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Smerconish

2026 Democratic Socialists Summit Taking Place In Chicago; How The Backlash To AI Data Centers Is Shaping The Midterm Election; Gallup: 71 Percent Oppose An AI Data Center In Their Community. How The Backlash To A.I. Data Centers Is Shaping The Midterm Election; New Book Warns A.I. Could Fracture Our Shared Reality. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired August 01, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:13]

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: You have the right to remain silent, and the Senate has the power to change that. I'm Michael Smerconish in the Philly burbs. I saw some funny headlines about Dr. Fauci's testimony in front of that Senate committee, both the Hill and the Washington Post, they each trumpeted that there were five takeaways. At the New York Post, there were five shocking things to know. I thought to myself, five?

There was only one. The only takeaway was, our system is so broken. Dr. Fauci took the Fifth 111 times, according to that loop they keep showing on Fox News. He said this, he said, given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me, and recently his publicly releasing my unredacted personal diary aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me, the only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he's calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, behind bars.

Now, you would think that would have ended the hearing. He said, I'm not going to answer anything. But no, theater of the absurd ensued, because after all, this was the perfect moment for committee members to do what they'd come for. Manufacture video clips of themselves either browbeating or defending the nation's former top infectious disease official, all in pursuit of accolades from opposite ends of the media landscape and, of course, the fundraising that will follow.

It was a lost opportunity for substantive dialogue on matters of real importance, including the origin of the coronavirus and whether gain of function research played a causal role.

Credit to John Fetterman, who didn't attack Fauci, but didn't defend him either. Fetterman observed that the lab leak theory came to be seen by some as a right wing conspiracy theory which kept those on the left, himself included, from entertaining the possibility. I hope, he said, the next time our nation is facing something like this, we are not, as I might have been, blinded by the partisan idea that maybe the truth might come from a side that's different than you are. That's what Fetterman said.

The hearing was both a Rorschach test and a glimpse of everything that's wrong with our politics. I understand why Fauci was hesitant to testify in a climate of legal weaponization. Now you've heard me say before, I don't think Donald Trump should have been indicted four times. Those indictments they played to his benefit, especially that which resulted in a conviction due to the hush money payments. That's the case pursued by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

During the campaign, Trump told a CPAC conference, I am your retribution. I don't know if he delivered for that audience, but he's surely been his own avenger. Just this week he gave us a fresh definition of the word. Trump is still defending a $1.8 billion anti- weaponization fund. Treasury money from settling his own lawsuit over the leak of his tax returns that also happens to carve out tax audit immunity for he and his family.

It's now the reason his own attorney general nominee is stuck. Republican Senator John Cornyn won't vote to confirm Todd Blanche until the administration puts in writing exactly who that immunity covers. And exactly what happened to the fund the DOJ says is dead.

So here's the list that Dr. Fauci didn't want to join. Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted twice. First for allegedly lying to Congress, a case a judge tossed, and now for threatening the president's life. The so called Seashell case. New York AG Letitia James, who won a civil fraud case against Trump, was indicted for bank fraud.

The case was dismissed and is on appeal. Former national security adviser turned Trump critic John Bolton, he pled guilty to a single felony count of willfully retaining national defense information. Former CIA Director John Brennan is under investigation for his role in the 2016 Russian intelligence assessment. Senator Adam Schiff facing investigation for primary residence designations. Fed Governor Lisa Cook faced mortgage fraud allegations that were used as grounds for her attempted removal from the Fed.

Former Fed chair Jerome Powell faced criminal investigation regarding his congressional testimony about Fed building renovations. Senator Mark Kelly was investigated over the video in which he told service members to refuse illegal orders. Eric Swalwell, subject to a criminal referral on mortgage and tax fraud allegations. This list is unbelievable. Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA who indicted Trump in Georgia and was later removed from that case and has had her travel record subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.

Plus of course, Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted Trump for January 6th and classified documents and was the subject of House Republican criminal referral to the DOJ.

[09:05:08]

Worth noting, the mortgage fraud referrals. That's James, Schiff, Cook and Swalwell all originated with Bill Pulte, then Trump's housing finance director, now acting director of national intelligence. And the two marquee indictments, the original Comey case and the James case, were brought only after career prosecutors balked and were replaced.

So yes, I get why Dr. Fauci would want to wrap himself in the pardon given to him on the last day of President Biden's administration, which protects everything up through January of 2025 but nothing that he said on Wednesday. That's why the silence. Curious that among all of Trump's legal nemesis, only Alvin Bragg has thus far escaped scrutiny like the others, and he's the one who convicted Trump. I have a theory about that. That case actually did more to elect Donald Trump than any of the others that he faced, and maybe Trump agrees with me.

I like what the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal said this week. They said, "Dr. Fauci blamed the senator for an unhinged obsession with him and decided on silence as a strategy. Mr. Paul is too set on criminalizing policy differences, in our view, and Dr. Fauci doesn't belong in jail on any evidence we've seen. But Senator Paul deserves credit for digging into the truth about the government's destructive COVID response, especially the effort by Dr. Fauci and others to stifle dissenting views and hide the record."

I agree with that. I wish Fauci had testified. There are several subject areas that require additional information and discussion, including this from the New York Times, "At The center of Mr. Paul's inquiry is whether the coronavirus originated naturally, as Dr. Fauci believes, or in a laboratory. Mr. Paul insists that the National Institute of Allergy and infectious diseases, which Dr. Fauci ran from 1984 until his retirement at the end of 2022, funded dangerous research in China that spun out of control and essentially created the virus that led to the pandemic. Dr. Fauci says that's not true."

That's all a reference to gain of function research. The Times noted that while Fauci's institute did fund research at the Wuhan lab, NIH has said the viruses studied were not those that caused COVID 19. Senator Paul asserts that Dr. Fauci was selective in his definition of gain of function so as to minimize the risks of the work that is institute funded. As for Senator Paul's colleagues, they seized the opportunity to generate cliques as they either castigated or commended Dr. Fauci.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (KY): History will judge. But the facts as we now know them paint a sordid tale of dishonesty, misjudgment, and ultimately the hubris the likes of which the world has rarely seen.

SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the (BLEEP) do you think you were for doing that? It is a total disgrace what you did to this country.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Well, nothing says honesty like taking the Fifth, huh, Doc? Brown versus Walker, 1896, when he has been pardoned, he may not stand upon his privilege. You know that. Your lawyer is sitting behind you now, shifting nervously in their chairs. They know it.

This isn't about the Constitution. This isn't about the law. This is about contempt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMERCONISH: It brings me back to those headlines. The Hill found five takeaways. The Washington Post found five. New York Post found five shocking moments. I watched the same hearing.

I found one conclusion. A witness who wouldn't talk. Senators who wouldn't listen. A country that still doesn't have answers about where a pandemic that killed a million Americans came from. Because everybody in that room got what they came for except the public.

So here's what ought to happen now. Give Dr. Fauci immunity for his testimony and invite him back. Take the handcuffs off the table. Take away his reason for silence. If Senator Paul really wants answers about COVID's origins and gain of function research, and I do, and not just a perp walk, then that's the trade. And if Fauci has nothing to hide, then he takes it.

Dr. Fauci was excoriated and extolled. What he wasn't was heard. Immunity is how we finally hear him. And that's the takeaway.

It brings me to today's poll question at smerconish.com. I'm asking this question. Should the Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony?

If all eyes were on Dr. Fauci this week, all eyes will be on Michigan in a couple of days because there's going to be another test of the growing power of the Democratic socialists of America.

[09:10:03]

The state is holding a Senate primary on Tuesday. Candidate Abdul El- Sayed, not officially DSA but strongly supported by progressives, appears to have a solid lead, the Democratic establishment backing the more moderate Haley Stevens. If El-Sayed prevails, it'll be a strong message to the party, all the more significant in that this is not an election in some blue district. This is a statewide vote in one of the most important battlegrounds in the nation.

And then the week after, there's a gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, another swing state where DSA member Francesca Hong is the strong favorite to take her party's nomination. The bigger question, of course, may be how will they do in the general elections? But for now, it's undeniable that much of the energy and excitement in the Democratic Party belongs to the DSA. And in a time when people are worrying about affordability, their message of a helping hand from the government goes down well with many.

Indeed, the latest CNN poll shows that a third of Democrats now identify as Democratic Socialists. But their more radical side, perhaps not so widely known, is harder for some to swallow. As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent editorial, the DSA wants to basically rewrite the Constitution, abolish the Senate, and make the Executive and Judiciary branches subordinate to the Congress.

If you want to understand what they're going for, well, this weekend they're having a confab, the National Organizing Conference in Chicago. You can't just drop in. It's application only.

And here to discuss is Pennsylvania State Representative Chris Rabb. He won a multi candidate Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 3rd congressional district, won't be facing a Republican challenger in November. He's a DSA member and secured his national endorsement for the Congressional campaign speaking tonight at the conference.

First of all, thank you for being here. Congrats on your Congressional primary victory, which seems tantamount to winning the seat.

I noted that in Chicago this weekend, the program includes the following, using mass action to build a general strike, organizing to abolish ICE, working to free Palestine and oppose Israel. I also read use of the word comrade in the agenda and wondered to myself, aren't you writing, isn't DSA essentially writing the GOP's scripts for commercials that we're going to see in the fall?

CHRIS RABB, PA-03 CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE: I don't really care what the GOP has in mind. That is not my focus. My focus is to be accountable to the folks who voted for me and to earn the support of folks in the general election. And I do have a challenger. He's an independent like you and I take nothing for granted.

I'm interested in reaching out to everyone who didn't vote in the Democratic primary which as you know, does not allow for unaffiliated voters to participate in which I strongly disagree with and have introduced legislation along with my colleague in the state legislature, Representative Jared Solomon, to make sure we have open primaries which is something that the Democratic Party generally does not support.

SMERCONISH: We are kindred spirits on that. Tell me what your message will be in Chicago.

RABB: Oh, that's a -- that's a secret. No. Basically I will be talking about the importance of organizing. That's what allowed me to win. I out organized my challengers and I had a message that resonated with folks in a rainbow coalition and I was really proud of that victory because normally in four way races it's the person that squeaks in.

I won by 15 points and I beat the former chair of the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania. And I think that speaks volumes as to this anti- establishment vibe that is spreading not just across Philadelphia but across the nation. People want bold changes in their lives because what is happening now, what is considered normal is not working for working people.

SMERCONISH: You know the argument that you can only sell this in certain areas and people are looking at Tuesday's election in Michigan and they're saying OK, Abdul El-Sayed and again very progressive, not formally a DSA member as far as I know leading it seems in the primary against Haley Stevens but against Mike Rogers in a general trails by double digits. And the same can be said in Wisconsin. What do you say to those who observe that you can't sell it on a wider platform?

RABB: Well, we'll know on Tuesday. One is we have to make sure if he indeed wins the primary, which I believe he will, I'll be -- I'll be there supporting him canvassing leading up to election day or primary day leaving on Monday. But yes, I think it's entirely possible. And also you mentioned kind of a radical pillar with regard to abolishing the Senate. That's not new.

[09:15:03]

But the reason we have a direct election of U.S. Senators is because of socialists. That was moderate's option to keep abolition off the table. We did not rewrite the Constitution. We amended the Constitution to allow our U.S. senators to be elected by the people and not through state legislatures.

I like to think that's a good thing. That is pro democracy. That happened because socialists in this country organized and we influenced the process where moderates said, well, we're not going to abolish it but we will in fact allow for elections for U.S. senators. That's a good thing. That moves us forward, that strengthens our participatory democracy.

SMERCONISH: I noted at the outset a third of Democrats according to the new CNN poll, now self-identifying as democratic socialists. And clearly the momentum lies with that wing of the party.

Chris Rabb, congrats on your victory in the primary. Thank you for being here. We appreciate it.

For everybody at home, I want you to go to my website and answer today's poll question at smerconish.com, which pertains to my opening commentary, should The Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony? From the world of X, I believe. Follow me on X. You can follow me on all the usual social media platforms.

There's nothing Fauci could say that would change our lived experience. Oh, I so disagree. The only satisfaction would be seeing him spend some time in prison.

Not according to my plan if he's given immunity. We have questions. Legitimate question. Rand Paul, Senator Paul is raising legitimate questions about the origin of the pandemic and about the function role that could have been played in the preceding events. I want to know more about that. I -- call me naive.

I thought it was such -- I knew he was going to take the Fifth by the time that he got there, but I thought it was such a golden opportunity for a frank exchange of ideas. They're all intelligent people. It's a shame they were playing to the cameras and not to us because we'd benefit in preventing the next one. It happened before 1918. It'll happen again.

And we're no more the wiser as a result of what we just went through for two years. Coming up, AI may live in the cloud, but powering it requires massive data centers on the ground. America needs them to compete and yet 71 percent of Americans don't want one built in their community. The growing battle over who pays the price for the AI boom, that's ahead.

When you're voting on the poll question sign up for the newsletter. It's free, it's worthy and you'll get the work of illustrators like Eric Allie.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:53]

SMERCONISH: We talk about AI as if it lives in the cloud, but the cloud has a physical address. Data centers, facilities with servers, the computers that store, process and move enormous amounts of information behind the digital services that we all rely on every day. And as AI demands more computing power, tech companies need more and much larger data centers. Supporters say they're essential if the United States wants to lead the AI race and that they can bring communities jobs and tax revenue and new infrastructure. Data centers also require land and vast amounts of electricity and, depending on their cooling systems, water.

That has fueled concerns about utility bills, the environment, and whether local residents get any real say before a project comes to town. The public opposition is pretty striking. In a Gallup poll conducted in March, 71 percent of Americans say they would oppose the construction of an AI data center in their area. Nearly half, 48 percent, said they would strongly oppose it, 70 percent said they worry at least a fair amount about the environmental impact.

In a new piece for the Free Press, Joe Nocera argues that data centers are essential to America's future. But the developers have often created their own backlash by keeping communities in the dark and failing to give local residents a meaningful voice. Joe Nocera joins me now along with Kevin O'Leary, whose company, O'Leary Digital, is part of a partnership developing the proposed Stratos data and energy campus in Utah. Nice to have you both.

Kevin, Joe Nocera argues in the Free Press that data center developers like yourself need to be fully transparent from the get go and be generous with the local needs. Is he right?

KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: Yes, he is. Hundred percent he's right. And I think the industry itself, starting back 20 years ago, particularly in Virginia, didn't get that joke. And I think most of us involved now understand how important this is. Specifically on some of that shopping list you gave.

You have to bring your own energy going forward. You can't tap the grid otherwise prices go up in the local community. We're doing exactly that in Box Elder.

You have to build buildings that are attractive to attract people to work there, not ugly square cubes. Yes, it costs more, but that's important. You have to put the economic value of what you're building on the table for everybody understand what that is, including the construction jobs and the long term jobs, and above all, water.

Utah has a water issue. And so 20 years ago when data centers were built, they consumed a tremendous amount of water. But today, just like a car has a radiator with a close in system, much of the cooling is designed that way. And the turbines that convert natural gas into electricity have advanced dramatically in the last decade. So much of them are water in combination and cooled with air.

So you've got to worry about emissions, EPA. All of these things happen. They have to be transparent. So I agree with Joe. We're going to do exactly that here.

But above all, the water permit itself, which we hope to put in place by the end of August, will detail exactly how much water is being used. There's been a lot of misinformation. Basically, data centers today use as much water as a golf course does. And so if you want to think about it that way, maybe we should be banning all the golf courses in every state because they use water too.

[09:25:08]

SMERCONISH: Joe, he's buying your solution, but in your piece for the Free Press, you contrasted his adventure in Utah with Meta in Louisiana. What am I making reference to?

JOE NOCERA, SENIOR EDITOR & WRITER, THE FREE PRESS: Well, I mean, you know, I think it's dumb to point at the two most vocal critics of the data center and say that they're being funded by China. You know, it's just -- it's not a way to make friends. And, you know, I think that --

SMERCONISH: I think he -- I think he -- I think he took that back. Kevin -- Kevin's a big boy, and he can speak for himself, but I think he pulled back that assertion. I just want to make that clear.

NOCERA: Well, after being threatened --

O'LEARY: Exactly what I did, I corrected it. It was so chaotic the days after we announced it. There were so many different people coming at us. Those two were not part of the list. And I corrected that, and I stand corrected on it as well.

SMERCONISH: But, Joe, get to the point about --

NOCERA: The thing about --

SMERCONISH: -- Meta. What did Meta-- what did Meta do in Louisiana?

NOCERA: Well, I think Meta did a really good job of being transparent, of negotiating with the community in such a way that the community felt that they were involved and that they were getting some benefit -- getting some real benefits that they knew about up front. And so even though that data center isn't completed yet, the -- you know, the tax revenue that the community has gotten, Richmond Parish has gotten is enough that every teacher in that Parish got a $50,000 bonus. You give all the teachers a $50,000 bonus, you're not going to get much opposition to data centers, let me tell you. And, you know, I think that it's the same thing as fracking.

In fracking the -- all the complaints about fracking went away once the communities realized that there was something in it for them. And that's what happened -- has to happen with data centers. People have to realize there's something in it for them.

I would also add one other thing, Michael, which is that the industry -- I agree with Kevin that the industry, the construction technology for building data centers is much, much better than it used to be. And they have solved the water problem, and they have -- his data center in Utah, they're going to pipe in natural gas so they don't have to use the -- that they don't have to use the grid. That's really important. But they haven't done a good job overall. Selling that notion to the general public.

So people still think, if there's a data center next to me, oh, my God, oh, my God, it's going to be terrible for property values and everything else.

SMERCONISH: OK. I want to ask Kevin O'Leary, how much do you think that the opposition, because we shared the polling data, is driven by the local concern, the environmental concern, or is it fear of artificial intelligence generally?

O'LEARY: I think fear of artificial intelligence has merit in terms of not understanding the unknown and having angst about it. I remember the same in the early 90s around what the Internet would do to jobs. I'm in the camp that says it advances education and science. It will create new jobs you can't even think of today, and that we really don't want to be number two to China on it.

And so, you know, I'm also in the camp of Senator Cotton asking the DOJ to investigate why in every state, not just data centers, why in every state where you propose putting new power up, no matter how you're planning on generating it, with sodium lithi batteries or wind or solar or nat gas, why is there so much protesting about that? And I'd love to understand the answer to that, too. And so he's asked the DOJ to investigate it because we have -- we are falling behind globally in power generation. Our grid is tapped out. The Chinese built 400 gigawatts in the last two years, and we built basically zero.

And so it's not just data centers. You need electricity for the economy, and we're kind of run out on it. So we'll be giving back to the grid in Utah. We won't use all the electricity we build. And I think the administration has put that pressure on developers.

They're saying basically, going forward on every new proposal, you bring your own power and you give back. Now Box Elder, by the way, has a budget of around 97 million a year. In our first year of operation after we're up and running, we'll provide taxes of 30 and at full scale, we'll be doing more than 100 million in taxes. So we will be a major component of the community there in terms of supporting new jobs, new fire engines, new police chiefs, whatever it's going to be. And we have to employ those people.

They're highly educated. You know, there's many military facilities there with highly educated engineers. Utah is an ideal place to build something like this. So, yes, I agree. We've got our work to do to get people on side.

SMERCONISH: Joe, quick final question. Is this breaking red, blue? I mean, I said 71 percent find it problematic. But from your investigation, writing the piece for the "Free Press," is there a Republican, Democratic divide on this and is it getting worse? One side's for and one side's against, or more for or more against?

NOCERA: I don't think there's a red -- I don't think it's a red, blue thing. I think it's more like -- you know, I think it's more like people in Brooklyn are going to be against it because they don't -- that's just the way they are. And local communities can be brought around. Local communities are against it now because it affects them. But ultimately, if the -- if data centers deliver what they say they're going to deliver, local communities, whether they're red or blue, will be in favor of them.

SMERCONISH: Can I say that one of you did a hell of a job in "Marty Supreme" and is a bona fide movie star, and the other has an unbelievable podcast on the Lindbergh baby kidnap? So I appreciate both of you.

Now, let's see what people are saying on social media. Thank you. What do we got from social media?

Either we build more power generation to support these data centers, or we allow China, who are building their power infrastructure, to rule the A.I. domain.

I mean, I agree, George, that is -- that is the conundrum. And it's a national issue being determined by, as it should be, I'm just making this observation, local zoning, by local zoning.

Just a very quick story that I was thinking of as I was mulling this over and the different approaches that have been used, not all transparent in building or seeking to build data centers. I remember going to Disney World years ago and taking a tour of the back lot and being shown this airplane that Walt Disney, when he was in the, what would that have been, the 50s, the 60s, contemplating where to locate what would become Disney World flew around.

They created all these dummy named corporations because they didn't want the farmers and they were farmers to know that they were acquiring the land to build Disney World because the prices would have skyrocketed. You can't have that type of an approach if it's a data center. People need to be in the loop.

Please go to my web site Smerconish.com, vote on today's poll question. Should the Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony?

Still to come, your social media reaction. Plus, what if one of the greatest threats from A.I. isn't job loss, but the loss of our shared understanding of the world? The provocative warning about where personalization could take us.

Sign up for the newsletter when you're voting on the poll question. You'll get the work of our prized illustrators. They include Rob Rogers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:37:12]

SMERCONISH: I am easily found on X and Facebook and other social media platforms. And perhaps if you reach out for me, I'll be reading your comment.

There's a certain irony in the fact that you, a Republican in independent drag, hey, you had me at hello, that's so funny, has endless smoke for Democratic socialists, but scarcely even a criticism for that which can only be accurately described as Republican fascists.

Yes. I am totally taken with these primaries that are playing themselves out right now. I'd be derelict in my duty if I didn't talk about the Tuesday election in Michigan and what's to come in Wisconsin, and the direction of the Republican Party.

Trust me, I can't wait to talk about the Republican Party divide, including that which I see coming between Secretary Rubio and Vice President Vance no matter what the White House wants to tell you, because I think they are on a collision course. So, I'm not ignoring anything. Next.

It doesn't matter if he has immunity or not. No one is ever held accountable in the D.C. bubble. It's all just political theater.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. And on that -- one thing that the Democratic socialists and MAGA have in common, that populist rage against the status quo is the sort of the glue of commonality, right? That's what elected Donald Trump in 2016 initially, the feeling that the system was just so screwed up and you needed somebody -- you needed a bull in a China shop.

And now, similarly, on the Democratic side of the aisle, that's the sentiment that's giving rise to Democratic socialism, whether they can sell it because of some of the platforms -- I mean, calling one another comrade in Chicago today, no, that's not going to fly. That's not going to fly in a general in Michigan, Wisconsin or anywhere else.

Don't forget, vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. I am asking, should the Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony?

Eager to see how that turns out. Still to come, we already know algorithms decide what each of us sees. But what happens when A.I. starts creating a different movie, a different news story, even a different version of reality for every one of us? The real threat this could pose to our common ground, we're about to talk about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:43:44]

SMERCONISH: When people talk about the risks of artificial intelligence, the conversation usually turns to jobs, machines replacing workers, humans losing control, or AI's use in war, or the massive data centers needed to power it. But a new book, "The Problem with Personalization," warns of a different threat. Author Joseph Turow writes that A.I. is accelerating something already all around us, hyperpersonalization.

Today, technology companies decide which ads, social media posts, and news stories each of us sees. Generative A.I. could go much further. It could create the content itself individually for each of us. The same movie could have a different ending for you than for me. The same news event could be presented to each of us in an entirely different way. And the person selling you a product may not be a person at all but a synthetic influencer designed specifically to persuade you.

Personalization may sound convenient, but Turow argues that if each of us receives a different version of reality, we lose the common experiences and shared understanding that allows a society to function. He calls it an A.I. discombobulation trajectory, one that could leave us communally dysfunctional and literally antisocial.

[09:45:01]

The author of "The Problem with Personalization," Professor Joseph Turow, is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and joins me now. Professor, you say that we'll be enveloping ourselves in monocultures. Please explain.

JOSEPH TUROW, AUTHOR, "THE PROBLEM WITH PERSONALIZATION": Sure. The best kind of society needs two kinds of media, Michael. One is what I call segment making media, which are media for people to create communities, Christians, gays, people who like baseball. Then we need, in the best of all possible world what I call society making media, which are media that bring all of those groups together so they can argue, they can celebrate, they can question each other.

What I'm trying to say in this book is increasingly, gradually but it's happening, we will be in a situation where we have neither segment making nor society making media. We have monoculture cultures, as you well expressed it, where we see ourselves in the media.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg said that his goal is to surround us with what he called personalized superintelligence. That's reflecting exactly what I'm talking about in the book. The notion that it is increasingly popular and it's happening for marketers, political and consumer marketers to find out who you are, look at you from everything from your race to your gender, your income, to where you literally are walking in the street, and then surround you with a profile that basically is you even though you may think it's something else.

SMERCONISH: I circled a graph in your book. I'll put the words on the screen.

Over the long term, you wrote, surrounding people consistently with messages drawn from narrow individualistic notions of who they are cannot help but lead them away from seeing themselves as fundamentally part of large populations compromising people who are -- comprising people who are, quote, "data different" from them. Explain that further.

TUROW: We need a society where people can see one another and how they see each other. So what I suggest -- one of the solutions is it would be great for me to be able to tell Google and just about every other site that I deal with, an app that I deal with, for one day or two days, make me a 15-year-old black man in Montana. OK? So, that I want to see what that person is going to get. OK? I want to know what kind of world those people are surrounded by.

And if we get surrounded in various ways with people that we don't know, we reach out to them, we can talk to them. Increasingly, that's not happening. And while somebody might sluff it off and say, hey, that's not happening to me now, the internet as a commercial activity started in 1995. Think of what's happening since.

Generative A.I. is from around 2021. In 10 --15 years, the world is going to be so different. Look at the pace and the general trajectory. The idea that marketers, political as I say, and consume marketers have is doing what we've just discussed.

SMERCONISH: Until I read your book, "The Problem with Personalization," this never occurred to me. I've been focused on job loss and the role that A.I. might play in in warfare, et cetera, et cetera. I had not seen the connection to societal disconnect, and I highly recommend the book. Thank you, Professor Turow. Thank you for being here.

Checking in now on social media reaction to today's program, including this conversation. It's like we are stealthily being groomed for behavioral control. It's chilling, really. All the more reason to mingle.

Right, all the more reason to mingle. And you know how I'm fascinated with this subject about how we've all so self-sorted and need to establish what Robert Putnam would describe as social capital. But when we're all seeing the world differently because of the hyperpersonalization that Dr. Turow writes about, we're being driven even further apart and we have less of a shared or common experience. That's the takeaway of the book. Read it.

You still have time to vote on today's poll question at Smerconish.com. I have no way of knowing how this -- I mean, I haven't looked, but I'm curious to see. Should the Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony?

I'm a big yay vote. I just don't know what you're all thinking. Sign up for the newsletter while you're there. You'll get free and worthy content on a daily basis, including editorial cartoons from the likes of Jack Ohman.

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[09:53:55]

SMERCONISH: OK, there's the poll result so far, 31,308 have voted, healthy vote. Should the Senate grant Dr. Fauci immunity in exchange for his testimony? Eighty-seven percent want to see this. All right. I'm in the majority. First time in a couple of weeks, I think.

Social media reaction. You can find me on all the usual platforms. Follow me on X where this comes from. Check out the YouTube content, Instagram, et cetera, et cetera.

Why should he need immunity if he's done nothing wrong?

Ray, the reason he needs immunity, even if he's done nothing wrong, perhaps you missed the opening commentary where I ran through all of those Trump, you know, legal opponents who have found themselves on the receiving end of a subpoena or an indictment or, you know, fill in the blank, many of them without merit, at least, you know, many without merit. Maybe all without merit.

And I made the case at the outset of the program that, you know, President Trump, let me offend all of you, I'll do this quickly, should not have been indicted four times. He got elected because he was indicted in part four times. And the case that helped him the most is the hush money case, for which Alvin Bragg hasn't been targeted, probably because the president recognizes the value that Bragg unintentionally was providing to him.

[09:55:09]

He told CPAC, you know, I will be your retribution. He has been on a personal, you know, vengeance tour ever since he got back into the White House. And Dr. Fauci, I'm sure, didn't want to end up on that list, regardless of what he said. That's the answer. One more quickly. I think I've got time.

Dems would win in a landslide in November if they put forward sensible mainstream policies and abandon this lunacy, says John Wisniewski.

Yes, John. But could a candidate who is more middle of the road win any of these Democratic primaries? That's the conundrum, because all the passion, in the same way that the passion within the Republican Party now rests with MAGA, you know, driving out many who used to be in the GOP from the Reagan-Bush strand of the party.

Now, the Democrats are seeing the same kind of a thing. It's the passion resides in the corner of the party but those are the people who vote in primary elections. They win primaries. But can they win generals? We're going to find out.

If you missed any of today's program, you can always listen where you get your podcasts. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next week.

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