Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

The Future of Nuclear Negotiations with Iran; More U.S. Troops Arrive in the Middle East. Interview With Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling; Interview With New York University Professor Azadeh Moaveni; Interview With Center For Humane Technology Co-Founder Tristan Harris. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired March 29, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:59]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, one month of war with Iran. The Trump administration presented Tehran with a 15-point peace plan this week. Iran did not accept it. A central demand is Iran must stop enriching uranium and give up its stockpile. Is there any scenario where Iran would agree?

I will ask the IAEA director general Rafael Grossi who has been involved in the mediations.

Also this week.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This war has been won.

ZAKARIA: President Trump said the war had been won, but the Pentagon ordered thousands of troops deployed to the region. Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling joins me to explain what those troops can and cannot do.

And what do Iranians who live outside of Iran's borders make of everything happening within them? Plus, the courts versus big tech. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta lost two landmark court cases this week, with juries finding some social media platforms liable for addicting or harming children. Will there be a real reckoning for the tech giants? I'll ask.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

In the years after Barack Obama's presidency, it became an article of faith that one of his central errors in foreign policy was the Syria red line. He said that he would attack Syria if it used chemical weapons. But when evidence emerged that it had used those weapons, he pushed the question of intervention to Congress, which declined to act.

A disaster Donald Trump called it at the time. A cause of generational and reputational damage, said then Senator Marco Rubio. Part of an incoherent maze of foreign policy, Pete Hegseth argued a few years later. In ignoring a red line that he had drawn, Lindsey Graham explained, Obama had risked squandering American credibility around the world.

Obama's red line flip-flop looks like the model of careful policymaking compared to what we have witnessed since the Iran war began. Last week, President Trump posted on social media that, "If Iran doesn't fully open without threat the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first."

The rest of the story is well-known. Iran refused to be cowed by this threat and continued its attacks and its closure of the strait. Trump's response, to quickly climb down and announced that he had postponed any action on energy infrastructure for five days, claiming that suddenly, overnight, Iran and the U.S. had been engaged in productive conversations toward a "complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East," quote-unquote.

The Iranians denied any such talks were taking place. Now, Trump says he's extending the pause by another week and a half.

It is by now clear that Donald Trump is being graded on a curve. When he says he will raise tariffs to 130 percent, or that he will blow up Iran's biggest gas field, or that, quote, "the war is very complete, pretty much," unquote. None of these statements mean much. They could be actual American policies or not. Or they could stand as policy for a day or a week, after which they will change.

After saying that the war was pretty much complete, that same day, Trump asserted, "We haven't won enough and we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated."

[10:05:08]

He said that he agreed to negotiate with Iran's leaders, but then couldn't because they keep getting killed, though it is of course his own military and Israel's, which is doing the killing. All clear? Trump supporters claim this incoherence is strategic genius, that he's keeping people off guard, except that the policy seems to change for a variety of reasons, maybe the stock market falls, or maybe the target country lavishes praise on Trump and gives him a gold bar.

Trump's superpower is that he is flexible enough to turn on a dime, and has a base that will accept anything he proposes. Once unalterably opposed to Middle East wars, many of his MAGA supporters now believe in this Middle East war with the zeal of converts. And while Trump has made clear that he would like to end the hostilities, the problem this time, unlike with tariffs, is that he cannot unilaterally stop what he started.

Iran gets a vote and it is currently voting to keep fighting, calculating that though weakened, it has enough military power to do damage to the world economy, thereby inflicting pain on the U.S.

For the world, there is no longer any such thing as American credibility, just a strange reality television show in which the main actor swerves, bobs and weaves his way through crises, hoping that what he says today will solve the crisis caused by what he said yesterday. The day before he threatened to obliterate Iran's power plants, Trump claimed that the U.S. was considering winding down its military operations against Iran, and implied that protecting the Strait of Hormuz was not his problem and could be dealt with by other nations whose imports pass through the strait.

At another point, he said he didn't need any other country's help. Businessmen used to rail against previous administrations because of "policy uncertainty," quote-unquote. Now they line up to praise Trump as his carnival of chaos roils markets almost every week.

Donald Trump has gotten used to playing with the United States's massive power, punishing those who don't bend the knee and rewarding those who do. In doing this, he's squandering credibility built up over decades to extract short-term goodies, sometimes to the benefit of his own family's business interests. But in Iran, he seems to have come up against an adversary that won't play by his rules.

Go to FareedZakaria.com for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and let's get started.

The Trump administration sent Iran a 15-point peace plan to end the war this week, but Tehran did not accept it. At the center of the proposed deal is Iran's nuclear program. The Trump administration is pushing for Iran to dismantle its main nuclear sites, halt its uranium enrichment and hand over its current uranium stockpile, among other commitments. A key player in any potential deal will be the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Rafael Grossi, the director general of that organization, has been involved in the mediation efforts. He joins me now.

Let me ask you, Director General, about the nuclear issue. So on the nuclear part of the demands and counter demands the, you know, what is the nub of the disagreement? The Iranians say that they have the right to enrichment. The Americans say they don't want them to have any enrichment. Is there a compromise there? Because that seems to me the heart of the matter.

RAFAEL GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: Of course, there can be many forms of compromise. And this is, of course, something that the negotiating parties have to come to. And it wouldn't be new. I was part of this frustrated, truncated negotiating process that was taking place last February, you may remember. And then last year as well, there was another attempt, both mediated by the foreign minister of Oman, you may remember. And there, of course, the issue of enrichment is at the center. This

idea of a right to enrichment per se does not exist. Countries can enrich, of course they can do that, but they have to submit all their facilities, all their facilities to inspections by the IAEA.

[10:10:06]

The United States has said repeatedly we do not want to see enrichment there. And in the past processes we were considering some alternatives that would result in a very limited activity related to uranium enrichment, which, of course, as is evident, didn't work. So now the question mark here is whether we would go or they would try in the conversation to go to a zero enrichment or some activity.

And also probably some form of moratorium, maybe, for a number of years whereby Iran would not renounce to this activity, but would put it on the side, so to speak, for some time in a wider process of confidence building. But here I am already speculating and I'm not very comfortable in that area.

ZAKARIA: Do you believe that given the level of bombardment that has taken place, Iran could still rebuild its program? You do hear people say, look, they have the knowledge, you can't bomb away the knowledge. Or do you think that the facilities are now in such bad shape that, you know, it would be many, many, many years before they could do something?

GROSSI: You know, Fareed, there is no contradiction in both assertions of what you said, what you just said. So there was enormous damage in particular during the 12-day war last year at Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow. You remember that that campaign was mainly focused on the nuclear facilities. What we are seeing now, this war that has more than a month, has had, you know, a number of targets and objectives that go far beyond the remit of the nuclear.

So last year there was enormous damage done, but not everything was destroyed of course. And we are not here doing a military assessment of what survived and whatnot, but it is obvious that not everything was destroyed. And also the -- your second phrase is absolutely true. One cannot unlearn what one has learned and has been doing. Don't forget that this activity of uranium enrichment, which is rather complex, is not something that is impossible to do.

Its methodology quite sophisticated methodology. So the centrifuges that spin at high velocity to separate the isotope of uranium, which is interesting from the one which is not. All of these things Iran has mastered throughout the years. And this is not per se a nuclear activity. So you may have in Iran dozens or perhaps more workshops or small factories where they could, you know, reproduce these capacities.

ZAKARIA: You mentioned that the greatest damage to the nuclear program was actually done last June in that 12-day bombing, which involved stealth bombers.

GROSSI: Yes. ZAKARIA: A number of people in U.S. intelligence have told me that

that bombing campaign pretty much destroyed Iran's nuclear capacity for many, many years. And that it was, as the president then had said, obliterated. Would you agree with that?

GROSSI: Well, it was very considerable. You know, when it comes to adjectivizing destruction, I am not a military expert. What I can tell you is that the damage was very, very big and very considerable. At the same time, there are things that remain. Both things.

ZAKARIA: But in that case, it does seem difficult to believe the administration's current claims that Iran was, by some accounts, two weeks and some accounts two months away from being able to constitute nuclear weapons that it could use. That claim seems farfetched, does it not?

GROSSI: I don't know, I don't know because I don't know what kind of information they may have. And what I can tell you is that don't forget, Fareed, that for this you do have a stockpile already of highly enriched uranium at 60 percent. You don't need to produce it. You already have it. You need to enrich it a little bit more.

[10:15:01]

It is true that the program had reached concerning, I would say, level of development and sophistication.

ZAKARIA: When we come back, I will ask Rafael Grossi, who is a candidate for secretary general of the United Nations, whether under U.N. international law, this attack on Iran is illegal. When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA and a candidate for secretary general of the United Nations.

[10:20:00]

Do you believe that the 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that we believe is buried in Isfahan -- can it be bombed away or does it have to be in some way physically, you know, sequestered or taken out? What are the options for the United States right now?

GROSSI: The option should be an agreement. This would be the most perfect way to do it because when you have an agreement, we could, the inspectors of the IAEA, could go back first and check whether the entire stockpile as we left it, the last time we verified was in June last year. We put it or we had them in cylinders and with the seals of the agency.

So we should go first and check that the material is there and it hasn't been diverted. All right? So this would be paradoxically, even from a military point of view, the most, the safest way and the most certain way to do it, because let's imagine to use your scenario that you are developing now, that there is a more kinetic attack. Well, you would never know whether you destroyed everything, whether something had been diverted. And don't forget that this is a huge amount.

With that amount, one could potentially, potentially, produce more than 10 nuclear weapons. So this is why I say of course, I being a diplomat, and representing the IAEA would always tell you we need an agreement.

ZAKARIA: In your dealings with the Iranians, have you found them to be rational to deal with, to negotiate with? Have you found that when they sign agreements, they observe them?

GROSSI: Well, listen, I've been negotiating them -- with them for many, many years. And of course they are extremely rational. They are extremely sophisticated. They are extremely intelligent people. They defend their national interest, and so does the United States and Israel in this case. And -- but there is a war. All right. So I think we have to try and to find a medium line here, to bring us to a better place.

ZAKARIA: Mr. Director General, you are also running for secretary general of the United Nations. And I wanted to ask you, in that capacity as a candidate, whether you believe that the war that the United States and Israel initiated is illegal under international law. Kofi Annan, one of the secretary general, said that the Iraq war was illegal. Antonio Guterres has said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal. Is this attack illegal under international law?

GROSSI: Fareed, you're also a historian. Since 1945, there have been -- I mean, we can check but you will see that there have been more than 30. And if you include hybrid conflicts or civil wars, many more, if you refer to the charter, you will see that most of the legal experts will find only two examples where there is alignment with the U.N. charter. One is the uniting for peace resolution. In 1950, you remember the Korean War. And the second is resolution 687 on the first Iraq war.

All others there have been different opinions. My take as a candidate and hopefully a future secretary general, is that in these cases, the U.N. is there to solve the problems, not to enter into an academic discussion where there's not going to be agreement. Diplomacy must always, always be the first choice. And I think President Trump has said that. And it's good that diplomacy is starting again.

ZAKARIA: Director General, thank you so much for your time. Pleasure to have you on.

GROSSI: Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, as the U.S. explores a diplomatic end to the war with Iran, it is also sending more troops to the Middle East. What does that mean about where this conflict is headed? I will ask General Mark Hertling.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:50] ZAKARIA: As President Trump talks about a diplomatic end to the war, he's sending a very different message through the military. The U.S. has said the USS Tripoli, an amphibious assault ship, along with 3,500 sailors and Marines, arrived in the Middle East on Friday. And today, Iran said their army is waiting for an American ground invasion.

I'm joined by retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who served in the U.S. Army for nearly four decades. He has just written a new book called "If I Don't Return: A Father's Wartime Journal."

Mark, welcome. I'm so delighted to be able to talk to you because nobody is smarter about these issues than you. I look at the number of troops being sent and if you take the sailors out, the number of troops is even smaller. It doesn't still seem large enough to do some of these missions.

So I want to ask you, what would it take to take Kharg Island?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), FORMER U.S. ARMY COMMANDING GENERAL, EUROPE AND SEVENTH ARMY: Well, first of all, Fareed, it's great to be back with you again. I've really enjoyed our conversations in the past, and you're very kind.

You know, it depends when you talk about taking an island, it's not just the seizure of that landmass, it's also what you plan to do. You know, when we're talking, what's happening right now, as you just mentioned, there's a lot of military personnel in the area. Estimates close to 30 to 50,000, but those are spread out all over the place. Getting to Kharg, which is far north along that coastline is going to take more than a Marine amphibious unit.

You know, when you're talking about MEU, marine expeditionary unit, you're talking somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 soldiers. There's two of them in the area. That brings it to 5,000.

The brigade, the immediate response brigade of the 82nd, excuse me, of the 82nd airborne division has also gone in with their tactical command post. That adds about another 5,000.

So all told, you have about 10,000 forces in the area. But the question remains, what are they going to do? Are they going to seize an island or are they going to protect the coast? Are they going to go into some of the islands? We haven't talked much about Musa Ali Salam tomb -- the tombs.

So really the question becomes, what is your troop to task relationship? What kind of things are you asking the military to do? What is the calculation for the type of force that should go in there? And then once you have that, you have to calculate not only the support from the standpoint of intelligence and air power, but also logistics support. When you're looking at Kharg Island, which is very close to the shore, there is the potential for Iran defending that as part of what they see as an exponential -- you know, just a threat to their -- an existential threat to their country.

ZAKARIA: What about forcing open the Straits of Hormuz, maybe by seizing tankers? How easy would that be?

HERTLING: Well, to secure the mouth of the strait, you have to also control some of the landmass around it. You'll hear names like rock or Abu Musa or the greater and lesser tombs in the straits. Those give you the capability to overwatch the strait. So you still have to have a land operation. In terms of seizing tankers, a very difficult mission, or escorting tankers -- and also a very difficult mission.

Right now I would suggest you over task the Navy. Because when you have two carrier strike groups in the area, those cruisers and the destroyers that are part of that strike group are conducting a mission to protect the carrier and to launch Tomahawks.

Suddenly, if you say, OK, now you also have to escort literally hundreds of cargo ships through that strait you're really overcasting the capability of the ships in that fleet. So again, we have to look at what are the troop to task relationship this time in point of the Navy.

And all of these -- Fareed, I can't emphasize this enough. All of these are extremely dangerous missions. And truthfully, Iran is not going to roll over. As I said, this entire attack against them is an existential threat. They are fighting for their territory, territorial integrity, and their national resolve right now.

ZAKARIA: And finally, Mark, and we don't have a lot of time. These are tactical issues. Even if we succeed, do they then provide you with a strategic victory?

HERTLING: They don't, Fareed, because I don't know what the strategic end state is just yet. As you pointed out so rightfully at the beginning of your show, there are many missions that the president has named. The kinds of things that he wants to do, and he has been shifting back and forth between those on multiple occasions.

A military takes individual battles, the fight that we've been seeing with the aircraft and the naval vessels, and now we're including a ground force to that. They combine all of those into an operational campaign, all of which are directed toward achieving the end state of the strategy.

If you don't have the end state of a strategy, what the politicians want you to do, and it's very succinct and it doesn't change, it's going to be very confusing for the men and women in uniform to execute the operations.

ZAKARIA: Always a pleasure to have you on, General Hertling. Thank you.

When we come back, we will talk about the Iranian diaspora and Reza Pahlavi. Could he be the next ruler of Iran?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:38:57] ZAKARIA: This weekend, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, took place in Dallas with a curious speaker, Reza Pahlavi, the U.S. based son of the former shah of Iran, who was deposed by the 1979 Iranian revolution.

He's become the most prominent figure in a fractious Iranian diaspora. In his speech, he praised Trump, vowed to make Iran great again as Iranian Americans in the crowd shouted long live the shah. How influential is he within Iran and outside? What are the politics of the Iranian diaspora?

Joining me now is Azadeh Moaveni. She's a journalist and author who has covered Iran for decades. She heads the global journalism program at NYU.

Azadeh, your stuff that you've been writing is so, so fascinating. Why this time around, did we hear from Iran in one or two places, the cries for Reza Pahlavi would never hurt those before. What's changed to bring him to the fore in Iran this time?

[10:40:03]

AZADEH MOAVENI, PROFESSOR, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: Well, firstly, things in Iran have deteriorated terribly. So in a way, Reza Pahlavi is the beneficiary of the deterioration of life in Iran for Iranians.

The Islamic Republic has hit a dead end. It cannot provide security, well-being, or a future for its people. And he as the sort of singular leader, prominent figure in the diaspora to many people at this moment appears to be the transition figure who can help the country break out of this impasse.

His base has expanded beyond the traditional royalist monarchist core, who to include people who just see him as a transition figure because he embodies secularism, prosperous Iran, Iran that's open to the world, a figure that represents social freedoms. And so by virtue of who he is, he embodies all of this for a people who are simply desperate to break out of the impasse of the regime, the regime has imposed on them.

ZAKARIA: When you look at the Iranian diaspora, how would you describe the politics of it? How many support this war and how many oppose it?

MOAVENI: The diaspora is fractured. In a way it represents or reflects fractures in Iranian society itself it is split almost down the middle. About half or a little bit more support this war. They see it as the only way to break Iran out of the grip of the Islamic Republic.

The other half are deeply ambivalent. They do not support the Islamic Republic, but they see the destruction being wrought on Iran. The attacks on universities and on civilians and on its industrial base. As, as putting the country's development back, they're alarmed.

So the diaspora is divided. It is more organized. So, it's more forceful. And I think there's a -- there's sad element of the diaspora that many don't have a stake in what happens to Iran as it stands. They have been securitized, ostracized by the Islamic Republic, kept out. And as a result, they feel like they can only engage with Iran again, potentially go back and have a role in Iran again, if the Iran that exists today run by the Islamic Republic, is dismantled. So, they've been denied a stake.

ZAKARIA: You know, to me, the most interesting part of that is because they've been so cut off, it's now, what, 47 years, right? You have a diaspora that actually doesn't know the country that exists today very well. You know, we've seen this with previous diasporas, the white Russians or even the Iraqi exiles like Chalabi, who, you know, had a -- had a kind of fantasy of what Iraq was, not what it really was on the ground.

You know, they had a fantasy of a secular Iraq where the Sunnis and the Shias would live together. Is there a similar issue going on with the Iranian diaspora? Because they really haven't been. I mean, few of them would have been alive even during the shah's time.

MOAVENI: I think that's absolutely the case. And I think on both sides of the divide, you see the intensity of the partisan view reinforced by those long years of detachment. Those who caricature Reza Pahlavi and who are vehemently against any kind of military intervention Iran, I think, are detached from the intensity of suffering of the Iranian people.

There are people -- I travel to Iran regularly who can no longer afford to eat, who are formerly lower middle class, middle class people. So, they do not see the desperation that leads many to want any kind of change, even at the price of destruction, because they see no future in the status quo.

And then the same on the other side, the side that is ardently pro intervention. That doesn't seem to mind the cost of the war terribly. To them Iran is a bleak and distant place where nothing has flourished, where nothing has developed, and to them there is very little actually to destroy. So, both sides are in sort of cul-de-sacs that are shaped by their long years of detachment.

ZAKARIA: Azadeh, it is fascinating to hear from you and keep writing. This stuff is really fascinating.

Next on GPS, we're going to move somewhere else. Social media companies were found to have harmed young users in multiple court rulings this week. Is this a watershed moment for big tech? We have Tristan Harris when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:49:21]

ZAKARIA: On Wednesday, a California jury found Meta and YouTube had harmed a young user through features designed to be addictive. That verdict came swiftly after another loss in New Mexico, where Meta was found to have failed to protect young users from sexual predators. Both companies have vowed to appeal the decisions. But the rulings could signal a shift. Big tech may no longer be able to avoid liability for what happens on their platforms.

I'm joined by Tristan Harris, a former Google ethicist who co-founded the Center for Humane Technology, a nonprofit focused on tech safety. He is featured in a new documentary that is going viral called "The A.I. Doc."

[10:50:05]

Let me ask you at the heart of this, because, you know, the -- before you did this A.I. stuff, you talked a lot about these tech companies and social media.

TRISTAN HARRIS, CO-FOUNDER, CENTER FOR HUMANE TECHNOLOGY: Yes.

ZAKARIA: The core issue is do you believe that they are intentionally causing this addiction?

HARRIS: So the thing that people need to get about this lawsuit that's so fundamental is it puts the blame on the companies. It's not about the usage of the products. It's that they intentionally design these products to maximize screen time and usage, duration and frequency of use. Why? Because the incentives.

Charlie Munger said, if you show me the incentive, I will show the outcome. He was Warren Buffett's business partner.

We know that the incentives were to get as many users, young users, using the platform as much as possible, which means suddenly, if they're using the platform, older sexual predators are going to be able to message them, and they don't have an incentive to try to stop that problem. They actually wanted to print money in all the time in between.

What we should learn from these cases, if you look at the evidence and what Frances Haugen bravely disclosed in the book, "Careless People," they've talked about the evidence has piled up. They knew that these harms were there, and they said, we have to go after racing for this addiction even so. And I think we should learn from this social media example, because that was, in a way, a kind of a baby A.I. A little A.I., baby A.I., just calculating what's the perfect photo or video to show this person.

ZAKARIA: Talk about what this does within a company. If that is your goal, that is your incentive, what is the culture and incentive structure within a company?

HARRIS: So, this is so important. When the harms start to show up and the research, they knew that Facebook was making, I think, young girls -- a third of young girls more depressed or had body dysmorphia issues. Arturo Bejar, you know, talked about all the sexual exploitation. You can see in the emails they knew about this. What this leads to is the people who stay at the company despite knowing those facts.

If I'm a conscious person, I piece out. But if I -- if I'm basically willing to perpetuate that incentive, the system is selecting for sociopathic qualities. And they knew and we knew since 2013 this was going to be a problem. We've been waiting for 13 years for this lawsuit to finally happen, this big tobacco moment.

ZAKARIA: So the more reckless people stay, the more ethical people leave?

HARRIS: Correct. Correct. And then you end up with a company that is careless to cite the book title "Careless People." And we should learn this lesson because A.I. is a much more powerful race. This was a little race between social media companies for attention, for younger and younger attention drilling, fracking for attention, shorter bite sized content.

With A.I., the race is to build a God, own the $50 trillion world economy, and build artificial intelligence that can replace all of human economic labor. That prize means that all of the collateral damage. If you thought the kids social media harms were bad, the A.I. companies aren't going to care about job loss. They're not going to care about cyberattacks that happen. They're not going to care about, you know, all these bad things that can happen. Because in their mind, if I don't do their do it and get there first, I'm going to lose to the worst guy that will.

ZAKARIA: And that was exactly the --

HARRIS: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that these lawsuits are -- this big tobacco moment.

HARRIS: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Will they have the same kind of effect?

HARRIS: I think if you look at the size of the fine in the Santa Fe, New Mexico case, it was $375 million. This is not that big. Meta will hire a top level A.I. engineer and pay them $375 million as a signing bonus. So, people should get it. It's not about the fine, though. It's about this case fundamentally sets up the precedent.

There's now going to be a wave of lawsuits that now can say, these companies intentionally knew what they were doing, and hopefully this will lead to accountability. And as you said at the beginning, you know, there is more regulation on making a sandwich in New York City than there is on building world ending artificial general intelligence or on social media companies.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that these companies could be fundamentally regulated and structured differently?

HARRIS: Yes, I do think they can be. And if people are interested, we have a report at the Center for Humane Technology, a solutions report of many examples, but basic things like liability, which you mentioned. Companies should be liable for the foreseeable harms that they create. And there should be a kind of foreseeable harms common so that when anyone does safety research and recognizes a risk that goes into a standard that moves the standard of foreseeable harm for everyone to the highest possible mark. If you're liable when those things go wrong, teen suicides, A.I. psychosis, these kinds of things, then all of the companies will have an incentive to avoid those harms.

So, we need liability, duty of care. Another example, A.I. is a product, not a legal person. A.I. companies are currently arguing that A.I. should have protected speech. That's what they use to defend themselves in the case of the teen suicide case. And when they have protected speech or a legal person, there's suddenly immunity.

[10:55:02]

There should always be a human being who is responsible and accountable, so that the human choices that are producing this asteroid that's coming to earth, the humans have to be responsible.

ZAKARIA: The key, it seems to me, and the common thread here, is that these companies don't want to be liable for anything that happens on their platform.

HARRIS: That's right. That's right.

ZAKARIA: They want to take all the profits. But say, but if anything bad happens, we're just a platform.

HARRIS: That's exactly right.

ZAKARIA: You know. And of course, the platform was one that was built and created by the U.S. government. A platform like GPS is still run by the -- by the U.S. armed forces.

HARRIS: Yes.

ZAKARIA: And so there is a huge public interest, it seems to me.

HARRIS: Yes. Well, it's sort of like if you take up children's human development now you're responsible for children's human development. It's sort of -- when Marc Andreessen said software is eating the world, what he meant is that software is going to start taking over all these aspects of our society.

But if software is eating the world, A.I. is eating software and it's eating -- when we say the world children's development, our information environment --

ZAKARIA: Everything.

HARRIS: Everything. And so if you're -- if you're taking responsibility, if you take over that part of society, you have to take responsibility for that part of society.

ZAKARIA: Tristan, fascinating. And, remember, the doc is what's it called?

HARRIS: "The A.I. Doc --

ZAKARIA: "The A.I. Doc."

HARRIS: -- Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist."

ZAKARIA: Thank you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)