuana, perhaps we should reconsider it?

(CROSSTALK)

BROOMHEAD: What about employment? Police officers, firefighters, pilots where they still have restrictions because of their qualifications because it is federally illegal, but then you have -- you drug test people. If you're cop, you can test for some things like alcohol. How do you test when people are high? These are all things that play into this, too.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. Thank you all very much. Stay with me because the U.S. saw a lot more births in 2021 than the year before. What caused that? If only doctors could figure it out. Did working from home, because of the pandemic, lead to a baby boom? We will tell you the answer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: After decades of a declining birth rate, the U.S. experienced a baby boom in 2021. What caused the baby explosion? Researchers think --

GRANDERSON: Researchers?

CAMEROTA: Researches.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: Yes, LZ. This is science. Don't bring your dirty mind in this. This is science that I'm talking about. Researchers think it could be tied to more people working from home. What kind of work would that be? We are back with the panel.

Okay, so, I will give you the stats. This is real research, LZ. Birth rate jumped 6.2% and births among U.S. mothers increased by 46,000 children more than expected. More than expected.

Okay, you predicted this is going to happen, Mike?

BROOMHEAD: Yeah, we did it on the show. We asked the question, do we think there's going to be more babies? It's got to be 50-50. At the very beginning of this, I don't to be crude, but what are you going to do? There's only so much you can watch on Netflix. The chill part has got to come in somewhere.

CAMEROTA: You're supposed to be working at home. You're supposed to be more productive at home, not reproductive.

(LAUGHTER)

BROOMHEAD: I was on a Zoom all. We're doing a lot of Zoom call. You have no doubts what people were doing.

KINGSON: This is reassuring because I've read so many news articles about how young people are so riddled with angst over climate change that they want to bring children into the world where glaciers are melting. But apparently, they're okay if there's a pandemic.

(LAUGHTER)

JACKSON: But think about the practicality of it. Why do you not have children as many as you want? People are working.

[23:45:00]

You don't have much time to spend with them. There is little family bonding. You're trying to get the work life balance. If you are working at home, right, then you have the ability to bond as a family, and why not bring someone else into the family or someone else, else, else, many babies into the family, if you could spend quality time that all families look for.

CAMEROTA: See, Joey is introducing the family friendly version of this.

BROOMHEAD: This is purely accidental.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE) undressed basically. They're not wearing close at home. Joey (INAUDIBLE) by choice that people are spending more time with their children and deciding to have a bigger family.

GRANDERSON: The only numbers I really want to know is how much (INAUDIBLE).

(LAUGHTER)

JACKSON: Very true.

CAMEROTA: That will tell us a lot.

GRANDERSON: Yes.

KINGSON: The breakdown by states that have legalized marijuana.

GRANDERSON: Exactly.

CAMEROTA: That's right. But if we're taking Joey's version, which is that by being at home, primarily women felt that they could balance better their child care and their work life. That leads us to the four- day work week, which always comes up because that is supposedly would help all of us on every level.

KINGSON: If I'm a manager, I hate the four-day work week. If I'm an employee, I love it. And I do think that there's an argument that it would enhance gender equity because if people are working four days a week and they have remote work, there's more of a chance for, you know, both sides of the couple, in a heterosexual couple, to contribute to the childcare. I just don't see corporate America going for it quite yet. I don't think we're there.

JACKSON: You know what, though? Isn't it at the end of the day about productivity? And if you can be productive and do perhaps even more work because you have four days to fit it in and you're geared up, you're locked in --

CAMEROTA: That is the argument.

JACKSON: If you can be more productive at the end of the day, I think that is what employers want.

CAMEROTA: (INAUDIBLE) suggests that a four-day work week does make you more productive.

BROOMHEAD: I mentioned to you before we talked about this, I was a contractor, electrical contractor, big jobs, there's a roll out in the morning, roll out in the afternoon. If you do that 20% less over a one-year job, that is productivity. My guys love working four to 10 hours a day, getting Friday off, and having a three-day weekend. It made them -- we really saw productivity grew up. I know you can't do it in every profession, but in construction, it was great.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. It sounds great to me, as you heard in my fake Alisyn A.I. What's the real Alisyn? Who knows?

JACKSON: Irreplaceable, seven days a week for Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: What? Okay.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: All right, panel, stay with me. Has anyone ever eaten sushi off of a conveyor belt? Eateries in Japan are experiencing what is being translated as sushi terrorism. We'll explain it, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: That would scare me.

(LAUGHTER)

Something fishy is going on at sushi restaurants in Japan, particularly these popular conveyor-belt-style restaurants. "The Washington Post" reports that there is new viral video that shows pranksters tampering with the sushi. The practice is called sushi terrorism. It looks like that. You see what he is doing? He just licked the bowl and put it back on the conveyor-belt. Now, two of the top sushi conveyer-belt restaurants are switching back to ordering from an actual human.

I'm back with my panel. I know this is supposed to gross me up but it makes me hungry. The idea of seeing all different kinds of sushi on a conveyor-belt. I've never been to a sushi conveyer-belt restaurant but I want to go now because I like --

GRANDERSON: After seeing that, you still want to go?

CAMEROTA: I do because I like the idea of being able to choose, as the sushi floats by, which pieces I want. I don't want that one. I want the next one right there. And sometimes, when I go to sushi restaurants, I have order envy because someone else ordered like a better-looking sushi than me but I did know what it was on the menu.

BROOMHEAD: That freaks me out.

CAMEROTA: Does somebody look in your food? (Ph)

BROOMHEAD: I'm not a germaphobe, but that -- it will be because I know what I would do and my friends would do. I don't want to be (INAUDIBLE) by somebody with something I'm going to eat. That freaks me out a little bit.

KINGSON: I've looked at some of these viral videos and shockingly, a large number of the sushi terrorists appear to be teenage boys.

CAMEROTA: Shocking.

GRANDERSON: Shocking.

KINGSON: I wasn't able to find the video mentioned in the post article that said that a cigarette butt was put in a tray of pickled ginger.

CAMEROTA: That one was a bummer.

KINGSON: I do know that automation is coming to restaurants in part because of the labor shortages that we heard so much about, but it's mostly coming to the back of the house. There are robots that can fry tortilla chips, they can brew the coffee, they can flip the burgers.

These are fun labor-saving devices that are largely invisible to the public. But the robots, they are being used as servers. People like to take selfies with them. But they spoil your soup, they get lost on the way to your table, and they can't field any complaints about your order getting messed up.

GRANDERSON: Also with people.

CAMEROTA: That's right.

JACKSON: Right.

(LAUGHTER)

CAMEROTA: I've never seen a robot (INAUDIBLE) on someone at a restaurant.

KINGSON: I number of chains have tried them, put them out there, and people have sabotaged them a bit and they've been withdrawn. But hope springs eternal, you're likely to see a robot server at a place near you.

JACKSON: Thanks to A.I., it may have your voice.

GRANDERSON: Yes.

JACKSON: You got to be careful about that.

CAMEROTA: Have your voice. But here is a solution so the conveyer- belt problem of somebody putting out a cigarette in your pickled ginger, our producer, Jeff, for his home ordered his own sushi train.

[23:55:01]

This is in his house. Jeff sushi train. Look how -- he did this, I think, during --

(LAUGHTER)

People did --

GRANDERSON: (INAUDIBLE) babies?

CAMEROTA: Yeah. I don't think he made babies. He ordered a sushi train. But I will find out about that. and doesn't that look awesome?

JACKSON: It does. Amazing.

BROOMHEAD: That looks cool.

CAMEROTA: That looks super cool.

BROOMHEAD: For a party, that will be fun.

CAMEROTA: I totally agree.

JACKSON: But the difference is there's no one who can take the sushi off and damage it and do other things to make it not edible.

GRANDERSON: Is this two like buffet tables (INAUDIBLE) for me? There is nothing about that. I tried it once. I went to one in L.A. and I looked and I saw some of the people picking up sushi and putting it back on the belt. I don't tell you that part. I was, like, no, no.

BROOMHEAD: It is a cafeteria feel.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. All right, friends, thank you very much. Really fun night. Thanks so much for being here. And thanks to you for watching. Our coverage continues now.

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